#these are the literal tags from the goodreads page

[heartofstanding]

Hi! In one of your tags you muttered against Stacy Schiff’s “bio” on Cleopatra. Could you tell me why you dislike it so much? Thanks a lot!!

To be completely transparent, I read Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra: A Life over 10 years ago and I got rid of my copy so this is all going on my memory or the goodreads review I wrote at the time. To be brief: it's bad history and I found the writing style god-awful.

At the time, I found Schiff's writing a slog to read, overly "literary", sometimes to the point of obfuscation. There was one sentence I read where I stared at it, trying to make sense of it, before giving up and moving on.

Schiff is not a classicist or an Egyptologist, her work shows her jumping all over time and place - Cleopatra, the Salem Witch Trials, Vera Nabokov, revolutionary America, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - and for me, an author or historian who shows such massive leaps in her work is not going to have any more than a basic grasp of her subject's context, and this is really important stuff to know if you're going write a book about it. Indeed, she gives a lot context for the Roman side of things (which, judging from reviews, she oversimplifies or gets wrong), but little for Cleopatra's own dynasty - despite claiming she's trying to tell Cleopatra's side of the story. I would've thought that began with grounding Cleopatra in her own context, not Rome's.

Schiff is essentially writing popular history with a literary bent. She doesn't cite her sources properly - i.e. her version of citing her sources is to include a notes section where, if you feel like you need a source she says, you find the page number in the notes and skim to see her reference or reasoning. I didn't even realise she had included a notes section until I reached the end of the book. She also writes speculatively about things we just have no idea about ("Cleopatra must have felt this", "probably this happened", and "we know Cleopatra was a virgin when she met Caesar because of this Margaret Atwood quote about Jezebel being considered a slut because she was wearing makeup").

Schiff's overall goal was to "rescue" Cleopatra from centuries of smears. To a degree, I find that odd since Cleopatra is one of the most celebrated queens in all of history - which is not to deny that she has been the victim of misogynistic smears, both ancient and modern, but that she's also been the subject of a metric fuckton of feminist reclamations. Schiff's defence of Cleopatra ends up going on about how awful her detractors were and pumping Cleopatra up as a woman who is literally perfect and then scrambling to try and explain how Cleopatra could've lost so badly. The tags you mentioned were in reference to a memorable part in her introduction where Schiff defends Cleopatra's decision to kill her siblings as "Herod did it too" which... no. That's not a defence.

I also read Schiff's book on the Salem Witch Trials and, uh, that was also really not good.

[mimsier]

ring in the new year with a readathon! dedicating time to reading is my most favoritest way to end one year and begin the next, and so we bingo for a sprinkle of festivity

anyone is welcome to join in ♡

to literally rip from my post last year: fills are focused on checkpoints along the way of reading + easy peasy pitstops when you need a break, rather than focused on what you’re reading, so it's friendly to multiple genres and formats! win by any pattern you choose!! this is all for fun & the love of reading

static board >>here

new year’s eve & new year’s day #readinthenewyear

keep reading for the row by row list of prompts, plus some totally optional suggestions for the free space. feel free to ask for clarification!

row one finish 1 book share 2024 reading resolutions read at midnight read 500 pages / listen for 10 hours liveblog a chapter (or more)

row two predict the ending finish 2 books share favorite line write a review post book rec(s)

row three read 100 pages / listen for 1 hour update readathon progress free space enter a book giveaway read 250 pages / listen for 5 hours

row four post readathon wrap-up read more books than planned reblog from a book's tag take a break! set/join 2024 challenge(s)

row five snap some pics re-read a favorite reflect on 2023 reads share 2024 anticipated releases finish 3 or more books

free space alternatives: • check out booktube! like + comment • check out any book community you've been meaning to & engage (or lurk, that's your business babe) • plan a buddy read • liked a book? look for more by the author! • hated it? embrace schadenfreude and check out 1 star reviews! • resolved to read more next year? join a book club • add books to your tbr • create a goodreads or storygraph account • make an edit • make a bookmark or other bookish craft • share about your reading habits • start a journal for tracking or share your fave pages if you already have one

[mostlikelytobeagainstcapitalism]

many thanks to @wanderdreamer for the tag!!

Favorite Color: I've literally loved every shade of green since I was a child, but I'm beggining to appreciate blue more, especially when it's mixed with green. red it's pretty too but only when it's a dark shade, not really a fan of highlighter.

Last Song: been listening to the black sails playlist for two days straight while studying and sleeping and nothing else (the soundtrack I'm listening to while writing this is the banner of captain flint, if anyone's curious).

Last Movie: I watched one at the theater today for a school activity (?) and since i'm italian, it was an italian movie. very recommended but very graphic and violent: Io, capitano (I captain).

Currently Watching: new girl because I've got six months free of disney+, black sails because I refuse to finish the last season (the last episode I watched was e2s4 on august 31st), modern family (but I've been trying to finish that for years) and only murders in the building (again for free disney+).

Other Stuff I Watched This Year: one piece live action (you HAVE to watch it), good omens s2 (watch this too) and extraordinary attorney woo (im not very into kdrama but I loved it).

Shows I Dropped This Year: started but can't get past episode two of the great, can't finish queen charlotte (I didn't even finish bridgerton because s1 is too boring) and I've been trying to watch attack on titan for years (I reached e1s3 but I can't get past that since 2018, so I've been rewatching hoping i can finish it).

Currently Reading: it'd be quicker to just drop my goodreads and leave, but the latest are the price of freedom (prequel of potc), circe (literally on page 2) and the last wish (from the witcher). I get bored too easily and I haven't found something that interesting yet, but I'm about to start the poppy war and I've heard it's good so I hope I can read all three books in a row and not want to shoot myself in the face out of boredom (finger crossed 🤞).

If you stumble on this, feel free to do it.

I'd also like to tag @boltlightning @annabellioncourt @fred-erick-frankenstein and hope to get to know you better ❤️.

[type1diabetesinfandom]

Hey, how many canon T1 diabetic characters do you know about?

I kinda wanted to challenge myself to make a character in art everyday with visual equitment, symbols maybe, and anything else I can think of.

That sounds like a great idea! Let me know how it goes please :D

So here are the ones I know from media I have personally read/watched:

Alec Holland from Swamp Thing: Twin Branches by Maggie Stiefvater, a DC comic book. Specified as T1D.

Blue Broen from The Truth According to Blue by Eve Yohalem, a middle grade adventure novel. (I'm only a few pages in but T1D seems well done.)

Brian (and Rufus) from Rufus Comes Home by Kim Gosselin, a children's book featuring Rufus the Diabetic Bear! (I still have mine on a shelf--along with Ruby! Although I renamed her Rosetta :P put pods on 'em and everything.)

Cassie Salazar from Purple Hearts, a 2022 Netflix Original AND a romance novel by Tess Wakefield (which I have NOT read). Specified as T1D.

Hansel (played by Jeremy Renner) from the movie Hansel & Gretel: Witchhunters. He has an inaccurate, anachronistic form of diabetes referred to as ‘sugar sickness’ but it’s one of my favorite movies. Besides, the movie also has an automatic machine arrow-gun. Realistic it is not. Fun monster movie, it is. I want to write a medical fix-it fic SO bad but I don't know when.

Mackenzie Nolan from Let Me List the Ways by Sarah White, a YA contemporary romance. Specified as T1D.

Sal Vidon from Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez, a Rick Riordan presents novel. Specified as T1D.

Stevie Hart from Lucky Few by Kathryn Ormsbee, a YA contemporary novel. Specified as T1D (but not until over 100 pages in :/ sorry I got personal beef with the book's rep but I saw a few people who liked it so... GREAT homeschooling rep tho)

Ones I have been reliably informed have T1D (or, you know, as close as we get) but have not personally read/watched:

Ezekiel from Agnes at the End of the World, a YA cult/post-apoc novel by Kelly McWilliams. Not sure if it's specified.

Captain Lantus from The Adventures of Captain Lantus, a children's book. Specified as T1D.

Kyle Broflovski and Scott Malkinson from the show South Park. I don't believe it's specified, and from what I've heard, SP makes fun of literally everything, but I know they've got a lot of fanfic in the ao3 diabetes tag!

Lucy Szabo from Sweetblood, a YA novel by Pete Hautman. Not sure if it's specified.

Dare Chase from The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh, a YA horror fantasy novel. Not sure if it's specified.

Stacey Frick and one unnamed girl from Pixar's Turning Red movie. Both wear visible insulin pumps.

Stacey McGill from The Baby-Sitters Club, a middle grade series by Anne M Martin and a Netflix Original show. Specified as T1D.

Scott from Zebrafish by Sharon Emerson, a middle grade book. Not sure if it's specified.

Diabetes in Fiction is definitely worth a look. Their website sorts by both T1D or T2D and also by genre.

There are more lists here, but I haven't been able to verify them in any way yet:

a brief list and review of movies with T1D from DBL-diabetes

a brief list and review of shows with T1D from DBL-diabetes

An article from Healthline talking rep from both movies and shows

a rec list of kids books with T1D from the T1D Living blog

A list of children's books with T1D made by Disney and Lilly

A Goodreads list Romance Novels with Main Characters who have Diabetes

Another Goodreads list Fiction Books with Type 1 Diabetes

Yet another Goodreads list YA Books Featuring Type One Diabetes

Someone's pretty comprehensive Goodreads shelf of books that are supposed to have T1D

And another, smaller Goodreads shelf of T1D in Fiction

This was...probably way more than you need for your project, but I hope you find plenty of inspiration! (And new faves :D) I'm so excited to see what you come up with!

[nateriverswife]

Wow, authors request of you to review their books? That's so cool!

not exactly lmao it happened once with this one specific author. under the cut the story, cuz i find it kinda funny lmao

2021, in February or so, one of my former best friends brought this book to school, thinking that I may like it. don't know if she meant it to be a gift or whatnot, but this will be important later. I started reading it in class, since we weren't doing much, and I hated every single word of it.

The MC is a female cop, that is portrayed as the only woman in the entire universe who can do anything, and everyone is in love with her, so I got the ick immediately. I read only the first few pages in which it's described the dynamic of the crime scene, which is thought to be homicide-suicide.

And those were the only pages I read for a few months, because exams got in the way.

Late June, I took my exit exam and, for reasons, I stopped talking to my ex best friend, and I started to wonder: "do I have to give her this book back?". I waited to see if she wanted it back and apparently she didn't, because I still have it.

I read the book in August 2021, during my one-month holiday in my home country, and gosh, I wanted to burn it. The plot was boring, because it shifted from a thriller to a love story between the MC and the main suspect for the crime, but she didn't even care to look for clues to see if he's guilty or not. She almost forgot that she's a cop. so, my disdain was obvious.

In December 2021, I wrote a 1.5k words review (i would link the review if i knew how and it wasn't in italian lmao), because I got fed up that I seemed to be the only one to dislike it (at that time it had almost a 4 star rating).

The main points I remember were:

- it didn’t feel like a thriller.

- the male MC seemed like a self-insert, and he was so annoying and was just saying disgusting stuff about human nature and women.

- the female MC didn't know how to be a cop and seemed there just to feed his ego.

And I left it there, not thinking too much of it.

Fast forward seven months, I got a message on goodreads from the fucking author.

He created an account just to talk to me, which left me speechless. I'm still one of the only two friends he has on that app, and he tagged a book I studied for my modern history exam as "I want to read", so okay.

He said that my review impressed him, that he has never seen someone deconstruct a book like I did and yada yada yada. basically, he asked me to read the sequel.

BUT

The funny thing is... He's a cop. I literally told a cop that he doesn't know anything about his job. I still laugh at this lmao

He sent me the sequel and I read it in August of 2022 and reviewed it (2.7k words) in December 2022. The things I said for the first book were still valid for this one; some of them were even toned up a notch, and there were new ones, like dismissing institutional racism (i mean, what do i expect from a cop) or fascism in italy (like, we have a fascist PM right now, what). anyway, it was bad,

After a few months, I had to personally contact him to let him know that I did what I was supposed to, so he wouldn’t think that I just took the book and didn’t fulfil my duties. And it’s here that he said that apparently, I was too critical to be believable, as if it’s my fault that the book sucks. Just write better books.

[lesbian-choso]

Mid-Year Book Freakout 2023

tagged by my beloved, @hauntedmoors 🫀

1. Best book you’ve read so far this year?

Probably We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. I was already familiar with her since I remember reading The Lottery in high school, but this story really blew me away. I can’t wait to tuck into more of her writing, and just in general more gothic fiction, and just the weird and freakish overall.

2. Best sequel you’ve read so far this year?

I haven’t read many novel sequels this year, and none of them stuck out so I can’t really list anything. But I would say the second saga of Chainsaw Man, as a sequel, has been a highlight.

3. New release you haven’t read yet?

I’m such a loser, I literally got A Day of Fallen Night signed in person by beloved Samantha Shannon and I still haven’t read it yet 😭😭😭

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year?

I don’t really keep up to date with upcoming releases, I just find out Somehow like through tumblr or my Goodreads mutuals, but I do know that the next Heartstopper volume is out sometime this year, so I’m looking forward to that.

5. Biggest disappointment?

I have three for this: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, Pet Sematary by Stephen King, and Vengeful by V. E. Schwab.

BtCGC was immensely boring, especially the writing — I guess you could say it’s own hype killed it for me. I heard that it was initially a play, or something along the lines of that? If so, then I think I can confidently say that with how it was written, it did not suit the medium.

Pet Sematary also disappointed me for not living up to its expectations as there’s this short section before the story starts where King basically says it’s one of his darkest stories yet and blah blah it chilled him so he had to put it away for a while before publishing it, so, obviously, I was quite excited!

But, once I actually got stuck into it, it just didn’t really stick out to me as anything special, well, at least compared to coming off reading Shawshank Redemption and ‘Salem’s Lot. Plus, ableism is quite rooted into this one so at times it just was difficult to enjoy, personally.

As for Vengeful, I felt that it was an unnecessary sequel. It didn’t add to Vicious, if anything I’d say it detracted from the overall story by following around all these new characters when what made Vicious so fun was the dynamic between Victor and Eli.

6. Biggest surprise?

I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid was quite unexpected. It wasn’t one of my favourites so far from this year, but, regardless, was a big surprise since it deviated far from my expectations.

7. Favourite new author (debut or new to you)?

Sayaka Murata. I loved Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings so I’m intrigued for any future projects of hers! It was interesting how fundamentally similar these two books, like two sides of the same coin, but told in two very different ways. Fantastic stuff.

8. Newest fictional crush/newest favourite character?

Merricat my beloved <3 (also Fami and Asa)

9. Book that made you cry?

I’ve never cried while reading soz

10. Book that made you happy?

Love & Autism by Kay Kerr. I just felt very seen reading this, being able to identify myself within the pages. It also felt special to me since for once it’s not a book about autism addressed to allistic people, it’s a book about autism, written by an autistic author, for an autistic audience.

Tagging: @swordfaery @ignorantsackofeyeballs @moodymika @sarenite (no pressure if you don’t want to do this, also if you just see this post and want to do it feel free to continue the chain)

[radley-writes]

I posted 8,300 times in 2022

That's 2,151 more posts than 2021!

373 posts created (4%)

7,927 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@vaspider

@spaceshipkat

@fragrant-stars

@thelibrarianjesser

@headspace-hotel

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#jugemu jugemu go-kō-no-surikire kaijari-suigyo no suigyō-matsu unrai-matsu fūrai-matsu kū-neru tokoro ni sumu tokoro yaburakōji no burakōji

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Hello yes I am another toothpaste pain experiencer

I am allergic to the mint flavouring in toothpaste and it is the worst

On the upside, I have discovered that watermelon flavoured toothpaste is a thing that exists, even if it is aimed at toddlers

W A T E R M E L O N T O O T H P A S T E

I have SUCH a mighty need, that sounds amazing

except uh, I would absolutely eat that stuff right out the tube

1,052 notes - Posted May 10, 2022

#4

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

I REPEAT

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

THE STRICTLY NO HEROICS (Feiwel & Friends, Macmillan Children’s, 2023) IS UP FOR PRE-ORDER!

[ID: cover of a book showing a figure in a gasmask, hoodie and gloves, leant on an old TV. A rainbow pride pin is pinned to their jacket. Text reads ‘STRICTLY NO HEROICS’ in neon pink and green, and ‘B. L. Radley’ in white.]

If you're a powerless normie in a world run by superheroes, you need three rules to survive:

1: Keep your head down

2: Don’t make enemies

3: STRICTLY NO HEROICS

When a hero gropes her best friend, Riley Jones breaks all of them.

​Her attempt at serving justice gets her fired from her summer job. Luckily, Sunnylake City’s biggest business is booming (literally, when there's C4 involved).

​Every villain wants henchmen: masked cronies who take their coffee orders, vacuum their secret lairs, and posture in the background while they fight. The HENCH agency provides a steady stream of drop-outs and losers who are willing to get beaten up by sidekicks for minimum wage.

​Riley might just be the perfect candidate.

I’ve worked so hard on this project, with an incredible team of people. And we’re getting closer to that sweet, sweet pub date (March 28, 2023)!

Any boosts would be greatly appreciated <3 Let’s give my debut some love?

If you like queer & wlw content, teenage activists organizing strikes, and superhero stories from the perspective of the civilians... this is the book for you!

Tweet!

Goodreads page!

PRE-ORDER NOW!

(If you’re short a bob but still want to get your hands on this glorious beast of a novel, consider requesting that your local library buy it! x)

2,470 notes - Posted March 22, 2022

#3

has this already been done or

2,487 notes - Posted October 22, 2022

#2

.....roe v wade being overturned is fucking horrific, but as I’ve already seen more than one grumbly ‘why are people still posting casually like nothing happened’ post, it feels like a great time to remind folks that a) performatively posting on social media is not activism and you don’t know what people are doing irl, b) not everyone is American, c) some people really mentally struggle with being surrounded 24/7 by doomposting and misery, d) not everyone is American, e) people often have sideblogs categorised by the sort of material they post, so you might not be following the place where they are posting about roe v wade, f) NOT EVERONE IS AMERICAN -

6,941 notes - Posted June 27, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

...Do you ever see people critiquing specific word usage in novels and wonder if they know that language can be used in fun and figurative ways? And that this is half the joy of writing?

An example off the top of my head - if I say ‘He gave a whisper of a smile’, it does not mean that the smile is literally whispering; it means that the word ‘whisper’ invokes a sense of smallness, due perhaps to subtlety or shyness, and that is something I want connected to your mental envisioning of this dude’s smile. 

Saying ‘But that makes no sense; a smile and a whisper are two different things’ misses the point e n t i r e l y

28,585 notes - Posted July 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[treesap-blogs]

Happy Saturday! Here’s a review of “The Outlaws Scarlett And Browne” by Jonathan Shroud!

Hello, Tumblrians! Whilst we may not be nearing our 20th Tumblr Review yet (although the combined superpowers of my depression and my ADHD may get us alarmingly close to that goal in a short period of time if I don’t exercise restraint and stick with the 3 books per week thing), it is a special occasion nonetheless! This marks my 13th review! I don’t know if any of you guys know this, but 13 is my favorite number!!! (I like the supernatural/superstitious connotations with it. Mysterious!) (and partially out of spite, I like to think of it as lucky. Not that we’ll need that for this review, anyhow.)

Anyhow! Time for my personal favorite section, presumably your least favorite: 💫Book Backstory Time💫, the segment in which I explain how I encountered a book, a la Blob Of Text On A Recipe Before The Actual Recipe! I found out about it from Mellowkotto’s stories on Instagram, particularly when they talked about the bank robbery scene at the beginning. For some reason that was enough to sell it to me(which is so funny, because they just talked about liking Scarlett), and I ended up talking about the book to my mom because I’d put it on my notes app TBR. Didn’t catch onto why she asked at least twice or thrice for the title despite her only reading nonfiction books, but she messaged my mildly rich grandfather who gets my brother and I annual Christmas gifts, and swear I remember I opened up a December 2021 Christmas present to find it inside! (Goodreads lists a different release date for that?! Maybe it’s just the UK version or something, I live in the U.S. and it probably was put out at a different time. Plus, my copy has a different cover than the one I put under my “Read” folder/shelf.) I read the first fifty or so pages that night by the light of a Skittles-scented candle, and got to 100 or so by the end of winter before being a little burnt out and stopping. That was before I had a consistent reading schedule, though! Once I got one in 2022, I read a bit further until I forgot about it in my reading queue that was full of library books(literally the only reason I read fast haha), until I basically cleared that up this year and finished it! So it has technically taken me over a year to read this book. Lovely.

The Outlaws Scarlett And Browne is the first in a trilogy(only 2 books are out at the moment), following young adult crook Scarlett McCain. She’s on the run after committing a bank heist(which is slightly unusual for her because the stakes brought on by being chased by the law after just robbing a small bank are weirdly high?), and whilst doing so she encounters a boy around her age named Albert Browne. How did he end up the only remaining person in a bus that got completely totaled? Scarlett doesn’t know. But he tags along, and whilst they flee from the law through the woods, it seems like Albert’s hiding a lot of things from her. Is he a threat? Is he as he seems? What even is he hiding that makes officials so eager to catch him, and why is he wanted? Again, Scarlett doesn’t know. But she’s about to find out when they hesitantly form an alliance of sorts that develops into a friendship.

To be honest, I knew nothing about Jonathan Stroud until I picked up this book. Lockwood & Co., while not being his debut series, was by far his most popular (and no longer has a niche audience now that the Netflix series is out), and that’s kind of all I knew about? Ghost stuff and teens. And before that there was a different series that flipped magical realm morals on their head, and got him in the public eye(Barthemius, was it called? Some distinctly European fantasy name like that). So that set a lot of peoples’ expectations for this book very high, and many believed it didn’t deliver on that because it wasn’t as strong or original as some of his other works. I can’t comment on it that much, as I have no other works of his I can go off of, but I do think the overall world just doesn’t stick out for me.

Firstly! The plot, while interesting, didn’t really have anything I was all too surprised by. It felt like other things I’d find in other novels: a heavy reliance on “biological perfection” and the extreme lengths went to preserve that(albeit they were barely shown for this book, only mentioned frequently and remaining a looming threat), futuristic European setting (divided England was an interesting concept though, and London being split up into the islands for the refugees to inhabit), guy with secret dangerous powers that are probably enough for the FMC to worry about if their motives are unclear. (Here though, Maroon’s dynamic—the ship name for Albert and Scarlett, get it because scarlet and brown(e) make maroon—is left up to interpretation as to whether it’s strictly platonic, or a romantic thing, something worth nothing because that last bit is usually something an FMC is drawn to in a romantic subplot.) It was also simultaneously the first and not the first fantasy dystopia-ish novel I’ve read?! (I started it a year before The Belles, but finished it afterwards.)

With that said, though, there was one welcome change of pace I enjoyed: the lack of gender stereotypes with our main characters? While Scarlett faces some sexism during the book, her femininity isn’t used as a way to paint her out to be “less than”, nor is she automatically reduced to a “Not Like Other Girls” archetype by putting other women down for being “too girly”(something that might happen, with an action heroine written by a straight male author). Albert was also one of my favorites!! He’s unashamedly that person who posts about “haters being jealous of his childlike wonder”(please don’t take this literally it’s a meme reference, social media does not exist in TOSAB lmao), but then he..sometimes kills people too lmao?!?! Morally reprehensible ones, granted, but he’s still doing it with his volatile abilities and it does get suspicious the sheer number of foes trying to track him down(which is due to his abilities, he can make things go ka-bloom if he gets too scared, and he can also read minds without the tiring emotional outtake). I loved his duality as it was humorous at times, and that he was written to be more like a young adult than a stereotypically “guyish” or “manly” deuteragonist. 

(Shoutout to Joe though, for trusting Albert with Ettie because he’s good with kids, even though he has abilities that could accidentally kill her, and not trusting Scarlett with her because she’s not good with kids even though she’s just some powerless person who’d have to put physical effort into harming Ettie lmao. Saw a reader point out the irony in that, though it was funny in hindsight.)

Him and Scarlett were solid protagonists, too! It took a bit for Scarlett to warm up to Albert, but by the end of the book they cared a lot about each other, and it was sweet to see that both in how glad they were the other person was still alive, and how Albert took a page out of Scarlett’s book and was inspired to stand up against Dr Calloway(the scientist who’d been abusing him for years). (Heck, the two even decided to briefly take care of their companion’s granddaughter together! The moment in that sketchy building where they’re trying to calm down Ettie and lead her back to the boat so she doesn’t get eaten by monsters is my favorite part.) They also had distinctive personalities, which contrasted in a way that made their dynamic interesting. Their banter was interesting! (I giggled a few times but Scarlett definitely went a bit too far in some of her insults before she warmed up to Albert, like..girlie was out of left field once in the book particularly, and I think people who’ve read it will know when💀)

Anyways. Conclusion is, I thought this book was okay. Had I not been brought here by a pre-established Shroudverse fan, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much! About 1/3rd through, I relied on the guidance of My Chemical Romance’s music in order to give me motivation to reach the halfway point. Perhaps Shroud’s other books are stronger in themes and plot, but at least the characters stuck. (I’ll give that to him, he can write MC dynamics well.)

Book rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 stars. (This rating’s a versatile one, I’ve realized? Some 3 star books are mediocre, others are enjoyable but lack a few things to make them amazing.)

~Paz, signing off!

(Book content/trigger warnings: Some instances of physical/emotional abuse,  frequent mentions of ableism and slavery(the latter is not racial and isn’t described on page), general violence like guns and a bit of blood, sexism/misogyny.)

[edhelwen1]

I posted 1,447 times in 2022

That's 468 more posts than 2021!

255 posts created (18%)

1,192 posts reblogged (82%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@spoonyglitteraunt

@sleepymccoy

@bixbythemartian

@holycatsandrabbits

@cassieoh

I tagged 1,377 of my posts in 2022

Only 5% of my posts had no tags

#art - 293 posts

#literally me - 289 posts

#guitar - 197 posts

#update - 196 posts

#learning - 193 posts

#my songs - 187 posts

#assassins! accidental matchmakers - 135 posts

#comic - 72 posts

#good omens - 58 posts

#pinkpiggy93 - 58 posts

Longest Tag: 131 characters

#he likes to hang out with siobhan and mei because they will each talk about their interests and never stop the others from doing it

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Guitar update: in a groove

I played my songs today. I really love them.

I also tried to play the last book I was given for Christmas; Songs of the 2000s. This book is MASSIVE. Like... My music stand cannot handle its size. (Insert innuendo?) So I decided that I would not play it today.

I just didn't have the spoons.

I'll try again tomorrow.

I played more songs from my app.

I really need to learn how to do a bar. My fingers just don't want to, and so many chords require it.

Oh, I thought you might like to see my capo.

See the full post

32 notes - Posted January 5, 2022

#4

Book Cover Reveal!

I am beyond thrilled to introduce you to the book that my husband @ericdesmarais​ and I wrote last year (2021). Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers is an urban fantasy romance, and it will be available in bookstores (and e-bookstores) September 15, 2022!! You can pre-order it now. Here’s the link to its Goodreads page, in case that helps.

When we got the contract for the book, there was only one artist that I wanted for the cover. I was extremely nervous asking, but gathered my courage and I’m so glad I did.

We asked the incredible artist @pinkpiggy93​ to draw the cover for us, and we were absolutely blown away by her work. So much so that I’ve asked her to do the cover for the spin-off that I wrote that will be coming out in spring 2023.

Without further ado, here is the cover:

Summary: 

Kennedy Fairfield just graduated in the class of 2002, and is now trying to find her purpose in life, or at least a job in her field. When she saves Jason Johnson, the leader of a secret Community of supernatural people called Aetherborn, from an attempted assassination, they embark on a whirlwind epic romance and adventure.

For Kennedy and Jason to discover why people are disappearing in time to save her friends, they'll have to face teleporting assassins, grumpy wizards, gossiping hags, mafia robots, and secret military groups, all in the city of Westmeath, Ontario, which has more secrets than residents.

The first book of four in The Gates of Westmeath series.

I hope you’re as excited as I am about the upcoming release of this book! If you are, please share this post, pre-order it from your local bookstore, tell your libraries, and vote for it on the Goodreads lists!

Here are the links to pinkpiggy93's socials and Patreon:

- Instagram link: http://www.instagram.com/pinkpiggy93

- Tumblr link: https://pinkpiggy93.tumblr.com

- Patreon link: http://www.Patreon.com/pinkpiggy93

You can follow our blog JenEric Designs for further updates, and scroll through the tags for more information on the book. Feel free to AMA!

42 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

#3

Hello, my name is...

And I'm addicted to Heartstopper.

No, I don't want to be cured, thank you very much.

I made these hair clips.

Heartstopper leaves with Nick and Charlie's greeting.

See the full post

91 notes - Posted August 7, 2022

#2

Most meet-cutes don't include assassins. Most love stories don't involve becoming a superhero. Then again, Westmeath isn't like most cities.

Kennedy Fairfield just graduated in the class of 2002, and is now trying to find her purpose in life, or at least a job in her field. When she saves Jason Johnson, the leader of a secret Community of supernatural people called Aetherborn, from an attempted assassination, they embark on a whirlwind epic romance and adventure.

For Kennedy and Jason to discover why people are disappearing in time to save her friends, they'll have to face teleporting assassins, grumpy wizards, gossiping hags, mafia robots, and secret military groups, all in the city of Westmeath, Ontario, which has more secrets than residents.

The first book of four in The Gates of Westmeath series.

Physical copy: https://49thshelf.com/Books/A/Assassins!-Accidental-Matchmakers

Ebook: https://books2read.com/u/mv1e0z

Cover art by @pinkpiggy93

192 notes - Posted September 14, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

What's that book, next to The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood in Chapters, Indigo?

Oh, just the book Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers by me and my husband @ericdesmarais !!

You can get your copy here!! https://49thshelf.com/Books/A/Assassins!-Accidental-Matchmakers

Cover by @pinkpiggy93

197 notes - Posted September 17, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[astrophyta]

Reading rambles?

so uh I’ve been among other things catching up on a very long to-read list of fiction that’s sitting in my apartment cluttering my space up and I do kinda want to just talk about some of the reads to the void instead of on a platform like goodreads so that’s what this tag will be for, I suppose? my reading speed is pretty slow so these won’t be frequent

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

This book has a pretty bad rep for being preachy about climate change amongst a lot of reviews I’ve seen, but tbh with the exception of maybe one scene I read last night where Ovid has an Ecology Professor Meltdown in front of a newsreporter who felt more like a caricature the second time around than in her first appearance, I have to say I disagree, and the aforementioned scene is probably my biggest gripe with the book so far (with less than 40 pages to go, though).

A lot of people do not like Dellarobia either. She is emotionally cheating on her husband for the majority of the work, the novel opening with her attempt to flee her family life to go be with some younger guy she doesn’t seem to know very well. No one has to like a character, even when their flaws are addressed and fleshed out and the author makes no excuses for them, but for me Dellarobia’s response to her lot in life makes perfect sense even if it isn’t pretty or likable. She was smart and curious enough to have gone to college, something unheard of in her small hometown, but she got knocked up by her now-husband and failed her ACT. Her parents are both dead and had very little money to their name despite her mother (iirc) running a successful business of making and mending clothes in town. Her husband’s family are farmers. Until meeting Dr. Byron, she is a stay-at-home mom pinching and scraping pennies to feed her family and literally keep the lights on. It is due to an ecological disaster that she is given her first job, one that pays more than what her husband makes - serving as a lab technician for a make-shift research group operating out of her family’s barn, the best spot in town to be close to an unusual phenomenon of a monarch butterfly migration wintering in tennessee when they would normally be in mexico.

Dellarobia loves her children. she tries her best to love her husband. she plays wife, daughter-in-law, and mother as best as she can, but she knows her life is also the result of a mistake she made as a teenager and that it might not have been so hard if she hadn’t made that mistake. you can come to love another person despite these truths, but this is not enough to surmount the chasm between her and Cub. so, her eye wanders, and she indulges in her delusions of these feelings being reciprocated, not because she truly knows these men well enough to love them but because it is a distraction from the disappointment she feels from her own life. it’s not pretty, it’s unlikable, but I find Kingsolver’s portrayal of Dellarobia to be very honest, and I appreciate when authors are not too afraid to write women like her.

I also feel like there’s so many ways that you can write about Dellarobia that this brief summary feels so grossly inadequate to convey all of the different roles and expectations she deals with in her community and from outside of it. Kingsolver handles these tensions beautifully. She is a celebrated and accomplished author who I had honestly never heard of before picking up this book from a neighborhood little library box while on a pandemic walk three years ago. I consider it serendipitous.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Now this book is highly acclaimed, and despite a rough start for me initially, I consider myself no exception to the hype. It is well-deserved.

I’m reading this as an audiobook and still have about half the book to go, so it’s not yet time to write at-length about it, but Zevin already accomplishes so much in the first half that I’m on my toes thinking about how long she will keep us with Sadie, Marks, and Sam. Also, I am convinced that it is not possible to read this book and not get an itch to delve into game development yourself. I’ve seen a couple of tutorials for creating very very simple games with python on freecodecamp’s youtube channel, and I was interested in those before even touching this book but now I’m like…is it too late for me? Maybe I’ll make a game too when I’m 60 and retired.

Misc. other reads

I started a third genshin account for a lore post I wanted to make (my zhongli sq 2 screenshots are lacking, also just need an interactive refresher) and so I’ve been passing the time grinding by listening to audiobooks. I listened to Broadband: the Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans, which was wonderful and illuminating. I also listened to Life in Code: A Personal History by my programming idol Ellen Ullman. She has the most compelling argument against AI and machines as analogous to the biological (and vice-versa) that I’ve seen, of course illustrated through a history of her domestic companion Sadie, her cat. I was making my way through Artificial Intelligence by Melanie Mitchell, but the book lends itself better to reading a physical copy rather than passively listening while playing a video game. It utilizes a lot of diagrams to illustrate its points, and it expects you to view these diagrams as supplemental pdf’s delivered with the book as you listen to it. Nope, not for me. But I was thoroughly enjoying it before deciding to put it on-hold.

[akorah]

hi akorah in response to that ask you reblogged, the thing is, the "Graphic Depictions of Violence" could be anything from a character saying the saw someone being murder, to literal, extensive, detailed descriptions of gore. it the fic isn't tagged as such, the reader is only going to know in which side of the "Graphic Depictions of Violence" spectrum the fic falls, after reading something they wish they shouldn't. I mean, ppl are going to do as they please anyway, it's just my 2 cents.

Hello!! You're absolutely correct that Graphic Depictions of Violence covers a vast range of scenarios. What struck me with the original anon was they said that putting a warning in the author's note at the beginning of the chapter isn't enough. In my opinion, If a fic has Graphic Depictions of Violence or Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, then I think putting the warnings in the author's notes is a perfectly acceptable middle ground. At that point, it's on me, the reader, if I skip over the author's note and miss the warning.

You're also totally correct that authors are going to tag how they please, which means we readers need to be aware of the archive warnings when we start a story. Yes, the author may use the tag for something fairly banal, or it may be for something traumatizing. If you're concerned about a fic that seems to be light on tags, I would caution readers to take the same steps you would when reading a regular novel--chat with friends, see if there's a Goodreads page, reach out to a blog like dramioneasks or AccioTheomione, etc., to get some feedback first.

Also, I would advise to pay attention to the authors themselves. I know there are authors I refuse to read because they didn't tag/severely mishandled sensitive subjects that would have fallen under the Graphic Depictions of Violence tag. It's worth noting, however, that when I brought up my gripe with a fandom friend who read the same story, my friend was completely unbothered by it. Something that was viscerally shocking to me was totally blase to someone else. There is that scenario to consider as well.

I appreciate your 2 cents, and I hope my perspective makes sense.

[knittingnightgaunt]

So I'll start with admitting I pretty much bought this book because the author follows me on twitter as part the Writers tag, and they said something nice about a very small excerpt I shared from my own work. (Not published).

They seem to be a really charming person and they have some lovely reviews on both Goodreads and Amazon...

And I am definitely not one of them. 

I really wanted to be. I was rooting for this author's book to be really awesome and I... I got about 33% in on my kindle and couldn't finish. 

The deal breaker I think was when I was checking for other reviews on Good Reads and one of the reviewers noted that the characters -do not change- but expressed how that was ok because they were likable. Except they kind of aren't?

Kyan is pleasant enough I guess in a sort of 'bumbling savant' way, but it grated within about five repetitions that EVERY damn female is referred to as a 'damsel'. The side character we have picked up along with the princess has to remind us every few pages that "Women don't -x-." "Women can't -y-."

The princess herself is even guilty of this sort of... dismissal of women's ability to do literally anything except heal and marry or get rescued. We first meet her running through woods she has SUPPOSEDLY been in repeatedly (enough we later find out she has a cache of food in a safe zone from the fiends that are apparently a problem there) but apparently in spite of all of this she's doing it all in courtly dress and somehow no one is noticing.  

The king in the country Kyan is FROM has one son... and ten daughters... none of whom, or even the queen, are apparently fit to step in when the son is magically turned evil by a 'black' weapon and tries to kill his father. They ARE however apparently totally qualified to act as nurse maids even though they LITERALLY apparently can't do anything else. 

Our visiting wayward princess keeps being implied to be competent, but somehow never competent enough that she doesn't need help -with. every. single. thing-. 

Apparently there are fiends and archangels, but the archangels have been missing since this big war where the black weapons were SUPPOSED to have all been stashed safely, and Kyan DEFINITELY doesn't have anything to do with them... except for the fact that at one point we see his eyes glow during a fight where he's almost overwhelmed and then later on he takes like... five of these darts that supposedly instantly corrupt you to be chaotic evil and eventually turn you into a fiend yourself... but he just gets a booboo.

 NO ONE REMARKS ON THIS. NO ONE. NOT even the princess who literally watches this happen. She knows the nature of these weapons. She is not even REMOTELY phased by this trait that apparently makes him immune to what -no one else is immune to-.

 It feels like we're getting all these hints but since literally no one reacts to them, they never get built on, and if I see the word 'damsel' one more time I may -actually throw the kitchen table-.

I kind of feel unreasonable for reaching this point on a book I really really wanted to like, but I'm curious to know if anyone else feels that way. Anyone want to spend three bucks and report back?

[natalieironside]

Hey Natalie, I was wondering if you had any guides you used for self publishing? I've written like..... 2 and a half kissing books and I'm considering publishing them for fun and profit 😳 if not nbd, I am proficient in google, I just have trouble figuring out how much of that grind mentality is actually important.

I'm mostly blundering my way through this myself, but I'll give it a shot.

No matter what anybody tells you: Once you've written the book and cleaned it up for publication, the hard part's over. My sales as a self-pub author of extremely niche fiction are already way higher than I expected, and none of the work I've put into marketing has been half as much time or effort as actually creating the thang dings.

If you have the money, hire an editor. The Last Girl Scout was a self-edit (on account of I didn't and don't have the money), and while I am still very happy with it, it's nowhere near the book it could've been as a consequence--as many Goodreads reviewers will tell you.

I also recommend hiring a formatter. You can do your own formatting if you're like a nerd who knows about computers and stuff, but it's a lot of work and not everybody has that skill set. Also, like with editing, it is very very easy to overlook mistakes when it's your own work your dealing with. Here I'm gonna plug @kodyboye, who's formatted all the stuff I've sent to print and does excellent work (also fast as hell; iirc he had like 24-hour turnaround on the typescript of TLGS, which is a 600-page leviathan).

Once you've got your formatted files and cover art (which is a whole 'nother kettle of worms that I do not feel qualified to get into, I have An Associate who handles that for me), self-pub is as easy as hitting a button if you use Amazon KDP or as easy as hitting 3 or 4 more buttons if you use another service. Then you'll have a book and you'll be like "Wtf I'm an author."

(note on the above: Do not fuck w/ any service that asks you for money. Pay-to-play publishing services are 100% a scam; a publisher or publishing service asking an author to pay them is literally the same thing as your boss making you pay to come to work)

As for marketing: If you don't have the budget for paid promotions (which I don't and I'm assuming most ppl reading this don't), the best thing you can do is to Be A Person On The Internet. I'm lucky b/c I'd already developed a not-insignificant following from being a weird nerd Tumblr shitposter before I had to make a book happen, but you can speedrun that by just being generally active on your blog. In addition to whatever your regular blog content is, post samples of your work, talk about your creative process, be ready to talk about your books A Lot even on those days when it feels like nobody else is, and follow tags like #writeblr and #bookblr. (I'm also gonna tag in @thebibliosphere who is an A+ Tumblr follow and way better at this game than me)

I also very recommend joining a trade organization; I've been a member of the Horror Writers Association for a little over a year now and it's pretty great being automatically plugged into a network of other ppl in the industry.

And for broader-scope industry networking w/ people who are also very very invested in Writers Getting Paid For Their Work, I encourage (that is: beg) everybody who's even thinking about putting pen to paper to join the Freelance Journalists Union:

Hope this helps <3

[kimabutch]

So I'm thinking about giving audio books a try since podcasts have turned out to work really well for me while I drive for work. As a fan of Gideon and generally woman-led queer sff are there any in particular you'd suggest?

Oh man, yes! Queer SFF audiobooks is most of what I listen to, and some of my favourite of those books that have women leads are:

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson: bi wlw protagonist, wlw & nonbinary side characters; features dimension-hopping, flirting with your coworker, and discussions of systemic racism & classism. Special shoutout for the audiobook narrator, Nicole Lewis, who does some amazing work here.

The Teixcalaan series (A Memory Called Empire, A Desolation Called Peace) by Arkady Martine: wlw protagonists & bi mlm major side character; features high-stakes space diplomacy, poetry & linguistics nerdery, and the aching pain of loving a culture that seeks to destroy yours.

The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood: lesbian protagonist, mlm & wlw side characters, both gay & bi; features gay orc assassins, the long-term effects of childhood religious trauma, and mlm/wlw hostility-or-is-it-actually-friendship. Another shoutout to the narrator Avita Jay for a fantastic performance.

The Tensorate series (The Black Tides of Heaven, The Red Threads of Fortune, The Descent of Monsters, The Ascent to Godhood) by Neon Yang: all but the first novella have a wlw protagonist, and there's literally too much other queer rep to name; features twin sibling relationships made complicated by the fact that one of you can prophecy and also you have a crush on the same man and you haven't heard of polyamory yet, a steampunk revolution against the magical empire, and wlw lovers to the most badass enemies you'll ever encounter.

The Unbroken by CL Clark: lesbian & bi wlw protagonists with other wlw side characters; features open thirsting over a butch sword lesbian's muscles, incredibly nuanced discussions of the generational trauma of colonialism and the difficulties of having been raised away from your own culture, and characters who make a lot of mistakes for reasons that totally make sense to them but you're still yelling at them to stop.

You can find more stuff in my #book adventures tag and my Goodreads page (where I note what the queer rep is for each book) but that should be good to get you started! I particularly recommend The Unspoken Name and The Unbroken if you're a big fan of the sword jock wlw/magic nerd wlw pairing of The Locked Tomb, The Space Between Worlds for brash and honest narration like Gideon's, and the Teixcalaan series if you really liked the space politics elements of TLT. That leaves the Tensorate series, which I'm just legally obligated to recommend cause it's so good.

[mediawhorefics]

Hello! I saw your tag about “you can be both” reading fics and books and how? Because since I started to read fics in 2020, I only read one back and it was in 2021🤦🏻‍♀️ Can you give us some tips or something? Because there are so many books I want to read but now it’s like easy to read fics but idk, nothing makes sense lmao

omg yes i can ABSOLUTELY give you some tips because as a huge reader who lost a lot of interest in reading original fiction for a while, i worked hard to nourish my love of reading and get back into it.

a little background info: back when i was doing an English lit degree, i was reading all the Classics (which was interesting from a ~learning about literature pov but not from a 'i'm having fun reading' pov ....) for uni and it was a LOT of reading yk? and while i'd be lying if i said i read all the assigned stuff, i did my fair share. none of it was really me reading for pleasure though. and in my time off, i read fics cos that was easier to get into/didn't require as much digging to find what i liked. it was more lighthearted. etc etc.

but at one point i realised i hadn't read a novel for pleasure in years and as someone who ALWAYS described herself as a huuuuuge reader, that really fucking bothered me. so here's a few things i did/do to boost my ~reading original fiction stats.

1. take the time to think about what you like to read & to find the right book

just like fics, there's a lot of choices and there's no point trying to read award-winning novels/the books everyone are talking about if it's not something you're normally interested in. for me, that meant leaning into the fic thing. i thought about what kind of fics i liked reading and why (fun lighthearted romance + queer rep were two reasons) and i tried to look for books that had similar vibes. that meant looking into the romance genre, which i'd never been a big reader of before, and into lgbt+ fiction (both adult and ya). and i found lots of fun stuff that way. i als went back to my first loves: fantasy and historical fiction. i looked into what had been published recently, what was popular, what lots of queer people around me were reading, what movies/shows i had liked were adapted from books, and what other books were recommended a lot alongside those, etc....

2. find people who read a lot whose opinions you trust/who have similar taste to yours and check out what they've been reading

i was following a few blogs of big readers at the time so i tried a few of their favs and once i realised which my taste was most aligned with, i kept a close eye on their recommendations (and still do for a few of my key favs!)..... it can be tumblr bloggers, twitter people, people on booktok or booktube, writers you enjoy, hell you favourite actor/musician who shares their reading lists............ it doesn't really matter. but keeping engaged in the conversation is one of the biggest motivators for me! i keep seeing people talk about cool books and i'm always adding to my tbr pile and that keeps me turning the pages haha.

3. give yourself a challenge!

ok this might not work for everyone but i like the idea of focusing my reading on one contained challenge. i do a goodreads challenge every year with a goal of x books each year ofc, but that's not quite what i'm talking about here. i'm talking about how, in 2019, i decided i was gonna make a huge dent into my tbr pile by banning rereads for the whoooooole year. (i'm BIG guilty of rereading. i enjoy it so very much). it was great and it was hard (all i wanted to do was reread ofc because it was forbidden!!!) and it allowed me to discover lots of new favourites and read things that i had meant to for literally years. this year, i decided i want to try and read more Classic Queer Literature (started with brokeback mountain and now i've just moved on to angels in america). stuff like maurice and a single man and the price of salt, etc. maybe you could try and read ten books written by women of colour, or ten books from ten countries you've always wanted to visit, or five biographies, etc etc. it kinda makes it easier to chose what to read next and it's fun! there's a toooon of preexisting challenges online too so if you don't really know, googling will give you a bunch of lists you can base yourself on.

4. mix it up with the length/medium

this is a big one for me! sometimes i find it hard to focus (between *gestures vaguely at the world*) on big novels so i like to mix it up and read a few comics in a row. maybe a poetry book. or a few plays. things that can be read super quickly and give you a sense of accomplishment. when you haven't read a lot in a long time, the feeling of beginning and finishing a book is pretty satisfactory, so giving yourself a chance with shorter novels/shorter stuff, is totally fair game IMO. esp. as you ease back into it.

5. have a daily goal.

ok this is the big big big one for me..... with my mentally ill brain being what it is, at some point, i had to Force Myself to read. esp. during quarantine since i felt soooooooo blurgh. and now it's part of my daily habit and i wouldn't go back. i've done it differently over the years. sometimes i'll do 15 min. of reading a day (either in the morning or before bed).... and lately i've done reading one chapter per day! and i don't go to bed until i've done it. it's just as part of my routine as brushing my teeth. (just looked at my habit tracker app and i've done the 1 chapter per day thing for 188 days since i started tracking it.) and that really helps me. it's a small enough goal that it's totally doable every day and it really adds up over time. and when the book is good, sometimes one chapter turns into five lmao.

6. audiobooks ?

this isn't exactly one that works for me since i can't focus on books i've never read on audio BUT i know it works for lots of people so i thought i'd mention it. listening to audiobooks while going through the motions of life can be a great hack! while you do daily chores, or while you commute, or on your lunch break.... you can be reading a book through someone else reading it to you. and it totally counts, so!

sooo, it's not a lot but hopefully, that helps a bunch ??? ?

[serendistudy]

end of the year reading tag

i was tagged by @bulletnotestudies and @the---hermit 💖💖

Did you reach your reading goal for the year (if you had one)?

i had a goal of 20 books and i read 25 books so yes i did!!

What are your top 3 books you read this year?

the house in the cerulean sea by tj klune, crooked kingdom by leigh bardugo and the starless sea by erin morgenstern (or the night circus, i literally can't choose ajdkfjfjfjf)

What's a book that you didn't expect to enjoy quite so much going in?

la belle sauvage by philip pullman was definitely one of those! i didn't really have any expectations because it's a prequel and i was scared it might not be that good but i ended up enjoying it a lot!

Were there any books that didn't live up to your expectations?

not really, no

Did you reread any old faves? If so, which one was your favourite?

i reread a few moomin books and i think my favourite was moominpappa at sea, it's very melancholy and beautiful. i also reread the fellowship of the ring

Did you dnf any books?

i think the only one i dnf was an ember in the ashes, i just couldn't get into it, maybe i wasn't in the right mood for it and i might give it another chance at some point

Did you read any books outside your usual preferred genre(s)?

i read the complete collection of the calvin and hobbes comics! i haven't read comics in ages

What was your predominant format this year?

physical, but i did also listen to a few audiobooks

What's the longest book you read this year?

according to goodreads it's the complete calvin and hobbes collection which was over 1400 pages lol

What are your top 3 anticipated 2022 releases?

i don't really know tbh, i think the only one that comes to mind is the last book in the series "the last hours" which is apparently coming out in november 2022

What books from your tbr did you not get to this year, but are excited to read in 2022?

loveless by alice oseman and before the coffee gets cold by toshikazu kawaguchi

i'm tagging @sensiteave @problematicprocrastinator and everyone from knife gang who hasn't done this yet!!