Books of 2026: July Wrap-Up.
Wow, I really did spent pretty much An Entire Month on one (1) big, loadbearing scene in my revision project (yikes), plus some typing/10%ing/query lettering side quests. I feel great about where the manuscript is going! I'm crunched under the Weight of This Deadline! And I thought For Sure I was not going to read much about it, but I forgot about tri-wielding nonfiction for a big chunk of the month, so Here We Are, ten-ish books later.
Reviews linked!:
BETWEEN DOORWAYS ★★★★ Liminal spaces horror short fiction collection, lands somewhere between THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES and I AM IN ESKEW. Delightful (awful), visceral, full of Creeping Dread.
VACATION ★★★(½?) Strange little book (I do think Weird and Strange have Slightly Different Flavor Profiles for me)(I usually go Weird.)(This one was Strange). Picked it up because the WtNV writer cited it as an inspiration. Still not totally sure how I feel about it.
WRITE THROUGH IT ★★★★ Funny! Relatable! Packed full of all sorts of publishing industry insider knowledge! Supremely helpful!
IN WRITING ★★★★ Another "Hold My Writerly Hand" type book. Lovely mix of perspectives and disciplines, I flaggied the shit out of this. We Are All The Same.
A NATURAL HISTORY OF EMPTY LOTS ★★★ I really should've loved this and it was really just mediocre :/ Everyone Is Disappointed With That :/
THE ELSEWHERE EXPRESS ★★ Sigh. It looks like it has so much promise and potential. Aesthetically charming, has the structural integrity of cotton candy, not only does not deliver on the "finding your way in life" theme but actually swings hard the opposite direction and lacks the narrative awareness to know it. Skip it.
FLOATING HOTEL ★★★★★ Delightful! Cozy! Becky Chambers + Imperial Radch + a smidge of Time War. Enough torture to hit my whump buttons (really not that much)(caveated here so you're not jumpscared)! Phenomenal ensemble cast and rotating but deep POV.
REST STOP ★★★ Library'd! Very quick horror novella. Some good dread, a fuckton of gore and bugs and snakes and googly eyes, mostly just Fine.
CIGARETTES UNTIL TOMORROW ★★★★ Romanian poetry! Contemporary, solid mix of styles, I Had Favorites.
ANNA AKHMATOVA - 235/942 pages read. Made it through "White Flock"! I think that's the longest individual volume in the collection so far. I filled three (3) sheets in my little poetry quest notebook about it. Good stuff.
I'm about *checks whiteboard**nudges conspiracy theory string out of the way* twelve (12) plot cards, or 35k/125 pages, from getting through this revision, and I'm about a month and a half out from my deadline (with two traveling weeks nested in there). I keep altering my goals trajectory slightly, and now I'm at "I'd love to be done with the Actual Hard Part Of The Work by the time the writing retreat cruise is over" (the Hard Part being: make it all the way to The End in hardcopy revisions, but don't worry about having 1. input all of said revisions or 2. 10% Solution'd all of it)--not because it's life or death in the grand scheme of the universe or anything, but because WOW I really was looking forward to a Hard Finish Line™. I Need An Off-Ramp, And I Cannot Drag This Book Into Another Year Or I Will Simply Perish. I think I can do it, but if you hear extreme writerly engine revving happening somewhere in Ohio, don't worry about it, I'm sure it will All Be Fine.
Under the Cut: How I Conceptualize ~*★Stars★*~
