#Reading wrap-up

[brandileigh2003]

may reading wrap-up

Total words: 2,006,227

Daily avg: 64k/day= 3.6hrs or 256 pages

Total fics over 15k: 15

Have you read any of these? Anything you read this month that stood out to you?

•How To Jeopardise Your Friendship With Remus Lupin by amberlink (230k Hogwarts divergent no voldy, no prank, pining, get together and friendship)

•Through Old Flesh and Cold Bones: Remus's Version by lanearoo (16k) modern au on farm at lambing season

•Burn For You by Siriusly_Reggie_13 (17k) soulmates, Remus didn't go to Hogwarts

•All the Good Things by lurikko (44k) post canon divergent, Sirius lives.

•Remain in Light by orphan_account (175k) post canon divergent

•The Adventures of Captain Sirius Black and His Most Excellent Dragon Padfoot by @mostlyoptimisticdinosaur (37k) historical fantasy

•Three Days (The Rebuilding the Temple Remix) by victoria_p (musesfool) (15k) post POA grimmauld place timeline

•Do Not Disturb and heelstone by fluorescentgrey (167k combined) Remus went to Azkaban instead and fall out when he escapes

•Brave Face by zoe_millin_writes: @zoemillinwrites Hogwarts divergent slow burn

•Art Heist, Baby! By @otrtbs (220k reread) jegulus au

•Till We Have Arrived Home Again by prouvairin pod fic read by ashata (reread) 43k post canon divergent

•of his bones by messermoon @ sophsicle (currently reading, 29%) 310k jegulus, wolfstar, rosekiller. Pirates and royalty.

one shot sampling:

•Aparecium by imparfait @je-suis-imparfait

listened to tts by @burningaurora and @kaleanakg

•Fine Motor Skills by femme_de_lettres : (6k) mechanic Remus and bookshop owner Sirius

•Summer Bike Rides by WanderingBandurria (5k) meet cute, Remus didn't go to Hogwarts

•I want to steal freedom, yeah 'cause it was stolen from me by @deadpoetsargas explores Remus as a new wheelchair user due to Lycanthropy complications

[eli-zab3th]

My 2023 Reading Year in Review!

For more details, see my Goodreads page or The Storygraph

[true-bluesargent]

may reading wrap-up!

1. hell bent by leigh bardugo - this book has taken me absolutely forever to finish (final year of uni is a BITCH) but i loved it a lot!! i loved ninth house but i liked this one even more because the characters and the world already being established meant that we got to actually focus a bit more on the characters and their relationships to each other, which is the best part. To Me. <3

2. the flatshare by beth o' leary - this is a reread but i listened to the audiobook for the first time and it was SO GOOD!!!! carrie hope fletcher is the perfect tiffy and i loved the irish accent on the guy playing leon :). anyways i've loved this book for years now but i recently watched the tv show they made of it and it was just so shockingly bad and offensive that i had to reread the book to heal. and it was really good of course <3 my favourite straight adult romance of all time

3. the rest of us just live here by patrick ness - this was another audiobook and another reread lmao but i read this when i was maybe 12? and i really really liked it! so i wanted to see if it held up and honestly it did !! i still really liked it; i love the characters and i love the premise so so much it's so interesting. especially because i've read a lot of supernatural books like the ones that this was parodying and it really is interesting to explore the other side of things!! there were a few things that were a bit weird and maybe unnecessary (jared's whole cat god situation? what) but overall i still really loved it which is a relief honestly

4. release by patrick ness - this was another audiobook (i've been honestly too busy to sit down and pick up a physical book😭) but it was honestly so weird... i love some of patrick ness' other books (see above) which combine the contemporary with fantasy elements but this shit didn't make ANY sense to me. it was like two completely separate and unrelated stories??? i kept expecting they'd converge and it would all make sense but it just never did? and i guess the two stories were okay on their own but. idk man it was weird

5. woman, eating by claire kohda - this was one of the books i used in my dissertation and okay. guys don't tell anyone but i definitely did not finish this before i wrote about it. like, i wasn't even halfway done lmao. BUT i did finally finish it afterwards and i liked it a lot! it was kind of an interesting new take on the vampire, and it was kind of a literary fiction too? which i liked. sometimes it was a bit on the nose with its metaphors and it could have done more showing and less telling, but i think it was the author's debut too so i can kind of forgive those things. it was a pretty solid three-star read :) i ❤️ vampires

and that's everything! i did a lot of audiobooks again this month because of the aforementioned busyness but hopefully now that it's summer i'm gonna get a ton of reading done :D

[ninja-muse]

At last, a month where I feel like I read enough! The trick, clearly, was to pick up graphic novels and other very short things. Will this trend continue in November? Almost certainly not.

Followers might have seen my review for The Dollmakers by Lynn Buchanan last week but that's not actually my top read of the month. That honour goes to Jane Austen's Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney, which I got as an ARC from work, told myself I wouldn't read just yet, then promptly picked up after The Dollmakers and all but burned through. It's about the female authors we know Austen read and why they were bestsellers in their day but are barely known now, with all sorts of publishing and book industry history thrown in, along with a dose of memoir. Needless to say, I was the target audience and I've added a good handful of classics to my TBR. (It's out in February, in case you're interested.)

The rest of my top reads are there for just being solidly good. The Disappearing Spoon gave me all the fun science history I wanted. The Angel of Indian Lake gave me a good horror trilogy ending. The Tropic of Serpents gave me more Lady Trent adventures. And so on. I only really had two misses: The Aeronaut's Windlass, which felt very by-the-books epic fantasy without pushing boundaries, and Wordhunter, which I'm actively recommending people don't read. It was utterly average and kind of trying too hard to be edgy, and then it needlessly introduced sexual violence against women and children and handled both badly. How a book that lets a pedophile off with a warning got published in 2024, I will never understand.

In happier news, my book haul! Two books this month: Sorcery and Small Magics, sent by the publisher, and another volume of The Unwritten, meaning I only need to find one and I've got the full run. Hurray! (If you ever spot Vol. 9, folks, lemme know.)

All that reading means that I haven't done much writing. I need to get back to that, but at least I know what was blocking me and am working to rectify the situation. I am, however, starting to get seriously envious of authors who were able to write during the pandemic and are now getting those novels published. I stopped writing entirely for a year and a half, for various reasons, and now I feel like I've fallen behind.

Someday I might return to the Not-Quite-Urban Fantasy but I'm still too raw to handle the edits even now.

Oh, the worlds of might-have-been!

And now I've gone and left this on a down note. There'll be more positivity next month, I promise. In the meantime, here’s my list of everything I read this month, in the rough order of how glad I was to have read them.

Jane Austen’s Bookshelf - Rebecca Romney

A rare book dealer explores the literary histories of Austen’s favourite female authors, and how they didn’t make the English canon the way Austen did. Out in February.

8/10

reading copy

The Disappearing Spoon - Sam Kean

An entertaining history of chemistry, atomic physics, and the elements of the periodic table.

8/10

library ebook

The Tropic of Serpents - Marie Brennan

Isabella Camherst travels south to Bayembe to study savannah dragons, but finds herself caught in politics and sent on a mission to the swamp of Mouleen.

7.5/10

African-coded secondary characters, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (asexual)

library book

The Dollmakers - Lynn Buchanan

When Shean of Pearl receives, and refuses, an artisan dollmaker license, she sets off for a remote village to prove she and her dolls have what it takes to be guards against the Shod. If this means luring the monsters in, so be it.

7.5/10

reading copy

The Angel of Indian Lake - Stephen Graham Jones

Jade Daniels, now Proofrock’s history teacher, has put slasher cycles behind her. Except it’s looking like another one’s started anyway.

7.5/10

Blackfoot protagonist, 🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (sapphic), Black secondary characters

warning: blood, gore, death, murder

reading copy

Reluctant Immortals - Gwendolyn Kiste

Lucy Westrena and Bee Rochester are trying to get through the days in 1967 LA when their exes return in San Fransisco.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (sapphic), Jamaican-British secondary character

warning: abusive relationships

reading copy

Bury Your Gays - Chuck Tingle

After Misha refuses to kill off his queer leads for the season finale, he finds himself stalked by horror villains he created.

7/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (gay), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary characters (bi, aroace), 🏳️‍🌈 author

warning: death, murder, torture, homophobia, child abuse

library book

Ms. Marvel, Vol. 7 - G. Willow Wilson with Mirka Andolfo (Illustrator), Takeshi Miyazawa (Illustrator)

Kamala Khan faces two difficult foes: gerrymandering and a sentient computer virus.

6.5/10

Pakistani-American protagonist, Muslim protagonist, Pakistani-American secondary characters, Muslim secondary characters, 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (sapphic), Black secondary character, secondary character with limb damage and a cane, Muslim author

warning: outing

off my TBR

Paladin’s Grace - T. Kingfisher

Stephen is a paladin whose god has died. Grace is a perfumer trying to keep her past buried. Witnesses to a failed assassination, they now must work together to navigate a world of intrigue, poisoners, and zealots. It’s a good thing they like each other.

6.5/10

off my TBR/ebook

Plain Jane and the Mermaid - Vera Brosgol

When Jane’s potential fiancé is kidnapped by a mermaid, she descends into the depths to rescue him even though she can never hope to compete with true waifish beauty.

7.5/10

warning: body shaming

library book

Sorcery and Small Magics - Maiga Doocy

Leovander Loveage and Sebastian Grimm get along like oil and water—which makes it all the worse when Leo's hit with an illegal curse and they must work together to break it.

6.8/10

🏳️‍🌈 protagonist (achillean), 🏳️‍🌈 secondary character (achillean), 🏳️‍🌈 minor character (ungendered), minor character with dark skin, minor character who uses a cane

gifted by publisher

Dictionary of Fine Distinctions - Eli Bernstein

Illuminating and illustrated definitions of commonly confused words.

7/10

library book

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop - Satoshi Yagisawa

When Takako finds herself adrift in life, she accepts a room in her estranged uncle’s bookshop.

7/10

Japanese cast, Japanese author

library book

Wordhunter - Stella Sands

A spiky forensic linguistics student is tapped by her local PD to help find a kidnapped teen, but that brings up a missing person’s case from her own past. Too close, too soon.

2/10

Black secondary character

warning: drug use, alcohol abuse, rape and an odd attitude towards its aftermath, pedophiles given a pass

library book

Picture books

All the Books - Hayley Rocco

Piper loves books so much she takes her whole collection everywhere, but when her wagons tip over in the rain she discovers … the library!

9/10

DNF

The Aeronaut’s Windlass - Jim Butcher

The cold war between Spires Albion and Aurora is heating up, and something uncanny is showing itself. Caught in it all are Captain Grimm, late of the Predator, a handful of trainee guards, and a prince of cats.

library ebook

Currently reading

The Price of the Stars - Debra Doyle and James D. MacDonald

When Beka’s politician mother is assassinated, her father gives her his warship in exchange for her tracking the assassins down. But when someone has it in for your family, sometimes one must take drastic measures.

off my TBR

The Empress Letters - Linda Rogers

A mother in the 1920s writes her life story in a series of letters to the daughter she’s searching for in China.

🇨🇦, Chinese secondary characters

warning: fetal remains, anti-Chinese racism

off my TBR

Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century - Richard Taruskin A history of early written European music, in its social and political contexts.

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle Victorian detective stories

disabled POV character (limb injury), occasional Indian secondary characters

warning: racism, colonialism

Monthly total: 14 + 1 Yearly total: 106 Queer books: 3 Authors of colour: 2 Books by women: 9 Authors outside the binary: 0 Canadian authors: 0 Classics: 0 Off the TBR shelves: 3 Books hauled: 2 ARCs acquired: 3 ARCs unhauled: 4 DNFs: 1

January February March April May June July August September

[rosegardendeprofundis]

May 2025 Reading Wrap-Up

📖2025 Reading Challenge: 49/100📖

Books Read This Month:

A Snake Lies Waiting by Jin Yong

Don’t Call it a Cult by Sarah Berman

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

Master of Me by Keke Palmer

Alive Day by Karie Fugett

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Favorite(s): Gone Girl or The Bluest Eye

Least Favorite: Master of Me

Previous Reading Wrap-Ups: January 2025, February 2025, March 2025, April 2025

[therefugeofbooks]

[3.09.24] 12/50 days of booklr

I love some graphics!! I'm late as usual, because I think this was implemented a few months ago, but I finally have graphics to show! I never update the dates that I start the books, so the calendar option doesn't reflect my reading chaos yet.

Finally finished rereading The Vampire Lestat, and my love-hate relationship with Lestat is the same. Bury Your Gays was amazing, and A Magical Retires and Transmuted were both novellas that left me pleasantly surprised.

How was everyone's reading month?

[roseunspindle]

What I Read in May 2025

I guess with this series it's gotta catch 'em all for me. So the comic...(Have seen all of the show) saw parts of what I could of the animated show too

Alas this was very confsuing and all over the place...

Winner Ciel... oh dear hello again Undertaker...

And now the novel! XD

Had to dip my toes into another Danmei author... I adored this one too. Poor Chang Geng... Also Gu Yun... oh my lord dude...

Ninja Kyoko!

Quite creepy. Not as enthralling as Dead Silence but good.

How much must poor Allen suffer?

Obsessed.

Also can I smack the emperor upside the head?

still so fun, also Silk and her endless teasing of Cain

Yi city arc.... *sob* Qin Su *sob*

Gu Yun stop getting blown up!

Finally getting more of this series. I do still quite like it. This book was a touch repetetive on how dark the world was but meh. Ignorable.

Valley of the End *sob*

Sadly DNF'd

The Demon Awakens

Whiskers and Smoke

The Lost Apothecary

War and Peace Part 2 - this one I may try again someday...

[imgunnagetyou]

r u guys excited for another year of things. i wonder how many books i can read this year. i read 197 books very cool, this is my december wrap-up on storygraph, feel free to follow me @imgunnagetyou on SG

[randomstudyblr]

Reading wrap-up 2023

(Inspired by @thequeerlibrarian !)

And here are my favs:

Two notes:

Yes, I'm quite strict with my rating. I didn't have any 5 star reads this year! But that's fine! If I'm given a 5 star scale to rate, you bet I'm going to use it all lol.

Admittedly, the locked tomb books were rereads. But I still recommend them!

[mfred]

June Reading Wrap-Up

I read 10 books in June, mostly because I was on vacation, seeing the sights, spending time with loved ones. My brain was busy and I couldn't concentrate enough to read.

Reading Scarlett Cole's Iron Outlaws MC series was fun and diverting. For motorcycle club romance novels, these are pretty good. Hits all the high notes (action-centered, plot heavy, instalust to love) without some of the worst of the genre (abusing women to further the drama).

And then I decided to go dark and downloaded a couple of vampire romance novels like Karina Halle's Dark Eyes series and Kathryn Ann Kingsley's Immortal Soul series. Both were entertaining, and yes, violent, bloody and dark, but I couldn't finish the second Halle book because I kinda lost interest after awhile.

And then came Rouge.

Mona Awad wrote this surreal, dreamy, horrifying gothic fairytale of a book that, at first, I wasn't quite convinced was for me. I wanted straightforward storytelling. I wanted believable, trustworthy characters. And that is not what Rouge is about.

I spent about two thirds of the book thinking I was going to DNF it, just give up and walk away, not realizing that the fever dream prose was getting under my skin. And then BAM! an emotional whallop came out of nowhere and hit me right in the feels and I raced through the last third of the book, crying and gasping and loving every moment.

5 stars, highly recommend, you should read it.

[brandileigh2003]

November reading wrap-up

Total words: 1,592,567

Average: 53085/day, 3.3 hrs, 212 pgs

Total fics over 15k: 21

This was a great month fic wise, but rough personally at times. If authors see this, know that your words really do mean a lot and have brought some joy when I felt ill and down.

Without further ado---

-love finds a way by @littleoldrachel (60k) Jurassic Park exes to lovers

-Closer to Fine by krabapple (78k) 1st war divergent, mpreg

-oh, summer child by peachyybabe @lavenderhaze (20k) modern magical divergent, mpreg

-For My Impertinence by @synonomy : (91k) regency a/b/o

-To die, as lovers may by @moggetbright (11k) vampire Sirius and Hunter Remus

-Too Little Too Late by swings_and_roundabouts re-read. (13k) au mcd

-Babysitting For Dummies by Middleofamoment (37k) au raising teddy get together

-sequel: Proposing For Dummies by Middleofamoment (33k)

-I found you by de_sire @de-sire-blog (23k) divergent soulmates

-Lateral Thinking by Sadspatula (20k) au exploring mental illness

-Ullswater by eyra (31k) uni, they're musicians

-The Barista by ever3tt (44k) 80s au get together fic

-Love at First Bloom by viwrites @just--vi (21k) flower shop au

-back when we were dinosaurs by epicblueblanket @kaaaaaaarf (37k) au get together, both nerdy

-The Spy Who Loved Him by OptimisticDinosaur, @weightyghosts : (34k) spy au friends to lovers

-Exchange Program by krabapple @severedreamerfox (23k) post 1st war divergent

-The Bravest Person I Have Ever Known by Middleofamoment (17k) Hogwarts pining

-you don't have to be alone (when you're the place i wanna go) by quiethauntings @quiethauntings (37k) au ft lots of pining

-every christmas from now on by @mandarino-o (86k) fake dating

-Ocean of Fiction Blue by orphan_account (12k)

-A Good League Hence by eyra @eyra (14k) Christmas modern au

-the black dog by joey101 (51k) modern post break up

-Basingstoke Diaries series by Anonymous (160k) divergent look at wolfstar after Hogwarts to remus' death. Mcd. Check tags esp on small bones of courage. But you can read until there if you want to avoid the mcd

-maybe time running out is a gift by messrsrarchives @messrsrarchives (wip 21k) au mcd sickfic

-'tis the damn season by moonymoment @mayescapade fake dating (71k)

-here we are, again by dykesiriusblack @dykefever (61k) get back together

[books-coffee-and-the-woods]

July Reading Wrap-Up!

I did read more than 3 books, but nearly all of them were library books so I don't have them for a photo 😅. I'm pretty happy with how much I read this month, finished my 6 weeks of library holds, and, feeling somewhat refreshed I've returned to my TBR list! In total I read 8 books, DNF'd only 1, and am currently reading 1.

Read:

Improbable Magic for Cynical Witches - Kate Scelsa

Some Girls Do - Jennifer Dugan

The Valley and the Flood - Rebecca Mahoney

Roadside Picnic - Boris & Arkady Strugatsky

Life Ceremony - Sayaka Murata

Earthlings - Sayaka Murata

Green Rider - Kristen Britain

Some Desperate Glory - Emily Tesh

DNF:

The Second Death of Edie and Violet Bond - Amanda Glaze

Currently Reading:

The Riddle of the Wren - Charles de Lint

[true-bluesargent]

january/february reading wrap-up!

( @typingwithmyhandstied you inspired me)

1. carry on by rainbow rowell - this was a reread and i do love this book so much <3 but rereading it reminds me how frustrating it is that the concept and the characters of this book are SO SO GOOD but the author did not really follow-through on it very well... constantly thinking about how i would rewrite it lmao

2. the dream thieves by maggie stiefvater - another reread (i do a lot of rereading...)! i listen to the raven boys audiobook honestly multiple times a year but i haven't re-listened to any of the others in the series for almost 4 years now so this was a lot of fun. i love reading the gray man's point of view so much

3. book lovers by emily henry - i've read a few emily henry books now and i like them a lot but they always seem to kind of lose it towards the end for me... but i LOVED the hallmark movie subversion concept that this book had! and i do feel like emily henry's characters are all the same to me sometimes but i really liked nora and i loved the b plot about her and her sister and their grief for their mother it really got me in the heart :")

4. the sunshine court by nora sakavic - i wanted to reread this in preparation for the golden raven and i loved it so much the second time maybe even a little bit more than when i first read it. it floors me how much the author's writing has improved in the 10 years since all for the game came out... very much worth the wait in my opinion and i think having jean and jeremy as dual pov protagonists was much more interesting than just neil's single pov!

5. the orange and other poems by wendy cope - always trying to read more poetry and this is a lovely little collection! i obviously love the orange (as does everyone) but some of my other favourites were dutch portraits, names, tich miller (heartbreaking), absent friends, being boring and he tells her

6. carmilla by j. sheridan le fanu - i read this for my dissertation but i have been meaning to read this for so long and it was AMAZING it was as good as dracula and i wish it was longer !!! i listened to the bloody fm re: carmilla audio production (the same people who did re: dracula at the same time as dracula daily!) and it was incredible i recommend it

7. the golden raven by nora sakavic - this was one of my most anticipated books of the year and it was really very good :) not as good as the sunshine court i think, but as a middle-of-a-trilogy book it filled its purpose! i loved that the emphasis in this book was on jean's friendships with cat and with the rest of the trojans (and also with kevin) rather than just rushing straight into the jeremy/jean romance which i'm sure is coming in book three lmao

that's all! i actually read most of these in january and in february i only read two books because uni really is the hobby-killer :")

[rosegardendeprofundis]

January 2025 Reading Wrap-Up

📖Reading Challenge: 12/100📖

Books Read This Month:

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Andromeda by Therese Bohman

The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis

Fluids by May Leitz

Educated by Tara Westover

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

Momo by Michael Ende

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

Favorite(s): Fight Club and Momo

Least Favorite: Andromeda

[pennyserenade]

in the month of december i read:

catching fire by suzanne collins

mockingjay by suzanne collins

friends, lovers, and the big terrible thing by matthew perry

eileen by ottessa moshfegh

happy place by emily henry

cowboys are my weakness by pam houston

silver lining by maggie osborne

foster by claire keegan

hank & jim by scott eyman

if anyone would like to discuss any of these books with me, or if anyone would like to hear my thoughts on them, here is my goodreads, my storygraph, and my tumblr inbox

[roseunspindle]

What I Read in February 2025

Tetsu!

Haein Cha is too adorable. Also poor Jinha… Jinah having no real reaction to her brother being chnaged…The other hunters going through existential crises…

Really liked this

Good and depressing as usual

Things are a little tiny bit spicy for a moment.

Also Lory gets a frowny face thrown at him by me. He knows why.

Pretty good. Still kind of horrfied by the post(co-current?)-appocalytic world Laura Thalassa mangaed to make. My ace-self has no appreciation for the spice in this book, but Miriam was a likable main character and War's humanizing journey was interesting too. Was kinda shipping Miriam/Zara through a portion of the book.

My friend got me this for my birthday this year and eee so many chills also just a good book and of course, found family!

I enjoyed this book overall but the sometimes choppy way it was told could get a little old.

Some baby-twilight

Actually really liked this one. Prefer it to "The Monster's Ring" it felt...meatier?

I have realized I'm not much of a fan of Jiraiya...

I liked it but just want to lob smelly eggs at those thunder-whatever people.