#overall GO READ THE BOOK!!!!!!!!!!

[expelliarmus]

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Road To Ruin

start of a postapocalyptic fantasy series set in an Asian-inspired desert world plagued by dangerous storms

follows a courier who transports romantic letters between a prince and princess, who helps the princess escape across the wastes towards the prince’s safe haven

but they’re pursued by bounty hunters, and accidentally uncover some ancient secrets. and also she’s in love with both of them

dinosaurs, magical motorbikes,

bi MC, start of polyam triad

[mydearestblue]

i just finished the first thrawn book and I'M NOT OKAY

[howlsmovinglibrary]

holiday book round-up

(a wrap up of everything I read when I was away!)

wylding hall by elizabeth hand. (4*)

Daisy Jones and the Six, but make it fey and spooky. This was the best novel I read whilst away. The remaining members of an acid folk band try their best to recollect and reconstruct the events that led up to their lead singer's mysterious disappearance, in the grand manor known as Wylding Hall. what happened to Julian Blake, and who was the mysterious girl he vanished with?

small miracles by olivia atwater. (3*)

this is one book the good omens girlies might consider getting into, given recent... stuff and things. the concept (a tense alliance over party lines, governed by the fate of a single soul) has a lot of overlap, only with a lot more women involved.

I am *not* a good omens girlie, so it took me a while to get into this book as much as Atwater's fairy stuff. but as always, she writes incredibly compelling character and romance dynamics. i shipped the main pairing so hard by the end.

a marriage of undead inconvenience by stephanie burgis. (2.5*)

I thought this novella would be written specifically for me (an arranged marriage between a headstrong lady academic and a sarcastic posh vampire... iykyk). But unfortunately, I think it was too short to get to fully enjoy it's own premise. I found the academic rivalry subplot more compelling than the romance, I guess bc that's an easy dynamic to set up in a short space of time.

the biting, though. Stephanie gets it.

where the dark stands still by a.b. poranek. (2.75*)

This book combines a lot of the good things of Howl's Moving Castle, Uprooted, and Shadow and Bone. If you like any of the above, you will probably enjoy this! But it does not - in my opinion - surpass any of them.

It was a fun read, with some stand out sentences, and also some extremely derivative ones, that kind of meant everything flattened out overall. And, alas: I'm always wary of third person present-tense, in the hands of edgelords.

[death-by-sc0tland]

i read one review of divided loyalties on storygraph that said they liked the book but found the flashback boring and too long and i’m just like,, my brother in christ this is the deca book why would you read the deca book if you didn’t want to hear about the deca. like you’re telling me people read this book for other reasons than deca content?

[crazy-god-bunker-jughead]

I knew that Crozier and Silna got married in the book and was mentally prepared but the fact that Silna’s entire motivation the whole book was just sitting around waiting for Crozier to fuck her made me so fucking mad. Thank you showrunners for deciding she would not be a love interest and giving her a for real plot which is actually interesting and tragic and parallel to Crozier.

[bookwyrminspiration]

you’re reading fourth wing . . . oh my goodness good luck soldier i hope you’ll be able to get though it with your sanity intact . . . let’s hope you still like dragons after this

Everyone keeps saying "goodluck" or "godspeed." have faith, soldier, in my love for the trenches.

i've braved dastardly pits before and I'll brave them again 🫡

[rosefires20]

Im-

I just finished the final book of the Earthsea Cycle and oh my god. There are no words to describe that ending or how well it fit. It settled so perfectly and so neatly. It went exactly where it meant to go and no I do not have the words to describe what exactly that intent or path was just that it existed.

Genuinely, the Earthsea Cycle is one of my all time favorite series. It's just so curious and so deep but also not at the same time. The lessons of the series are so fantastic and ones that I believe are impactful no matter your age. The exploration of being a woman in a world dominated by men is incredible in this series as well as the process of finding your place in the world and sometimes acknowledging that it isn't what you thought it'd be.

Each book I love more than the last. The Other Wind is so damn good. I love Alder as a character. I love Irian. I love Azver. I love the Kargish princess and her own character development. Lebannenn's character growth as well. Like just. It's so incredible. It also makes me appreciate Tales from Earthsea more because it's shocking how much each of those short stories truly contribute to the world building and conclusion of the series.

The way the story just slowly built up to the events of The Other Wind is also just incredible considering the time between the books being published especially in the second half of the series. The consistency is incredible and you really don't actually know where it is all going until the end yet everything pays off still.

Just god. I love it so much.

[lotrmusical]

@mischieffoal mad that they were there!!! i'm an extended editions hater

[markantonys]

i know it's not book-accurate at all, but a part of me is hoping that by some miracle the emond's field five (along with potential allies) will all reunite to rescue egwene from the seanchan. will probably never happen, but it would be amazing to see them all in the same place at least once <3

i completely agree!!! and it's not totally outside the realm of possibility, since we know everybody will end up at falme by the end of the season - maybe the other 4 will cross paths in time to join up together to rescue egwene. even if not and she gets free before the girls run into the boys, i feel pretty certain we'll get at least one full ef5 scene by the end of the season because the show so far seems MUCH more invested in that dynamic and its emotional weight than the books did, and according to book plotlines this would be the last chance to have all 5 of them together in one place until the last battle (although i would welcome the show making some changes to allow various characters to spend more time together! one thing about me is that i have almost no loyalty whatsoever to the books haha so i'm always 100% willing, nay, EAGER for the show to make many changes and big changes)

[ablednt]

Granted I have the overall geographical and cultural knowledge of a 4th grader but from what I can tell the nuclear family model really does seem to be a white colonial invention

Different cultures have different approaches but I mainly hear about either large family units where multiple generations support each other and raise their children and grandchildren together or an "it takes a village" approach where children are raised somewhat communally

And I can't really speak on it much or claim that these families were free of abuse or that children aren't often an oppressed group basically everywhere I know of but the way ownership of your children is so engrained into white society is so bizarre

Like once you notice it you can't unnotice it even the most loving well meaning parents don't know what to do about it because everyone is so isolated from their own families and their own communities so you wind up with 1-2 parents who have full legal ownership of their child and are raised in a culture where you don't have personhood until you're 18 and all attempts at self actualization before them are seen as clueless rebellion. Like our culture is so divorced from the concept that a parent is someone who is helping mentor and care for their child so they can thrive as a fellow human being and it's actually so alarming

And ik this problem isn't unique to white and colonized people but it's honestly really soothing to hear about how other cultures approach and view parenting and community as a whole and to internalize it doesn't have to be this way

[lordsardine]

.

[lucy-ghoul]

finished one hundred years of solitude, now on with winter prince and a dune reread 👀

[magicalbats]

how do you get out of a bad writers block?? and what inspired u to get back into writing after ur hiatus?

Oof, I’m ngl that’s a bit of a difficult question for me to answer xmdkxkdnd for me at least, I wanted to write pretty much the entire time during my hiatus but I just couldn’t get my brain to function through the ✨ depression fog ✨ and even just opening up a word doc to force myself to write two sentences was extremely draining. My mental headspace just was not there. So what I did a lot of was read books.

I think I’ve read something like almost 60 books this year of different genres and topics - four out of five novels for the Court of Thorns and Roses series, Carrie by Stephen King, some old (really old xmxmdnd) Harlequin romance novels, a folk horror anthology, like six entries from the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series, etc, etc - and that helped me get back into the mindset of creative thinking. I found inspiration in these works, ideas I wanted to explore, things that left me disappointed with their execution and wanting to do better, and I sort of relearned how to string a narrative together in the process. Then I started reading over some of my old WIPs. In some of them I saw real potential and was even occasionally surprised by my own writing abilities when juxtaposed against all those published novels I’ve read. I’d think to myself “oh, this actually isn’t half bad?” And that would make me want to finish that piece or rework it with things I’ve learned in the interim.

One of the very first things I wrote and completed was that Itto x reader x Gorou kinktober fic. I saw the prompt, had the inspiration and impulsively jotted everything down. When I was finished and I read it over I felt GOOD. Proud of myself for actually completing something from scratch. I thought “hey, maybe I could do another one of these” and then proceeded to write Scara’s (which I’m actually very proud of tbh cmdmxm) and from there it was really just a matter of keeping that momentum going. In particular I think writing them for myself at that point, thinking I might post them some day when I was feeling brave enough to come out of hiding and just enjoying the satisfaction of writing again in the meantime, was what really helped me find my confidence again. It kind of took some of the pressure off of having people perceive me and my work dmdmdmd and I was able to sort of let everything flow organically as a result without worrying about how terrible or messy it was. A lot of this was very spur of the moment and idk if it will actually help you anon but in my case these were the things that helped me kick my extremely uncooperative brain back into gear lol

So the TL;DR of it would probably be to read other stuff. Pay attention to what you like, what you don’t, what makes you excited, sad, horny, happy, grossed out, etc and basically expose yourself to different kinds of writing styles and topics. I’ve read some pretty terrible books over the last year and some amazing ones too, and each one taught me something, even if it was not to do a thing haha. When you revisit your own works approach it like it belongs to one of those other authors, look at it objectively and sort of remove yourself from the equation. I’d say a big part of getting over writers block is just tricking your brain out of it tbh. 🤣 Like I said idk if any of this is helpful but I believe in you, anon! I am cheering for you and I know we’ll get through this together!

[kindlythevoid]

As promised. Memes:

And as promised, ranting:

Okay, so, real talk, I did not actually like everything in this book, but I still fucked with it SO HARD. Like, honestly, I picked up what this was putting down (a little heavy-handedly, but done so well imho???) and the WAY IT WAS WRITTEN????

Like, I did a course on the Aeneid. And obviously it was a Roman mythos, not Greek, but DAMN, CLAIRE NORTH. I could see my translations!!! Written in the vernacular of english!!! RiGHT THERE IN THE TEXXT!!!! I GOT SO FREAKING EXCITED!!! It's just, such little things. The phrasing of a certain line. The odd usage of certain similes or metaphors that go off about people or places. The strange diversions to explain events or people right in the middle of the text before jumping straight back into the story. IT WAS SO VERGIL GUYS I SWEAR.

(i haven't had to translate the greek myths sorry guys and I read the odyssey so many years ago in english many apologies am working off what I got)

And, like, as I said, it was very heavy-handed as it backhanded the greek poets for ignoring the women but, like, she was right??? It was insane guys. It was absolutely insane. And everyone was so nuanced and had personalities and hopes and dreams and backstories and at points I was worried she was going to sacrifice the guys to further the women??? Which, like, I understand the irony, and obv couldn't super fault her for it, but she ended up balancing everyone out so well??? Like the guys were in the background instead but they were still all unique and had different priorities and shit.

Just, this whole book was such a breath of fresh air. Damn.

[flashhwing]

reading the cruel prince for book club and it’s amazing how little I have to say about it. I like it, I can say with confidence that I like this book. what do I like about it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. it’s not going on my favorites list and it’s certainly not the best book I’ve ever read. what don’t I like about it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. idk it’s a very “this book exists and I like it and I have no further thoughts on it whatsoever”