Hi! I am no longer precisely new to tumblr but I’m still settling in. (I feel like this is reasonable to put in a pinned post because it will probably be true for a while.) (OK it’s been a few years, I’m probably settled in now!) I made a tumblr because I wanted to talk to people about books; mostly I use it to reblog other people’s things about books, but hey.
I do occasionally (and fairly arbitrarily) post about specific books in a more organized form, under my #some things about: tag. I try to do a books of the month post every month (unimaginatively, #books of the month). ETA: more regular, but still arbitrarily timed, posts with thoughts about my latest few reads can be found under my tag #some things about some books
Sometimes I write. Sometimes I reblog photos of boats. It’s tumblr, there are no rules here. Enjoy!
Well this has been a month. I don't even know what to say about it, really. My dog, Willow, was diagnosed with cancer on the 5th, so that's just been looming over everything this month. I'm very tired and very sad.
Books Read: 6
Not the greatest reading month, but at least there were two 5 star reads. And A Life for a Life is currently my favorite book of the year so far! My least favorite was All That Consumes Us. YA dark academia just doesn't work for me, I've decided.
The Way It Haunted Him by Laura R. Samotin - 3 stars
How the Story Goes by Andrew Forrester - 4.5 stars
The Bluestockings: A History of the First Women's Movement by Susannah Gibson - 5 stars
All That Consumes Us by Erica Waters - 2.5 stars
A Life for a Life by Dinah Mulock Craik - 5 stars
The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes by Janet Malcolm - 3 stars
On Tumblr:
Yeah, there's not a whole lot here...
April 2025 Wrap Up
Tagged: Which of my favorite TV shows is your favorite?
On YouTube:
But there's stuff here, so it's okay! (We won't talk about the lack of On the Blog section...)
The Elizabeth Gaskell Project | Cranford
April Wrap Up | 10 books!
Reading First Chapters | Do I want to read or unhaul these 17 books?
The Off the Shelf Tag
The Books I've Not Read Tag
Currently Reading 5/18/26 & A Life Update
March to May Book Haul!
June TBR/Pile of Possibilities
How Many of The Guardian's 100 Best Novels of All Time Have I Read?
I was at the library waiting in line to print a clean copy of a scene, as one does, and this book was literally face out at eye level, so I thought "...yeah, sure, there's a chapter about querying in there, might as well" (because while I have a query letter writing book on my shelf, it was published in 2008, and this one came out last year--perhaps the times have changed, all that).
I was anticipating only reading that single chapter, but then the Introduction was titled "The Art of Losing Is Hard as Fuck to Master" and proceeded to come for my jugular Over and Over and Over again, and then the first chapter was called "Confidence is Performance: And How to Do It," which also came for my jugular, and so I accidentally wound up reading the whole book instead.
Great news: Goode is hilarious and Altogether Too Relatable (I suspect all writers really are basically the same, given the craft books I've read this year)(a Representative Quote, from the intro: "even though I was, in my own current estimation, a no-talent garbage fire destined for a life of broke, bitter obscurity"), and also deeply practical. Most of this book was very oriented toward the business side of writing (like it says on the tin!), but the introduction and the last chapter, aptly titled "Break Glass In Case of Emergency: The Fire Extinguishers of Emotional Regulation That Every Writer Needs," were some of the most honest and down-to-earth takes on craft and success and failure that I've read in a long time.
In short: I was not expecting to cry at the end of a book categorized "Business--Writing," but Here We Are™.
If you've done any amount of research about pitching/querying/etc., the long-form fiction chapter might not be super helpful--I've tried this querying rodeo a couple times, so the stuff in here was a good refresher but nothing New new. The nitty gritty of pitching shorter pieces and proposals and such was new and interesting to me, but not quite what I need right now. Those first chapters and last chapter, though, absolutely made this read worth it for me. I did literally laugh out loud and also cry and also also snap increasingly unhinged commentary to my friends.
You can read most if not all of the intro on the Big River's website as the "free sample," and if you vibe with that, I definitely recommend picking this up! Felt like it could be in conversation with Stephen Marche's ON WRITING AND FAILURE, which I also recommend.
Ha!!! I finally read More Fiction!! It's only taken me *checks egg timer* three (3) months,
Anyway! This was the Month of Bot, and also the Month of Read As Many Of My AAPI Authors As Possible, and I finished three (3) tricky scenes of my revision project (with a jumpstart on a fourth!) and wrote some sanity-saving side quest material! Good birthday month, I think :)
Reviews linked!:
THE MURDERBOT DIARIES + PLATFORM DECAY ★★★★★ Best beloved series! I was delighted that PLATFORM DECAY narrowed the scope back down from A Planet to a micro-subset of #MyHumans. I cackled. A Lot. Liked this one more than SYSTEM COLLAPSE (not as much as NETWORK EFFECT)(NE is my Very Favorite).
THE LANGUAGE OF LIARS ★★★★ Loved Huang's first novella enough to preorder subsequent releases, started here because aliens and language and translation and spies. Very good. If you liked the idea of Kuang's BABEL but thought the treatment was lackluster, try this instead. (If you enjoyed BABEL, as I did, definitely try this!)
HAIR ON FIRE ★★★★ Afghan women poets for this month's Poetry Quest installment! Very much poetry in exile; appreciated the introduction for context (other volumes in this series haven't had intros lol). Favorites were Mahbouba Ibrahmi, Mariam Meetra, and Nadia Anjuman.
THE WATER OUTLAWS ★★★½ I was daisychaining my Huangs, yes. Genderbent queer-friendly wuxia retelling of an old Chinese novel. Started kind of slow, picked way the heck up.
THE CHOSEN AND THE BEAUTIFUL ★★★★ Daisy(ahaha)chaining my retellings, too, apparently. Gatsby! Jordan Baker style! Immigrant! Queer! Fantasy! Vo nails the atmosphere and the vibe--the source material absolutely could have benefited from literal magic, yeah.
THE KILLING SPELL ★★★★ One of my bonus side quests this year is Try To Read New Things As They Enter My House Ish, and I've had this one on preorder for a while! More language magic! Hawaiian this time! Vaguely post-apoc. Was pleased by the bonus Russian.
PITCH CRAFT ★★★★★ Impulse grab at the library, AKA the best place to impulse grab things. Goode is hilarious and All Writers Are Just Like That™, I Guess. Was not expecting to cry at the end of a writing/business book, but here we are. (Books that make me cry get 5 stars almost automatically.)
THE HAUNTED BOOKSTORE ★★★½ Cute! Fun! Just enough heart crimes to keep me engaged! I don't usually read manga (so please don't take this as a qualified stamp of approval lol, I don't go here), but I liked these a lot. Perfect for writing project vibes, too :)
ANNA AKHMATOVA - 117/942 pages read. Made it through Evening! Scribbled a bunch of fragments in my notebook (short example: "Getting drunk on the sound of a voice/That resembles yours" (96) like ma'am please--). I do appreciate how massive the text in this book is, that makes it much less daunting.
I'm...about a month behind where I hoped to be for Revisions (I can't decide if it is Helpful or Maladaptive that I have month benchmarks flagged on my scene card whiteboard; I definitely finished "April" earlier last week), and I'm back to a Big Stretch Where Everything Needs To Be Rewritten lol. Also! Turns out! I gotta have my submission for critique put together and sent by the end of July, which. Does somewhat accelerate pieces of my timeline, yes. (Oops.) I have knitted so little this year, you have no idea. However! We persevere!! If you hear a writer howling in the distance, don't worry about it, they're just time-crunched and resenting the time-suck of the dayjob.
Under the Cut: How I Conceptualize ~*★Stars★*~
★ - This was Bad. I would actively recommend that you do NOT read this one, no redeeming qualities whatsoever, not worth the slog. Save Yourself, It's Too Late For Me. Book goes in the garbage (donate bin).
★★ - This was Not Good. I would not recommend it, but it wasn't a total waste or wash--something in here held my interest/kept my attention/sparked some joy. I will not be rereading this ever. Save Yourself (Or Join Me In Suffering, That Seems Like A Cool Bonding Activity).
★★★ - This was Good/Fine/Okay/Meh. I don't care about this enough to recommend it one way or another. Perfectly serviceable book, held my interest, I probably enjoyed myself (or at least didn't actively loathe the reading). I don't have especially strong feelings. You probably don't need to save yourself from this one--if it sounds like your jam, give it a shot! Just didn't resonate with me particularly powerfully. I probably won't reread this unless I'm after something in particular.
★★★½ - I liked this! I'll probably recommend it if I know it matches someone's vibes or specific requests, but I didn't commit to a star rating on Goodreads. More likely to reread, but not guaranteed.
★★★★ - I really enjoyed this!! I would recommend it (sometimes with caveats about content warnings or such--I like weird fucked up funny shit). Not a perfect book for me by any means, but Very Good. This is something I would reread! Join me!!
★★★★★ - I LOVED THE SHIT OUT OF THIS, IT REWIRED MY BRAIN, WILL RECOMMEND TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE AT THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION (content warning caveats still apply--see 4-star disclaimer). Excellent book, I'll reread it regularly, I'll buy copies for all my friends, I'll try to convince all of Booklr to read it, PLEASE join me!!
In a flurry of thread and felt, I have finished my project and *checks notes* sixteen novels and five volumes of manga. Book club happened at some point. My birthday? Was that this month? It's been BUSY! Honestly, I felt very productive overall, and I look forward to finally being able to KNIT. Bummed because my energy levels are tanking again, but the month was full of good books and good food.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World Except for Me by Django Wexler ⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Hm. Okay. Well. I think I can say for sure the problem is Me. Because everything I wanted from book one was here, the consequences, the character growth, the answers, and I thought this was less fun and more boring. Until the last quarter or so when it all came together, thus the extra star. This was also Less Horny, which definitely plays a role in my enjoyment. Maybe I'll reread the first one with these thoughts in mind, maybe I won't. They're still not Long Live Evil, and that's not really fair now is it.
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin ⭐️ – I uh. Did not enjoy this. It's not even that I didn't understand it, I was just bored out of my mind. This was a bunch of numbers and math and physics on a page (in my ear?) and the audio made everything so dry and dull. Multiple times I wanted to drop it, but figured hey it must Get Good because everyone references this. It did not Get Good. The ending wasn't even satisfying.
The Two Lies of Faven Scythe by Megan E O'Keefe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Oh did I enjoy this. From the crystal people to the floating space armada that makes up a pirate city, this book was fun. While not Leverage-esque, I do feel like it was Leverage inspired, and while I don't entirely buy the romantic relationship, it reminded me of The Luminous Dead in that it is weird/cute/fucked up/interesting enough that I don't mind it. Would love to read again.
Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki ⭐️⭐️ – This was not what I expected and I'm trying so hard not to hold that against it. It's fine as a Trans Story™️, cool as a Demon Contract story, and it's shit at being scifi. My hot take is the Stargate Donut angle was unnecessary and dragged everything down. I loved the scene with Katrina's final concert. Was bored by just about everything else. On top of it all, the narrator was so hard to listen to I went to see what else she has done and cancelled a hold I had that she also narrates.
Lost Souls Meet Under A Full Moon by Mizuki Tsujimura ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Oh. Ouch. But, like, in a good way. Bittersweet is the best way I can describe this. It's not sad, exactly, but there is a melancholy air to it. But there is also hope. There is also love. I really liked the way this was told, with the different characters each chapter and then the final chapter pulling everything together. The translation never felt wooden either, enough so that I looked to see if the translator worked on anything else I may be interested in. Would read again.
Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Cute! Heartbreaking! Twisty turny! Endearingly hopeful! I loved trying to figure things out, I loved every single character, especially because everyone seemed real and well rounded. Flawed in a real way. I loved how everything came together. The world is big and scary, but you're not alone.
Slow Gods by Claire North ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️* – Stars subject to change, because I genuinely don't know how to rate this. I almost dropped it. I had trouble keeping up. I'm not sure I fully understood what was going on. I restarted it. I enjoyed what I comprehended. I got major autistic vibes from the main character, who may be an alien may be a god. It felt like Imperial Radch and also Murderbot. Still it was its own thing. I'd like to read it again to get a better feel for it, since rereading Ancillary Justice made me have a better understanding of everything.
Walking Practice by Dolki Min ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – I think? I mean I had fun, it was a good time, but also what the hell did I just read. I've been describing this as An Alien Sexual Predator, Where The Sex Is Consensual But The Predation Is Not. It's like if Someone You Can Build A Nest In had a Bad Ending. Weird. Fucked up. Mind the warnings.
Kill the Beast by Serra Swift ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Groundbreaking? No. Fun? YES. Third act plot twist was obvious and guess what! It still stuck the landing! It still hurt! Kind of reminded me of a Kingfisher novel, the way it wove tales and humor and self loathing. Sure there were some things we could've delved deeper into, especially among the Hound Wardens, but it's still a good book! Didn't think about that while reading, only upon reflection, and I'm okay with that.
The Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst ⭐️⭐️⭐️½ – Not my favorite SBD novel, but stil worth a read. I think the problem is I no longer care for Magical School plots when it revolves around the student learning. I don't find learning about the world through the lense of a student very interesting or engaging. HOWEVER! The world is in fact Very Neat, and the plot went where I had guessed but got there in ways that surprised me. The title alone. I don't want to spoil it, but it's doing some dual wielding. I'm interested in the sequels now that we (hopefully?) won't be following school life. I also love how the Mean Girl was treated.
The Reluctant Queen by Sarah Beth Durst ⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Made me reevaluate the first book, but in a good way. Yes, actually, that was done pretty well. This was too, but I still felt like we got the "here's your lesson plan" plot again. Sad that my fave was a traitor and died for it. Interesting to see the politics of this tree world. Wish we had characters interacting more with each other. I cheered every time Naelin did not choose Rennet. Still wish we had Merecot's story, she sounds SO interesting.
The Elsewhere Express by Samantha Sotto Yambao ⭐️⭐️ – I was so excited for this but left severely disappointed. Many scenes felt like they were written around single lines for the sole purpose of having nice Quotable Lines for tiktok and instagram, regardless of whether or not the lines actually fit. None of the characters got to sit with their emotions, often moving on from one thing to the next almost immediately. That could work within the context of the book, be a choice to make a point, but the execution did not hit. The choppy scene breaks were annoying to read and made worse with the introduction of not only time jumps (forward and back) but time travel. Which I still don't fully understand how it works. I like the idea of it, almost like Alice In Wonderland, but it ultimately didn't work for me.
Eat the Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin ⭐️⭐️ – Another disappointment. I wanted killer plants. I wanted to look at the orchids in my house and feel Fear. I did not want relationship drama. There was a bit at the end with a car accident that was very neat and probably the only scene I truly enjoyed and felt engaged with. The audio did some neat things with the POV and overlapping narrators which was very cool, but otherwise completely Meh.
Vicious by VE Schwab ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Reread for book club! Keeping my old rating, because while I have more in depth opinions this time around, I did still have a fun time. The time jumping got to me in a way it didn't before. I don't know what to make of that. After reading ADSOM, I can now pinpoint authorisms of Schwabs that I do not vibe with. Like introducing characters for a page only to kill them. Lack of alive woman with any depth. I should read some of her later works. But overall, yeah I still had fun! Still love Mitch! Still think the ideas are neat!
The Queen of Sorrow by Sarah Beth Durst ⭐⭐– A solid series, but this is definitely the weakest of the three. It set up this really neat conclusion of harmony among spirits and humans and then. Didn't commit. We're back where we started. This one introduced a new romance out of nowhere as well as had TWO weddings. In the middle of trying to save the world. You know how I feel about that. Felt like some character deaths for more for convenience than anything else. Still loved seeing the other kingdoms, even if most of them were brief.
Cinder House by Freya Marske ⭐⭐⭐ – Overall good! A fun twist on the Cinderella story! I was feeling four stars until the weird voyeurism at the very end. It didn't fit the rest of the vibe of the story at all. On one hand, I wish it were a little longer to flesh the relationships out. On the other hand, I don't think I could have sat through more of the fairy tale style narrative. That, at least, is a me problem. Glad I read it, would recommend, but nothing for me to go feral over.
The Lonely Castle In the Mirror 1-5 by Mizuki Tsujimura ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ – Yes I did go and read the manga because how could I not. It was a great adaptation, but obviously the novel was more in depth about some things. I don't know if it was unclear in the movel or if I just missed it or of the manga made artistic decisions, but some things were a lot clearer than in the novel which made all the connections hit even harder. I love this series a lot and very much want to watch the movie!
I don't want to make this post longer than it already is. Goals for June are Read Murderbot. That's it. After that, I'm not sure I want to read a book ever again. Happy Pride month 🏳️🌈
oh wow I read so much I forgot about Volatile Memory by Seth Maddon which was a fun little novella that I am excited to read the seqeul of! The trans body mods ALONE were so neat. Voice modulators? Implants that regulate and release your hormones automatically? Hacking the universe systems to change your name and gender markers? Hell yeah. And the whole conversation about When Your body Is Not your Body when it's owned by capitalism.......there was good stuff packed into that little book.
This almost got 4.5 stars. I can see why perhaps LMB didn't continue in the verse, as it were. There are definitely some questions that LMB more fully explores in her world of the five gods series, but it's a lot less polished. It was nice not to be in the blend of french english background fantasyland as always though!
Legacy (The Sharing Knife 2) by Lois McMaster Bujold 4.5 stars
LMB always writes fabulous characters. The story for this one felt a lot more like a preamble to stuff actually happening, despite the malice fight scene. Still, obviously, good.
Tomb of the Sun King by Jacquelyn Benson 4.5 stars
reread. Still super fun!
Iron Flame (Empyrean 2 aka the second fourth wing book) by Rebecca Yarros 2 stars
Well. I'm on record as saying the first book was fun and would have been improved as a work by not actually having dragons, but that I would probably have to eat my words in book 2.
I didn't have to eat my words. The dragons continue to be pointless plotwise. And it's not that I object to fantasy romance having romance, for reasons that should be obvious, but I would like for fantasy romance to not have worldbuilding that bends entirely around Having The Romance.
Anyway everybody got dumber.
Latham: Soldier of the Ardannan (Soldiers of the Ardannan 2) by Veronica Scott 2.5 stars
okay listen. Not realizing this was a short story/novella was on me and I own that. The crime of being criminally boring is on this book and the author should know THAT.
Mate by Ali Hazelwood 4 stars
hey did you know that when Ali Hazelwood stops pretending she cares about STEMinism (a term that still makes me grind my teeth) in her books she can write hot and fun romances that are a little fucked up on purpose. Because it was true with Bride and it's true with Mate.
(to be clear I believe Ali Hazelwood cares about women in STEM irl. I just think she doesn't actually want to write about women in STEM, she wants to write steamy romance. And I think she should embrace that)
Cold Steel (Spiritwalker 3) by Kate Elliott 5 stars
reread, because as I said elsewhere sometimes to keep yourself going you have to go back to the classics.
The Bone Shard Daughter (The Drowning Empire 1) by Andrea Stewart 3.5 stars
Interesting in concept. I think it should have been creepier on all counts, we're talking taking bone pieces and draining life and creating somebody to replace your wife.
Rebellion plotline waaaaaaaaaaay too shallow for me personally.
Richard III by Shakespeare 5 stars
look idk what you want me to say, I'm on record as not being a riccardian but not NOT believing in their beliefs. And also, we do love Shakespeare in this blog.
Wed to the Ice Giant (Arranged Monster Mates 1) by Layla Fae 2.5 stars
IDK I think when you, a king, still get two fiancees 'stolen' from you by your cousin, who is not king, it might indicate there is something about you that not even being queen of the frost giants can compensate for. It should just make you think, is what I'm saying.
Anyway many points deducted for normal human dick just Big plus not exploiting the witnessed consummation to its full sexy potential. In a sex book about monster mates. For shame.
Into the Riverlands (The Singing Hills Cycle 3) by Nghi Vo 5 stars
I am a simple creature. Nghi Vo has not thus far missed.
Mammoths at the Gates (The Singing Hills Cycle 4) by Nghi Vo 5 stars
*helpless gestures*
Onyx Storm (The Empyrean 3 aka third fourth wing) by Rebecca Yarros 2 stars
Much like its absolutely useless protagonist dragged around because she is xanzibar whodunit's girlfriend, the third fourth wing missed all its targets. Why did I give it 2 stars. Maybe I'd recently been reminded of tiger's curse.
(I am NOT KIDDING it is CANON Violet CANNOT AIM HER LIGHTNING because she is BAD AT IT, that's CANON)
(girl why do they ever let you off the dragon)
(girl why would you ever want to be off the dragon)
(girl you have got to stop threatening to murder kids with your secondary rainbow sparkle dragon, you've just gotta)
(I'll probably read the fourth one once I can get it at the library, we all know this)
god this was such a relief to read after the perfect storm of stupid that was the third fourth wing novel. Pen going now hang on maybe we SHOULDN'T have all the sorcerers directly under the auspices of exactly one authority. Maybe. Maybe we should have some other opinions in here.
Also A+ accidental stealing of sacred horse. You KNOW The Bastard looked up and over and went. Oh. Oh you're interesting. And it was all over.
The Brides of High Hill (The Singing Hills Cycle 5) by Nghi Vo 5 stars
Hey girl heeeeeeeeeeeeey I support women's wrongs
did I screenshot that from discord just to get it in here yes I did
A Mouthful of Dust (The Singing Hills Cycle 6) by Nghi Vo 4.5 stars
It was otherwise excellent but I think it needed to be just slightly creepier
A Long and Speaking Silence (The Singing Hills Cycle 7) by Nghi Vo 5 stars
One of the few times I am not only at peace with but joyful about a prequel, possibly because the timeline is purposefully so nebulous with all the others
Midnight Riot (Rivers of London 1) by Ben Aaronovitch 4.5 stars
What do you want from me. Reread.
Stalin's Apostles by Antonia Senior 5 stars
Nonfiction about the Cambridge Five with the newly unclassified documents from 2025 incorporated, or at least some of them. Oh my god. OH MY GOD. Jesus christ.
Broken Homes (Rivers of London 4) by Ben Aaronovitch 5 stars
Murderbot: Artificial Condition, Rogue Protocol, Platform Decay. I’ve been re-reading the series while waiting for Platform Decay. Only got 3 books in before PD arrived at the library! It was good!
The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova. Trying another Kostova novel went well! I really like her writing. But, look, you have to be in it for the meander through another country and slow gathering of clues and the alternating timelines. You gotta. Warnings for a prison camp in Bulgaria in the 1950s.
Darksight Dare by Lois McMaster Bujold. Look. If you’re the acolyte of the god of misfortune, sometimes the misfortunes happen to someone else and you just get to witness them. In this case, it was Horsegirl Cin finding the best horse in the stable that just happened to be the one horse that would draw absolutely everyone’s attention. They wouldn’t let him ride the horse back
Extra thoughts:
I really enjoyed both The Historian and The Shadow Land, so I'm gonna try Kostova's The Swan Thieves too. And it looks like she has another book combing out this year!
This past month I've spent a lot of time adjusting to my new job and also cat-sitting for my brother, which has meant less time to read, and my brain power gets allocated to things other than reading. Oh well!
also I've been really focused on my cosplay stuff for DragonCon, which takes up a lot of mental effort and time.
But I really enjoyed everything I read this month! So I'm happy :)
I survived the library overwhelm! Which was utterly ridiculous. All but one book this month was a library book, when usually I have space for some ARCs or something, but as of two days ago, I have read and returned them all! Which is a relief because I also brought home ARCs that I really wanted to get to but rules are rules: library books come first.
My library reads were a pretty mixed bag, too. One of my highest ratings of the year so far, and I think my very lowest, and then all sorts of stuff in between. If you're interested in SFF and literary criticism, I absolutely recommend Trace Elements for being smart and fascinating and eclectic and thought-provoking. And no matter who you are, you can safely skip Bramah and the Beggar Boy, which was trying to do many, many, many things and never hit the mark for any of them. I applaud the author's ambition and vision.
In between, there were some really fun sci-fi reads (Radiant Sky, The Language of Liars), a slightly less fun but still good sci-fi (Of Monsters and Mainframes), some nicely solid fantasies (The Tapestry of Fate, The Hanging Bones*), a weird western that felt strangely slow (The Great Work), and a handful of titles that deserve more than a shout-out.
First up, to get it out of the way, I read Yesteryear. I don't know how much Tumblr's been going on about it, but it's flying off the shelves and work and definitely buzzy. It's worth it! A fun thriller with some smart things to say about women and gender roles and America and our cultural moment. Natalie is both sympathetic and unlikeable, which is impressive.
Next, we have Nine-Tenths, an indie queer fantasy romance that handled the romance with more depth and nuance than a lot of the trad pub romance I've read, that actually put in the work to build out the world and have genuine fantasy stakes, and that had themes of autonomy and class-based power dynamics and the fallout from colonialism.
And lastly, my travel memoir of the month which I got in just under the wire. I picked up Travels in West Africa at a used bookstore on a whim because hey, single Victorian woman who goes on adventures in Africa? Sign me up! It delivers this in spades, with self-deprecating humour and pluck. There are lovely depictions of scenery, astute observations of people, advice for travellers, and a lot of descriptions of African cultures because ethnography was one of the reasons she was travelling. I enjoyed the snapshot of the time and place and can't imagine there are many other sympathetic depictions of Africans from this era to stand alongside this. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean Kingsley wasn't racist. She makes upsetting assumptions and statements throughout the book, mostly about appearances, intelligence, and motivations, and I hated being slapped upside the head every time she dropped one. Whatever book I pick up for this challenge in June is going to be more modern, that's for sure.
And yes, another book haul. Saga because I didn't have it; Fauna because it was 25¢ and promised me climate apocalypse body horror; and The Blue Castle because it was free and Jo Walton in Trace Elements recommended reading contemporary romances from historical eras to get a sense of how people actually lived and thought. (We're not going to talk about the ebook haul that suggestion caused. I don't expect to read everything I downloaded, but at least I don't have to dig them back up if I change my mind.)
June is going to see me reading cozier fare, starting with my current read, The Geomagician. I have a couple other cozy ARCs on my "read it soon" stack, and I know there's going to be the new KJ Charles romance coming in for me fairly soon. Beyond that, I don't know exactly where my reading will take me, but I do know I plan to start in on the edits for my WIP in earnest.
*two solid books from Tesch means I should keep following her, I think
And now, as usual, without further ado, what I read this month in order of how glad I was to read them…
Trace Elements - Jo Walton and Ada Palmer
Essays about speculative fiction and the nature of reading and stories.
9/10
🇨🇦
library book
Radiant Sky - Alan Smale
Vivian Carter’s Lunar Geographic Survey team is circumnavigating the Moon when they’re attacked by … possibly the Soviets? Again?
8/10
Black and Latino secondary characters
warning: gun and battle violence
library book
The Language of Liars - S.L. Huang
Ro has trained for years to be able to Jump into the mind of a Star Eater, but what if he can’t? What if he shouldn’t?
8/10
🏳️🌈 author
warning: genocide, slavery
library ebook
The Tapestry of Fate - Shannon Chakraborty
Amina Al-Sirafi has been tasked with finding another Transgression: a spindle in the possession of a sorceress on an enchanted island.
7.5/10
largely Middle Eastern cast, Muslim protagonist, major Muslim characters, 🏳️🌈 secondary characters (sapphic), Muslim author
warning: slavery
library ebook
The Hanging Bones - Elle Tesch
When the mystical Breimar Stag appears in the forest, gamekeeper Katrin enters the hunt in the hopes of winning the death of her overlord—but the stag isn’t the only creature that crossed the veil.
7.5/10
🏳️🌈 protagonist (aroace), Black secondary characters, 🇨🇦
warning: sexual assault and harassment, gore and body horror
library ebook
Travels in West Africa - Mary Kingsley
A British spinster travels solo to West Africa in the 1890s, to study the cultures and collect specimens.
A barista in a holding pattern, a mysterious draconic customer, and a kitchen fire that sparks a romance and some rather uncomfortable questions about how the world is run.
7.5/10
🏳️🌈 protagonist (bi man), 🏳️🌈 secondary characters (bi man, nonbinary), Indigenous, Black, Muslim, and East Asian secondary characters, 🇨🇦, 🏳️🌈 author
warning: classist and colonial thinking, violence, blood, emotional abuse
library book
Yesteryear - Caro Claire Burke
Natalie has the husband, kids, farm, staff, merch line, and followers of the perfect tradwife influencer, until one day she wakes up in the 1800s and wonders how she got there.
7.5/10
warning: child abuse, domestic abuse, sexual assault, mental illness, drug abuse, alcoholism
library ebook
The Great Work - Sheldon Costa
Gentle and his nephew set out across frontier Washington to kill a giant salamander that could hold the key to the philosopher’s stone, but of course the path to the stone could never be easy.
7/10
🏳️🌈 secondary characters (sapphic, gay), Indigenous secondary character
warning: mentions of domestic and child abuse, misogyny, homophobia, and toxic masculinity; death and grief; gun violence
library book
Of Monsters and Mainframes - Barbara Truelove
Ship’s AI Demeter wakes up to discover all the humans onboard are dead and Dracula might be responsible—and that’s just the beginning.
6.5/10
major 🏳️🌈 character (sapphic), 🏳️🌈 secondary characters (nonbinary, sapphic)
warning: violence, murder, death of grandparent, blood, injury
library ebook
Bramah and the Beggar Boy - Renée Sarojini Saklikar
A novel in verse about survival and hope in a corporate climate dystopia.
What would you do if you were a bear? Ride a motorbike? Visit friends?
DNF
The Subtle Art of Folding Space - John Chu
After Ellie finds a device designed to keep her mom alive, in the skunkworks that run the universe, she must reckon with family legacy while tracking down the culprit.
Dread Nation • This Inevitable Ruin • Platform Decay • A Long and Speaking Silence • Strange Animals • What Feeds Below • Clara and the Devil • Othello* • A Parade of Horribles • The Epic of Gilgamesh • Blood Over Bright Haven • Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats • The Glorians • The Gravewood • All Hail Chaos • Hangsaman
May was pretty much New Release Month for me, with almost all my most anticipated 2026 reads releasing within a week or two of each other. And they mostly didn't disappoint!
Dread Nation [GR review] ★★★1/2☆ - Enjoyed the premise and loved the central dynamic between narrator Jane and her rival-to-friend Katherine (and even shipped it a little. gdi, the ONE TIME I, an aroace person, don't wanna be represented and I'm represented 😔). Also adored the audiobook narrator, Bahni Turpin. I'm reserving some judgment until I read book 2, but it's a strong start.
This Inevitable Ruin ★★★★☆ - The plot was extremely convoluted, but damn did those emotional arcs hit. I loved the epic scale of the battles and heists and I did in fact cry at one point (Carl & Katia in each other's mind palaces?? leave me alone to die 😭)
Platform Decay ★★★★★ - I drove an hour in a terrifying blizzard to a Martha Wells Q&A/signing on release day, so this book had to really deliver. And it really delivered! Between the fun new characters and the fun new setting, I liked it even better than System Collapse. Thanks for braving the snowstorm @ Ms. Martha <3
A Long And Speaking Silence ★★★1/2☆ - Eh. As Singing Hills books go, this one was underwhelming—heavy on themes/allegory, light on structure. Not terrible, but lackluster compared to my favorite installments.
Strange Animals [GR review]★★★☆☆ - Hmm. A solid debut with nice prose and a cool premise, but underbaked characters.
What Feeds Below [GR review]★★★1/2☆ - Okay so I may have predicted the entire plot about 10% of the way through, but the body horror was eating it UP here and the psychedelic eco-horror vibes were excellent (very Scavengers Reign). I love that it's YA—if I were a teen and I read this, I'd feel respected as hell.
Clara and the Devil ★★★1/2☆ - Not much happened in this first book other than ruminating, but awoogah that's some amazing art
Othello ★★★★☆ - I hadn't read Othello since I was in Othello in high school, so it was fun to read again with book club! Noticed lots of new details this time around.
A Parade of Horribles ★★★★☆ - It was cool to go "and now for something completely different" and get a highly structured DCC installment after the relative messiness of TIR, but at the same time, I kinda found myself longing for TIR's emotional impact. Still loved this though. Especially the Goat Karaoke. LET HIM SING
The Epic of Gilgamesh ★★1/2☆☆ - Pretty much just felt like reading the Bible. I can see why the fujos love it but twasn't for me. Oh well, now I can say I've read it!
Blood Over Bright Haven ★★★1/2☆ - Another very Theme-Forward book and I once again predicted the whole plot very early in the story. Also another one where it's well-crafted and I totally get the hype (and appreciate M.L. Wang's commitment to shamelessly thin allegory—"Bringham" killed me) but I didn't feel much of a personal connection to the book.
Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats ★★★★★ - Good stuff in here. Who knew Ms. Ursula had so many poems and stories and doodles of cats? (Everyone but me, probably.)
The Glorians: Visitations From the Holy Ordinary ★★★1/2☆ - This beautifully-written essay collection nonetheless left me with two significant bones to pick with its author: 1) girl what even was that bison thing and 2) STOP LETTING YOUR CATS OUTSIDE OH MY GOD
All Hail Chaos ★★★★☆ [GR review] - The plot thickens! But more importantly, the relationships get way weirder. AHC was on the messy side, plotwise, and I didn't always love Emer's or Marius's arcs, but goddamn if Rae's arc didn't have me capital-S seated. Also enjoyed the intro of the little sister characters & that scene where [redacted] and [redacted] angstfucked in that pile of [redacted].
Hangsaman ★★★★☆ - I mean it's Shirley Jackson, you read it for the prose and then go "How worried should I be if I deeply relate to this character?" [Me reading the blurb after finishing the book] wym there was a "descent into madness" I thought we were all being normal together
DNFs: The Gravewood. I could immediately tell it was too YA for me, and while I actually love the premise of a deaf heroine who trades her blood to vampires in exchange for hearing aid batteries, where it all fell apart for me was that it seemed to be the case that her whole town would be massacred if anyone knew she'd had contact with vampires?? And I'm supposed to be rooting for her?? Talk about messing up your stakes (vampire pun intended)
May superlatives: here!
Next up:
June is a bit of a giant question mark because I'll be picking some of my reads off of the yet-to-be-published book club summer reading reclist! But I'm partway through my Count of Monte Cristo reread, I've started Canon by Paige Lewis, and I'm also planning to check out The Unicorn Hunters when it's released. And do some traveling. And maybe bring Jaws with me to Paris and haul it around reading it in classy places. Yeah that image satisfies me
I can tell which book this is from based on this excerpt, but I haven’t read it
I started reading this, but didn’t finish it (or I am reading it currently)
I haven’t read this book, but I like this excerpt!
I’ve read this book before, and I don’t like it
I haven’t read this book and I don’t like this excerpt
Voting ended onJun 6
Please reblog the polls, but KEEP IT SPOILER-FREE to make people read the excerpt with an open mind 💖📚 Title and author will be revealed after the poll's conclusion.
Thank you @only-by-the-stars for the submission! 😄
Honestly astonished that I read so much in what was certainly the busiest month of my year - finished up class for the semester, then we had constant field trips at the camp where I work plus lots of maintenance and logistical prep for the summer - but I think what happened is that most days I came home, collapsed and read for a while, then went to bed. And I managed to keep finding enough interesting things to have my next 2-3 reads always lined up, which helped. Here's my choices for my books of May:
The Sleeping Partner (Madeleine E. Robins): This is book 3 in a series, so don't start here, but I was so so happy to find it. This is the Sarah Tolerance series - alternate Regency England (George III never recovered from the first madness - queen has been regent) focused on a woman who works as an inquiry agent and is really really good with a sword. Kind of bait for me specifically, but I also think genuinely well done. Author cites as inspiration: noir detectives (Sarah gets to be the noir hero), regency romances (but grittier), and Wimsey for the slow growing relationship. I reread books 1-2 in May and finally got my hands on book 3 - could not be found for love or money when I first started this series a few years ago! Now there is a new-ish book 4 which no library in my state seems to have, but I have requested via out-of-state ILL so we'll see.
Like, Follow, Subscribe: Influencer Kids and the Cost of a Childhood Online (Fortesa Latifi): I wrote about this one here! Really interesting and very readable nonfiction. I appreciate that it's a nuanced view of family influencers without condoning putting your kids online.
Blackcurrant Fool (Victoria Goddard): Stuff sure does keep happening to Jemis, huh? I do really enjoy these while I read them, following the twisty plots and reveals, but there's always still more things left unrevealed so I feel like I need to wait to say more until I read yet another book in the series. Lots of fun, though.
About the B'nai Bagels (E. L. Konigsburg): Wrote about this one here as well. I spread it out a little over a couple evenings, which I think was a good move, cause it isn't long, but it is full of good stuff. Just one boy's journey over a Little League season of working out how to be a good teammate, brother, son, man.
Buried in a Bog (Sheila Connolly): First in a cozy mystery series. Interesting because I've tried out some other series by the same author and they're fine but not gripping. Something about this one has kept me reading. I think I like that the main character isn't too inept or innocent, even if she is in a totally new place (from Boston, moved to rural Ireland where her grandmother grew up). The setting is clearly based on personal experience with it, and maybe just fun because it's rural Ireland. Plots have been overall fun so far. I read 4 of the series in May and will read at least a couple more.
On Trails (Robert Moor): This was interesting! Read slowly over the month. (Actually I think it's been a couple months since I started.) Nonfiction about trails and how animals and people make and use them, and have over history. I particularly liked that Moor went out and did things and wrote about them - not just hiking (he through-hiked the AT long before starting the book) but herding sheep, going out to look for fossils with scientists, etc. Did somewhat make me want to through-hike the AT someday, but doesn't have to be right away. Maybe when I retire.
