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Maybe not my best reading year but I still read a lot of books and I liked most of them! Oh, to have an empty TBR one day…
Are we still doing ListChallenge wrap-ups on this site? I hope so because I'd love to see how you did with my reading year!
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…
April did not knock my socks off, reading-wise, but that's okay because I did finally finish the first draft of my WIP! I am relieved and at loose ends and a little worried what my alpha readers are going to say about it. And trying to find my way into my next writing project.
But yeah, I read a lot of books this month that were solidly good but not particularly great? Top of my list is The History of Magic, for being a pretty solid (but imperfect) look at magical practices within human societies from the very first evidence of people up to the present. It's great food for thought and definitely makes the case for belief in magic being an important cultural force even in periods that are all about science or religion. I bought it to use as a reference text for fantasy novels and I'm keeping it for the same.
Bottom of my list is Tungsten John, my DNF for the month, which could have been an interesting travel memoir about adventuring in Canada's north but had uninspired prose, bland historical digressions, and failed to make its characters interesting. If I ever return to the Not-Quite-Urban fantasy it might have some useful things in it, so I'm keeping it, but that might change.
In between we have:
How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay, a self-help book that I actually found useful and would recommend
Strange Beasts, a fun historical urban fantasy with shout-outs to Victorian classics
The Ending Writes Itself, a smart bookish locked-room thriller though that's selling it a bit short
Villain, which is the follow-up to one of my favourite superhero novels but didn't quit hit the same high
The Somewhat Wicked Witch of Brigandale, which felt like Terry Pratchett had done a spin on The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
The Typewriter and the Guillotine, which was interesting and informative but not much else
Outlaw Planet, a sci-fi Western in the same 'verse as the Pandominium duology but which went overlong
An Edge Sharp Enough, which is far enough out right now that all I'll say was I enjoyed it
A Lady for All Seasons, a frothy genderqueer Regency romance and a Good Time; and
Diary of a Pilgrimage, which is Jerome K. Jerome doing his thing as regards, this time, tourism.
None of these are books I wouldn't recommend, but as always, some I liked better than others.
I have obviously given up on ever properly reviewing a book on here again.
You may notice from this month's photo that I acquired more books again. Thankfully, both of these are books I've read, one was free, and one was on sale with a gift card, so basically I didn't pay for that one either. I'm looking forward to cooking out of the cookbook at some point. Probably sometime I'm hosting people because that's when a lot of my experimentation happens.
I'm also in the midst of bookish reading panic/overwhelm. Two books on the go—one I've been hoping my library would get for a couple years now and one for a potential project—one more book checked out, one book waiting at the library, two books in transit, and one of the publisher's reps we deal with at work sent me a semi-solicited reading copy that is a chonk.
But it's fine. It's fine. EVERYTHING IS FINE. I am, after all, reading at least 10 books a month still and will probably have my current two finished by the time I'm next able to hit the library. Needless to say, everything else on my holds list has been mercilessly paused.
Without further ado, here's what I read this month in order of enjoyment…
Oh dear, looks like the book hauls are back in action this month! And not only because September's my birthday month, though a certain "treat yourself" mentality did slip in…
In order here, we have (on the left):
a book sleeve and bookmark from my newest local bookstore
a book that I helped edit so got a thank-you copy for
a book I got for my birthday
a book off my digital TBR that my library had discarded and was selling for 25¢ so clearly I had to
three books that arrived damaged at work
The books on the right are a TBR book I actually finished (!) and The Masquerades of Spring, which I read as audio earlier this year and got the SubPress edition of for my birthday.
It appears that my high hopes for Getting More Read After The Move were unfounded, as I only got through 8 books last month, but in my defense, River-Horse was so good it needed savouring. It took up most of my home reading time simply because I never read more than a "day" or two at a time.
I otherwise didn't have any read stand-out books this month*. A few were in the "good writer therefore good book" category, a number were "this was fun", and my lowest ranked are still "this was good but it wasn't quite for me". The Mercy Makers had a really cool world and was full of the sorts of morally grey characters who are fun to dig into, for instance; it just never quite clicked for me.
*Actually, no, I take that back. If you have a chance to read Don't Trust Fish, take it. I love when picture books are fun for all ages!
I'm very much enjoying both of my reads at the moment, though. Red Letter Days is hitting a little close to the news what with the 1950s political witch hunts and paranoia, but I'm very much there for the heroines triumphing. And The Door on the Sea is an epic fantasy in deep conversation with Tlingit legends and history, and I'm enjoying the humour of it quite a bit. Comes out next week, I believe. Keep an eye out!
No real plans for October, except for the love of Shakespeare, reading more and getting more than a few pages of writing done. I think I got into some bad habits in my downtime while house-hunting and need to work on breaking them. And maybe not bringing home a lot of books, and reading more of my ARC pile…. I'm having some serious panic about how many books there I haven't read and really should have done and I brought two more home this month too so it hasn't even gone down any.
Anyway, as usual, here is the list of everything I read this month, in order of how glad I am to have read them…
Something about this month felt very long, and I don’t know whether that was because my at-home read stayed the same, because American politics is what it is, or whether time just has little meaning anymore. Could very easily just be the last one.
Depending on how you look at it, I either had a good book month or a bad one. I enjoyed most of my reads and got to attend a delightful event with an author and I finished a read-through of my WIP with my editing hat on. Did an accidental bookstore crawl too, with a very patient parent, and my work’s started receiving ARCs for fall/winter releases.
On the downside, while the top books on my list this month rank as “very good”, none of them reached as high as “knock my socks off”, and I did an accidental bookstore crawl and had a big ARC haul and now I’m back to panicking about when I’m going to have the time to read everything.
I also totally disregarded my statement from last month, that I would be reading a more modern travel memoir next. I finished The Blue Castle while out and about with the very patient parent and the only thing on my phone that hit for me was The Turkish Embassy Letters, which came out in 1763. Good news is, it’s less blatantly racist! But it is still a work of early Orientalism so there’s a whole bunch of stuff about how great and awesome and beautiful Turks are, and conflating of “Turk” and “Muslim”. I was also not expecting homoeroticism? That was a pleasant surprise.
Speaking of Muslims, my top read of the month is The Republic of Memory by Mahmud el Sayed, which is an Arabfuturist generation ship novel that hit my “fracturing city-state” button. Very smart, very well done, and I wish there was a date for the sequel so I’d know when to look forward to. Definitely recommended, as is my next top read, The Blue Castle. That one’s about a woman finally taking charge of her life and changing it for the better, and it’s cozy without being cozy. Lots of people being good to each other (or being told off for being bad), lots of descriptions of nature, a romance that doesn’t hit the modern romance beats, all that kind of thing. I found it very charming and I’m glad I rescued it in May.
My middle-ranked books are largely romance novels, and The Geomagician, which went harder on history and politics and character growth than I’d expected from “Mary Anning hatches a pterodactyl”. I’m looking forward to The Paleomagician, whenever that one’s out.
First Mage on the Moon probably deserves to be in the middle category too, though it’s lower down for me because I only have limited patience for the sort of hard SF that’s just about building a thing. What saves it is, of course, that the people doing the building are magic users, so they tend to solve problems with things like “more runes” and “elementals” rather than rigorous prototype testing and computers.
This of course brings us to Valet, which is an SF novel written by someone outside of the SF conversation, so it didn’t quite hit for me. (Those rarely do.) I loved a lot of the satire of tech culture, but the plot and characters were a little bland.
I’m currently pausing The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver because, and only because, there’s a new Jo Walton novel and I want to have a review under it by the weekend. I’m very much liking TSatS even though I’m only getting through 20 or so pages a day. It’s epic fantasy with heroes who’ve been through a good two epic fantasy plots before the story even starts, and it’s very rich in its world. I’m looking forward to getting further.
Books hauled this month include three from the bookstore crawl, a discounted copy of The Mummy!, and a book I edited last year, that I received as a thank you gift. In case anyone was wondering.
And now, as always, without more ado, everything I read in June, in order of how glad I am to have read them…
End of 2025 Wrap-up
I started writing this post by going back to last year’s wrap-up and realizing that I did not, in fact, hit very many of my goals for the year and I might be in a downward trend? On the other hand, it has been pointed out that I read at least a books’ worth of realty documents mid-year, plus real estate listings, plus lost days of reading time to viewings and packing, and also I bought a condo so maybe I should cut myself a little bit of slack.
I hope to do better in 2026 by sheer dint of not having to go through all that again. And also because 116 books a year is a slightly more reasonable goal to match than 126. I did breeze past my goal of 40,000 pages, so that’s good—and a sign that I read longer books, I think.
I read more ebooks this year (27% vs 23%) and I got back into audiobooks, because that was an easy way to read while also packing or playing phone games. I hope to continue with audiobooks at least a little this year, mostly because my library has all the Penric and Desdemona novellas available in that format. The bulk of my reading was still print books and I’m expecting that to stay the same. I just have so many of those to work through and there are some books that require more concentration than I generally give to digital formats.
In other reading stats, I read 22 reading copies and 13 books off my TBR, which isn’t great, but at least that’s slightly more than one a month. Everything else came from the library. (Have I mentioned recently that I love libraries?) I need to do better on the TBR front but for now, I’m still aiming for one book per month. They may all be travel memoirs, because I have a goal to chip away at that shelf in particular, but it’ll still whittle my shelves down some.
I also seem to be holding steady on the stats I track. One less queer book, slightly more authors of colour, three more books by women, two more Canadians…. Three fewer classics, though, but then I’ve always struggled to pick up classics when there are so many newer books, and classics often take brain power that I just didn’t have this year.
I did buy and/or acquire fewer books this year, and because of moving, I unhauled at least 50 though I didn’t track numbers this time around. I also brought in fewer reading copies than I got rid of. Now I just have to read the ones I have and keep up the work of not asking for everything that crosses my path. I still have ARCs from 2024, maybe even 2023, and that is Not Good.
My reviewing took a hit from all the life upheaval though. I need to get back in the habit of post my favourites.
But over-all, I had a reasonable bookish year. Got to a number of books I wanted to. Discovered a couple new authors to follow and some surprise gems. Didn’t give out many low ratings. Was largely entertained. Attended a couple author talks. Rocked it at work. I hope for much the same this year!
Yearly total: 116, excluding rereads and picture books Queer books: 36 (31%) Authors of colour: 22 (19%) Books by women: 80.5 (69%) Authors outside the binary: 3 (2.5%) Canadian authors: 14 (12%) Classics: 4 (3.4%) Off the TBR shelves: 13 (11.2%) Books hauled: 36 ARCs acquired: 29 ARCs unhauled: 35 DNFs: 10 Rereads: 2 Picture Books: 17
Books Reviewed
The City in Glass - Nghi Vo
The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door - H.G. Parry
Hot Wax - M.L. Rio
The Raven Scholar - Antonia Hodgson
Olivia Gray Will Not Fade Away - Ciera Burch
And if anyone’s interested, here are the rest of my year’s highlights:
One of my reading plans for March was to read a bunch of heavier, more serious books to balance out how light and cozy February was. That definitely happened, though there are still a few lighter books in this wrap-up, mostly because I'm still me. And because I compensate for not spending my paycheque at work by compulsively putting everything on hold at the library instead.
And it was a good reading month! A couple exciting books, a lot of good ones, zero duds. I had grand plans to post a review for A Forest, Darkly by A.G. Slatter, but by the time I'd finished reading it, I'd sold out of all our store copies by talking it up to people and so couldn't take the photo. If you like fairy tale worlds and witches, and especially what Naomi Novik does in those spaces, definitely pick it up though. It was great! I need to hit some of Slatter's backlist now.
My other hit of the month was the book that carried over from February—The Midnight Show by Lee Kelly and Jennifer Thorne. The elevator pitch is basically "Daisy Jones and the Six meets SNL" and I had so much fun reading it! It's about the 1980s comedy scene, and being a woman in male-dominated spaces, and fame and the things that come with it, and an unsolved death that underpins the "interviews". Compelling, strongly researched, great on character, and strong twists. I hope to be selling out of this one too, once it's released.
Other fiction: finally got to Muse of Nightmares thanks to needing to finish off a Storygraph challenge, unsurprisingly enjoyed it; read Wolf Worm and was delightfully disgusted and creeped out; read the new Incryptid book and the next Lychford novella and naturally enjoyed both. Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian is a strong contemporary romance that deals with mental health and acknowledging needs and traumas, and The Sugared Game by KJ Charles was a fun mystery/romance, as expected. The new Olivia Waite novella was similarly as fun as expected. Jane Austen's juvenilia was delightful and is only at bottom of the list because I realized partway through that I had another, fuller edition of her unpublished work and could've been reading that instead.
And then there's Downbelow Station. I picked this up because I hadn't done a space book in a while and it's supposed to be one of Cherryh's classics. It was good! Essentially it's a space opera military thriller, about a station that's caught between opposing powers who are, at this point, mostly fighting because they fear the other side. Most of the story's from the stationer POVs (good factions and bad), but you also get the military and diplomats, and everyone's trying to get through the conflict intact and in charge. I was describing it to coworkers as "mid-series Expanse but from the '80s". I mostly enjoyed it and am glad I read it, but found some of the politicking and the ways it was brought across a little too complex for my taste.
For non-fiction this month, I picked up two audiobooks. First was The Deviant's War, about queer activists in the US before Stonewall, which I found interesting and sometimes infuriating and pleasingly nuanced. (The author does a good job balancing "they did this really great thing" and "they weren't the most pleasant people", which not all queer histories do.) Lots of deep dives into court records and FBI files and the Lavender Scare. If you're interested in the subject, pick it up.
The second audiobook was this month's travel memoir: Travels with Charley. I haven't liked Steinbeck's fiction, that I've read, but I figured "thoughtful guy in a camper truck with a poodle" would probably be up my alley and I was right. It's an incomplete portrait of America in 1960, with character sketches and anecdotes and thoughts on modernity. It's more open-minded than I'd expected from a middle-aged man, and I was routinely surprised by Steinbeck's grumbles about modern conveniences and the way things are going, because they could be uttered nowadays too. The more things change. (Warning for conversations and language in the Civil Rights-era South, though.)
In other bookish news, I broke my not-buying-things streak by picking up Butterfly Effects and also Bury Me Standing, which has been on my TBR for a while. I found a copy for a good price while unhauling books at a used bookstore. It's on my travel writing TBR specifically, so I might even get to it this year.
Currently reading The History of Magic because I haven't picked up a global history in a while. Picking up Outlaw Planet by M.R. Carey sometime this week.
And now, without further ado, what I read this month in order of enjoyment…
This month I proved that it's possible to scare even myself with my reading speed. I'm about done with the short, light reads, at least for the moment, though. I've picked up a couple slower, darker reads to bridge the gap to March, and I'm now so far ahead on my yearly reading goal that I have a little bit of breathing room. That's accidental, by the way, not on purpose.
Once again, I didn't manage to write a dedicated review. My standout read, though, was Murderland, which was intense—a tonne of facts, a nearly day-by-day timeline of evil at some points, rage at the callousness and greed of heavy industry, and it never lets you look away from a single gory detail. (Seriously, if you can't handle knowing everything Bundy did to his victims, this is not the book for you.) It's not completely a fresh premise and certainly not a complete answer to why serial killers happen, but it's well-argued and thought-provoking and it hit my bar of greatness, which is that it made me feel things.
My least favourite read was, sadly, The Rose Field. I found it a little too padded, with scenes or conversations that could've been tighter if not cut completely, and I thought that as a result, his thesis got a little muddied while also, oddly, also being a little heavy-handed. I wish he'd gotten more editing or had taken a little more time to work on it, because it could have been good enough to save the trilogy for me. As it is, it didn't, and I'm wondering now how His Dark Materials would hold up to adult eyes. Whether it's him, or adult me, or really just the editing problem I suspect. Very disappointing, though.
The rest of my reads were various sorts of good to middling. City of Others is a fresh new urban fantasy, especially if you like the Peter Grant books. Nine Goblins and Agnes Aubert's Mystical Cat Shelter were both charming—Goblins in a very Pratchett sort of way and Agnes is a modern cozy fantasy way. I got Howl's Moving Castle vibes at a few points, and of course there were cats. Honeyeater and Nightshade & Oak were both solid and what I expected of their authors, and to be honest, so were Crime Rangoon and Mayhem at a Halloween Wedding, though the latter also might have benefited from a structural editor. Parts felt rushed and I had to double-check a scene because an important plot point flew under the radar the first time. Still going to continue the series if I spot it in the wild, but I won't be seeking it out.
Other reads? River of Bones is a collection of excellent short stories and a new novella by Rebecca Roanhorse. Penric's Fox is a Bujold novella. (I will never not be entertained by Bujold.) Dead & Breakfast was fun and drew a smart parallel between vampirism and the acceptance of queer folk, but it edged into being too silly for me, unfortunately. I won't hesitate to recommend it to anyone who thinks "cozy mystery with gay vampires" sounds like a good time, but I won't be picking up the sequel.
And then we have my travel memoir of the month: Ibn Fadlan and the Land of Darkness! Which is only partly Ibn Fadlan and filled out with other medieval travellers from the Islamic world, all outlining the trips they took north or the strange people they heard about who lived up there. Some of it was recognizable—fur traders, very pale blond people, dog sleds, skis, saunas, court politics, Viking ship funerals—and some of it was typical medieval fantasy—notably, the short demonic people with giant hairy ears who lived behind Alexander the Great's northern wall and were prophesied to start the apocalypse. Typical for the period, in other words! I loved seeing how far north Islam (and Judaism) had spread by even the tenth century, and how the trading networks helped the writers write knowledgeably about places they'd never been to.
In other bookish news, there isn't much. We survived inventory at work for another year, I guess? Most of February was spent prepping to make that go well. My parents came down for a few days and brought some old books of my grandparents, which I'm trying to think of a good place for. I think some reorganization might be in order so I can get them on a bookcase rather than in them.
I have not seen "Wuthering Heights". I have no plans to.
Next month is probably going to see me reading on the darker, deeper end of things still, in an attempt to balance out three cozy mysteries, two cozy fantasies, and three lighter fantasies. I'll be leaving my thoughts on Downbelow Station and The Midnight Show for my next wrap-up because this is already getting long. (There's also an author event I'm excited for.)
And speaking of length, at last, here is everything I read in order of how much I enjoyed them…
