A book review and recommendation blog Free Palestine 🇵🇸 main/author blog: silveramaryllis Tamora Pierce, Naomi Novik, and R. F. Kuang stan Favorite genres are fantasy, sci-fi, and romance CR: Dune
Hi, I’m Amaryllis, and this is my recommendation and review blog. On this page, I pretty much only discuss books, maybe occasionally an adaptation. Currently, I'm just reviewing books as I finish them (occasionally out of order).
Here is my linktree for all my other platforms:
Book reviewer and aspiring writer
There’s more about me, my system, and my books under the cut.
About Me
You guys can call me Wonderose, and I’m a cis woman, bisexual, and 21 years old. I won’t be talking a ton about my personal life since I value my anonymity on the internet. My dream is to be an author, but in the meantime I'm hoping to become an editor. When it comes to books, my favorite genres are fantasy, sci-fi, and romance, but the only types of books I truly hesitate to read are horror and nonfiction. I’m in two books clubs, one in person and one online, and I have a huge backlist of books that I'm working through.
About Reviews
As I finish books, I’ll be uploading reviews for them as I see fit. Right now, I upload at least one a week on Sundays, occasionally more. These are books I’ve recently read or perhaps an old favorite. I do mostly fantasy and young adult. Please keep in mind, all of this is my personal opinion, so if you don’t agree, feel free to send an ask and have a discussion. Feel free to do this if you agree with what I said too! (Please talk to me)
Note: this has been edited over time as I have streamlined my process
For Authors and Publishers
In the past, authors have reached out to me and asked me to review their books. I've only worked with a few so far, but I'm excited to work with more! The guidelines I have are simple. I will review any book in exchange for a free copy (provided I don't already own it), but this review will always be honest. If I love the book, I will say so, and if I hate it, I will still say so. If you are looking for something more in-depth, more in line with promotional material for your book, I have done projects like that as well. For example, I once did a reading vlog for Beguiled by Cyla Panin. These, considering that they are more time-intensive and I am helping advertise the book, will require financial compensation which would, of course, be negotiated on both sides. Any review or content requested by or paid for by an author will say so on the post for the sake of transparency. I can be contacted through a direct message on any of my platforms or at [email protected]. I look forward to working with you!
And if you want some extra cards to add to Libby from some of the largest library systems in the US, check out Books Unbanned! It’s primarily meant for younger people (13-26) to help counteract book bans
Okay no I need to talk about the book version of Howl's Moving Castle. I love the movie but the book has such a different vibe and you, yes you, should read it.
Movie Howl is a soulful and quiet. Book Howl is a drama queen and Causing Problems and has a long string of jilted exes and couldn't shut up if you paid him.
Sophie and Howl drive each other up the wall at the beginning and it's really funny. Sophie and Howl are (despite themselves) very much in love by the end and they still drive each other up the wall and it's even funnier.
In the movie, Howl has been ordered by the king to participate in The War, and Howl is avoiding it because he is a brave conscientious objector. In the book, Howl has been ordered by the king to rescue his lost brother from the Witch of the Wastes, and Howl is avoiding it by any means necessary because he is a cowardly weasel who wants to stay as far from the Witch as possible.
In the movie, the Witch cursed Sophie because she was jealous about Howl speaking to Sophie for five minutes. In the book, the Witch cursed Sophie because Sophie had been doing surprisingly powerful magic for years without knowing it and it was actually starting to cut into the Witch's plans. (Sophie does not discover any of this until nearly the end of the book, but the reader can start to pick it up much earlier and the way Sophie's magic works is pretty darn cool.)
In the movie, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens, but this is implied to be nothing but nasty fearmongering. In the book, there's a rumor that Howl eats the hearts of maidens because Howl started the rumor so people would stop asking him to do wizard junk all the time.
The book lightly parodies a couple of tropes from Western fairy tales. In particular Sophie has internalized that, as the eldest of three sisters, her "destiny" is to fail so that her younger sisters will look cooler when they succeed, which is why she's so resigned to the hat shop at the beginning. (Sidebar: Sophie's sisters come up much more in the book and they're great.) There's also a really funny bit where Sophie attempts to operate a pair of seven-league boots.
In the movie, the fourth and final location that the magic door connects to is some sort of black void / mindscape / time portal dealy. In the book the fourth location is Wales, in the UK, on Earth, so that Howl can visit his family, because from Howl's perspective this is an isekai story.
so wildly obnoxious when you agree with the starting point of someone's stance only for them to hard turn into things you DON'T agree with and now you have to defend the thing that was originally annoying you
"too many authors in the current market are focusing on selling 'spice' instead of telling interesting stories"
"oh yeah, i agree. i started reading one that i heard a lot about and it just wasn't-"
"and it's all of these women reading their fucking mommy porn out in public like FREAKS"
*through gritted teeth* "people should be allowed to read whatever they want, and actually these books should be left alone and you should shut up about it"
“Regarding setting, the court held that both works taking place in Alaska high schools was not protectable because Alaska is a public place and setting a teen novel in a high school is a common genre convention.”
apologies in advance for the US-centric poll options...
Where do you buy the majority of your books?
Amazon (including Audible)
A physical chain retailer's website (such as Barnes and Noble or Waterstones)
Kobo
Bookshop.org (or your country's equivalent, if they have one)
Apple Books
Indie bookstore's webpage
Direct from the publisher (online or in person)
Brick-and-mortar chain bookstore
Indie bookstore or local/small-scale bookstore chain
Used bookstore or thrift store that has books
Somewhere else
I don't buy books
Voting ended onFeb 5
A little scared I'm gonna launch this and then 80 people are gonna be like "you missed the most obvious one, it's..." but that's everything I can think of rn so oh well. I wanted to include Libro.fm for audiobooks but I ran out of room, sigh.
For the purpose of this post, consider things like Kindle Unlimited as "buying the book from Amazon"
pov youre shen jiu and your darling head disciple shen yuan is entering the immortal alliance conference and when you see him team up with that bastard luo binghe who runs after him calling him "shen shixiong" you cant do anything about it.
you also cant do anything when the spirit eagles broadcast to everyone who luo binghe clings to shen yuan at every opportunity. he says "shixiong I'm cold..." until shen yuan gets under the blanket with him and shares his body heat by cuddling him the rest of the night. the spirit eagles show them having their meals together, shen yuan wiping the sauce off the side of binghes face with his handkerchief. them fighting side by side against monsters perfectly in sync with each other.
the immortal masters around you are shipping them. your favourite and least favourite students are everyones it couple. somehow the two of them together have dominated the leaderboards too.
so when everyone finds out shen yuans beloved shidi perished at the hands of the demons, theyre moved to tears on shen yuans behalf. the young man is trying to be so strong about the whole thing. endless gifts are sent to qing jing and shen jiu has to throw them all out. doesn't get rid of shen yuans reputation as a mourning widow whose love everyone saw first hand with each headpat in the arena. theyre the cultivation world's first tragic yaoi.
Luo Binghe coming out of the abyss ecstatic to find there's bingyuan rpf for him to read only to have that joy immediately stolen away when someone tells him "the major sects have been sending suitors to shen yuan to help him move on. Gongyi Xiao is one of the only men he'll accept onto the peak."