#rating: 3/5

[brightbeautifulthings]

How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black

"'Everyone finds different lessons in stories, I suppose, but here's one. Having a heart is terrible, but you need one anyway.'"

Year Read: 2025

Rating: 3/5

Thoughts: This is like a lot of extra content for series: it's nice for the diehard fans, but it's not really necessary for everyone else. This story is especially good if you're a big fan of Cardan and want some backstory on him growing up in Elfhame. I don't particularly care one way or the other, so those parts were fine for me. It fleshes out his backstory, but he was already plenty three-dimensional in the series.

I enjoyed the framing story a bit more where Cardan and Jude each have their own, er, unique ways of facing a monster in the woods. After so many novels of seeing the way Jude solves problems, it's interesting to see Cardan take a different approach, and naturally the story plays more to his strengths than hers. The lovely illustrations were my favorite part. They're dark, smudgy, and ethereal with pretty gold accents, the perfect vibe for a dark fairy tale.

[epiaphany]

epiaphany's 911 advent calendar - 20/24

[cabbagestrand]

diana with short hair part 2

[aurorangen]

Knowing Leif Pollock, the famous artist, was here, Nancy could not miss the opportunity to serve her esteemed guest. "Hello hello!!! It's an honour to have you dine with us again Leif and Daphne! And your wonderful guests today," Nancy beamed at everyone and then made introductions with her new visitors.

Soon after, the table was making amiable chatter with the head chef, with Bryce in particular, relishing his surrounding atmosphere. "This place is beautiful chef! How long have you been running the restaurant?"

"Thank you so much! Oh not long actually, it's only been a month," Nancy recalled. "My fiancé's parents recently retired and have passed down the restaurant to us. We had plans to locate in Tartosa and start a business there, but we decided to stay here. To continue our legacy."

Nancy looked around the dining area, enthralled by yet another magical evening due to her supervision. Castillons was where she embarked on her journey as a professional chef after graduating from culinary school. And now she is its proud owner along with her love, Hugo. "It's my dream come true to own a restaurant…and this place, it's quite special to me."

After recommending some specialties for dessert, Nancy wished the party a pleasant night and returned to the kitchen.

Note: IT'S NANCY'S RESTAURANT!! 🤭 Did you see this coming? I thought it would be a clue to say Bistro here, which you could link to Hugo as he is French. The lore is that Castillons is a bistro (first opened by Hugo's grandfather) turned restaurant by his parents! But this post was the first thing I thought of once completing the backstory (we got there in the end). I was like I need to introduce Nancy's restaurant in some way and what better opportunity than this ☺️ It was Nancy's dream to open/run a restaurant, so I wanted to make this a special place by building it myself. It took a while because I hadn't done the interior and lately, I keep on having a lack of motivation. I have so many ideas, just no mood or inspo to play. (I kept forcing myself to make the post or scroll simblr but it always tired me out, making me unproductive. But I gave it time and inspo came itself.)

[blueskittlesart]

I Am Having So Much Fun

[sandreeen]

Alger ♔ Lord of Mysteries: The Clown, Character Archive (New)

[wundrousarts]

Kinda wish Nevermoor could have been written 20 years ago so we could have a movie adaption in the early 2000s that’s not plot accurate but by god does it have the vibes down

[brightbeautifulthings]

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell

"'Uhhh, maybe I'd believe that if I hadn't seen you filming a romantic comedy at my own wedding reception. Like, seriously. It was my wedding, but you guys got voted Cutest Couple.'"

Year Read: 2024

Rating: 3/5

Thoughts: I enjoyed Rowell's other adult romances, Attachments and Landline, but Slow Dance is easily my least favorite of the three. Slow is right there in the title, and boy, is it. It takes forever for this story to get going, and it's not helped by the typically boring flashbacks on Shiloh and Cary's teenage years. While it helps to build a picture of their relationship--and how very long it's been going on, both platonically and romantically--nothing interesting ever happens there.

There are points when the current timeline is little better. For readers looking for a depressingly realistic look at the difficulties of adult relationships, this is the book for you. There's drama on multiple levels: family, divorce, single mom, aging parent, long distance, and it's all drearily apt to real life. There are always a thousand reasons why a relationship won't work in the real world, and Shiloh goes through all of them multiple times. I don't think I've ever seen a more reluctant leading lady in a romance. Cary is steadfast and solid but bad at communicating his feelings, which is part of the reason this romance takes literal decades. They're a good balance for each other, however, and the reader is able to see all the reasons the relationship will work long before the characters do.

In general, I adore Rowell's writing voice, and that was pretty much the only thing that kept me going here. That also isn't her best though. It's a very dialogue-heavy book, including one chapter of literally nothing but, which felt extremely sloppy. While I was mostly glad to be done with it, I was happy with how things turned out for the characters. I received a free e-ARC through NetGalley from the publishers at William Morrow.

[theygender]

Coming to terms with the fact that I may not be writing this essay

[simspaghetti]

Betty is ageing up into a teenager!

🎲 Cosmetic: glasses

🎲 Sexuality: Lesbian

Traits: Dramatic / Snob / Virtuoso / ⭐ Genius

Geniuses are brilliant logical thinkers, masters of chess and excellent hackers. They savor pursuits of the mind.

Betty inherited this trait from her father, Ra, thanks to her good school performance during her childhood years

[white-weasel]

Saw College AU but it’s just the Fatal Five working on a group project for Professor Kramer’s introductory level philosophy course

[mariatesstruther]

so… what the fuck was gabriel luna practicing on that big ass friesian horse for then

[gothlisteningclub]

Welcome to the goth listening club! I'll post a new album every day. To participate, listen to the album sometime throughout the course of your day, then come back and give it a rating! The idea is for us all to try out new goth music and connect with other goths, so feel free to reblog with your thoughts, start discussions in the replies, and share your own favorite goth music!

submit albums here!

[theamazingmr-j]

OSCAR WINS IN BAHRAINNNNNNNNNNN MY BOY IS OFFICIALLY A TITLE CONTENDER

[rinpenrose1900]

I came downstairs and my brother was all "Rin Rin Rin have you heard the news have you heard the good news" and I was fully expecting it to be something related to Christmas or our family with how excited he was and then he just said "did you see there's new Holostars" I CAN'T ESCAPE EVEN IN MY OWN HOME

[decapod-appreciator]

joker is transfem + genderfluid to me. bee tee dubs