U got me beat once again!! FEBRUARY BE GONE!!!! 🪄 how did your reads go!! did you read/watch anything fun and/or sappy?? any specific spring reading plans? I don't think I asked last month, but are you looking forward to any releases this year?
i had SUCH a good reading month i don't know how i pulled it off! i also watched 18 movies this month somehow (helped i think by the fact i bought a cinema subscription membership thing which lets me go to the movies for free*!) i have taken down the behemoth of the count of monte cristo from my bookshelf who knows when i'll get round to it but.. soon i think! small worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson is expected to get a paperback release this spring so i will finally get my hands on that and give it a read! otherwise, here we go:
*i pay for the subscription but i went 4 times in a week so it's free to me
IMOOOOO don't look at the date don't perceive the fact that we're already 3 days into January + it's like a week past your birthday DON'T....... HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY ICON!! YOUR GOLDEN BIRTHDAY, 25 ON 25!! 🎇🎂✨💛 I hope your holiday/celebration/trip to NY was wonderful and your fully developed brain has been treating you well thus far 🧠 tacky of me to combine these messages but we're 25 y/o gals, we're efficient!! SO -- what were YOUR top 5s of 2023? movies, books, music - biggest surprise(s), biggest flop(s)? excited to see what on earth 25 y/o imo gets into this year 💭
OMG THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH CAS!! NEW YORK WAS INCREDIBLE!! i had theee best time my first ever solo trip and i learnt so much about myself and got to go to a bucket list place just amazing really! i took so many pictures i'm putting together a photo album of my 2023 which i'm really excited to look back on. i found some old family pictures recently and there's nothing like looking back at a HQ printed picture and just reliving that moment
you also caught me at the perfect moment as i'm in the middle of revamping my blog as i'll be changing my username at the end of the week.. scary. anyways my top 5!
books
their eyes were watching god by Zora Neale Hurston
fight night by Miriam Toews
my phantoms by Gwendoline Riley
ring shout by P. Djèlí Clark
sterling karat gold by Isabel Waidner
tv shows
i can't remember much of anything i watched at all LMAO.
1. succession for obvious reasons
2. interview with the vampire
3. and that's genuinely all i can remember let's blame the strike
movies
1. malignant
2. across the spiderverse
3. bottoms
4. bones and all
5. saw x
music
i don't think i posted my wrapped on tumblr i can't remember but my favourite releases of the year were
1. amaarae's fountain baby
2. tinashe's bb/ang3l
3. kali uchis' red moon in venus
4. kelela's raven
5. pinkpantheress' heaven knows
personal stuff
2023 was big for me in terms of being more vulnerable with my friends! i feel like i got so much closer with everyone in my life and feel like i actually have a community which has been really nice. there's a lot of promising things that should be coming to fruition this year career wise and i think saving for and planning a trip to New York for my 25th birthday was a milestone all of itself! i'm very excited for what this year has in store for me
omg a true april fools wacky miracle for me to beat you in our monthly check-ins 🤭 personally do not even remember the first half of march but the second half felt eternal!!!! the ppl want to know what U got into these past 31 days 💭✍️
i don't remember march either. continuing to put my cinema subscription to work
HAPPY HALLOWEEEN IMO!!! 🧛🏼♀️🖤 I spy a new letterboxd link in your bio omg following asap!! movie critic era??? but ok back to biz : october roundup!! did you end up reading anything particularly spooky or compelling? are there any must-reads on your list for these final few months of 2023?
JUMPSCARE!! final months of 2023.. how did we get here. yeah i made a letterboxd!! not sure about critic but i've been playing moviegrid everyday and i love logging things so maybe i will become a cinephile one day... BUT let's get back to books it was a very good month! into the
october book wrap up
Girls Out Late and Girls In Tears by Jacqueline Wilson
finished this series early october! i had an absolute blast! perfect way to reignite my love for reading i'm definitely going to have more JW books as a reset point if i'm ever in a slump again.
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
i still don't know my thoughts on this idk i'm not very good with words like that. i think this is very cool and intriguing and i enjoyed reading it! the supernatural and horror elements were really original to me and i think it being a short novella paid off.
At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop
short French read. some of the repetitive stylistic and linguistic choices did wear a little thin on me around the halfway mark, but i was willing to just bear with it because the book is so short. ghoulish, i think. interesting threads on colonialism and war that i think are very apt. horrific in a depraved human nature kind of way
Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark
oh. OH! yeah! this was fantastical and gory and soooo eerie and i loved it! one of my top 2023 reads. really well researched and fleshed out historical references and the character work was so exceptional to me. this moved me in a way i wasn't expecting
The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon
neat! i think this is really important as a piece of literature documenting the camaraderie and community Black West Indian men were creating for themselves in London as part of Windrush. it was comedic and real and it's just. i don't know because my family didn't settle in London post-war, but there was so much that was so close in terms of familiarity that resonated with me. great read.
currently i'm reading Small Island by Andrea Levy and i think it's interesting to see the contrast in how she's written about Windrush. not to say Selvon didn't acknowledge the racism and hardship, but it takes a complete backseat in TLL and is secondary to the rest of the book whereas it's the focal point in Small Island. something to be said about how being Black in England is as hard as it is joyful. only around 60% in but very much enjoying
rest of the year reads
i'm actually not too sure! i have a few more Black British books i want to get through but now that i've hit my reading goal (woo!) i'm just trying to take it easy continue seeking a diversity of stories and authors you know how it goes
🚨 WE ARE LESS THAN 48 HOURS AWAY FROM OCTOBER HOW ON EARTH ARE WE TO STAND IT!! Ok Miss Imo I have my popcorn popped, let's hear all about the September flops and, if applicable, your planned October's reads to remedy those flops 🍿
sorry the only flop here is me!!! 6th october and i'm only just answering this and what's worse is my september reading was so bad it's not even going under the cut so here's my
september book wrap up
girls in love and girls under pressure by jacqueline wilson
cres of castawavy fame asked if read JW growing up and as a girl in the uk of course i had. the conversation was so nostalgic and i loved Jacqueline's books growing up so i wanted to revisit this series as an adult and see what i thought. yeah, they're great books. i just love and appreciate the space for girlhood in books like these, of individuality and insecurity and the real topics that are addressed in these.
and that's all i read :) (ignoring my 2nd dnf of the year (the candid life of meena dave by namrata patel))
my october reading is already off to a much better start. finished the girls series and then as it's black history month in the uk i've created a list of Black horror books to read! i couldn't find much Black British horror which was a real shame so i'm planning on getting back into a nonfiction moment, maybe reading some texts on windrush that kind of thing
Omg didn't recognize you in my inbox despite that being ur username on goodreads/letterboxd RIP CHEESEHAIR we will always remember u </3 ignore how late i am once again I've made it a rule not to log onto simblr on my phone anymore so i'm strictly at the will of when I'm on personal laptop it's quite nice actually BUT ANYWHO!! how did your first reads of 2024 go!! any new authors or rabbit holes u think you'll explore further in these coming months? are you tryna get in a romantic mood for valentine's day? DO TELL!!!
RIP CHEESEHAIR.. hi cas!! i'm trying something new for my book wrap up this year but i'll answer your questions rn: i only read one new author this month but it has opened a rabbit hole into more occupational fiction and non-fiction that i want to explore! i have a valentines mug and that's as far as v-day prep goes i am not made for dating apps hinge get away from me!!!!
IMO im sending this so early NOT because I'm trying to beat you (though it does feel nice 🤭) but I'll be offline during our usual end-of-month wrap-up + i SHANT make you wait long!!! HOW DID AUGUST GO! I read ur goodreads review on The Picture of Dorian Gray but I'm dying to hear more 👁️ + do u think you're gonna try and shift into ~fall vibes~ for reading now (whatever that means to you) or continue to go with the flow?
hi cas this was such a jumpscare getting this over a week ago but i'm glad you were able to beat me! of course there's a new autumnal vibe in the books i'll be reading i've even updated my discord profile (goodbye summer kendall you were great)
but i can go into more detail in the
august book wrap up
(2 days early but i'm not finishing a book in 2 days)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (The Original 1980 Uncensored Edition) by Oscar Wilde
well i read a book. there were some really interesting threads in this, i thought Dorian being a narcissistic weirdo was cool to read about, but other than the end of the book taking a much darker turn, i did't find much about this impressive. i don't like reading books expecting them to work harder for me to enjoy them, but i struggled to want to read this.
Must I Go by Yiyun Li
wasn't what i expected it to be, not really a fan of what it was. you give me an 88 year old woman who's survived her eldest daughter's suicide and raised her granddaughter and is looking after her greatgrandaughter and what do we do? we spend almost 200 pages of her dissecting the journal of some random man who ended up marrying his cousin and lived his whole life not knowing he had said daughter? why. i don't care! i don't care!!!!!!! and then when Lila (the character in question) did talk about herself, her mother having her dreams crushed in her marriage, her three marriages and further 4 children, it's just brushed over and kind of shrugged at. none of the "important" men in her life are alive and yet they took up so much of the book. whatever you keep dead people alive in your memory but other than being reminded how selfish and uncaring Lila was there wasn't much about this i felt positive about. wouldn't recommend, went straight in my donation pile.
Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante
i finally did it. what a rollercoaster! i absolutely hate reading first person books when i find the character annoying. not to say a bad person, or morally defunct or anything. just plain old annoying. Elena Greco is annoying. fine in the first 2 as she's 10-22 years old and it's expected, but the third book sees her in her mid 20s early 30s and i genuinely wanted to throw this book at a wall. i struggle to see this as a tale of friendship at this point just because like. they aren't friends??? they're two women who at this point are bound by history and maybe that's the point but i want better for Lila and she remains the star of the show
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
i finished the quartet and feel emotionally wrung out. this was going fine but i think it's around 350 pages in there's a full blown "relationship" between Lila's 24 year old son and Elena's 15 year old daughter???? reading from the perspective of an awful mother was so jarring, too. really enjoyed the series, i just feel like i felt very untethered towards the end and i just wanted it to end
september / autumnal reads
i'm annoyed that i've ended up in such a white reading space so will be fixing that for sure. also need a romance, i haven't read one i've liked this year! something fun is overdue. i have some horror books picked out but that's not for a little while yet. i don't see myself picking up anything new (maybe?) so i'll just be picking from what i already bought, trying some contemporary reads that have been rotting on my shelf for the past year
omg imo I could've sworn there was at least one full week left of november for some reason but dec 1 is on friday BYE locking myself up to finish my books 🏃♀️ HOW WAS YOUR NOVEMBER READING!! are you already in the holiday spirit are you planning on reading/watching some holiday related things to get you there? this one's rando, but do you have any favorite holiday foods/desserts/drinks you're excited to indulge in during this last month o 2023 ☃️
november being 30 days always goes by SO quickly she knows we're ready for the main event. november was a very good reading month for me let's get into the
november book wrap up
Small Island by Andrea Levy
i finished this pretty early on in novembr, my thoughts are along the same lines as my goodreads review: Great piece of historical fiction. I found parts of this so funny and I'm not sure if that was the original intention but I did have a giggle! The humour was found moreso in Gilbert and Hortense who are just so, so different to each other and Hortense's wilful misunderstanding and naivete as she tries to be a Model Minority was just so funny it was a much needed brevity compared to the heaviness of the rest of the story. Such foul racist thoughts that can be burdensome after a while, though. Yeah! I don't need to read the POV of a white British man stationed in India in the second world war ever again, actually! I enjoyed reading though.
A Game of Thrones by George R.R Martin
reread this because I hadn't picked up a high fantasy book I'd actually enjoyed in a little while. Great! I love ASOIAF as a series love returning to a known entity. I can't find my copies of A Storm of Swords or A Clash of Kings so continuing my reread is on pause until those unearth themselves.
Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk
Brilliant! So, so atmospheric. Incredible translation to me, obviously I won't know for sure until there ever comes a day where I can read Polish, but I got so much of the story out of this. It was just so cool and not what I expected at all going into it. I've never read anything like it before so getting to grips with all of the quirks of the style, subject and character was its on experience.
Butcher's Crossing by John Williams
Stoner was one of my top 2022 reads, so I saved this knowing that I'd like it. Rachel Cusk coded. It didn't blow me away like Stoner did, but I appreciate these are two very different books with completely different approaches. Where Stoner is so insular, things are kind of bursting in Butcher's Crossing. William isn't a complete active character, but he's participating in his life. Really cool setting, one of the most tense books I've read which I find can fall short in books with more action but the way tension builds and builds and builds in these fraught interactions between the four men on the mountain is fucking incredible. Immediately watched the film after this, and I love Nicolas Cage as much as the next person, but it fell short for me as an adaptation and as a film, sadly! Will be reading Augustus very soon as the last novel Williams' acknowledges as his own work.
The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage
Another Western! Apparently I couldn't get enough! Not long finished this, so bear with for complete thoughts. Realised that I haven't read a book with such a sinister character in a while. Phil is sinister and strange and he's complicated, and I just really liked this book! Took me a while to get through because it is so dense at parts, but I think playing the long game definitely paid off. I love books that can make life so dramatic, all of the small stuff builds up to this big moment kind of thing. Netflix removed this film??? Will be making time to watch it this weekend for sure!
Outlawed by Anna North
3/3 with Western's which is so out of left field for me I feel. Finished it today, but on my top 2023 shelf, for sure. I think reading these back-to-back has made me appreciate the difference in style and storytelling so much more. I was a bit nervous because I've found previous Reese Witherspoon book club picks really juvenile, and whilst this is way more accessible than BC or TPotD, there's still a lot of complexity that I was able to enjoy. I love communities and found families, and it just really got me reading this book about these "women" ostracized from society making something of their own at risk of imprisonment and hanging. Thought it was really neat :)
December Reads
I'm on the Kindle through to the end of the year (10 days to New York!) so I'll be getting a couple new titles to diversify my options more. I don't have anything set in stone but I did download pdf's of The Hunger Games series which I've never read before so I might do those.
My Christmas mood started on November 1st! Multiple plays of Ariana Grande's Christmas & Chill, and I've already watched a few Christmas films. I watched The Holiday for the first time recently and found it boring :( I'm not a Jude Law enjoyer sorry.
Oh I love a hot cider! Ferrero Rocher's, stuffing, anything Christmassy really! I'm also so excited for a Christmas in New York! I have an itinerary going and many pictures to take!
