https://www.aaronaads.com/itsme daily 0.75 2026-01-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ce435d6bea1ed00016ba287/1558964652247-5MWXNMFZVOPGE4TY6U2Q/MHeiderich_ReflexionenZwei-05-copy.jpg Me https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/1634675692274-HZTIHI77LH1F7D9GKKAV/Resume%CC%81.GIF Me - Make it stand out click right there ^^^ for my resumé https://www.aaronaads.com/reading daily 0.75 2026-03-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ce435d6bea1ed00016ba287/1558964652247-5MWXNMFZVOPGE4TY6U2Q/MHeiderich_ReflexionenZwei-05-copy.jpg Reading https://www.aaronaads.com/art daily 0.75 2021-12-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/35f3c301-cc8c-41da-a616-6747c76cdb0a/Untitled_Artwork.jpeg Art https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/1d345ea5-af11-4b69-8898-6458d8d08408/IMG_1129.jpeg Art 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Eileen Ottessa Moshfegh 4/5 Reading sounds: Swine by, Lady Gaga This was the first book by Ottessa Moshfegh that I ever read. Sent to me from a friend, this book was described to me as, “a book I give to people who say they don’t like reading. Anyone could read this book.” I kind of disagree. I read this book in less than a day, but I was very surprised by what it turned out to be. I know you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I was definitely feeling a noir thriller vibe from the design of the dust jacket and hardcover engraving (shiny author initials.. oooooh). This book turned out to be an uncomfortable, weird, and often disgusting character study leading up to the final ten(ish) page whirlwind mystery that didn’t really move the plot much. I don’t like to read dust jacket summaries before I read the book, and this is an excellent example of why. The summary mentions a plot point that doesn’t occur until the last **I’m estimating** ten(ish) pages of the book. I’m glad I went into the book knowing nothing, or I think I would have been let down by what a slow and steady burn this book is. As I said, I read this book in a day; I really enjoyed myself and felt that I was reading the book almost too fast to absorb everything I wanted to. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/5867638c-0b22-413d-8de5-c589b829e0ce/homesick+for+another+world.jpeg 2020 - 2. Homesick for Another World Ottessa Moshfegh 2/5 Reading sounds: The Prawn Song by, Superorganism This collection of short stories was a weird experience. The stories were very characteristic of what I expect from Moshfegh. A character at the fringe of society. Some notable fixations and obsessions that tend to drive the story. But the focus is not on plot so much as character development; there’s just only so much character development you can do in a short story, and I felt myself longing for the format of a longer novel in order to explore the ideas presented in HfAW. Also I read this in a day, so I can’t honestly say I didn’t enjoy it. However, I only remember two specific stories from the collection, maybe. This might be something I reread in the future, and I bet I would end up enjoying more of the stories. YouTube videos, and online articles of Moshfegh doing readings and interviews for this book release were probably the best thing about this book. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/82198b9d-4f32-44f8-927c-d4e990c4f80f/mcglue.jpeg 2020 - 3. McGlue Ottessa Moshfegh 3/5 Reading Sounds: Gay Pirates by, Cosmo Jarvis This one was so short! 160 pages. I read this on the same day as Homesick for Another World, but I enjoyed this one much more. This has been a good year for pirate books and me. This is Ottessa Moshfegh’s first release and turned ended up one of my favorites of hers. Reading from the perspective of this alternatingly drunken and hungover sailor trying to remember anything he can about this crime his crewmates keep mentioning is all about and why he’s locked up in the ship’s hold is disorienting and understandably unenjoyable. In interviews (for HfAN, Eileen, and MYoRR specifically) Moshfegh has mentioned the overwhelming number of people who have told her that her books have caused discomfort in themselves or people they recommend the book to. This really emphasizes to me the idea of studying my own reaction to the words of an author just as much as I’m paying attention to the words themselves. When something makes me feel a certain way I wanna know why, and I want to know how that author made me feel that way! And Moshfegh always makes me feel stuff. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/664a3be7-0117-40bf-a0b0-d59e4497e2f5/my+year+of+rest+and+relaxation.jpeg 2020 - 4. My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh 5/5 Reading sounds: We Might Be Dead By Tomorrow by, Soko This review is about to be messy, but I am just so excited. This book is 5 stars but I want to believe that the best book of 2020 isn’t going to be one I read in January. I read this book twice the first day I read it, and I got halfway through it one more time - this time dedicated to taking notes - before I finally put it down for another book. That copy of mine was lost by a friend (moment of silence & RIP that friendship & neu fone hoo dis) so I’m a little heartbroken, but that just means I can read it more. I cannot say enough good things about this book. The main character was one of the most unlikable protagonists I’ve ever read about - beaten out only by like Holden Caufield or the old man from Old Man and the Sea. Remaining a nameless protagonist for the entirety of the novel, she is on a journey to be reborn after essentially hibernating in a drug-induced state for a year with the help of her deranged psychiatrist Dr. Tuttle. The only part of this book that drug on a bit for my taste was a section involving a trip to visit her “best friend” Reva and Reva’s family. This book ruminates on decadence, the gaudy nature of American taste, trauma, mental health, and beauty. These are pretty heavy topics that require deft and proper handling which the protagonist is highly unequipped to manage. However, author Moshfegh maneuvers her protagonist through the story in such a way that said more than her protagonist ever could - as I’m learning any good author should be able to do. This book was the end of my start-of-the-year Moshfegh marathon, but it was the book that sealed my die-hard fangirl status. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/c0366662-d052-4e07-899b-b08e6c55dcfa/the+philosophy+of+andy+warhol.jpeg 2020 - 5. The Philosophy of Andy Warhol Andy Warhol 3.5/5 Reading sounds: Digital Witness by, St. Vincent This was another book I read at the recommendation of a friend. I am not sure how I felt about this book. Andy Warhol is fascinating, but reading from his perspective became…tiresome…very quickly. His POV almost felt reminiscent of some Tumblr blog I would have been obsessed with in middle school. This definitely shows how far ahead of his time he was. However, some of his concepts for different sections of the book got under my skin very quickly. An entire section was comprised of a transcription of a phone conversation between Warhol and one of his close friends. Andy barely says anything the entire time, so this chapter is mostly made up of the pointless ramblings of this nameless friend. This was a low point in the book for me. Other sections were more interesting - notably any part of the book where Warhol talks about his high-profile friendship with Elizabeth Taylor. Warhol’s obsession with fame and celebrity is on broad display in this book, and although it definitely reveals a gaudy level of privilege, it was very enjoyable to read about (think guilty pleasure reading, almost). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/3e0c1288-4be7-4865-a3a8-02548b46976d/a+clash+of+kings.jpeg 2020 - 6. A Clash of Kings George R. R. Martin 1/5 Reading Sounds: Movin’ On Up by, Ja’Net DuBois Honestly fuck this book. I spent a month reading this book, but I could have been reading so many other things. I have to read the book version of something before I’ll watch the movie/TV show, so I read the first GoT book like freshman or sophomore year of high school. Scratch that. I started it then. I did not finish until my senior year of high school. Danaerys’s story is basically the only thing that got me through that entire book, and she was even less present in the second book than the first. The lack of Ned Stark was a remarkable improvement though. Cat was a baddie. Sansa was fun to hate-read. Arya was not as exciting to read as I wanted her to be. Tyrion was much more interesting in this book. This book made me desperately want chapters from Cersei’s POV. Out of the entire book, I think that the standout moment for me had to be Cersei’s and Sansa’s conversation inside the castle during the battle on Blackwater Bay. The setup of the scarlet witch lady as a bad guy is cool, but I don’t feel much incentive to pick up the next book - it’s at my parents’ house if I feel the urge, and need them to send it to me. I gave this book one star because it is pretty impressive just for what it is. A sweeping fantasy story with enough detail to convince you that a real place named Westeros must really exist and Martin is just relating past experiences. How could he know what everyone is wearing and eating in every damn dining hall in the world? Psychosis? No way. My biggest issue with Martin’s writing style is that every single thing he talks about is given the same weight and density. A child in the kitchen will give you the same detailed description of their actions and surroundings as an adult in the midst of a battle. The prose seems to move at the same pace in both situations as well. It is quite disorienting to be reading Tyrion’s perspective of a battle, and it feels like the whole scene is moving in slow motion. That could be a characteristic of good writing, but it was not something I enjoyed. If something exciting is happening in the story, I really enjoy it when the reading experience reflects that. And I still haven’t watched the TV show. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/0949187a-389c-4392-b9d4-1a9ddb5349c3/chain+of+gold.jpeg 2020 - 7. Chain of Gold Cassandra Clare 5/5 Reading Sounds: Talia by, King Princess I really do love Cassandra Clare. This book being released is what drove me to finish the last 300-ish pages of A Clash of Kings in a weekend - and I was worried I was never going to finish that book. Chain of Gold is the first book in Cassie’s newest series The Last Hours. It is also a loose retelling of Great Expectations. Characters from this trilogy have previously appeared in Clare’s various short story collections, The Bane Chronicles, Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, and Ghosts of the Shadow Market. However, this is the first time we have seen these characters in a main trilogy. They are the children of the protagonists from Clare’s Infernal Devices trilogy. Cordelia Carstairs (the cousin of Infernal Devices’ Jem Carstairs) is my favorite protagonist Cassie has ever written, winning out over Tessa Gray from The Infernal Devices. I know, right. Cordelia is a devoted swordsman, a previous owner of the legendary sword Cortana which is currently wielded by Emma Carstairs in The Dark Artifices trilogy. Cordelia possesses the wisdom of Tessa Gray, the bravery of Emma Carstairs, and basically nothing from the often-thoughtless Clary Fray. Every time Clare decides to expand on her world, I expect it to detract from the whole. Instead, I am surprised every time I read her newest release and it checks every box I need a YA fantasy novel to check. The new cast of characters - the children of her characters from her Infernal Devices trilogy - are witty, smart, adventurous, and partial to some great banter. Bringing in special appearances from her beloved immortal characters is my weak spot, and Cassie KNOWS THAT. She KNOWS THAT. I just love Magnus Bane. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/91da6ee8-59bb-4592-b8f0-b45eaa10a5cc/dig..jpeg 2020 - 8. Dig. A S King 5/5 Reading Sounds: White House by, Bibi Bourelley A S King is another author like Cassandra Clare who I have been reading since I was in middle school. This is - not easily - probably the best book of King’s I have ever read. Dig. is about a cast of very different people - whether they know it or not - piecing together how they fit into the same story. The story tackles topics like racism, white privelege, intergenerational trauma, family, and secrets. A S King won the Michael L. Printz Award for this novel in 2020, and her acceptance speech gave me chills. She has a way of telling stories that is truly remarkable. If this novel was not about teenagers, I would not think that this is a YA novel, but that is part of the beauty of A S King’s writing: Her stories about young people are valuable and important to just about anyone old enough to read. I didn’t realize that the blobs on the cover of the book are potatoes until after I finished the book, and although I did not shed a single tear reading the book, that one starchy epiphany got me bawling. I finished this at the beginning of Spring Break a.k.a. the first day of the end of the world (16 March 2020), and this was the beginning of an A S King binge that lasted a while. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/56f30911-f13f-4bc9-88f7-16ce8a8e7d13/i+crawl+through+it.jpeg 2020 - 9. I Crawl Through It A S King 2/5 Reading Sounds: Hang On Kids by, Ghost Mice This is probably my least favorite A S King book. The story was good. The symbolism and metaphors were at times overwhelming. Sometimes when King’s writing gets to be too much for me, I can feel myself distancing myself from what I’m reading, and this is what started happening with this book. Too much A S King. Too little time. I could barely keep track of what everything was referencing back to. By the end of the book, I was not as invested in the story as I wanted to be. I think this is a book I will need to revisit in the future. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/b07a867b-4998-48be-a257-cc5116d78f4d/reality+boy.jpeg 2020 - 10. Reality Boy A S King 3/5 Reading Sounds: X by, Poppy This is the first A S King book I have ever read entirely in one sitting. Most of the time her themes and plots are so heavy that I cannot make it through without stopping to sleep or breath or just spreading it out over several days at least. This book felt like watching a movie. It was about a child reality star turned meme. Viral moments from his family’s reality tv show capture him being a horrible child (think Honey Boo Boo but without the catchy punchlines)(but also kind of Honey Boo Boo with the punchlines too). This book examines the family dynamics that surrounded the filming of a show that manipulated such young and impressionable people as the protagonist and his siblings for the sake of entertainment. How does that kid feel being seen by the world? How does that kid feel ten years after the show is off air? I’m not sure I would ever think about this on my own, and I was a little surprised that A S King would be the author to tell this story. But that shows what I know. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/7c209b2e-b935-4c15-b0f6-ffa4808cada9/me+and+marvin+gardens.jpeg 2020 - 11. Me and Marvin Gardens A S King 3/5 Reading Sounds: A Better Son/Daughter by, Rilo Kiley The first middle grade book of A S King’s I have ever read. This book was so good. Topics like environmentalism, family, and consent are explored throughout this story. Our main character finds a new species of animal walking around his family’s land, and sort of adopts him, naming him Marvin Gardens (yeah, like Monopoly). This story was short, sweet, and hard-hitting. Approaching topics like environmentalism from the perspective of a child - someone normally left out of this conversation entirely - is an interesting take. It would be much harder to defend destroying the planet to someone who’s just trying to figure out how to grow up. Seizing this idea, King places her young protagonist directly in the middle of the conversation. I think if anything else this move reveals the idea that the mere presence of children in a conversation like this can throw into sharp contrast the consequences of usurping nature and the steps to be taken in order to make a difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/e5aabfcc-5447-424c-9018-21beefe5c641/muse+of+nightmares.jpeg 2020 - 12. Muse of Nightmares Laini Taylor 4.5/5 Reading Sounds: Past Lives by, Kesha This is Taylor’s sequel to Strange the Dreamer which I read back in 2016. Her prose is as always stunning (I’m thinking of her Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy in particular). This novel only proves how cunningly she is able to weave together storylines. As is characteristic of her novels, Muse of Nightmares discusses the improbability of peace between people who have ingrained war into their own histories. Taylor has again written what feels like a modern fairy tale, a story so sweeping and beautiful that it feels wrong to close the book after finishing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/bc760e98-dd55-4f68-8fa6-f88302b868f2/lolita.jpeg 2020 - 13. Lolita Vladimir Nabakov 4/5 Reading Sounds: Glory and Glore by, Lorde Did I like this book? Ok. So my introduction to the ideas and themes of this novel came from heterosexual sad girl and gay icon Lana Del Rey. Yeah, I know. Don’t look at me like that. But on Lana’s first album Born to Die she had two songs - Carmen and Lolita - that both seemed to take heavy nods from this monumental Hotel 8 sugar daddy rendezvous road trip aesthetic. Lana told me a story about a girl using her looks to seduce men because she’s a bad girl. Enjoying these songs and listening to the message led me to believe this novel was about that. I was so wrong. This novel is seemingly just a haunting story about a depraved human with lushly written passages of skull-grinding crocodile tears. Through confessional letters penned by Humbert Humbert, the reader is told the story of Humbert’s obsession with Lolita, the twelve-year-old daughter of a woman Humbert is renting a room from. After her mother dies, Humbert takes the child into his custody and proceeds to rape her later in the story. At times it seems that Lolita is somewhat willing, but other times it is less consensual; eventually you see the effects of this relationship in Lolita’s character arc, and they are fairly catastrophic. The first time I realized that Humbert is an unreliable narrator was when he kept repeating how handsome he was. When describing himself the first time, I thought this was a fairly unremarkable detail. The second time he said it, I was annoyed. But when he repeated it after that, I realized that I still didn’t really know what he looked like. At one point he describes himself as looking like one of those handsome Hollywood movie stars that Lo was so obsessed with. So I clicked on my new reading lens of not believing a single thing he said, and the book became something else. It was again the shady extravagant sob story of a seedy pedophile. This book held my attention the whole time I was reading it. It was the kind of thing that can really scare you if you think about it too much, and that is what the book seemingly asks you to do. I came out of this book feeling not great, but I think it was good that I read it. It was a masterclass in storytelling from an author I have never read before now. Did I like this book? Honestly, no. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/7f7bcfb3-8e5d-4b50-92ea-8e7f1336bd0c/in+a+dark+dark+wood.jpeg 2020 - 14. In a Dark, Dark Wood Ruth Ware 2.5/5 Reading Sounds: Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) by, Nancy Sinatra This was recommended to me by a friend, and I really enjoyed it. It was kinda spooky, and I just bought Beloved knowing I would need something lightweight after Lolita. The whole mystery happens at the main character Lee’s high school friend’s bachelorette party. It is a weekend long event that takes place in a giant metal and glass house in the woods. One entire side of the house is a giant pane of glass facing out into a seemingly solid wall of trees. Over the course of the book, Lee thinks about how they are arranged much like dolls in a dollhouse for the entire wilderness to look at and be entertained by. The thought disturbed me, and I wish it was explored more. The bad guy is kind of obvious, and I could not understand why Lee accepted the invitation to this estranged friend’s bachelorette party in the first place after all the horrible backstory you learn later in the story. It was a definite thriller though, and the atmosphere was on point. I think it was picked for Reese Witherspoon’s book club? And it definitely had a similar feel to Big Little Lies. Reese was in that, right? I only read the book. Don’t look at me like that. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/89c303bd-6977-44a6-81b3-9df322b7aaad/beloved.jpeg 2020 - 15. Beloved Toni Morrison 4/5 Reading Sounds: Ode To Billie Joe by, Bobbie Gentry Did I like this book? Haha, but this time it is a little different though. I decided to read this because I’ve only read one other Toni Morrison book (Sula), and that was for school. Also, Oprah is in the movie. I really enjoyed Sula, but it did kind of intimidate me. Approaching Beloved made me doubly nervous maybe just because of the fact that its like almost twice as long as Sula. It’s also extremely famous, so there’s a lot of stuff to pick up that I know I’m not going to pick up on. At times it was painful to read the physical struggles of Sethe as she traverses the wilderness in order to avoid the main roads of transportation in post-slavery America. Graphic scenes of violence and abuse underscored the story of a multigenerational family in the mid-1800s. There were ideas in this book that hit so close to home because it felt like I had thought of them before, and Toni Morrison had picked it out of my head and found the right words to explain to me how I was feeling. Being able to believe something into existence is a theme that runs through this story. Although no mainstream religion is ever explicitly an important factor in the story, there are conversations running throughout that look at this. When I finished the book, I did not want to watch the movie anymore. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/be707f78-bb41-4802-a51c-4611ce808dc2/the+color+purple.jpg 2020 - 16. The Color Purple Alice Walker 5/5 Reading Sounds: After Laughter (Comes Tears) by, Wendy Rene I read this book in a day - I am so sorry to the kids I was babysitting, they were so mad at me that day - and I could not have been more surprised by that. This book is arranged as a series of letters written from our protagonist Celie addressed at firs to god and then later to her sister. The writing in this book was so vivid. I could hear the book. In middle school, I remember learning about the dialect masters like Mark Twain. My teacher would spout off about not just what the characters were saying but the way the characters were talking. Alice Walker is up there with the most realistic dialogue I’ve ever read. I could hear her characters, and giving them voices in my mind made me care about them so much more. LGBTQIA+ representation is not something I’ve ever really encountered in English/literature classes (I mean except for when I read A Picture of Dorian Gray and my teacher told me Basil was just really platonically friendly towards Dorian it had nothing to do with gay, or when we read Shakespeare - “it was ok back then”), and it was kind of mind boggling to realize this iconic story has been sitting under my nose this whole time. I did watch this movie after finishing the book. Several times. And Oprah is the best part. But Sophia was the best part of the book, so no shots fired. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/43fb5ea7-a154-4e8e-b4dd-0af848e29c2c/death+in+her+hands.jpeg 2020 - 17. Death in Her Hands Ottessa Moshfegh 3.5/5 Reading Sounds: I Went To The Store One Day by, Father John Misty This book was not something I would ever read if Ottessa Moshfegh hadn’t written it. It followed the story of an elderly woman living alone with her dog. She is piecing together a mystery - if you can call it a mystery - using some dusty bizarro crazy old lady logic that just happens to keep panning out. If I had to compare it to the rest of Moshfegh’s books, I would say that it is most similar to Eileen just in the way that she tells the story. It feels like Eileen could have even grown up to eventually become this narrator, as upsetting as that is. There were barely any characters in this book, which created a sense of loneliness and isolation that was ever-present throughout the story. Atmosphere: Check. Slightly frightening protagonist: Check. Description that you don’t like repeating when people ask what you’re reading: Check. Ottessa has done it again. I love it. I live for it. What did she do? That. Periodt pooh. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/56bbc56c-6227-4fd4-b049-cc7798a0ec2f/monica+never+shuts+up.jpeg 2020 - 18. Monica Never Shuts Up A S King 3.5/5 Reading Sounds: TALK DEEP by, E^ST Hey Amy. I love you. This is a collection of short stories from I think my most-read author this year. Normally short stories are a dime a dozen. Ya know, There’s one or two good ones out of a whole collection. But there was maybe only one that didn’t click for me. These stories hit precisely, and they hit hard. King tackles old and new topics like abuse, addiction, environmentalism, and being grown up. This was an interesting change of pace and one that led me to notice that this is the only published “Adult Fiction” of A S King that I have read or heard of. I want to reread these, but my dad has been reading them for like 3 months now - I promise the book is not that long, my dad’s just a freak. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/3733ab3f-baa7-4020-9dfc-e1c877c00f2c/dune.jpeg 2020 - 19. Dune Frank Herbert 3.5/5 Reading Sounds: The Rum Tum Tugger by, Cast of CATS (the 1999 version duh) I don’t normally like sci-fi, but Dune was incredible. My friend asked me if I had ever seen or read Dune this summer. I said no, and I don’t really even like Star Wars, so ya know, please don’t get your feelings hurt when I zone out right now. But this friend was too smart for me. He used the one word that he knew could cut through any defenses I put up against 80s movies based on world-famous sci-fi novels compared to the likes of Tolkien. The word he used was: Zendaya. Ok, so I had to read this book. And I did! When it came in the mail, my parents thought something major was happening. Why was Aaron reading Dune? These characters, though, are spectacular. Lady Jessica and Paul are two of the coolest characters ever. They are just so. so. so. cool. This book talks about environmentalism, politics, and religion in a way that makes the book feel much newer than it is. I did not realize that this book was released in the 60s until I was almost a third of the way through it. I was surprised at how accessible this book was considering how much Herbert packs into every little piece of the plot. I don’t know if I am going to continue the series, but I am definitely intrigued. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/d9717a59-daf8-4176-a53d-6593ba2be958/the+dust+of+100+dogs.jpeg 2020 - 20. The Dust of 100 Dogs A S King 3/5 Reading Sounds: Hard Out Here by, Lily Allen This is A S King’s first book, so it was interesting to read for that reason alone. The story itself was not something I would normally be attracted to, but this was a good year for pirate stories! A girl in the 18th century grows up to be a pirate before she is killed and cursed to live 100 lives as a dog before returning to human form in America during the 1980s. Now going through high school, she plots to return to Jamaica and reclaim her treasure. Part of the book is written from the perspective of the protagonist during her childhood in 1800s Ireland, and this was very hard for me to get into at first, but these sections ended up being my favorites by the end of the book. Trying to imagine someone having lived so many lives and now being forced to go through the drudgery of high school was a little hard to wrap my head around, but perhaps this explains my forgiveness for her when she does some unintelligent things in her rush to get to where she’s going. I really enjoyed this overall. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/a907574b-d016-49d9-8d9d-6368fc81e4b7/the+ballad+of+songbirds+and+snakes.jpg 2020 - 21. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Suzanne Collins 4/5 Reading Sounds: The Pantaloon by, Twenty One Pilots When I first heard that Suzanna Collins was writing another Hunger Games book, I was dismayed. When I heard that the protagonist was going to be a young President Snow growing up in Panem’s capital, this did not help the situation. However, there was no way I was going to miss out on this, so I picked it up. I was very shocked by what I found. From the very beginning of the novel, Collins is drawing almost direct comparisons between Capitol life and District life. It is disturbing to see the creation of what becomes the Hunger Games as audiences know it in the original series. A lot of the backstory was not anything the audience would have missed not knowing, but there are some hidden minefields of meaning that are flayed open to be examined by the reader (the day of the reaping is July 4th). In looking at other reviews of this book, I have noticed many readers agreeing that this book was unsolicited to some extent; who wanted to know about President Snow’s childhood? What good is there in humanizing a child killer? How does the reader benefit? To this reader I would argue that this story does not humanize President Snow. Rather, every chance Snow is given to redeem himself in any way, the only person he chooses to serve is himself - unless he stands to gain directly from serving someone else. Although I question Collins’ decision to make Snow the protagonist of this story, there was a lot to be said for the monstrosity she has created. The best characters in this story - Tigris: Snow’s cousin and a recurring character from Mockingjay, Dean Highbottom: dean of the Capitol Academy, Dr. Gaul: Head Gamemaker, Sejanus Plinth: ex-district Academy student, and Lucy Gray Baird: District 12 tribute for the 10th annual Hunger Games - go largely unappreciated due to his negligence as a narrator. Listen, President Snow sucks, and the Hunger Games are not fun to read about, but this was possibly my favorite book out of them all. Its either Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes or Mockingjay for me. Dark, unsettling, ominous, political. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/0e1c7f45-f5de-4cb3-a33c-bd091ad17ae7/call+me+by+your+name.jpeg 2020 - 22. Call Me By Your Name André Aciman 22. Call Me By Your Name Andre Aciman 0.5/5 Reading Sounds: Visions of Gideon by, Sufjan Stevens Is 0/5 allowed? It has to be, because I make the rules. But like I have to give credit for writing a book, because that is hard to do. And it’s not a badly-made book. I guess. It just sucks. I bought this in the same Amazon cart as Lolita. That was my bad. Okay? I read Lolita first, and then getting into this book felt like some sort of cosmic test. I got 11 pages in and put it down, telling (not) a few people, “I’m just not horny enough to read this right now.” And then I tried to forget about it, but my friends told me they were watching the movie last week, and I needed to come watch, and I really do love Timmietay Chalet, but I hadn’t read the book since those first 11 pages, and that was like 2 months ago at this point, so I ended up reading this book in a day on my couch, and I hated pretty much every second of it. There’s a 17 year old boy Elio who’s in love with the 24 year old summer guest Oliver who is living with Elio’s family this year in their beautiful Italian home; and I think it’s the 80s. There is a thin line between desire and shame, a tightrope that Aciman wobbily manages at best. The tension between Elio and Oliver is the driving force for the entire novel; most of the time, they aren’t even talking to each other, but the telepathically, passive aggressively closeted action of this story mostly revolves around whether Elio and Oliver are on “speaking terms” on any given day. That is, up until close to the end of the summer, when they finally consummate their forbidden love in an act that’s at once sweet, but also salty at the same time. I understand the idea that Aciman was digging at fit with the context of what’s going on in the story, and it may even enhance the idea. I just felt that it was really creepy. Through the eyes of a seventeen-year-old I can understand feelings of lust towards a man who is twenty four. I think that this is why the novel is successful, because if the story was told through the eyes of Oliver, I do not think audiences would be as accepting of his feelings of lust for seventeen-year-old Elio. The ending was upsetting for any number of reasons - yes it made me cry, but it felt awful the whole time I was doing it - but I won’t say anything about that here. The movie was not any better than the book, but it took much less time to watch it than read it. Timothee is pretty (My sister kept calling him Peaches when we were watching Lady Bird, and it didn’t hit me in the middle of this movie) and so is Italy. The music for the movie was pretty good too. I would not recommend this book to anyone unless I wanted them to stay in the closet. (That’s not a good thing.) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/ad707d93-37aa-485f-a084-85d171113714/Someone+Who+Will+Love+You+in+All+Your+Damaged+Glory.jpg 2020 - 23. Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory Raphael Bob-Waksberg 3/5 Reading Sounds: Valentine’s Day by, Mal Blum This was another collection of short stories. Raphael Bob-Waksburg is known for creating Bojack Horseman on Netflix. This is his first published work as an author. I was recommended this book by a friend who has never seen Bojack Horseman, which is how I knew it was going to be good. The book was about love, but not to bore you. Compared to short story collections from earlier this year, this felt more like a solid and cohesive set of stories. Only a few really stood out to me, but the ones that did were true standouts. My favorite was probably one about a rock band that gets super powers. In order to use their powers, they have to be wearing the pendants they wore when they received their powers, and they have to be drunk. In fact, the drunker they get, the more powerful they become. Raphael Bob-Waksburg, please give me a whole book of this. Please. Other stories were not as memorable. I would talk about them, but I don’t rememberrrrr. I’m so sorry. But I recommend this book so much. It was that voice that makes Bojack able to say whatever the hell he wants without me turning off the TV, it was that voice that guided me through this sometimes hopelessly tragic book. Bob-Waksburg said at a book reading that your reaction to his book says more about your perception of love than his own presentation of love. In that case, no offense taken. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/af542572-23e9-427f-b2a3-e74556e3798d/the+nickel+boys.jpeg 2020 - 24. The Nickel Boys Colson Whitehead 3/5 Reading Sounds: The Suit That Won’t Come Off by, Fantastic Negrito It’s October 1, and I still don’t know how I feel about dropping spoilers in these book reviews. This makes it especially difficult to talk about The Nickel Boys. I had never heard of Colson Whitehead before picking up this book, but the shiny Pulitzer Prize Winner sticker on the front cover caught my attention. This created an abnormally large standard for this book as I first started reading, and not once was I disappointed. The character arc of our main protagonist, Elwood, gave me immense anxiety from the beginning. His positive outlook on life as a young Black boy in 1960s America gives the reader the sense that he has yet to feel the wearing and tearing of racism and bigotry, and the messages that he is trying to internalize as he grows up are not easy to swallow. He avidly consumes speeches from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and he quotes them many times throughout the novel. Specifically Elwood is inspired by “Loving Your Enemies,” a sermon delivered by MLK in Detroit in 1961. “But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom.” As Elwood moves through this novel, he is constantly faced with obstacles, men who would rather see him dead than successful, oftentimes based solely on his huge potential for success. Elwood is smart, brave, diligent, and perseverant. When he finally gets into college, a misfortunate hitchhike to campus lands him at the Nickel Academy, a reformatory school for juvenile delinquents. This is where the story really takes off. This book began in such a way that suggested to me a magnificent American Dream-esque plot line involving a young Black boy taking his limited resources and ultimately thriving. At every turn this story is torn apart, until l was left with the realization that the American Dream I thought was being described to me was more similar to the American Reality that exists today. By the end of this novel it is apparent that the safe storytelling I went into this novel expecting is a privilege not extended to the Black protagonists of much African American literature. As I tried to push through the middle section of the novel I kept finding myself complaining to people, “It’s not that I don’t like the book. It’s that I am not enjoying what I am reading at all.” I found myself distancing myself from the protagonist in an effort to get to the end less painfully. Self-reflection allows me to see the privilege in that statement, but these are not easy topics to read about. They are not topics many people want to talk about in my everyday life, either. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/9c7bb89e-ec32-45ac-a1f3-894c907fc130/the+lost+book+of+the+white.jpeg 2020 - 25. The Lost Book of the White Cassandra Clare 5/5 Reading Sounds: Carmen Suite No. 2: II. Habanero by, George Bizet When I was in 9th grade, I wrote an article about my favorite author at the time Cassandra Clare. There was a post that Cassandra Clare wrote on Tumblr about how the age rating of her first novel The City of Bones was bumped up an age rating from 12+ to 14+ just because Alec (a main character) was gay. There were a ton of make out scenes with the main couple throughout this book, and at the end of it they think they’re siblings. But this was all fine, except for the fact that Alec was gay. He didn’t kiss anyone or have a romantic partner for the entirety of the book. But his sexual orientation being mentioned made it unsuitable for anyone under the age of 14. I was 13 at the time. The Lost Book of the White’s classification as Adult Fantasy rather than YA Fantasy made me think that this would be a more risqué journey into the Shadowhunter world than I was used to. So far, I have been proven incorrect, and this is the second book in the nearly concluded Eldest Curses trilogy. With only one book left, I don’t anticipate any large changes will occur that will justify the change in age-rating, except for the fact that this is the first LGBTQIA+ character who is pushed to the forefront as a trilogy protagonist. I still love Cassandra Clare’s books, and the idea that an entire trilogy would be given over to tell Magnus’ and Alec’s story excited me beyond belief. If I said I had high expectations that would be an understatement, because Cassandra Clare never really disappoints me. Maybe this book really was a 5 star book. Every time I get a new Cassie Clare book, I am so excited, but then I stress about finishing it too quickly and attempt to stretch it out over as much time as I possibly can. I’m not sure if this helps me to enjoy it more or less, but I do it anyway. With so many characters in her newer series (The Dark Artifices and The Last Hours), reading a book stripped back to the original Mortal Instruments gang was a reprieve I didn’t know I needed. Clary and Jace have always been meh, but the looks into the lives of Simon and Isabelle - particularly Simon, after the events of The Shadowhunter Academy - were really exciting and interesting to me. So maybe this book was a 5 star book. But I have to be extra critical of Cassie Clare sometimes, because I remember how GOOD her GOOD books are. And this one just wasn’t quite there. That said, give me pieces of paper with Magnus Bane’s name on them, and I will read them. So praise be. All that jazz. Give me book 3 already. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/5e38f8cc-9c6b-4cb9-bf2e-13547e669f14/the+icarus+girl.jpeg 2020 - 26. The Icarus Girl Helen Oyeyemi 3.5/5 Reading Sounds: Nile (feat. Kendrick Lamar) by, Beyoncé This was an interesting read because I knew so little about this book going into it. I read Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird during Freshman year of college, but I have not read anything else from her since then. At the time I was struck by her prose and storytelling. She was able to take a well-known story (Snow White) and retell it through a Black lens in a way that felt completely original, if not moreso than the original - don’t hurt me. In The Icarus Girl, Oyeyemi references fairy tales and well-known stories throughout. However, she often draws comparisons between the Western fairy tales that protagonist Jess is interested in, and the Nigerian mythology that Jess’s mother prefers to read to her. I was not expecting this book to be so SPOOKY, but it was an extremely welcome surprise. The way that Oyeyemi combines her inspirational references and the “thesis statement” of her novel is sublime. Think of The Ocean at the End of the Lane or Coraline by, Neil Gaiman. The comparison in my head between Oyeyemi and Gaiman was only strengthened by the clarity with which Oyeyemi presents her child narrator. Jess is so believable, and at times frightening. It is not easy to make a child protagonist so sympathetic as well as frightening. Think of Danny Torrance from The Shining by, Stephen King. Towards the end of the novel, I was reading faster than I should have been, and much of the conclusion was kind of confusing to me because of this. This is a book that I will need to reread in the future in order to fully digest. I could also very clearly see this book being translated to film. It was written with such a cinematic hand that I find myself getting excited for the movie adaptation that has never been thought of or conceived. For now, I am excited to dig into some more of Helen Oyeyemi’s repertoire in the future, and probably rereading The Icarus Girl again at some point. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/cdeb9eff-8972-4426-a2ed-d4bb8fa8a408/delta+of+venus.jpeg 2020 - 27. Delta of Venus Anaïs Nin 2/5 Reading Sounds: Sunshine (Adagio in D Minor) by, John Murphy I started this book in high school, and didn’t really care for it much at the time. The introduction made me very interested in the author, and I remember going down a bit of a Anaïs Nin YouTube rabbit hole, but getting through this book has taken me about four years. In her introduction, Nin states that she was approached by a private collector who wanted her to write him a series of erotic short stories. He pushed her to leave out poetic or philosophical writing and just focus on the sex. She states it was difficult for her to extricate eroticism from romanticism, because she feels as though they are inseparably intertwined. This was an interesting lens to read these stories through, but I still feel as though her writing is immensely philosophical. She goes on to say that some parts of these stories were collected from other people and incorporated into this collection. The characters are not contained to just one short story; they appear throughout the collection in various scenarios. I do not think I would reread this book, but I may page through a story or two if I get bored enough. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/c22082b6-378f-4151-8b23-8210cd05fef9/men+explain+things+to+me.jpeg 2020 - 28. Men Explain Things to Me Rebecca Solnit 3.5/5 Reading Sounds: all the good girls go to hell by, Billie Eillish One of the most surprising books I read this year, Men Explain Things to Me has sat unordered in my Amazon cart for over two years now. It was not until I found a copy on sale at a local bookstore near campus that I decided to pick it up. For some reason, the idea of paying full price for an essay was a big dissuader for me. However, after finishing the book I am a little ashamed to admit that this was the only reason I had not read it yet. The first essay of the book is where it gets its name from, and it was one of my favorites. Many ideas that were presented in this book were ones I had thought of myself before, but I had privately considered them radical and could not imagine they would be shared by a larger population. Solnit presents these ideas in such a clear and concise way, it makes it hard to believe I felt so isolated in thinking these things. With endless receipts, examples, and anecdotes, she builds an argument that is at once both compelling and convincing. Feminism is a large topic with many sub-conversations to be held in its wide-ranging scope. This could make it difficult for an author to make such a clean, and precise book, but this is not the case here. It was somewhat difficult for me to get through this book, just because I am so adamantly against reading nonfiction usually, but unlike some nonfiction I have read in the past, this book kept me thinking long after I put the book down and inspired me to push on. There were also plenty of references to classic lit authors and feminist and social writers; leaving a book with new additions to my TBR list is always a bonus. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/079b9f5c-2055-4096-ba13-6e0584048eb4/faggots.jpeg 2020 - 29. Faggots Larry Kramer 4/5 Reading Sounds: Act Up by, City Girls When I was introduced to this book for the first time I was still in elementary school. I remember seeing it stare at me from my mom’s “Grown-Up” bookshelf in our house’s guest room/office. I didn’t know what a “faggot” was yet, or even that this word should elicit any sort of specific reaction. However, the naked man on the cover was definitely an indicator that I had found something more exciting than Harry Potter. My mom was firm in her answer that No, I could not read this book until I was older. How much older? She’d let me know when I got there. And if I thought she might be bluffing about this age restriction, she was quick to prove me wrong. After catching me reading the first few pages of the book and giggling behind the couch at words I had no chance of understanding, this book joined the list of books I was banned from reading in my house: Wicked by, Gregory Maguire, had too much sex; The Perks of Being a Wallflower by, Stephen Chbosky, had too many drugs; The Southern Vampire Mysteries (Sookie Stackhouse) by, Charlaine Harris, just wasn’t something a boy my age would be interested in. However, unlike most of the other books on this list, my mother did a fantastic job of hiding Faggots from me. In fact, she did such a good job that it wasn’t until this year that I realized I had forgotten about it, and when I brought it up she told me she had hidden it so well she couldn’t find it either. Boy, am I happy I picked this up though. This book reminds me of The Count of Monte Cristo and the parts of Shakespeare that aren’t terrible. There were so many characters with so many nicknames that at certain points I found myself wishing for a glossary of protagonists. Once I started remembering names I began to really enjoy the story. This book was raunchy, honest, and hard to read at times, but I am glad that I did. One of the critic reviews in the front of the book reads, “Faggots is the Uncle Tom’s Cabin for homosexual men whose worst oppression is their lack of courage to change the way they live” (Library Journal). This book was released at the very beginning of the AIDS epidemic in 1978. For this reason, I thought that the story would be a warning or a tragedy largely surrounding this deadly disease. However, what I found instead was a surprisingly hopeful story about the way that gay people were living together in a largely heteronormative 20th-century world. The author Larry Kramer passed away due to complications with pneumonia earlier this year (27 May 2020); he wrote several plays, helped found the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in 1981, and founded ACT UP in 1987. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/dcdbc30f-a7eb-43ae-9b35-7c2bd37e909b/treasure+island.jpeg 2020 - 30. Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson My father read this book to me a chapter or two at a time before bed every night when I was so young all I could do was let myself be lulled by the pirate language and sense of adventure. I might not have known what was happening, but I was entertained by the ride. The steampunk-inspired Disney movie Treasure Planet based on this novel holds a soft spot in my heart as well, but this marks the first time I have ever read the book on my own. A rather surface-level first comment: I do not remember the story being so bloody the first time around. My appreciation for Long John Silver went through the roof. There were of course characters who were downright frightening, but Long John Silver toed the line of being a semi-likable anti-hero. Jim Hawkins as a protagonist was somewhat lacking in my opinion. Admittedly, he acknowledges he owes a significant debt to luck on many occasions, but the fact that he kept taking these crazy risks instead of planning something out with the other characters on “his side” (Doctor Livesy, Captain Smollett, Ben Gunn, Tom Redruth) was infuriating at times. Maybe that is what makes an adventure novel, eh? I hate to compare a book to a movie when they are so different, but here I find it impossible to avoid. It is not often that I commend Disney for anything other than production value or tear-jerking, but their choice to make Captain Smollett a female character was a welcome change. Aside from that, the book was actually quite incomparable to the movie adaptation. I felt much more tension in the plotting and mutiny than in the actual adventure they were having on the seas and on the island. Jim has to figure out who is on his side, and who is not. I felt as though I could never let my guard down around Long John Silver and his drawn-out, nonsensical (to me, at least), roundabout speeches that left me giggling and slightly unbalanced. How could this drag queen of a character be the antagonist? In the end, I am not sure that he was the antagonist, but then I wonder who it could be? This is similar to how I feel about Peter Pan which I think I am going to read soon. https://www.aaronaads.com/2021 daily 0.75 2022-08-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/99a30024-844a-4d1d-932e-aa114ec0c266/chain+of+iron.jpeg 2021 - Chain of Iron Cassandra Clare 5/5 Reading Sounds: Jackson by, Trixie Mattel (feat. Orville Peck) So 2021 got off to a late start for me this year, as far as reading goes. I did not start reading Chain of Iron until it was released on March 3, and I did not finish it until after I graduated in April. So far, this trilogy (The Last Hours) is tied with The Dark Artifices as my least favorite Cassie Clare series. That’s not to say that I did not enjoy Chain of Gold (Book 1) or this one. I enjoyed them both a great deal. However, the parental characters from this series (the main cast of characters from The Infernal Devices trilogy, my personal fav) continue to be my favorite characters in this series. It doesn’t feel right for me to spend so much of the book looking forward to the scraps of Will / Tessa / Jem / Charlotte / Jessamine that are thrown my way not often enough throughout this thick ’n juicy installment. There are some notable favorite characters starting to develop in this book (Anna / Grace / Cordelia / Matthew), but none of them have neared the level of attachment I have to my favorite characters from other series in this universe. Overall, this was a really solid second book. Some of the angsty love-triangle drama has yet to really hook me, but I find that Cassie’s main love stories can easily lose importance to me when there are so many other character relationships to focus on. The character arcs are becoming more interesting, Clare is weaving the TLH plot lines as a sort of base to give more context to the events of TDA (much like she did with The Mortal Instruments series and TID trilogy), and the return of familiar faces (Magnus / Malcolm / Ragnor / Lilith) provides a sort of relief from the huge cast of characters Clare has introduced us to. This is the second book focusing on the characters of TLH, and that’s not including the short stories from The Shadowhunter Academy, Ghosts of the Shadow Market, and The Bane Chronicles which gave us our first preview of the drama in this trilogy. But sometimes I find myself confused about who everyone is exactly, and how they are all related to each other (there are so many Lightwoods in this book, I couldn’t keep the sets of siblings sorted in my head). Cassandra Clare is a 3rd book miracle worker, so I am ready to see how she knocks it out of the park with the final book in this The Last Hours series: Chain of Thorns, releasing in 2022. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/368f21ff-d073-475f-a5ec-4002c63142ec/the+ecstatic.jpeg 2021 - 2. The Ecstatic Victor LaValle 4.5/5 Reading Sounds: Bubble Toes by, Jack Johnson This was a book that I picked up just because of the front cover. Normally that would be a bad sign, but I am so happy that I did. Books that are about mental health usually have a pretty well-trodden storyline that may introduce a new character archetype, but largely stay the same. I think that is why this book surprised me so much. When I finished the book, there was no true fix-it moment, and I think that this idea of living with something that the world would choose to ignore resonated with me very deeply. The protagonist Anthony’s family is aware of schizophrenia within multiple generations of their relatives, but they choose when and who they will intervene to help with it. Anthony’s sense of (toxic) masculinity within this story was interesting as well. How can he be the provider for a family that just had to rescue him from himself? Throughout all of these hard-to-discuss topics I felt that LaVelle was still able to inject humor and fun into his characters and settings. I particularly enjoyed the pageant put on by Uncle Arms. The juxtaposition between this pageant and the Miss Innocence pageant that Nabisase (Anthony’s sister) enters is startling and makes for some excellent internal dialogues that continued long after I closed the book for the night. At several points I was convinced that some of the characters would be discovered to be schizophrenic hallucinations, and this misconception led me to read the first half of the book in a very different way than I would have if I had gone into it more open-minded. I think that at some point I will need to reread this book and see what more it has to offer now that I know what mindset to lead into it with. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/7bdeb9c5-ecd7-4417-a8a0-5a6a408c8149/daisy+jones+and+the+six.jpeg 2021 - 3. Daisy Jones & The Six Taylor Jenkins Reid 5/5 Reading Sounds: Rhiannon by, Fleetwood Mac I bought this book back in 2020 because of the sheer number of people who were raving about it on YouTube, and it has been sitting on my shelf for almost 9 months now. When I finally picked it up, I thought it would be a leisurely read that I could stretch out for a week, so I’d have something to read while I was at the beach. Dude. I opened to the first page on Thursday night around 9pm, and finished around 5am on Saturday. I had to do some driving on Friday, and I was busy, so I’d like to say that I basically finished this book in a day. And I didn’t even make it last till the drive to the beach. This book is set up like a docs-series about the rise and fall of a fictional 70s rock band called Daisy Jones and the Six, with an unknown interviewer asking the band members questions and only giving us their word-for-word responses. This creates an entire cast of unreliable narrators who want to share their side of every story. The band members recount their experiences leading up to the worldwide success of their biggest and final album as well as the crazy stories from backstage on their tour. This is one of those books that feels too fun to be good. Like someone might come up and take the book away from you if you don’t finish it fast enough. And so I did finish it fast, almost too fast. As soon as I was done with it, I felt like I’d finished a sprint that I never wanted to end - and I hate running. I had so much fun reading this book, I’m excited to see the new Amazon Prime adaption that has been announced, and I can’t wait to check out other books by Taylor Jenkins Reid (I have my eye on The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/3cddc0ba-363c-460f-b861-15311183d519/switch.jpeg 2021 - 4. Switch A S King 4/5 Reading Sounds: Powerful Man by, Hop Along When I first started reading this book, I thought that it was going to be a COVID story. King begins the story with the premise of time stopping at the same moment across the entire world. How does life go on in such a predicament? Can it go on? The answer is yes, but it is an eerily self-reflective and timely question to pose right now. As with most A. S. King books, this was not enjoyable necessarily, but it was extremely gratifying. This story made me feel sad in a lot of ways, but it was beautiful to see the characters live through an event that most would tell you is insurmountable. It was especially interesting to see this plot through the eyes of a high schooler. With so much to look forward to, the push towards a solution is strong and dominates much of the book. The plot is never, “How can we live like this?” It is always, “How can we fix this?” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/8aa9b89d-1dfd-4ac7-b2cc-3787cc13def0/midnight+in+the+garden+of+good+and+evil.jpeg 2021 - 5. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil John Berendt 2.5/5 Reading Sounds: Dead Girl Walking by, Barrett Wilbert Weed I normally hate nonfiction, but this was a wonderful surprise. Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil follows a real-life cast of characters from Savannah, GA, as they mingle and gossip their way through a murder that rocks the entire community. I often caught myself mentally commending the author for creating such realistic characters with such great dialogue, until I inevitably remembered that this was a nonfiction book created mostly through in-person interviews. The unpredictable events that occur, though, tended to seem so fantastical that they could not possibly be real. It is hard to imagine that this eclectic group of people shared anything, especially a geographic location. Although I normally shy away from nonfiction, the usual criticisms I have for this genre were absent throughout this book. The pacing was perfect, there were no textbook-like sections to drudge through, and it never felt like I was reading something I would rather just Google the ending to. I knew that I could hop on the internet and find pictures of these real people and events, but I was happy to let the author take me on this journey himself. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/77cb2797-49f3-41eb-b4af-5ee893107790/to-the-lighthouse-by-virginia-woolf-bookworm-hanoi-fb368672-218d-45f3-8349-9dcfdf6c0076.jpeg 2021 - 6. To The Lighthouse Virginia Woolf -/5 Reading Sounds: Addicted to Self Mutilation by, M83 I started this book the same day that I finished Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. That day, I made it about 100ish pages in - mostly during the car ride back from the beach. Since then I have not been able to finish the book. My beach trip was seven months ago. Although it genuinely brings me a lot of embarrassment to say this, I don’t think I will be able to finish this book. I went and read the Sparknotes just to remind myself of the plot points, and I have to admit that this refresher brought on a lot of renewed interest in the story, however, when I opened the book to finish the last 40 pages, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I appreciate the contemporary way that Woolf narrates the story, in a stream-of-consciousness format that allows the reader to feel that a lot is happening even though the characters might only be sitting down for dinner and looking at each other. This lent itself to her meditation on time itself and the ravages that it leaves in its wake. I stopped reading during the section entitled “Time Passes.” Although the first part of the book stretched a single day (I think?) into over one hundred pages of dense prose and philosophical rumination, this section drastically altered the pace, turning a decade into less than twenty pages. This writing format in itself is a choice that stirs interest in me again, making me want to try to finish the book for the millionth time. I enjoyed Woolf’s ideas about femininity and masculinity, the push and pull between them, and the consequences of this conflict. I would like to finish the book in the future, but I am unsure if I ever will. I have also been told by a few different people that I need to give some of her other works a chance before I judge her solely on this book. Look out, A Room Of One’s Own, here I come! Just kidding, it might be a while… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/2f2dcd38-e4e9-470b-8e56-427aa5be74ae/valley+of+the+dolls.jpeg 2021 - 7. Valley of the Dolls Jacqueline Susann 5/5 Reading Sounds: What’s A Girl To Do? by, Bat For Lashes I wasn’t expecting this book to be what it was. Going into it, I really didn’t know much about it, in all honesty. I knew that it was supposed to be pretty scary, centered around a group of Beverly Hills housewives in the 1950s, and there was a lot of murder involved. So, I was pretty surprised when I read the back of the book and found out that none of that was accurate. The Valley of the Dolls is about three women’s journeys to fame as they climb the social ladder of New York City and Hollywood. When they achieve this hard-earned emblem of respect and fortune, they are rewarded with the infamously grotesque lifestyle of drugs, alcohol, and abuse that is so commonly discussed in the year 2021. Even though this narrative felt all too familiar already, the story of Anne Welles, Neely O’Hara, and Jennifer North is one that made me feel things I was not comfortable with or prepared to be feeling. Susann did an excellent job of warning me. In an article included in the preface of the book, she writes: “I show the gore of the inside battles. That’s how it is. That’s how I see it. Rough, yes. Savage, you bet. But not dirty…” I was not prepared to love and then hate these characters so quickly and unrelentingly. Neely started with the promise of becoming one of my favorite book characters of all time until she turned into a snarling bestial Hollywood mega-monster. Anne was the put-together one that I wished I could relate to until I realized that the cold and analytical way she navigated her own life was something I feared more than envied. Jennifer was the closest to remaining on my good side, as she climbed the industry against all odds, until her story came to an end, and I had to put the book under my pillow for a few minutes for fear of throwing it across the room instead. Side-character-who-felt-like-a-headlining-special-guest Helen Lawson was a tsunami of personality whipping off the page at me every time she came into a scene, but this volatility brought with it more concern than idolization. These motivated and talented women continued time and time again to show the world that they were strong enough to make it in a world that would rather watch them fail. The first half of the book, it almost felt surreal, seeing the grind they put in to get where they wanted to be. It was magical, euphoric, dizzying to see everything work out right in the nick of time to allow them to achieve all they ever wanted. Then the rest of the book feels like utter devastation, the rug being swept out from under you as you realize there’s no floor underneath, no earth below that. You fall with them as they spiral into the aftermath of such fast ascents to the summit of success. Susann opens the book with a poem describing the rise to fame she is setting up for her protagonists: “You’ve got to climb to the top of Mount Everest to reach the Valley of the Dolls. It’s a brutal climb to reach that peak, which so few have seen. You never knew what was really up there, but the last thing you expected to find was the Valley of the Dolls. You stand there waiting for the rush of exhilaration you thought you’d feel - but it doesn’t come.” Well. She warned me. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/e23e6e38-4667-4193-9841-bba3c9225ad3/what+we+lose.jpeg 2021 - 8. What We Lose Zinzi Clemmons 4.5/5 Reading Sounds: I Miss You by, Beyoncé Last night I decided to take a bath. I turned on the hot water, grabbed the bath salts, and cracked open What We Lose by, Zinzi Clemmons. Three and a half hours later, dried off and in bed, I finished the last page, and immediately watched every single YouTube video I could find with Clemmons’ brilliant voice in it. When I read the plot summary I thought this book was going to be about race, and a large portion of the book was definitely about race. However, I felt that at its core, this was a book about death, loss, and grief. This debut novel published in 2018 follows Thandi, a girl grappling with her identity in the wake of losing her mother to cancer. Thandi’s father is Black African American, and her mother is white South African. Thandi’s experience as a woman of mixed-race heritage plays a huge role in this story. This leads to many passages revolving around her feelings of displacement in America as well as South Africa. One of my favorite parts of the book was when she begins to graph death. She plots out the intensity of her emotions over a period of time. As she learns about her mothers diagnosis, the data trends upwards, and when her mother passes away, it spirals into an infinitely small and unobservable amount. She discusses asymptotes - in geometry, a straight line that approaches but never meets a curve - as they relate to her emotions during this period. After her mother’s death, she will never be the same. Her emotions might spiral around herself. A casual observer might say they are one. However, they are only ever infinitely approaching each other, never quite meeting the same way they did before. She will never be the same after her mother’s death. At several points in the story, I started to believe that Thandi was acting on self-destructive tendencies that were doing her more harm than good. By the end of the book, although I still feel that she was doing plenty of harm to herself, I realized that in the wake of something as traumatic as what she has gone through, it is still very powerful to read about a character who is wiling to go to the lengths that she has in order to feel something again, to take what she wants, and go from there rather than wallow in stagnant self-pity. Although this was a very sad book, I do think that it ended on a relatively hopeful note. This was a poignant story that will sit with me for a long time, and I am excited to dive into another book by Zinzi Clemmons when I get the chance. https://www.aaronaads.com/2022 daily 0.75 2023-01-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/723bb6d9-3749-473f-994d-9fbfac9a5374/the+boy+in+the+red+dress.jpg 2022 - 1. The Boy in the Red Dress Kristin Lambert 2/5 Reading Sounds: You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me by, Jinkx Monsoon This book was a gift from a friend that sat on my bookshelf for nearly six months before I finally picked it up. When I eventually cracked it open, I finished the book in the same six-day span during which I read Valley of the Dolls and What We Lose. Set in Prohibition-era New Orleans, this murder mystery follows a young girl Millie whose aunt runs a gay speakeasy where her best friend Marion performs in drag. Marion is framed for a murder for which Millie must spend the rest of the book trying to clear his name. The setting alone was enough to get me interested, and I definitely enjoyed it for the most part. I thought it was pretty predictable, and even when the twist was revealed at the end, there was a pretty large part of me that was still holding out hope for a bigger, badder twist that never actually came. Overall, would definitely recommend this to anyone who’s looking for a fun mystery. (And, after finishing, I found out that that the author is a fellow Bama alum. Pretty gay for Bama, but good for her!) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/dd5f1e90-400f-4680-9969-d74fa780c386/to+the+lighthouse+copy.jpeg 2022 - 2. To The Lighthouse Virginia Woolf 1.5/5 Reading Sounds: I finally finished this book. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/bd26f3cd-8787-4f47-bee6-5cb388e800ab/ms+ice+sandwich.jpeg 2022 - 3. Ms Ice Sandwich Mieko Kawakami 4/5 Reading Sounds: Mrs. Potato Head by, Melanie Martinez The neon blue popsicles on the cover of Ms Ice Sandwich were a welcome sign to me after finishing the eleven-month struggle of reading To The Lighthouse. I was ready for something bright and light-hearted to take me away. However, as soon as I began reading this book I realized that I had been sorely mistaken. This 96-page exploration of childhood was refreshing, but not what I had expected at all. From the perspective of an unnamed young boy narrator, we learn about the woman he has nicknamed Ms Ice Sandwich. She works at the local grocery store selling sandwiches with a precision and coldness that he admires to the point of near-obsession. Although the story takes some darker turns at times, Mieko is able to retain a sense of youthfulness and naivety that is very endearing. I loved the motif of eye contact. Our narrator makes multiple comments about the fact that his mother is on her phone so much that she doesn’t even make eye contact with him when they speak, she just talks while staring down at her phone screen. He prefers the company of Ms Ice Sandwich, who may be cold and distant by comparison, but she gives him her full undivided attention for the few moments that he places, pays for, and receives his order. This ended up being a perfect story to break me out of the Woolf slump I found myself in, and I hope to read more of Kawakami’s work in the future. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/9251f1d0-a837-4c94-a503-3e89baeea5d3/on+earth+we%27re+briefly+gorgeous.jpeg 2022 - 4. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous Ocean Vuong 4/5 Reading Sounds: Something’s Got A Hold On Me by, Etta James About a hundred pages into this book, I turned it over to read the back cover. One critic had written something about how they always wish that their favorite poets would write a novel, and this book is exactly why. This made everything I had read since page 1 make so much sense to me. It all clicked into place. I started this book knowing nothing about it, except that it came highly recommended from a well trusted source. When I started reading, I was immediately swept away by the prose. On the second page, Vuong’s protagonist Little Dog proclaims, “I am writing because they told me to never start a sentence with because. But I wasn’t trying to make a sentence—I was trying to break free. Because freedom, I am told, is nothing but the distance between the hunter and its prey.” Little Dog is writing a letter to his mother, who is unable to read. Throughout the book he makes an argument that language is a bridge between people, a bridge to freedom, a bridge to yourself. However, along the way he tears his own argument apart in a way that made me question the value that I put on language and storytelling in my own life. If a story isn’t for everyone, is it worth telling? Why are we as a world so caught up in the ability to understand rather than the ability to communicate? Jumping between his grandmother’s life in war-torn Vietnam, his mother’s relationship with his father, and his own reality having to be neatly packaged at the end of this all, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a story unlike anything I’ve read before. There are moments of joy and of hopelessness, and somewhere in between Vuoung is able to convince me that one cannot be without the other. This is a work of fiction, but the way it’s written felt like I was reading a snapshot of life. It was so easy to believe, I find myself thinking of it more like a biography than a novel. I finished this book earlier in the day on which I am writing this, because I need to get my thoughts out before I find myself too deep in the muck of it. There is so much to love, and I don’t think that I can manage to cover it all here. Highly, highly suggest you find out what I’m talking about for yourself. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/5d3c7d9c-c5aa-46b3-9aa9-480c5e52567e/a+spy+in+the+house+of+love.jpeg 2022 - 5. A Spy in the House of Love Anaïs Nin 4/5 Reading Sounds: Never Be Me by, Miley Cyrus When I finished reading Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin two years ago, I did not think I was ever going to pick up another book of hers again. Delta of Venus was a collection of short stories that explored a spectrum of taboo sexual deviancies, for the lone apparent reason of shock value and earning money. The stories progressively became more risqué and taboo as a mysterious buyer prompted her to make her stories more and more explicit and removing the poetry from her writing. This made A Spy in the House of Love an interesting departure in the world that Nin has created. House of Love follows a protagonist Sabina who is conducting 4 separate affairs on and off during her marriage to her husband Alan. Through the exploration of these affairs, Nin reveals the fragmentation and disintegration of Sabina’s sense of self. She wants desperately to achieve “men’s way of life”: being able to take pleasure from anyone around her and not lose herself or form any sort of commitment in the process. Nin explores gender identity, the way that people connect, and the way that people lie (to others as well as themselves) in this stressful book. Sabina does not want to hurt anyone, but she is beginning to realize that the hurt she is so scared of inflicting on others has ended up directed at herself all this time. There were several areas of this book that were handled in a way that made me uncomfortable to read. The presentation or Mambo as a character was racist as hell. Additionally, in Nin’s attempt to dissect gender, she falls into some binary speech that, although thought provoking, does not really help the case she’s trying to make. Reading her books always does kind of feel like it takes some effort. However, it’s always worth the effort, so I guess I’ll see what’s up next time I wanna put in effort to read something. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/b92905ab-3ea3-4b0b-8b1e-de041de80842/mr+fox.jpeg 2022 - 6. Mr. Fox Helen Oyeyemi 5/5 Reading Sounds: Au fond du temple saint by, David Byrne Helen Oyeyemi makes me feel like I can write. On the back cover of Mr. Fox, The Boston Globe writes, “Oyeyemi has an eye for the gently perverse, the odd detail that turns the ordinary marvelously, frighteningly strange.” This odd detail mentioned is one that makes Oyeyemi’s writing so special to me. Her plotting is impeccable, and her whimsy is undeniable, but when she mentions that detail that most authors wouldn’t think to include, it turns that scene from amazing to immersive. In high school, I remember there being a craze for modernized revamped fairy tales, and my problem with most of them was always the suspension of disbelief required to get involved with the story. As much as I try, I am unable to separate the original myth from the recently published story in my hand. As much as you tell me Cinderella is a robot, she will forever be Cinderella in my head regardless. However, Oyeyemi is able to use these strange details to enhance the fantastical elements of her stories, as well as ground them in a real-world setting that makes every action taken and backdrop described just that much more tactile and breathable. I catch myself thinking, “OHMYGOD that random detail that nobody else in a room would ever notice but I would notice is the detail that Helen Oyeyemi just used, and now the character is having a quirky inner dialogue that is so relatable and AHHH.” Helen is able to bring her storytelling so close to the reader that they can feel it in their grasp. This usually leads me to believe that if she can pick these thoughts from my brain for her book, that I could write this book too. Now, although I will not emphasize this again, it cannot be emphasized enough: Helen Oyeyemi’s Writing Is Not Attainable. What she is doing is mesmerizing and original; she tells stories that challenge storytelling and converse with storytellers. This book is largely based on the tale of Bluebeard, a fact that I did not realize until I got to the acknowledgments. I am not familiar with this story at all, and I have no context for how Mr. Fox lines up to the original text. However, I do know that Oyeyemi took a very complex story with weaving, seemingly irrelevant vignettes of a writer, his wife, and his (imaginary?) muse chasing each other through stories Itchy-and-Scratchy style, and gave it an impact that I have come to recognize as her signature flourish. This book was excellent, and I cannot wait to read more from the author. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/38e46689-c11e-4719-8679-4f3e19e28818/33+revolutions.jpeg 2022 - 7. 33 Revolutions by, Canek Sánchez Guevara 3.5/5 Reading Sounds: Into The Sun by, Superorganism, Gen Hoshino, Stephen Malkmus, and Pi Ja Ma I’m putting it out in the universe right now: Today is 1 Sep 2022, and I want to read 22 books by 31 Dec 2022. I’m doing a crap job of it, but I’ve been busy, ok? I picked up 33 Revolutions a few days after moving to my new apartment, because it was so short (under 100 pages) and it was on sale. I thought it would be good for reading on the train. Jury’s still out on that one, I didn’t read a single page on the train. I mostly read this book walking to get my nails done and walking to the park. Very soon after I started reading this book, however, I realized that there was going to be some homework that came with it. Author Canek Sánchez Guevara is the grandson of Che Guevara, the Argentine Marxist revolutionary who was a key component of the Cuban Revolution and the rise to power of Fidel Castro (DISCLAIMER: everything I say about anything that wasn’t directly in this book is something I learned from YouTube while reading this book). The book was described as Canek’s rejection of the ideologies that Che Guevara stood for, centering around a Black Cuban man living in Communist Cuba during (slash maybe right before? I don’t know) the Revolution. You see from the protagonist’s perspective how Communism has caused everyone around him to be lulled into a trancelike state of functioning, rather than living. When people begin disappearing one by one, then more and more, setting sail on makeshift rafts on the beach, everyone is casually excited by the thought of an adventure rather than viscerally concerned with the imminent deaths of their loved ones who are fleeing for their lives. It was a powerful story, one that was able to keep my interest even when that meant I had to go online for answers or clarification. If it had been much longer, I don’t know that I would have been able to finish it, but I am glad that I took the time to do so, and I feel well-rewarded by learning more about a topic I had never been exposed to much. Some memorable moments in this book were: a name-drop of the book A Clockwork Orange when a character is arrested, tortured, and interrogated by the police; a new word “modus vivendi,” meaning: a way of living; and the ending of the book is definitely lingering in my head still. I don’t know if I would read this book again, but it was definitely something that I enjoyed in the moment and a story that felt relevant and oftentimes quite poignantly so, especially considering it was released only 7 years ago. Although I might not re-read it, I would still recommend it to anyone who enjoys a bit of historical fiction and political commentary. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/ff645f1e-9618-4106-b803-1472f92aaf09/attack+of+the+black+rectangles.jpeg 2022 - 8. Attack of the Black Rectangles by, Amy Sarig King 4.5/5 Reading Sounds: Chrysanthèmes by, MAI LAN “This book is going to make me cry,” I thought as I walked home from the bookstore the other week. Attack of the Black Rectangles is the second middle grade novel I have read from A S King, and much like I was with Me and Marvin Gardens, I am absolutely blown away by this book. Protagonist Mac Delaney looks at the reader from the book cover with his mouth blacked out by one of many black rectangles that cover up most of the dust jacket. Before reaching page one readers can tell this book is about censoring and banning books for children, and this got me more excited than ever to read it. I can happily say that I was not disappointed. Amy is at her best when amplifying the voices of her audience, and you can hear the truth ringing in the dialogue and emotion of this story. King does this thing where she takes issues that people spend their entire adult lives fighting about, and she solves them with less than 300 pages and 5th grade logic (which - as it turns out - is actually a lot like regular logic). Although Amy is known for her unique style of writing, often referred to as ‘magical realism,’ where the story is mostly realistic, with a small fantastical element that the whole world must function around or in spite of. This style is present in almost all of King’s works, and the ones that do not fall into this category tend to have a harder time keeping my attention than those that do. Although Rectangles did not use this magical realism style, it is definitely a new favorite of mine regardless. I would recommend this book to my friends, my kid cousins, my old cousins, my grandparents, really anyone who loves to read. This is a story about stories that are hard to tell and why we need to keep telling them. And it made me cry. Twice. I hope you read it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/4609ab70-5d88-4548-8f86-d44a09103e75/lapvona.jpeg 2022 - 9. Lapvona by, Ottessa Moshfegh 5/5 Reading Sounds: 12-26 by, Kimya Dawson When I first started reading Ottessa Moshfegh, I read like 4 of her books in 3 days. A year later when her next book came out it took me over a week to finish it. This most recent of Moshfegh’s works took me nearly 6 months to power through. It was as though I didn’t want it to end so I was saving it like a special treat for the end of the year. This book felt gross and breathless and uncomfortable in a way that was reminiscent of “Karen in the wild” TikToks and guilt-trippy Sunday School lessons. Honestly I may have even liked the book better because I took a breather in the middle. It truly became very difficult to read at points. The use of third person narration paints a picture of life that feels so naturally and wildly alien it’s like an unspoken exercise that we ignore the column of comparisons next to the contrasts. If those embarrassing similarities are acknowledged, what would that say about us? These uncomfortable truths and widely ignored realities feel like Moshfegh’s wheelhouse, and at this point her books seriously speak for themselves. https://www.aaronaads.com/2023 daily 0.75 2025-10-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/3b569b80-f3c5-4819-991f-d34cdb211266/chain+of+thorns.jpeg 2023 - 1. Chain of Thorns Cassandra Clare 4/5 Reading Sounds: Michael & Peter by, Frank Sinatra Two years ago around this time, I was reading the newly released Chain of Iron, and it was the first thing I’d been able to read since finishing 30 books in 2020. Every time Clare releases a new book it feels like I get to spend the next week hanging out with friends nonstop. So many characters to get caught up on, so much going on I need to make sure I haven’t forgotten. Chain of Thorns is the final book in this newest trilogy from Clare - The Last Hours. Overall I really enjoyed this series, and Chain of Thorns was definitely my favorite of this trilogy. Where sometimes the first two books had trouble hooking my attention and keeping it for most of the book, this one definitely did not have that problem. I am not sure if this is because it being the finale of a trilogy rose the stakes by default or if I had just spent enough time with these characters at this point to finally feel invested. This trilogy feels like a filler, setting up storylines for later and fleshing out some more backstory for beloved fan-favorite characters. Even so, it was another dazzling example of Cassie’s ability to weave a million and one storylines together in order to weave those million with another million for the next trilogy. Hopefully, we’re not waiting too long… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/4c38ae3c-b5fc-4ce4-a5d6-df9bf06ed369/snuff.jpeg 2023 - 2.. Snuff Chuck Palahniuk 1/5 Reading Sounds: My Dick by, Mickey Avalon I picked this book off the shelf because Palahniuk’s name was written down the spine in a chunky pink type that I couldn’t ignore. I thought if anything could get me interested in this author enough to finally pick up the copy of Fight Club that has been sitting next to my bed for almost a year, it would obviously be pink and shiny like Snuff. That was not a great idea. This book had a funny premise, and I got excited at the idea of something so bizarre being stretched to fill a 200 page novel. It kinda reminded me of discovering the synopsis of My Year of Rest and Relaxation (“Really? For a whole book??”). This book follows the harrowing journey of 3 random(?) guys waiting in line for their turn in a record-breaking gangbang with legendary pornstar Cassie Wright, and the manager handling the line order. However, about 50 pages in I realized that there was nothing propelling me to read more except for the ever-alluring promise of more dick jokes. Don’t get me wrong, they were (sometimes) good dick jokes. I just had a hard (ha) time getting invested in the story once it dawned on me that the queue was the whole story. By the end I found myself with more questions than answers, and not in a good way. Did Hitler actually invent Aryan blow up sex dolls to keep Nazis from getting STDs in France? Are there really drawers filled with disembodied classically sculpted dicks hidden away in the Vatican? Do potassium cyanide and Viagra really look that similar? Resolution: Who cares? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/02f1ec98-fad7-4bf4-8fb8-bb2d3d46daf9/the+neverending+story.jpeg 2023 - 3.. The Neverending Story Michael Ende 2/5 Reading Sounds: Sapokanikan by, Joanna Newsom I often do this thing where I read books based on association rather than personal interest. As often as I am reminded that this method does not turn out the best reading material (Snuff, this book, etc.) I still continue to try to find books this way. 100% honest: I decided to order this because somehow I made a connection to it from The Princess Bride - another book I have not actually read yet. I finally started reading it last year in August, and it took me almost seven months to finish. A big part of my problem was that I had already seen the movie, and I feel that this led me to not care too much or feel very invested at the beginning of the movie. However, the original movie adaptation only covers the first half of the book’s plotline, and even after passing the point in the book where the movie left off, I did not find myself caring too much about anything that was happening. There were certain things about this book that I wanted to like, but I think the aspects I didn’t enjoy overweighed them. The pacing of the chapters began to feel very episodic and I was left with very little incentive to move forward through the plot. There were several points in the story that got me excited again, mostly toward the end. However, after finishing the story and being pleasantly surprised at how well the ending paid off the rest of the book, I still feel that I’d rather watch a YouTube essay than go through the pain of reading this book again. Side note: Do you think The Princess Bride is trash too? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/dd1d79c8-9bbf-403a-8966-04ee2d7eea37/the+cruel+prince.jpeg 2023 - 4.. The Cruel Prince Holly Black 4/5 Reading Sounds: My Tears Are Becoming A Sea by, M83 When it comes to fantasy, Faeries are usually not my go-to. I remember enjoying Holly Black’s Spiderwick Chronicles, and I enjoy the Faerie elements that Cassandra Clare brings into her books. I know I can count on Holly Black to give me a story good enough that I can overlook the qualms I have about reading a Faerie book, and she didn’t let me down. This is the first of three books that follow our protagonist Jude as she navigates adulthood in Faerie with her twin sister Taryn and their older sister Vivienne after they are adopted by their mother’s murderer and Vivienne’s biological father, Madoc the Grand General of the High King of Elfhame. Holly Black writes about faeries as if she lives with them, the rules never feeling like they need to be explained when you can learn so much by just following along. The political scandals pile up to a climax I was actually surprised by, and there was a plethora of romance that left me scratching my head. There are two main love interests introduced, and I feel slightly dumbfounded when confronted with talking about them. Instalove is a YA Fantasy trope that used to bother me, but this was something completely different. It was like Holly Black was picking people out of the crowd at random for Jude to become entangled with, regardless of chemistry or story. It might have been better without that stuff, honestly, or maybe it wasn’t actually supposed to be “romance.” I really don’t know. I struggled to understand it, and I struggled to understand why Jude is fighting and sometimes what she’s even fighting for. The inhuman-ness of the Fae folk is hard to look past (I don’t honestly think Holly Black is expecting you to look past it anyway), and at a certain point, it almost feels like the Fae are, as a whole, one character, in opposition to Jude. Why should she get involved with petty Faerie drama that will continue after her death to the end of time if unchecked? I don’t know, I’m hoping book two gives me an answer. Also, I’ve been looking at illustrations from @PhantomRin on Instagram to help keep all of the characters straight in my head. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/133cd75d-2c73-4e2d-a1e1-fe5b80fbd064/the+wicked+king.jpg 2023 - 5.. The Wicked King Holly Black 3/5 Reading Sounds: I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here by, Aileen Quinn I jumped right into this one after finishing the first book in this trilogy. The plot twist at the end of book one definitely had me excited to see where things were heading, even though I was having trouble getting fully into it. This second book in the series also kept me engaged and entertained, but it fell into a lot of the same tropes and patterns that were throwing me off in book one. Our protagonist Jude is still fighting for her place in the Fae world, and she’s still deciding who she can trust. I think my Number One Issue with this series so far is that this underlying issue/question of “Who can I trust?” is never fully addressed. I mean, the answer is obviously “Nobody, you live with Faeries” but I just don’t feel like that gets said enough. As you’d expect, though, Jude decides to trust all the people who were very obviously out to get her from the beginning, and she is surprised when they are still out to get her at the end. I don’t feel bad for her at this point. Getting to meet Queen Orlagh the Ruler of the Undersea was exciting, and I did enjoy getting to see the Faerie realm that exists underwater. The way that magic works to allow land Faeries to breathe, eat, and live underwater was fascinating, and once Jude finally escaped the Undersea, the rest of the book was also fast-paced and exciting. The ending was surprising, but even though the cliffhanger was there, the urge evoked to read the next book which was present in the first book was not as strong here. The betrayals stop feeling so betrayal-y when literally everyone is doing it. Reading this trilogy is feeling like reading The Martian - which I never finished - in the way that the reader’s enjoyment must ultimately come from a fascination with the protagonist’s tediously minute description of them navigating their environment (Martian : logging every minute detail of his journey home, down to his shits, probably :: Wicked King : mining every single line of dialogue in the book for political strategy). When everyone is the enemy, this begins to feel simultaneously absolutely essential and totally unnecessary. I don’t think I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed The Cruel Prince, but I am hopeful that the next book (The Queen of Nothing) will provide an ending that shows me how this buildup has been worthwhile. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/c2b54c1e-a92a-4385-84d5-7fb1cd2ff94b/paradais.jpeg 2023 - 6.. Paradais Fernanda Melchor 3/5 Reading Sounds: Song for the Divine Mother of the Universe by, Ben Lee With only 111 pages, this small book definitely packed a punch. From page one, Fernanda Melchor stifles readers with the hot summer sun and oppressive wet heat. This is reinforced with the endless pages of uninterrupted columns of text. Stream of consciousness sentences that span over half a page, no quotation marks, and few line breaks made this a truly daunting task of a book even though its page count barely stretches past triple digits. Following Franco who lives with his grandparents in a luxury housing complex and Polo who works there as a gardener, Paradais finds these two plotting to murder Franco’s neighbor. Melchor explores classicism and racism, making the reader question who to point fingers at even as they are faced with a full synopsis. Toxic masculinity, misogyny, and homophobia are floating around aplenty, making for a cauldron of oppressive atmosphere that only adds to the hanging tension in the summer heat. Franco and Polo feel real in a scary way - a way that makes the reader want to give everyone they pass on the way to work a second look, and then a third and fourth to be safe. This felt like a breathless rush to the finish line, and then a quick moment to feel weird about what I was in such a hurry for. I’m definitely interested in finding out more about this author and her previous works. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/f34fecd3-a545-4756-a657-b04747731385/the+queen+of+nothing.jpeg 2023 - 7.. Queen of Nothing Holly Black 3/5 Reading Sounds: Dark Sienna by, Brian Eno & Ryan Eno The Queen of Nothing is the final book in The Folk of the Air trilogy, and probably the best of all three. Where the other two entries in this series could get too caught up in the details of politics and the semantics of conversation, this finale was more focused on closing out storylines than setting anything else up. There was an urgency to this story that was definitely missing in the previous book, and it all but made up for the problems I had been going through reading the series so far. Where characters were behaving repetitively or stubbornly, they were finally forced to make decisions and take actions that propelled them towards the climax. Holly Black took some big risks hoping that the titles of her books would not give away the plot too much, as well as the cover art. To a certain extent, I was let down that certain plot points were given away before I even got to the first page, but I think she was able to keep the suspense heightened enough to make up for it. The conclusion to Jude’s story arc was satisfying, even if the romance still left me a bit confused. It feels as though any loose ends were mostly excused rather than ignored, but these could be addressed in the spin-off series The Stolen Heir. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/8d5b2cff-a724-4363-aca6-84cfa58988c7/the+raven+boys.jpeg 2023 - 8. The Raven Boys Maggie Stiefvater 4/5 Reading Sounds: Oceans Niagara by, M83 The Raven Boys by, Maggie Stiefvater was so unexpectedly amazing. There are so many books that I remember being popular on BookTube when I was in high school. I’ve recently tried to get into BookTok, and it’s funny how many books are still the same. This wasn’t a social media recommendation though; I picked this up because after my sister recommended that I read The Cruel Prince, the cover reminded me of this book series. I didn’t know anything about this going in, except that it was fantasy, and I’m pretty sure a better summary might have dissuaded me a bit. The premise doesn’t immediately grab me from the back of the book, but the characters hooked me from page one. I spent a not unnoticeable amount of time adjusting to Stiefvater’s writing (especially dialogue-heavy scenes had me reading lines over and over to figure out who was saying what pretty much through the whole thing) but the atmosphere she creates and the characters who inhabit it are undeniably golden. This first installment of The Raven Cycle quartet follows Blue Sargent, a psychic’s daughter living in Henrietta, Virginia, as she is introduced to the Raven Boys, four guys who go to the snobby private school there. The boys’ leader Gansey is on a quest to win a magical wish by awakening an undead(?) king buried along a magical ley line that runs through the town, and he wants to use Blue’s innate ability to boost psychic energies to help. I was not expecting to get so attached to them as characters, especially based on the way they are described. In one scene Stiefvater describes Adam: “He looked at home here, his hair the same colorless brown as the tips of old grass.” Lol what. At one point she says that Ronan’s five o’clock shadow made him look like someone you’d grab your kid’s hand when passing on the street. And Noah only ever shows up to pet Blue’s hair every once in a while, and then he scurries back into the shadows. I loved each of them dearly by about 200 pages in. I wrote down a ton of notes while reading this book, but most of them are just questions about what happens next. The characters have me invested, and I’m excited to see what’s in store, especially as I feel like we get deeper into why each of them want to awake the hidden king and receive their wish. This book had me crying a few times, and a few times it had me genuinely surprised. I didn’t realize what flavor of fantasy this would be, but it almost reminds me of Unbecoming of Mara Dyer meets Special Topics in Calamity Physics. The private school setting is a welcome place for Stiefvater to bring up wealth inequality and toxic masculinity. The characters feel like they have a lot of room to grow and to devolve; and I am very excited to see where it goes. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/85a490ef-749c-41d1-9af3-c34ee0cae9ab/little+birds.jpg 2023 - 9. Little Birds Anaïs Nin 1/5 Reading Sounds: Now It’s Over. Now I’m Awake. by, LUCHS I had a lot of problems with this book. Anaïs Nin is kind of groundbreaking in a lot of ways, but the more I read from her the more aware I become of how limited my options are. There are very few women who would have had the resources, education, and freedom to write about the topics that Anaïs is exploring in this book, and these privileges are extremely important to note as readers delve into these stories, which often exhibit motifs of racism, misogyny, colorism, p*dophilia. There are plenty of points where I feel that Nin is breaching a topic that absolutely warrants discussion, but her inhabitation of certain perspectives makes me wary as a reader. Is she making fun of the white male gaze, subverting it to tell her twisted narratives? Or are her own views not so different? Nin makes it clear that her writings embody her sexual liberation, and in this space she has created for herself and her readers, she is able to explore these interests in a way that reclaims the power that (white) men have long held dangled above their everyone else’s heads. Her privilege allows her to create fantasies, but only through a lens full of racist stereotypes, heteronormative gender roles, and trauma. Honestly, a lot of these stories - especially the ones involving minors - read more like a cry for help than anything else. It is reminiscent of gay men who swear that being groomed as a kid was a formative and beautiful experience (think Call Me By Your Name), describing a literal crime being committed against their younger, more vulnerable selves, without ever being able to see it. Nin brings up the artist’s gaze, fixating on the idea that a woman cannot blossom sexually until under the scrutiny of a subjective third party. She laments how hard it can be for a submissive woman to find a man who takes what he wants, even hinting that some of her protagonists would secretly wish to be raped. Blissfully unaware of the privilege she is flaunting even as a rift in equality is the thesis of nearly every short story. She wants to show how men take what they want from women, and to do this she will use blackface, cultural appropriation, and more. This is a glimpse into the sexuality of a woman who was lucky enough to be able to escape the forces opposing her, and for that reason, it is an interesting and rare piece of literature. However, the more I read of Anaïs Nin, the more I am confronted with the fact that this default spotlight on her as a notable leader of the feminist, woman-authored erotica genre doesn’t actually make her deserving or admirable; it just makes her notable. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/c4e9d969-e4ee-47f1-9c30-f06fee7c2acb/secrets+of+blackthorn+hall.jpeg 2023 - 10. Secrets of Blackthorn Hall Cassandra Clare 5/5 Reading Sounds: Rivers and Roads by, The Head And The Heart I was actually planning to try and get through a book of short stories that I have been putting off for way too long, but the line for coffee was so long this morning that I pulled out my phone and started reading Secrets of Blackthorn Hall while I waited. This is the fourth bind-up of Shadowhunter-related short stories from Cassandra Clare. In the past, she would announce a bind-up over a year before its physical publication, and then she would drop them one story at a time on the Kindle store until finally reaching the day you could order the whole thing. This time, she chose to instead post each story - in the form of letters or text conversations between our modern-day Shadowhunter cast - for free on a Tumblr blog beginning in July 2021 and ending in October 2022; there is still no physical publication of these short stories announced, which is a large part of the reason that I finally caved and read it online. This was mistake number one. Somehow, I convinced myself that reading Cassandra Clare on my phone in public was safer than reading a physical copy in public. Be warned, it’s not. These stories largely followed Julian Blackthorn and Emma Carstairs after the events of The Dark Artifices. When Julian inherits Blackthorn Hall (FKA Lightwood Manor) from his great aunt, he is forced to go fix up the dilapidated Chiswick property before it is handed over to the Clave instead. He and Emma must repair the damage from over a hundred years of neglect, but not before they lift the curse holding a mysterious, unidentified spirit hostage on the property. As these stories take place after the events from TDA, they are the most recent updates regarding the Shadowhunter characters, which means this is currently the largest cast of characters. There are some standout letters here - anything in Tessa’s voice is sob-worthy. The “Tessa to Maryse” letter specifically was really beautiful, and so was the “Tessa to Sophie” letter. Finishing Chain of Thorns recently I remember feeling that Will Herondale had an established presence while Tessa seemed to fade into the background a bit. Not the case here, though, as Tessa shows up a lot, especially with her close ties to Jem, Kit, and Mina. The main cast for The Wicked Powers is also being set up already; we know Tavvy will be there, Kit, Mina, Max, Rafael, Ty (and his friend Anush?), and Dru (and her friend Thais??). It is exciting to see them beginning to grow up and show a bit more of the personalities that they have been too young to express thus far. These stories also felt like further confirmation that Jem and Tessa will play extremely important roles in TWP. Overall, this was an excellent bridge between TDA and TWP, and perhaps - most surprisingly - it really did a wonderful job of setting up even more tension and buildup for CoT. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/146fb279-f276-4273-83ee-67529c515d93/what+is+not+yours+is+not+yours.jpg 2023 - 11. What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours Helen Oyeyemi 1/5 Reading Sounds: I Miss You by, Beyoncé When I first read Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi, I had never heard of the fairy tale of Bluebeard before and did a bit of internet research to prepare. I found a video from YouTuber Jen Campbell who mentions one of their favorite fairy tale tropes is when a story feels like it’s about to end, and then it just keeps going and going and going. This is what Oyeyemi’s What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours feels like: she is spinning a tale of a world that doesn’t know it’s a story yet, and for that reason alone, perhaps, the story just keeps going. Helen Oyeyemi’s writing feels lyrical, reminiscent of fairy tales and ghost stories - plot lines that sink into your brain through word of mouth rather than any formalized publishing or consumption. This lends itself to her signature fairy tale retellings. Each time I read one of her books it feels as though she is opening up the story from the backside and pointing out all the ways I didn’t notice it caving in till just now. She does this while also maintaining an air of newness, excitement, and humor that can be hard to balance. This was the first book of short stories that I had ever read from Oyeyemi (although Mr. Fox was definitely book-of-short-stories-esque), and I am not 100% sure how to feel. Each of the stories is interconnected through a web of characters which becomes more apparent the further you progress through the book. At the beginning of the first few stories in particular, I felt myself having to put in a concerted effort, backtracking and figuring out what was happening, and what information was relevant still (plot twist: everything was relevant still lmao). Oyeyemi’s stories contain stories which contain stories; and for this set of short stories in particular Oyeyemi has decided to laser-focus her creative might on: keys. “The key to a house, the key to a heart, the key to a secret.” There is still some fairy tale inspiration happening, which I wasn’t sure enough to expect, but I was happy to see. One chapter had me scrawling, “Pinocchio??” In my notes, and another one, “Red Riding Hood!!!” These feel almost like Easter eggs, though, in a book that is tackling as much as this one is. I will admit that a few stories in I began to realize just how many threads of the story there were that I hadn’t though to keep track of, and there were a few times where I felt myself losing control. I did not know what was happening in the story anymore, but I continued holding the reins in case I found my way back before the end of the chapter (which I usually did!). Even in these instances, though, I can’t help but continue to be swept along by the meandering tales and humor. Oyeyemi specializes in pulling the stark and uncomfortable out from beneath our perfectly relaxed behinds, a move which should have the angry hoards after her but instead has them chuckling along too. How can you argue against someone who’s using stories we all know by heart to make her points so correctly? You can’t! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/a9027042-8610-418b-8fe5-e95c5bf3961f/fight+club.jpeg 2023 - 12. Fight Club Chuck Palahniuk 4/5 Reading Sounds: Powerful Man by, Hop Along When I went to sleep away camp, the boys in my cabin would wait until our counselors left for their staff meetings every night, and then they’d hold a fight club in our cabin bathroom. They would draw names from a hat and fight each other till someone broke something or surrendered - whichever came first. We only ever had two broken bones, but somehow these 15-year-old ass clowns forgot the first rule of Fight Club and ended up getting in a shit-ton of trouble after bragging and sharing videos with some staff members (they had phone recordings of the fights saved; Tyler Durham would have them castrated for that, probably). Reading Snuff, I really didn’t know what to expect. The assumptions I had about this story’s fanbase gave me the impression that they can’t possibly understand what this book is poking fun at or there is no way they would ever be fans. Fight Club felt gay, it felt angsty and anti-capitalist, atheist (or even merely anti-Christain), the gamut of ideologies that would drive most run-of-the-mill Fight Club fanatics to commit hate crimes (Remember in 2020 when all those Rage Against the Machine fans realized that they were following a political band and got pissed?? Yeah, it’s those vibes. https://www.nme.com/news/music/tom-morello-twitter-respond-to-people-only-just-realising-rage-against-the-machine-are-political-2685353). I don’t know, I think overall the story was super compelling, and there was so much to think about. I just don’t know how successful the book can be if literally 99% of the audience missed the point. In the Afterword, Palahniuk says that after writing Fight Club he has had some pretty bizarre fan interactions. A 5-star London restaurant waiter once bragged to him, “‘Margaret Thatcher has eaten my cum.’ He held up one hand, his fingers spread, and said: ‘At least five times…’” This kind of media obsession is reminiscent of The Dark Knight movie premiere shooting or people who harass and abuse pornstars online for clout. What kind of author brags that their writings inspired five instances of sexual assault? Can you imagine if every Blu-ray disc of The Dark Knight had a Supers card at the end detailing the Aurora, CO, shooting? I guess this kind of falls into Palahniuk’s wheelhouse (look at Snuff). There are so many references to Valley of the Dolls and other stories of women finding a way to survive in a society that does not give a fuck about them. Palahniuk asks where these stories are for men, and I genuinely cannot tell if he’s being serious. Can the same person who writes a book as complex as this one seriously not know the answer to that question? Am I just overly disdainful and suspicious of straight people? Probably. I don’t think it matters, though, and I’m getting pissed. 4 out of 5 stars, definitely. I was entertained as shit, but I’m happier than I can express in words that I did not pay full price for it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/28489d6b-8147-4424-970b-2d876ebf0a71/the+dream+thieves.jpeg 2023 - 13. The Dream Thieves Maggie Stiefvater 4/5 Reading Sounds: Make Your Own Kind Of Music by, Cass Elliot Where the previous book in Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle quartet had me dying for the next book by the final chapter, somehow this book did not do the same. Up until the end, I thought that The Dream Thieves was actually outshining The Raven Boys in almost every way. Bringing Ronan into the spotlight was so much fun, and I really enjoyed getting to explore the new magic thot was hinted at, at the very end of book one. Stiefvater continues to explore class inequality and feminism in ways that feel sometimes a bit too dated. I didn’t realize that there would be gay characters in this series, but I am so excited that there are. I enjoyed getting to read about Ronana nd Kavinsky together, and I think that there is so much of the fantastic magic system Stiefvater has created left to explore. What does it mean that there is more than one family of dream thieves in Henrietta? Who else is coming to look for them? Why is Blue tangled up in this in the first place? How did Gansey pull together this group of friends who are each destined for such crazy individual greatness? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/709068b3-27a6-4846-81ee-d329762ea495/two+boys+kissing.jpeg 2023 - 14. Two Boys Kissing David Levithan 4/5 Reading Sounds: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1 by, The Flaming Lips I don’t think I’ve ever written about a book by this author on my website before, but I am pretty familiar with David Levithan from high school. This is a book of his that I always wanted to read (but was too scared to buy), so I ended up feeling weirdly close to like 14-year-old me while reading this. I really liked it, but 14-year-old me didn’t. Levithan’s writing tends toward being very heavy - almost too heavy - but I think when I first read a lot of his works, the topics and characters were uncomfortably similar to some things in my personal life, causing me to feel more triggered than seen. Two Boys Kissing told the story of Craig and Harry, ex-boyfriends who have agreed to put the past behind them and, together, go for the Guinness world record for the longest kiss. Readers also follow their classmate Tariq, a very new couple Avery and Ryan from a few towns over, and Cooper who is a hot mess. It is important to note that the book is written in second person narrative from the perspective of a chorus of the LGBTQIA+ generation lost to HIV/AIDS. Two Boys Kissing was reminiscent of so many other things, a characteristic that was driven home by Levithan’s insistence that reference and acknowledgment are a form of respect, that art is something which can exist in a mind long after it stops existing. Levithan dares readers to question this validity, using references as a sort of structural foundation to cement the installation of this book as a future queer classic. He gives a book the name Two Boys Kissing, inviting readers to gawk, and then writes 200 chastising them. When one character realizes that even loving whoever he wants to love won’t save him if he can’t love himself, he reflects, “Even though the liquid is easier to see, you have to learn to appreciate the air.” All the pieces of media that Levithan learns from, references, draws inspiration from, they have already existed long before now, and they all took up space. Levithan is simply pointing out the air around those stories, an intense conversation between a new generation and an invisible one. Two Boys Kissing was poignant and surprisingly optimistic. It made me cry a lot, but I don’t want to talk about it. I still have the book that came out after Every Day, so I might read that finally. I remember it being okay, but Levithan’s writing can get kind of hard to read after a while. It just gets super heavy and hits too close to home. I also watched the trailer for the movie adaptation that was made from Every Day, but was that movie based on just the original book or both books? I’m not gonna lie, though, if P!nk wasn’t the music for the trailer I wouldn’t even be considering watching, but… I don’t know. I still probably won’t. Onwards and upwards, homos. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/a80ec16b-7bf1-44c1-b600-9761c071dc5c/house+of+incest.jpeg 2023 - 15. House of Incest Anaïs Nin 2/5 Reading Sounds: Bells of Atlantis by, Bebe and Louis Barron The introduction by Allison Pease and the foreword by Gunther Stuhlmann were the highlights of this book. “House of incest” is a metaphor Nïn uses to describe a woman who only loves things about her partner which remind her of herself. The prose was very arresting, and Nïn brings readers along with her on quite a lot of poignant climaxes. But "enjoyable”? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/7034cb8a-a6e9-4e6d-8cd7-28d5240f6af5/half+magic.jpeg 2023 - 16. Half Magic Edward Eager 3/5 Reading Sounds: Manners by, Icona Pop In first grade, my school librarian recommended me Half Magic written by Edward Eager, and for a while afterward I remember going to library every Monday and getting the next book in the series and reading it on the car ride to piano lessons after school that day. This book makes me remember other stories that librarian introduced me to, like Peter and the Starcatchers. Many books like that, which I borrowed from the library, are books that I haven’t read since the very first time. I think this is part of what gives it such a nostalgic feeling to me; this feeling is what pushed me to go out and find this to give it another go. I reference this series so frequently when telling people about how I got into reading, it felt a little bizarre coming back to it after so long. I wasn’t sure if it would still hold up, I didn’t know if the bits and pieces I remembered were accurate, or if they were merely mismatched scraps from other books I read around the same time. Either way, going into this I was very excited, and it didn’t disappoint. This whimsical story follows four siblings at the beginning of summer break. Jane, Mark, Katherine, and Martha live with their single mother who cannot afford to take them on a fancy summer vacation, so they will have to find their own fun this summer in books from the library and whatever shenanigans they can find in the neighborhood. With such underwhelming adventures to be had, they are understandably dismayed, until they find a weird-looking coin on the sidewalk in front of their house. It is not long before they realize that this is a magical wish-granting coin that is going to make their summer break one they will never forget. The only catch? The coin only deals in half-wishes. This story is so fun, and the lyrical, humorous writing reminds me a lot of The Chronicles of Narnia, but maybe a bit less “literary” feeling. The books these children keep referencing root this book in a modern-day setting that feels much more grounded than the World War I backdrop of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This book is about children who love books, and as a kid who loved books, this was perfect for me. I am glad that I went back to re-explore this story, and I was surprised at how much of it I actually remembered. There were a few scenes I was highly anticipating that I realized later in the book were probably from subsequent books in the series. I have not decided whether I will continue re-reading this series, but it’s definitely in my back pocket as something to get me out of a reading slump. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/e95950bf-8608-45f4-a8bb-379e2d768814/parable+of+the+sower.jpeg 2023 - 17. Parable of the Sower Octavia E. Butler 4/5 Reading Sounds: Writer’s Song by, Bibi Bourelley Sci-fi is not always my favorite genre, and when I do read something from that side of the bookstore, the most repetitive issue I find is the inability for many books to build a technologically other world without boring me to death explaining it. However, in Parable of the Sower, Butler writes about a world that has regressed in technology, and this could be why the story seems to flow so naturally. Parable of the Sower was published in 1993 and tells the story of Lauren Olamina who lives outside of LA while the United States of America as we know it completely falls apart in the year 2024. Global climate change has pushed the world into a social and economic nightmare, and in the United States, most are living in extreme poverty and/or are unhoused. Lauren lives with her father (the preacher at their Baptist church), step-mother, and four brothers in a home bought by her dad before the world went to shit. There house is in a small, walled, suburban cul-de-sac, along with the homes belonging to some of the families who were their neighbors back before they were forced to build the wall and assign armed guards. Now this group of families lives isolated within this tiny community with multiple (incestuous?) generations of unemployed family members crammed into each of their dilapidated houses even as they are falling apart around them. They do not have the resources to do much outside of the basic necessities for survival: gathering food and resources, going to church, learning to shoot. The drug-addicted, unhoused, desperate many who were not so lucky as her are dangerous, attacking those who wander outside looking too clean, hydrated, or fed in the hopes of making off with a bit of money, water, or food. I saw this book compared to Handmaid’s Tale on TikTok, and that’s why I decided to pick it up. If we’re gonna go there, I think I’d throw in Dune and Mad Max as well. In such a scary setting, it felt like every page was the end of the world, and it kind of was. Life hangs by a thread from chapter to chapter, and the stress mounts to a point that it becomes hard to make out where this whole thing is even going. But Butler’s storytelling is so masterful, when Lauren ends a chapter with the most casually devastating off-hand comment you’ve ever read in your life since the last chapter, you can rest assured that her self-authored parable at the beginning of the next chapter will dependably pull everything back into perspective for you. These parables or poems are excerpts from her notebook, and they are the framework for how she views the world and others around her. Observing life from her tiny corner of suburban hell, she is able to divine what she halfheartedly denies is a new religion focused on education, diversity, and the acceptance of Change. Literally, the first chapter’s parable is the thesis for the entire book, and that’s kind of masterclass shit to me: “All that you touch, You Change. All that you Change, Changes you. The only lasting truth, Is Change. God, Is Change.” Go. The fuck. Off. As Lauren is forced to leave her home, she becomes more and more obsessed with the idea of taking these handwritten parables she has created and using them to start a community of people who are interested in learning from her about this religion, which she has begun calling “Earthseed.” For a book so rooted in and focused on Christianity, it was a suprisingly easy story to digest, and it had a surprisingly hopeful tone despite the foundation of incomprehensible tragedy that the plot builds itself upon. When I read My Year of Rest and Relaxation, I kept feeling guilty, like it was too good and someone was about to come snatch it out of my hands and scold me for enjoying a book so much, possibly scold Ottessa Moshfegh for having the audacity to tap into such a raw story. This book felt similar. How brave one must be to look so directly into the future and write so exactly what they see. It’s like telling the teacher they’re wrong when you know they’re wrong. It’s hopeful, confident, audacious, breathless, nervous, bold… Not enough words, truly. I can’t wait to read book 2. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/bb3a2bdf-6bf5-4ae5-bb32-bb5f36b2d24c/parable+of+the+talents.jpeg 2023 - 18. Parable of the Talents Octavia E. Butler 5/5 Reading Sounds: Orbit by, Nao Octavia Butler kind of has me speechless at the end of this duology. I’m here to talk about it though, so I guess I better get over that. When I bought this book from the bookstore, I had kinda just spotted it on the shelf and recognized the author’s name, and without knowing it was part of a series, I bought this second book instead of the first. When I got home, the first chapter or two of this book were my introduction to the entire story of this duology. I quickly realized I was reading the second book instead of the first and had to google whether they can be read out of order. Nobody on TikTok could agree, but I ended up going back to the bookstore to grab Parable of the Sower and start the story from the beginning. However, the first few chapters of this second book definitely gave away some plot points I wish had been a secret while reading the first book. I think this might be part of the reason that Talents hit harder for me than Sower. In some ways, the knowledge that Larkin/Asha exists when I began reading Sower made it not so scary. In other ways, it didn’t really matter. I loved how Butler included even more voices than in the first novel. In addition to our standard perspective from Lauren’s journal, we got to hear from Larkin, Marcus, and Bankole. There were times in Sower that I caught myself wondering, “Is this even really sci-fi?” I didn’t struggle with that distinction in this book. It’s less like Butler is breaking convention, and it’s more like she is roleplaying a writer with no sense of convention. The groundedness of the story lends itself to its own readability (in my opinion), but sometimes the Destiny outlined by Lauren is the only thing for chapters and chapters and chapters to root this series in its sci-fi genre. It’s so fucking bizarre, like I’m reading a story about medieval characters fighting to get to the space age before the book runs out of pages. The urgency felt throughout Sower was ever-present in Talents as well. Sometimes I worried that the ending would not be able to pay off so much, and I still don’t really know how I feel about it. That being said, I thought the way it built off the first book was phenomenal, and weirdly, I do think it could stand on its own (although I would recommend reading the first book first if possible). I read online that the third book Parable of the Trickster was never completed before her death. It was supposedly going to follow the Earthseed followers at the end of Talents who leave Earth aboard the Christopher Columbus to begin building a new Earth colony on some far-off planet. Butler died in 2006 before completing book three. This abrupt ending to such a hopeful story does feel kind of ominous. This was one of the best series I have read in a long time, and I think it will be a long time before I find the nerve to pick it up again. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/94b7176f-48cd-4deb-ab67-0c4e333ac52d/BC51FBD4-0CA8-4099-8832-838C489C9A55.jpeg 2023 - 19. A Certain Hunger Chelsea G. Summers 3/5 Reading Sounds: Rich Bitch Juice - Laura Les Remix by, Alice Longyu Gao I just found out after finishing this book that this is the debut novel from author Chelsea G. Summers, and what a stunner it is! The blurb that convinced me to put this book on my TBR list was from TikTok. Something along the lines of, “By day she’s a famous food critic, by night she’s a cannibal.” The premise alone is so intriguing, I knew I would end up reading it sooner or later. In addition to being thoroughly entertaining, this book had much more nuance than I thought it would. What could have simply been a slasher story punctuated with body horror and food porn, this was surprisingly heart-felt. Our protagonist Dorothy Daniels is a self-described psychopath writing a confession from prison. Her crimes range from arson to assault to murder, but she makes sure to remind you early on that in most places, cannibalism is not a chargeable offense. The way she describes her passion for food writing is beautiful, and there is humor and irony ever-present in her argument that the natural progression from her adventurous palate is obviously cannibalism. Unreliable first-person narration, a chronologically shifting timeline, as well as the protagonist herself create strong ties between this book and stories like Lolita or American Psycho. In the acknowledgments, Summers thanks Brett Easton Ellis for being such a huge inspiration during the writing of this novel, cementing these similarities. Much of our protagonist Dorothy’s time in this book is spent remembering her life and contemplating its meaning. As a self-proclaimed psychopath, she feels that she represents something bigger than herself, and when the author calls out such specific references which helped to shape this story, it becomes extremely apparent why. In a genre as broad as psychological thrillers, there is a notable lack of female psychopaths. Dorothy Daniels absolutely stands on-level (at least) with the great male psychopaths of literature, and I think this sort of story is groundbreaking at the very least, simply for speaking to this sentiment so directly. The friendship arch between Dorothy and Emma was also refreshing in a book that tends to cast aside most of its characters after a few dozen pages. Sometimes the perspective of Dorothy could get very tedious to read about (she is very detail-oriented, likes to talk a lot, etc). I think in places the book could begin to drag, but the short chapters and the general plot line was usually interesting enough to keep any dull moment from extending too long. I would definitely read more from this author in the future, so I’ll be on the lookout for her next book. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/1b4c8b06-988c-4f14-b0ef-0f1388305754/IMG_0547.jpeg 2023 - 20. The Secret History Donna Tartt 5/5 Reading Sounds: Kill V. Maim by, Grimes Knowing the reputation this book has amassed, it was difficult going into it without having any crazy built-up expectations. This book kind of blew me away regardless, though. What Donna Tartt has accomplished in this book is so impressive. The story alone is independently breathtaking, but then you open to page 1 and see that - in a nod to Tartt’s tragic Greek inspirations - the entire plot is outlined in the first paragraph of the Prologue, and you start to realize what a ride you’re in for. The Secret History follows Richard as he transfers from his boring school in northern California to Bennington in Vermont. Once there, he endeavors to join the elite, highly selective group of Classics students studying Greek under their eccentric teacher Julian. Once he is accepted into the group, he realizes he may have gotten more than he bargained for. I watched and read several interviews trying to figure out what to write about this book, and I came up quite blank. They don’t do the book justice, and I think the best way to give this book justice is to go into it blind and let it break your mind. There are so many great things going for it. Richard serves as a superbly unreliable narrator, leaving me questioning if I ever even knew the characters and events he described to me. It genuinely gets quite creepy, and Tartt makes sure that nothing ever feels unrooted from the baseline of this story: the friends Richard makes at Hampden. Henry, Bunny, Camilla, Charles, and Francis are absolutely unhinged in the greatest way imaginable. This is a book that will change the way you read books, and you won’t look back. I only dinged it a star because of some of the language in the book. Racial/homophobic slurs didn’t really serve much of a purpose other than making characters hatable. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/527bd330-752f-416b-a9e3-daba31a7f713/IMG_0548.jpeg 2023 - 21. Mistborn: The Final Empire Brandon Sanderson 3/5 Reading Sounds: Fathoms Below by, The Little Mermaid I can’t believe it took me so long to decide to read this book. I first discovered Brandon Sanderson in high school, but the high page counts of his books - as well as the sheer number of entries in the Sanderson book universe have definitely gave me pause. This first book is 659 pages. Although there were definitely parts that felt slow, considering how much world building was happening this is pretty understandable. Although there was a lot of buildup to the meaty action of this book, it did not ever become stale; and, although some plot points were quite trope-y for a first book, this was manageable. In a multi-POV book, Sanderson does a wonderful job of introducing characters that we want to hear from. Vin a fabulous main character. We follow her humble beginnings in the skaa slums of the Final Empire’s capital city Luthadel. While she has survived through mostly thieving and scamming up until now, she is soon rescued from this lifestyle by Kelsier and his ragtag gang of… thieves? Noblemen? Vin must learn how to use her newly discovered Allomantic powers in order to help jumpstart a revolution 1,000 years in the waiting. This book really was firing on all cylinders: characters, magic, plot, politics. The only complaint I can find is that it took like 450 pages for the plot to really pick up. I am hoping this was just first-book syndrome and the second installment The Well of Ascension will be easier to jump into. The themes and ideas being explored in book 1 were well-considered, and I am intrigued to see how Sanderson continues to explore them further. Overall, I really enjoyed this book, and I am looking forward to diving further into this universe (the Cosmere). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/926459bd-f9d2-4472-a664-788933f8c345/the+well+of+ascension.jpg 2023 - 22. Mistborn: The Well of Ascension Brandon Sanderson 3/5 Reading Sounds: Stadium Love by, Carly Rae Jepsen Running over 750 pages, somehow the second book in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy flew by even faster than book one. After hearing so much about the staggering world-building and sprawling, web-like plotlines connecting the books that belong to the Cosmere, it is exciting to say that I think I’m starting to get it. This book built on so many exciting ideas from the first installment in a way that never felt dull or repetitive. I have seen this marketed as a YA trilogy, and thankfully this did not suffer from the YA-genre trope of inserting a slog-fest of a second book just to bridge the gap between beginning and end. The story Sanderson tells is sprawling, and yet never out-of-control. There are many pieces that felt confusing, and it was so satisfying to see these loose ends masterfully woven together to reveal the full picture. These are all very basic compliments to give a fantasy novel, as I read over this, but I cannot emphasize how nice it feels to know an author is gonna take care of you. No need to worry about plot holes or wonky writing, Sanderson is gonna get you where you need to be. I am excited to continue this series further, but as I have done more research on this series, I don’t even know what order to go in. The series I am currently reading is Mistborn: Era 1, and although logic would dictate otherwise, the internet has made me feel consider that the Mistborn: Era 2 trilogy is not the best next stepping stone into this universe. We shall see where it goes from here, but I am excited to finish out this trilogy soon and continue digging into this amazing story. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/71d9f37a-80a7-4853-a8ad-000732c2c724/annihilation.jpeg 2023 - 23. Annihilation Jeff VanderMeer 5/5 Reading Sounds: UH OH! (feat. BENEE) by, Sub Urban In 2018 I bought this book and gave it to my dad, thinking he’d quickly get sucked into this apparent cosmic horror story about a series of top-secret government-funded expeditions into Area X, a slowly-expanding area of land in the southern US. Annihilation’s protagonist the biologist is one of four applicants assigned to the twelfth expedition by the invisible government agency known as The Southern Reach. Book 1 of The Southern Reach trilogy is the biologist’s assigned journal she updates during this journey. The twelfth expedition includes the biologist, the psychologist, the anthropologist, and the surveyor. Although surprisingly short (under 200 pages), the pacing was pretty moderate till very near the end, definitely lending to the overall skin-crawling nature of this novel. What are they in Area X to do again? The more they try to follow their vague mission orders, the more nothing seems to add up. The twelfth expedition has been sent into Area X to study the strange occurrences, but what are they? The search for wildlife samples and traces of some unidentifiable thing turns into a search for a nameless and unidentifiable... Force? Monster? Something? With so little information to go off of, the twelfth expedition spends tremendous amounts of time unsure exactly what part of this forgotten and strange piece of land so completely reclaimed by nature they are supposed to be gathering information on. Their expedition training and preparation begin to feel less and less relevant as more things stop making sense. The longer the biologist can survive without recognizing this ever-looming presence, without being taken over by it, the more likely she will be able to uncover the truth about Area X and her team members. What are they really looking for? What if the job they were sent on is a cover for something bigger? Does it matter? This book stands independently quite well, the ending will leave readers begging for answers to questions they can’t articulate. Without previously knowing this book to be the first in a trilogy, readers will be very satisfied with an ending that gets its point across by leaving these questions blooming unasked for, like a brightness. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/be9344ba-c29c-4a52-b915-91b6b2073709/authority.jpeg 2023 - 24. Authority Jeff VanderMeer 4/5 Reading Sounds: Welcome To My Island by, Caroline Polacheck Book two of The Southern Reach Trilogy. I don’t know how to feel. On one hand, the temptation to compare this book with Annihilation feels pretty logical (comparing books one and two is pretty standard). Authority was like 150ish pages longer than Annihilation, and although this is kinda surprising, maybe it shouldn’t be? The momentum built by Annihilation was wildly impressive. It would be hard story to followup with building momentum, but the expectations for book three are now through the roof. If Annihilation is the running start, Authority is the inclined trek up to– lmao psych! Were readers expecting Answers from this book? Hope the fuck not. Authority immediately distinguishes itself from its demented first-born sibling with a brand new protagonist: Control is a recent hire, a self-proclaimed fix-it guy, at the Southern Reach facility close to Area X. This government station is a few miles away from the local military base, providing excellent cover for their actual purpose of monitoring Area X and working with expedition members pre- and (less often) post-expedition. Control is introduced to his weirdly adversarial new colleagues who never quite reach the levels of intimidation that Annihilation’s characters brought to every scene. The stories are not interdependent, but they are differentiated with an effort that borders on confusing, often looping back around far enough to start over. The biologist was introduced to the reader via her job description?? OK, freak? And then she wasn’t even that good at it?? Screaming. She and Control are literally the same person. Annihilation’s beginning, middle, and end never physically stray from Area X, and Authority pushes as far as humanly possible in the opposite direction (emphasis on “humanly”). Rather than a survivor story laced with some unexpected alien hallucinogen, Authority might surprise readers with a paranoid detective novel fringed with something like decay. VanderMeer gives a lot of power to his readers, dropping information that flies past Control unnoticed but allows the reader to put together their own case report. If only to pull the chair out from under Control themself and start interrogating him and the biologist. VanderMeer builds on many ideas brought up in the first book with unsettling clarity. Does humanity even have a chance when faced with something as absolute as Area X? This book does not provide answers, but it does paint all-too-vivid imagery of the human response to a question like this on a national scale. The highly-focused, shaky closeups of plot from book one come into unsettling, equally-shaky focus in Authority. Never mind the fact that VanderMeer forces readers into a POV character with his back turned to the plot of book one for most of book two. This brings readers a glimpse at how the country has been handling the situation, why - against all odds - the biologist from book one was allowed to join the twelfth expedition in the first place, and perhaps the largest question of all: How can you understand something you can’t comprehend? At the end of book one, I was nervous that continuing the story and defining the threat of Area X any further would be a definite ending to the masterfully created suspense of Annihilation. However, in showing us how the chaos and uncertainty of the twelfth expedition are (dully) reflected in nearly every scene of this book, despite taking place completely apart from Area X, we now understand that any unanswered questions from book one are exactly as indecipherable as we first thought. Book two tells us that the expeditions sent into Area X were the last resort. And as book one has already told us: the last resort is failing. So, what now? Control moving through the motions of his new job feels just as bizarre as the biologist moving through those of hers. What are they even looking for? What questions should they be asking? What answers should they be seeking? The suspense doesn’t let up, even more so now that readers are probably leaping with ideas. In that respect, Authority deserves 5 stars just as well as Annihilation, but keeping with the nature of a review, it feels important to clarify that Annihilation is better. The pace was faster, the scary parts were scarier, and the threat felt closer. In a horror/sci-fi/thriller/adventure novel, those things feel important, and Authority is objectively lacking comparatively. So, if Annihilation is the running start, and Authority is the long trek up to… Something. Then rest assured of nothing, because VanderMeer ended this second installment with his signature bizarre brand of cliffhanger, a carefully hidden question in every page leading up to the last: What is the mission really? We still don’t know. Hopefully, book three has an answer that can live up to the hype. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/f037ecc4-a25d-4272-b261-897cfe553f61/acceptance.jpeg 2023 - 25. Authority Jeff VanderMeer 4/5 Reading Sounds: dlp 1.1 by, William Basinski So if Annihilation was the running start, Authority was the long trek up to… Acceptance. “Acceptance of what,” the reader asks? In keeping with tradition, the final book in Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy doesn’t so much follow a plot as it taunts readers with the idea of one that never fully materializes. What were the Southern Reach’s expeditions into Area X really sent there to do? The question is skirted around, never truly answered, as dozens of new questions pop up only to go unspoken as well. And what does it matter? In Annihilation, we followed the twelfth expedition as the biologist comes into contact with Area X for the first time. Her story is almost mirrored by Control’s in Authority. Both characters are confronted with knowledge they cannot comprehend, ideas they cannot share. They don’t even know how. The biologist and Control enter this final book after having decided to dive further into the mystery, their need to know the answers outweighing their fear of not knowing the questions. So Annihilation is not the running start, but rather a false one, a stumbling in the wrong direction. Authority is not really a long trek up to anything; it’s more like a failed chance at gaining the lead, a mere leveling of the playing field back to square one. While the second book suffered a bit from the plot’s seeming distance from that of book one, it arrives at the same conclusion: The answer, if there is one, will only be found in Area X. Acceptance brings this idea and ever-looming threat even closer. In a way this is disappointing. Acceptance takes more time to fill in the blanks than either of its predecessors. Pieces finally click into place, the unknowable larger picture seeming even more vast as VanderMeer pulls further away from the closeups he has conditioned readers to expect. The fear of the unknown is irreplaceable, but maybe there is merit within the definite submission to something that even if partially perceived can never be fully comprehended. To bow before something too big to name. So if Annihilation is a mind-bending misfire, and Authority is the subsequent fallout, the nerve-shredding refocusing that comes after; Acceptance is inevitable. From inside the heads of our characters, no plotlines are ignored. With so many threads to pull through, this is a satisfying show of this trilogy’s respect for its readers. However, not every obstacle is possible to overcome, to comprehend. Acceptance can be a tough pill to swallow, but hasn’t VanderMeer been saying that for a while now? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/0d47928e-43fc-441c-82d4-7e8a30a76c27/IMG_0555.jpeg 2023 - 26. The Hero of Ages Brandon Sanderson 3/5 Reading Sounds: Get Free by, Lana Del Rey The finale of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy is just as action-packed, revelatory, and mind-bending as expected. With The Final Empire and The Well of Ascension setting such a perilous precedent, this is truly a feat to behold. There are plenty of things to love about this series, and although it isn’t perfect, it is quite extraordinary. Many of the stranger characteristics of Sanderson’s writing began to stick out at the reader from the beginning of book 1. Lines are repeated, theories are discussed, and schemes are foiled. There were quite a few themes that began development in the first book. What often seemed like tangents or asides eventually revealed themselves to be integral revelations. This is a common thread throughout the series, but it was very gratifying to realize that some of the more annoying idiosyncrasies found in his characters were placed there with enough intentionality to make the suffering its own reward by the end of this book. Sanderson has a reputation for grandiose stories on an epic scale. Many fantasy readers might be dissuaded from starting base on page count alone, and knowing this trilogy is only one of many hiinterconnecting series may not help. There are many adult fantasy tropes that Sanderson could have easily fallen into, but especially after book 1, somehow the characters and plot never allow the pacing to slow or drag. Coming back to finish this series after the Area X trilogy feels very significant as well. What Jeff VanderMeer does in Area X pushes the boundaries of sci-fi, where the extraterrestrial life being studied cannot be comprehended, observed, or reasoned with. Such a being could exist; it is impossible to disprove. However, it would be impossible as well to disprove the existence of Ruin and Preservation as well. Such an untouchable and incomprehensible concept as Area X pushes past the idea of sci-fi in many respects, creeping into fantasy territory. On the other hand, Sanderson creates in Mistborn such a well-crafted magic system that characters are able to carry on incredibly deep discussions surrounding it. They study it, break it down, theorize about it, experiment with it, and they are constantly learning more. The focus on scholarship and learning, information and understanding, push this series past the classical boundaries of fantasy into what is often perceived as sci-fi. Is an incomprehensible extraterrestrial being of such magnitude and power that our minds cannot translate the information needed to recognize its existence more realistically probable to exist than a sub race of humans who can tap into the mystical powers of various metal alloys and fight gods? Yes, techically? Right? The science of allomancy in the Mistborn trilogy really does separate it from a lot of adult fantasy. Instead of leaning into the expansiveness of the unknown, readers can expect a fully fleshed out magic system with enough detail to give away plot twists if you are paying attention. This was an extremely satisfying conclusion to a truly epic trilogy that will leave readers wanting to explore this universe even further. And good thing too, as Sanderson is already at book twenty-something in the Cosmere. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/3d7bd70d-597a-488c-8432-50b6d7aaa41c/gideon+the+ninth.jpeg 2023 - 27. Gideon the Ninth Tamsyn Muir 4/5 Reading Sounds: Ribs by, Lorde The cover alone should have been a dead giveaway, but this book was so much fun. Gideon the Ninth follows our protagonist Gideon Nav, an elite soldier and servant to necromancer and fellow Ninth House adolescent Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Harrowhark is the heir to the Ninth House, the last of eight houses existing under the emperor-run First House. If this sounds confusing, that’s because it is. And if that seems like it might be a problem, it isn’t. The hype that surrounds this book is confusing to say the least. There are so many things going for it, it can almost seem too good to be true. Gays, necromancers, space, murder… This can’t be real, right? But what may seem like gimmicky tags at first are actually finely layered textures on an otherwise kind of mind-bending detective thriller. There are so many things to love about this book: Gideon’s voice is so singular and unique; her searingly deadpan deliveries and “ham-fisted explanations” lend such an unexpected vantage point into such an unexpected story. This book does not spend any time explicitly worldbuilding. Some authors could spend the first 200 pages of a series info-dumping or line-leading readers towards awkwardly set up explanatory monologues. Tamsyn Muir tosses these techniques out the window and instead spends this time throwing the plot forward with a level of momentum that cannot be truly appreciated until the end. Some really insanely cool things happen in the very beginning of the book (and into the middle), but it often felt like the context wasn’t there for that cool thing to be appropriately appreciated. Characters, plot points, settings, motivations… These are all devices that are mentioned in such rapid succession early on in the book that it was difficult to discern what to pay attention to. It becomes obvious towards the middle of the book that there will be no slowing down, and grasping for straws as to what the fuck is happening is going to be the only way through. The problem was that by the end of the book, one would hope to be grasping at fewer straws than at the beginning, and that was not necessarily the case. The overarching plot and structure of this first book still feel hazy even after finishing the book and looking up a few reviews. When casting around for plot bearings in this book, there was often only just enough to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Seeing back to the beginning or even just creating a mental image of the desired ending was somewhat difficult. What exactly would need to be pictured? By the end of the book, there was a sense of accomplishment. Maybe in order to fully appreciate this book, more than one read-through is required. However, this review is based off of the first read-through, and–honestly–it was confusing. And although it may have been entertaining as hell, it was confusing as fuck. The mind-fuck comes in acknowledging all the amazing parts of this book in spite of the parts I can’t quite grasp yet. The layering and detail are indicators of a genre masterpiece, but the humor and scale push things into joke territory while never landing near corny or disjointed. It remains grounded in a way that feels unexplainable and deeply important. Gideon the Ninth kind of defies comparison, which is almost funny considering how naturally referential and contemporary the writing feels. Think CLUE meets Star Wars meets Jackass, but gay, and plus like a fuck-ton of skeletons. Can’t wait to re-read this after finishing the series (which will definitely be happening). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/0cde76bf-089e-41f6-8abd-62a24c992fab/harrow+the+ninth.jpeg 2023 - 28. Harrow the Ninth Tamsyn Muir 5/5 Reading Sounds: GAY UGLY AND HARD TO UNDERSTAND by, Black Dresses The second book in Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series is a masterpiece. Following up a book like Gideon the Ninth is a feat in itself. In the first book, Muir is moving things around that felt incomprehensible. The foundational plot pieces set up in Gideon are looming, murky, mammoth things, nameless, shapeless, and–wait, no that was just a cloud. Haha. Seriously, though, the path to get to Harrow were dim at best. Book 1 followed Gideon Nav as she served the Ninth House heir Harrowhark Nonagesimus, playing the fraudulent cavalier to Harrow’s frightening necromancer. Harrow the Ninth follows Harrowhark during the resulting fallout from the first book, revealing a fractured Harrow as she desperately gaslights the reader and herself into believing that book 1 never happened. She goes so far as to present an alternate narrative, completely substituting characters and events, complicating a plot that was–let’s be honest–already incredibly complicated. Some of the chapters in Harrow the Ninth actually follow this false timeline, but most of the chapters are following the present-day misadventures of underbaked, baby-Lyctor Harrow, as told by an unnamed, mystery narrator…in second-person. After finishing Gideon the Ninth it felt like a second reading would be needed to fully understand what the hell was going on. Not only is this most definitely still true for book 2, it is now apparent that a reread of Gideon may also be necessary to fully understand Harrow the Ninth. So much was going on, and so much was fully hinging on the intricate details of what happened and why during the course of the first book. There was crazy action, insane humor, and mind-bending magic. Some internet sources have claimed that books 3 and 4 were actually a single installment that was split up due to publishing hurdles; rumors like this have made it seem possible that Harrow and Gideon are closely related in a similar way. In a way, Gideon felt like the extended prologue to Harrow’s extended epilogue. This is not meant dismissively, however, because there were many amazing aspects of this second installment in The Locked Tomb series, many aspects that were impressively maintained or impossibly improved upon moving into book 2. The mood and atmosphere are always key, and although Harrow as a protagonist does bring a noticeable shift, this works so well for the book; it never feels like it gets in the way of the story, and it is often wielded as a plot device. Characters are a big part of this world, and this book did not disappoint. Developing God as a main character in this story felt like a big swing that absolutely paid off. It felt scary and funny and grounded all at the same time. But the mention of God on the page kept kind of throwing the perspective of the story all the way off. Harrowhark is just a half-baked lyctor-in-training getting fatally hazed by a group of immortal bisexuals. But God is there too. Boom. At many points during this series there have been scenes that blur the line between genius and lunacy. It’s like reading a psalm that’s actually a yo mama joke. Is moral objection understandable? Is this real? Am I a prude? The scale of the story felt like it grew as well, culminating in a battle that felt big enough to up the ante from the last book and it begs the question: How can it get bigger? https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/f3faa984-4283-492c-b7a6-78deef18cf6a/the+alloy+of+law.jpeg 2023 - 29. The Alloy of Law Brandon Sanderson 2/5 Reading Sounds: Edge of Seventeen by, Stevie Nicks Brandon Sanderson’s written universe is so huge, that after finishing The Hero of Ages it was kind of difficult to figure out where to go next. Nobody seems to agree on a correct reading order, and even Sanderson’s own recommended list is kind of convoluted. This seemed like the next best thing after finishing Mistborn, if only for some sense of familiarity when starting a brand new series. Considering that The Alloy of Law is his answer to many fans’ question “What happened after the Mistborn trilogy?” it should surprise no one that at every turn he tries to shy away from any sort of comparison between this book and its predecessor trilogy. As many readers probably know, this effort doesn’t necessarily stop them from drawing comparisons anyway, but it can create a sense of disappointment as the list of differences begins to seriously outpace any sense of familiarity. It is quite surprising that Sanderson would want to push past the ending of a trilogy like Mistborn. As it stands, that trilogy alone is a masterclass in structure, symmetry, pacing, etc. There were many things about the original trilogy that could have been built upon, however, things that could have been done better even. None of these things were done better in this first edition of Mistborn: Era 2. There is definitely something here to draw readers back into the world, but with three more books to look forward to, it’s a shame this introductory installment doesn’t do more to propel audiences onward. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/132dcd53-97fc-4e51-808f-23bd40d0b55c/babel_1.jpeg 2023 - 30. Babel: An Arcane History R. F. Kuang 5/5 Reading Sounds: Oral (feat. Rosalía) by, Björk It has been quite the year for R. F. Kuang. Since releasing Babel in 2022, which has seemingly only grown in popularity since, Kuang’s newest release Yellowface has also been hard to avoid whether it be online or in the bookstore. With so much buzz surrounding this author, it only seemed right to give her a shot, and she definitely lived up to the hype. Everything about this book feels decadent, rich, and dripping with history. As it were, Kuang has framed the entire narrative as a history of the penultimate political sequence that the reader is hurtling towards from page one. It may feel long-winded at times, but that is not a bad thing necessarily. There is plenty of context to be given, and she chooses a protagonist in Robin Swift who has much to learn about the world he inhabits. This world is much like our own, a version of Earth similar in almost every way…except for the magic. Somewhere towards the end of the Roman empire, it was discovered that by utilizing silver bars and translated words or phrases from different languages, the subtle differences in meanings between these translations could be harnessed as a source of magical energy. Fast forward to the British Industrial Revolution, and they have used this magical translation-based silver-working technology to become the leading world superpower and the head of an ever-growing Empire set on colonizing the entire world. Robin has been taken from his hometown of Canton to work as a translator at Oxford University, the heart of the silver-working industry in Britain. As he learns more about what this means for himself and the rest of the world, he must decide whether the responsibility set before him by this prestigious career path is something he can live with. The full, title-page title of this novel is Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator’s Revolution, and as extra and low-key hysterical as that title is, it feels prudent and earned. This story covers a massive amount of ground, and it does so without ever straying towards “meandering” territory or anything close, really. How is Kuang going to discuss the necessity of violence? By allowing her characters to explore every other route they can; and, yeah, that might take a while, but with an idea like this, it is important to rule out every argument that her characters could come up against. That way, when readers arrive at the final scene, the climax doesn’t feel undeserved or overwrought. On top of this, as if it weren’t enough on its own, there are footnotes sprinkled throughout delineating the etymological and socio-cultural roots of specifically poignant vocabulary words that come up throughout the book. Drawing connections between languages seems to be a love language, almost, and the care with which these inserts are created is jaw-dropping. Kuang has delivered a 542-page gut punch that does exactly what it says it will on page 1, and that is truly remarkable in a work of historical-fantasy-fiction. Please, oh my god, please read this book. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/13f9042d-d1f0-499a-a6cb-d3390ae5f359/nona+the+ninth.jpeg 2023 - 31. Nona the Ninth Tamsyn Muir 5/5 Reading Sounds: Kill Her Freak Out by, Samia Muir admits in the acknowledgments, “Many people were bewildered when Nona sucker punched her way into the world.” She later tells Vox that Nona was originally the first act of the as-yet unreleased fourth book Alecto the Ninth until her editor convinced her it was a book on its own. Admittedly, this makes it tempting as a reader to hold off until book 4 is released and then binge them back-to-back, but staring at this book and waiting is impossible. After the initial acclimation of, say, the first 400 pages (lol) of Gideon the Ninth, these books are completely compulsive reads. Muir’s style is so completely unhinged and out-of-pocket that the densely layered and often-only-implied plot can be hard to follow sometimes. It has happened so often in this series where the gaping maws of plotholes are left unconfronted until the last 150 pages. Readers may ask themselves, “Did I miss something?” And it’s easy to think, “Yes, and now I have to slow down or go back and reread something,” but like 9 times out of 10, nothing was missed, the answer was just in the last 150 pages of the book. As readers finish Harrow and reach for this book, they may ask themselves, “Who is Nona? Did I miss something?” Don’t worry, though; just read the last 150 pages of Nona the Ninth. The main character Nona is probably the greatest departure from what most will think of as the “plot” of this series. For a while, it’s easy to get lost in the vast and dreamy meadows of wondering why exactly we are following Nona. In the Vox interview, Muir says Nona is about a friend you know getting super, super drunk at the club, and you’re sitting with him in the local McDonald’s at midnight as he tells you a bunch of incredibly intimate details about something you always wondered about, and you’re torn between wishing you were not in this McDonald’s and egging him on, because you know he’s really, really going to regret telling you all this when he’s sober. It seems like Alecto might provide context which would make this book exponentially more enjoyable. And although the full potential of this book’s reading experience may not have been realized upon the first read-through, it was unquestionably worth it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/6db0ddfa-4db9-445c-91dc-cef4f597e508/city+of+saints+and+madmen.jpeg 2023 - 32. City of Saints and Madmen Jeff VanderMeer 1/5 Reading Sounds: The Laughing Man by, St. Vincent The name VanderMeer has popped up consistently since reading The Southern Reach trilogy earlier this year. Author-editor duo Jeff and Ann VanderMeer are a force in the world of science fiction literature and a strong one at that. City of Saints and Madmen is the first book in the Ambergris Cycle trilogy, revolving around the fictional city of Ambergris. This city is populated by humans who live alongside the mysterious, gray-skinned indigenous population: the mushroom dwellers. Although it is labeled a novel, this book is written more like a textbook or a short story collection than anything else, while somehow remaining strongly reminiscent of Dugald Steer’s Wizardology or Louis Sachar’s Sideways Stories From Wayside School. What VanderMeer has created almost resembles a textbook, its chapters modeled after primary and secondary resources detailing the history and daily life of Ambergris and its inhabitants. Often there is no clear connection between a section of the novel and the rest of the book. Sometimes there is a common character/author/narrator, but just as often the only common link is the setting of Ambergris. There is also no clear plot; rather, the only thing driving readers forward is the promise of more information. Sections of the book include a history of the city of Ambergris, a profile of the giant freshwater squid, a 300ish-page appendix, a 30ish-page fictional bibliography (part of the appendix), and more. With so much background information included for seemingly no reason, it’s a wonder that something as obvious as a map of Ambergris was never created for this book. There comes a point where the question of “What is this heading towards?” becomes impossible to ignore, and after reaching the end, nothing draws the reader to pick up the next book except for (as previously stated) the promise of even more information about Ambergris. As immersive and real as VanderMeer was able to make this fantastical setting, without a concrete hook (or a fucking map), it will leave some readers wanting. This added to the inconsistent page numbers and the at-times dense stylistic choices creates what can only be described as a very frustrating reading experience. Perhaps this is a series that would be fun to return to in the future, but if readers are coming out of VanderMeer’s Southern Reach trilogy looking for stories from the same author with similar vibes, this trilogy is not likely to scratch that particular itch. Here’s to hoping the Borne series will move away from this textbook format and closer to the mind fuck-y, heart-pounding style of Annihilation. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/8c0b618a-2f3d-4feb-9e76-07bd3cf3e77c/liliths+brood.jpeg 2023 - 33-35. Lilith’s Brood Octavia E. Butler Dawn 5/5 Reading Sounds: The Big Ship by, Brian Eno Dawn is the first book in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy. It follows Lilith as she is Awakened by her captors, the extraterrestrial Oankali who have caged and stored the lucky survivors of Earth’s penultimate nuclear war in suspended animation aboard their planet-sized spaceship right outside the Moon’s orbit. Lilith learns that since Humanity destroyed the planet, the Oankali have healed Earth as well as all of the captured Humans. Now the Earth is being offered back to the still-living humans on the condition that they agree to interbreed with the Oankali to repopulate the Earth. The Oankali have chosen Lilith to choose the order in which she will awaken the rest of the humans who have been chosen to participate in the first Earth resettlement. Butler’s protagonists are always a delight to read, so it is no surprise that Lilith is thoughtful, intelligent, and logical. As she looks through profiles of her soon-to-be Earth colonizer partners readers will feel like they are in the room with her as she weighs the pros and cons of who she will Awaken first. There are some patterns that it is becoming more obvious that Butler falls into semi-regularly. One of these is weird age-gap relationships: it happened in the Parable duology, and it happened in this book as well. There was also some language regarding the Oankali that was surprising. Lilith learns that there are 3 unique Oankali sexes: male, female, and ooloi. This is a pivotal piece of this storyline; in fact, one of the first conversations she has with an Oankali character, she is told, “It is wrong to assume that I must be a sex you are familiar with.” It’s pretty cool, but then rather than resorting to gender-neutral language like “they/them,” characters refer to ooloi individuals as “it.” Gender isn’t discussed in the book at all, and homosexuality is only referenced in passing. Rumours are spread about certain characters’ sexualities, but these rumors are laughed off and dismissed. No gays in the apocalypse, but at least Lilith herself isn’t homophobic. There are some weird off-putting scenes containing morally gray themes of consent, but it got hard to tell if they were truly problematic or just the seeds of some larger plot structure that will eventually pan out to reveal a less problematic resolution. Because, “your words said no, but your mind said yes,” sounds rapey even if the Oankali saying it can essentially read minds. Many of these intense plot points and literary devices can be defended by placing them under the umbrella of, “Yeah, but it is the end of the world.” And, honestly, that’s a pretty solid reason in this case. It’s just also probably prescient to say that they are notable motifs readers can be aware of as they move through Butler’s repertoire. Adulthood Rites 4/5 Reading Sounds: I’ll Come Running by, Brian Eno Many years have passed since Lilith lived aboard the Oankali spaceship known as Chkahichdahk. Her first son Akin was born in the Earth settlement Lo, and he is in fact the first human-born male to be born on Earth since Humans returned to the planet decades prior. Like all interbred children on this Oankali-changed Earth, Akin is the biological Human-born son of two Human parents and three Oankali parents. The overweighted Oankali side of Akin’s and many other Oankali-Human children’s new genetics has caused many differences between this new generation and their parents. Adulthood Rites follows Akin as he navigates this new Earth populated mostly by Humans who want nothing to do with him. Dawn fearlessly imagines a world that subverts the idea of an alien “invasion,” but Rites almost seems to question the purpose of this at times. This book expanded on many ideas that were set up in the first book in very fascinating ways. The idea of Humans and Oankali living in symbiosis is brought up repeatedly, and one character compares it to the relationship of human cells and the mitochondria. Readers may catch themselves wondering who is the human cell and who is the mitochondria in that comparison. A third of the Oankali population who are currently on or around Earth will eventually leave to explore the universe and find even more potential species to interbreed with. If this Oankali-Human genetic tradeoff is to be a fair one, don’t Humans deserve the right to preserve their original genetic makeup as well? Butler’s ideas are so layered and so expertly delivered, that it is a pleasure to dig into them even deeper. However, some of the cringier ideas presented in the first book are only exacerbated here. Referring to the ooloi as “it,” is a strange choice that is weird to read even if it does make canonical sense in this book. Ooloi felt kind of absent for a large portion of the first book, so to get to know them better and still refer to them individually as “it,” seems like a slap in the face mid-paragraph lest one forget this is no human–regardless of its humanity. In this sense, Adulthood Rites is very successful. Even the minutiae of its grammatics is on-thesis. However, it is not as perfect as its predecessor. Maybe it is simply having to deal with the day-to-day reality of Butler’s ideas that can grate. Although immersive and gripping, it is anything but a painless read. Imago 5/5 Reading Sounds: Another Green World by, Brian Eno Much like City of Saints and Madmen, this masterful trilogy left one searing thought at the top of mind, above all others: Why is there no map at the beginning of this book? Are beginning-of-the-book maps just a fantasy thing? Are alien species who have a third sex that genetically pick-n-mixes kids for fun not fantasy? Inquiring minds want to know. Anyways… In this masterful series closer, Octavia E. Butler reaches the pinnacle of what this story set out to do. In a sense, it very much feels as though Dawn and Adulthood Rites only exist so that Imago can too. Not to say those books weren’t independently amazing, but they do seem to lack the brute force of a thesis statement that this final book has pulled off so spectacularly. There were many points in the first two books that felt confusing, and many of the moral questions being asked felt unanswerable or even unimportant through the eyes of Lilith and Akin. However, in Imago it seems that Jodahs has the perfect vantage point to drive home what is most important about this trilogy’s message. The premise of this story assumes that some Cold War-esque world conflict has resulted in the nuking of the Earth, and without the Oankali’s last-minute arrival and intervention, that would have been the end of Humanity. Period. It doesn’t matter that the northern hemisphere’s issues with each other didn’t need to affect the southern hemisphere at all, because the radioactive death of Humanity doesn’t care about who exactly dropped the bombs. All it takes is a bunch of stupid, rich, white people to ruin Earth for literally everybody else, and then guess what? All the hate-Tweets in the world won’t cancel the leaders who accidentally-on-purpose killed everybody on Earth. Something about, “sins of the father,” etc. Fast forward like 400 years, and now readers can see the first interbred generation after Humans and Oankali have returned to the Earth’s surface to live together. Lilith is still pissed, the resistors are still pissed, and so is everyone else pretty much. Who are they pissed at? At the Oankali? At Lilith? At bonafide children? Who fucking knows? And honestly, this seems to be the point we’ve been getting at. Humanity is doomed, and unless Humanity wants to collectively do something about it now, they have kind of forfeited the right to complain about it later. Like either shit or get off-the-pot vibes. And nothing could better encapsulate this message than Jodahs, a character who has no choice but to lead readers into the unknown, into the future. Jodahs isn’t guilty of any crimes against Humanity, and it (referring to Jodahs) is just ostracized enough from the Oankali as well as the Humans that it can sever itself from both communities and pull readers head-first into an exploration of what moving forward looks like now. If Dawn was an ode to all that was lost in the death of Earth as Lilith knew it, and Adulthood Rites was an evaluation of what is left now through the eyes of Akin, then Imago is the promise of a future directly from someone whose duty it will be to craft that future. Jodahs is a thoughtful, innocent, and surprisingly Human narrator. There is still a definite alienness to its thoughts, and this lends an air of funeral to this last entry in the Xenogenesis trilogy. Things will not go back to how they were, but through Jodahs, readers can see a future that isn’t just death. It’s also a birth. And although it is not a story about saving the world, Lilith’s Brood is a story about birthing a new one. There is something sorrowfully hopeful about that. https://www.aaronaads.com/2024 daily 0.75 2025-01-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/0cde76bf-089e-41f6-8abd-62a24c992fab/harrow+the+ninth.jpeg 2024 - 24. Harrow the Ninth Tamsyn Muir 5/5 Reading Sounds: The Wizard And I by, Cynthia Erivo and Michelle Yeoh First can we just take a second to note that as I edit this review on 9 December 2024, we still do not have a release date for Alecto the Ninth. I raced to finish this series before New Years this year, because everyone thought Alecto would be released before 2025, but in March 2024 Tamsyn Muir did an interview saying she was still writing it. So how do I find myself now a year later having read the series through twice and now having finished Harrow for the third time? It all started because I can’t stop myself from re-listening to the epilogue of Nona the Ninth. Too good, I would say. With several long car rides looming, I decide it can’t hurt to restart Harrow instead of listening to my usual playlists. Just for shits and giggles; but then, suddenly, I’m in too deep again. I make it to the soup dinner scene, I make it to the wine dinner scene. I realize this isn’t shits and giggles, and I admit to myself that I am going to finish Harrow the Ninth for the third time. This is the first time I have read any of Muir’s books completely on audiobook, and it was an ultimately novel and rewarding experience. For one thing, Harrow exhibits the slightest tendency towards the extremely dry, and her humor mightn’t immediately strike one as laugh-out-loud funny on paper. The entire series so far has been narrated by Moira Quirk, who does a fantastic job of characterizing and lending a unique voice to each character. Quirk’s voice won several laughs from me that the physical book did not. I think that hearing someone vocalize Harrow’s inner thoughts also lends weight to her insanity; reading the physical book, I felt myself drifting toward sympathy and often empathy for her as a protagonist. Quirk’s “straight-faced” delivery makes Harrow’s… idiosyncrasies… even more alarming. Quirk’s take on Ianthe was inspired as well, one of the highlights of listening to this on audiobook having to be Quirk’s Ianthe lewdly drawling, “Old people should be shot.” Where so much of the physical book felt like it was left up to interpretation, the vocal performances confirmed so much for me about the Harrowhark/Ianthe dynamic. The final act of this book, as always, blew me away, and it was even more rewarding for being on audio this time. The satisfaction of hearing Gideon’s literal voice break through finally is a high that doesn’t get old. Augustine and Mercymorn were also incredible performances. All of the references to Alecto in this book have me very excited for Alecto the Ninth as well. The way that Mercy and Augustine both reacted when they saw Gideon’s eyes–before they realized she was Gideon and not Alecto–felt like an easter egg. The way they kept talking about her–”She was a monster, John,” “She never could act human,”–makes Nona even more heartbreaking. I have this sneaking suspicion that Harrow’s infatuation with Alecto is perhaps parallel to Nona’s infatuation with Number Seven and the other revenant beasts. Mass murders and mass traumas call out to each other, maybe. This could also explain Harrow’s aversion to food and social awkwardness–which are both reflected in Nona. Now I need to read The Mists of Avalon and not start listening to Nona… https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/c161c86f-2d44-4bc0-add1-2b13858afe3e/i+who+have+never+known+men.jpg 2024 - 23. I Who Have Never Known Men Jacqueline Harpman 4/5 Reading Sounds: Rät by, Penelope Scott This book has been all over TikTok as well as the Staff Picks shelf at my local bookstore for years. I Who Have Never Known Men is the story of thirty-nine women and one young girl who are being held captive in a metal cage in an underground bunker and guarded by patrols of men who do not speak to them and will whip them with literal whips if they break the rules. No touching each other, no sharp objects, no hiding from the guards’ sights, sleep when the lights are dimmed, and wake up when the lights brighten. The youngest girl does not have a name, because she was so young when she was taken that everyone just calls her the child. One day, an alarm they have never heard before startles the guards in the middle of delivering their daily food rations, and they are so surprised they evacuate before taking the key out of the lock. The child immediately runs to unlock and crawl through the slot, and lead all of the women out of the bunker to try and find something–anything–to help them get home. I think this is a coming-of-age story. A bildungsromane. But she has existed inside of this cage for all of her life that she can remember, so coming-of-age looks really weird here. Readers might be wondering why are they in a cage? Those readers will not have an answer by the end of this book. Plot-wise, this book made less and less sense as it went on. Initially I assumed it was just like a plain fiction novel, but from the beginning it felt very speculative, and then horror, and by the 3/4 mark it may as well be sci-fi. This book was disturbing, and it was sad; but, more importantly, it was indulgent. Harpman ignores the overtly obvious questions that readers would want answers to, and instead the questions being asked are too huge for her to attempt to answer: What makes us human? What is love? What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a woman who has never known men? Like, holy shit, what does that question even mean? And rather than try to answer it, Harpman asks the questions through a character who has no context for any of those words. Once you strip away the things that we associate with humanity, how do you then judge someone’s humanity? You kind of have to either throw your hands up and curse the author or just grow the guts to have your own opinion. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/cc6c157b-4c77-4de3-9965-e91474de4beb/shadows+of+self.jpg 2024 - 22. Shadows of Self Brandon Sanderson 3/5 Reading Sounds: Goodbye Horses by, Q Lazzarus After finishing the original Mistborn: Era 1 series last year, it wasn’t immediately clear how this trilogy tied into the next one. Shadows of Self is the second book in the second era of Mistborn: Era 2–otherwise known as the Wax and Wayne series. It takes place several hundred years after the events of the original trilogy, and its steampunk cowboy aesthetic is a strangely natural progression to what was a pretty classical fantasy kingdom. Waxillium spent most of book 1 building backstory, and this second books biggest issue was the lack of growth in this area. Where some side characters were given more dynamic time in the spotlight, Wax had surprisingly little character development considering how frequently Sanderson writes from his perspective. Between the first two books in this series, it is starting to feel like a serialized crime drama rather than an epic fantasy. Respite from Wax’s monotonous scenes came in the forms of Wayne and Marasi. Sanderson loves to use Wayne’s humor to highlight some deeper sentiment that Wax is too busy jumping out a window to relate to us. Meanwhile Marasi is personal assistant to the Constable-General Aradel, giving a carefully placed peephole into the government without revealing anything of the nobility. Wax also meets MeLaan, a younger kandra who is only a few hundred years of age. Notably absent were Steris, who seemed to come into scenes for just long enough to remind everyone she’s still alive, and Ranette, who is talked about for longer than she is present. Alumni characters from the original Mistborn trilogy make cameos in this book, which is especially interesting because of the deification of their persons since the events of Era 1. At the end of The Hero of Ages Vin uses the shard of Preservation to destroy Ruin, killing herself in the process, and leaving Sazed to take up both Ruin and Preservation himself and become the god Harmony whom Wax is talking to throughout this book. The deification of Sazed is extreme when compared to that of the other Era 1 characters, but it throws these stories into interesting relief against each other. Unlike book one, this book has kandra in it, so it was a delight to see TenSoon show up, however briefly it may have been. Everyone keeps calling the kandra your grace because they are servants of Harmony, and the kandra are like omg please stop. The banter borders on Cassandra Clare levels of lunacy, especially once these quasi-immortal characters enter the mix. This is the first book that has begun casting more light on what is referred to as the Cosmere. Brandon Sanderson’s extended literary universe connects the Mistborn series to the Stormlight Archives as well as several standalone novels, short stories, and secret projects. Shadows of Self implies that these other series and stories based in the Cosmere are connected by other beings like Sazed/Harmony who have absorbed energies like Ruin and Preservation. It would follow that these other series would probably follow those characters in the same way that Mistborn: Era 1 followed Sazed’s journey to godhood. For both Era 1 and 2 of Mistborn, Sazed is the most fascinating character, and it’s not even a close call; here, he is removed from the story by several degrees, and yet remains a central piece of the story. The antagonist Bleeder asks Wax why Harmony allows so many terrible things to happen, like the tragic death of Wax’s lover and partner Lessie. If god is supposed to be all-powerful, why would Harmony move people in such evil ways? Sazed takes the powers of both Ruin and Preservation when he becomes Harmony, which has Wax and Bleeder asking if Ruin is currently winning out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/19779b7f-b48d-4fb6-bacd-d3a2ec3f5c50/the+bright+sword.jpg 2024 - 21. The Bright Sword Lev Grossman 3/5 Reading Sounds: Parlour Exotic by, E^ST Arthurian legend is an intimidating place to ground a standalone novel like The Bright Sword and specifically tackling the death of King Arthur borders on arrogant, but here is a story that feels like a natural entry point to this canon. Grossman highlights characters who never received a proper showing in the larger catalog of Arthurian tales, giving them backstories and character arcs that are giving cishets the scaries. Sir Bedivere is Arthur’s right-hand man and was also in love with the king. Sir Palomides is Muslim, Sir Dinadin is trans, Sir Dagonet is the once-ironically knighted jester, and the cast goes on. Our protagonist is Collum of the Out Isles, a bastard who is neglected and abused by his lord guardian until he decides to steal the only legit set of armor in his household and run away to beg a spot in the Round Table. Only upon his arrival does he find out that King Arthur and his incestuous bastard son have murdered each other in the emotional aftermath of Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot being caught in an adulterous romance. Merlin has been murdered by his apprentice Nimue (the best part of this book by far), and the rest of the Knights of the Round Table have been lost to the cause of seeking the Holy Grail. Collum must team with the remaining scraps of the Round Table and find Britain a new king. Overall, this book was really good, but a few things kept popping up. Some of the representation and strides toward diversity were bordering on tokenizing. This feels like a dangerous critique to give, because that same representation is actually an amazing thing to see, but it’s frustrating to see characters stuck into their little cubbyhole character arcs: gay, Muslim, trans, etc. It would be wonderful to see characters like these be able to break the mold of their archetypes rather than just sort of kicking at the sides. Nimue was by far the best part of this story, and she is largely left on the sidelines (ironic for this story, no?). Grossman gives full chapter backgrounds for the main cast of characters in this book–some even get multiple chapters of backstory–and Nimue’s blows the rest away by miles. The magic system is captivating, and if nothing else did, the magical fight scenes made the entire book feel worthwhile. The knights are constantly discussing God and whether He is really coming back–or if he was ever there to begin with. If God is gone, what now? Can they go back to the old pre-Roman pagan British ways? What is a miracle, and what does it do to the humans who witness it? There were several points where huge info-dumps would come out of nowhere, and a character would soliloquize for a few pages for the sake of plot progression or explanation; not that it was bad, but it did drag at points, and had this been extended into a series, it could have been explained in a much more engaging manner rather than as a second-hand story. Whereas, in his Magicians trilogy, the story kept unfolding in ways that felt almost unrealistic to hope for, it felt at times unrealistic to hope this story would end. That being said, this was fully-actualized and self-contained standalone novel, which is a feat in and of itself in today’s publishing landscape. Kudos. That being said—and not lightly—there aren’t a whole lot of Arthurian-era stories in the modern pop culture lexicon for The Bright Sword to compete with. Disney’s The Sword and the Stone, Duvall Steer’s Wizardology, Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail. Honestly, not many come to mind, so the struggle to compete with them shouldn’t be so overwhelming. Maybe it is for this reason that the ending of The Bright Sword felt so underwhelming. It could have gone anywhere, really, but it simply didn’t. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/055d1dbd-bf74-40a4-922d-c8d0cb24543a/the+tale+of+despereaux.jpg 2024 - 20. The Tale of Despereaux Kate DiCamillo 3/5 Reading Sounds: sever the blight by, hemlocke springs This book is one of the most formative reading memories in my life. I can imagine sitting at my desk in 3rd grade listening to my teacher read chapters of this aloud to the class between subjects or at the end of the school day. She did different voices for every character, and I can still hear her voice dropping into the dopey-sounding Miggery Sow. There was something monumental in the way that the perspectives shifted between sections of the book. Never before had I seen an author combine so many different seemingly-independent plots into one cohesive book. The story opens with Despereaux, trying and failing to learn how to behave like a “normal” mouse. Over the next few sections of the book, we meet the Princess Pea, a dungeon rat named Chiaroscuro, and an orphaned servant girl named Miggery Sow. They mention each other, and stumble through each other’s sections of the book, dropping little Easter eggs along the way. It is a beautifully put-together story, and a great introduction to the epic scope of fantasy stories that I would get into later on in life. Although it is not groundbreaking or genre-bending, The Tale of Despereaux is a fun read, and DiCamillo’s witty, light-hearted writing helps to pull young readers through a story that could otherwise be pretty grim. Rereading this is the first time I have ever realized that DiCamillo is the very same author who published Because of Winn-Dixie, which belongs to one of my favorite genres: “child-friendly trauma”. Despereaux never quite reaches the levels of horror achieved by something like Bridge to Terabithia, but that is not to say that it is without merit. And it definitely piques my interest to pick up Because of Winn-Dixie, a book I’ve never read even though I watched the movie several times in school. (Please note: I have not seen the movie version of The Tale of Despereaux, but the cast is kind of stacked, so I’m considering a movie night soon.) Overall, this was a nostalgically pleasant reread, but it was kind of hard to distance myself from the book because of this. And I flew through it. Would read again. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/4922ccc0-f66d-4e4a-bc9c-556558af5024/the+fifth+season.jpg 2024 - 19. The Fifth Season N. K. Jemisin 3/5 Reading Sounds: 1914 by, Florist This book has been on my bedside table for the longest time, and I’m not entirely sure why. I started it when I first bought it, but never made it past the first chapter. There is definitely some internet clout to contend with here, and this is the first book in a trilogy where every single entry won the Hugo Award during the years of their respective releases. Did it live up to the hype? I don’t know, honestly. It was a disservice to N.K. Jemisin’s world building to read this so soon after finishing The Will of the Many, because James Islington borrows so heavily and liberally from tropes and arcs that are prominently featured in The Fifth Season. That said, those borrowed aspects are executed far better in this book. Readers follow 3 perspectives throughout this book: Damaya, Syenite, and Essun. They live in a world called the Stillness, ironically named for its unusually high levels of seismic activity. Geomests are those rare individuals with the ability to control and direct geothermal energies, garnering themselves a reputation for being dangerous and detrimental to society. People are quick to blame these individuals for the deadly fifth seasons that begin every time the Stillness is rocked by global seismic events, sending the world into long periods of uninhabitability and death. This makes it difficult for those with orogenic powers to find community in most communities, or comms as they are referred to. There are oral traditions and rules referred to as stonelore passed down through generations teaching people how to survive fifth seasons, and it very heavily emphasizes the importance of living in a comm. Commless individuals during a fifth season are inevitable the most at risk. Readers follow young Damaya as her parents discover her gemoest abilities and hand her over to the government officials who train these type of children to hone and master their powers in the capital’s designated school for those with orogenic powers called the Fulcrum. Syenite is a trained geomest who is traveling alongside the most powerful geomest in the Fulcrum to carry out a mission in the countryside. Essun is hunting down her husband who has murdered her son and kidnapped her daughter. Overall, this was a gorgeously rendered world, with layers of metaphor and symbolism and a magic system that felt real enough to sink your teeth into. The pacing felt a little off at times, though, and some of the plot points felt like they were supposed to be plot twists, but the timing was slightly off. Jemisin has a habit of setting up these reveals so solidly that they are visible from chapters away. The characters were somewhat difficult to connect with at first, but by the end of the book there was enough gay shit going on that I kind of forgive her for it. I am excited to read onto the second and third books in this series, but I’m not sure when exactly I’ll build up the momentum to keep pushing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/a066628b-b638-43ea-ad4c-ad90cff08d1b/fledgling.jpeg 2024 - 18. Fledgling Octavia E. Butler 4/5 Reading Sounds: Short People by, Randy Newman This book was, come on, say it with me everyone, “Fucked.” It was fucked. And Octavia Butler is fucked up for writing it. It was good, though. Honestly, I am at a loss for a title that centers on a child vampire that isn’t absolutely fucked. Let Me In… Breaking Dawn… its a foul genre. However, in addition to being shocking, Fledgling is also thought-provoking and surprisingly moving. Released in September 2005–just 2 weeks before Twilight–this is the first book in a planned trilogy, and it is also the last book that Octavia E. Butler wrote before she died 5 months later in February 2006 leaving this series perenially unfinished. Shori is a 50-year-old vampire who looks like a 10-year-old girl. She wakes up in a cave and realizes that someone has tried to kill her, and then she realizes she doesn’t remember who she is. She must gather human symbionts to feed from and help her move through this world, as inhospitable as it is for vampires, or Ina as she soon learns they are called. These human symbionts are adults, and they all usually have sex with Shori. This is upsetting to read about, and Butler does not shy away from details. Now, back to Twilight, the age gap between Bella and Edward is between 2-3 times that of the age gap between Shori and her symbionts, and yet people showed out in mobs and droves with goddamned T-shirts to show their support for Twilight–and not to mention, they watched Bella “grudgingly accept” the third corner of her own love triangle imprinting on her newborn baby before she has time to wake up after labor. I’m not a scientist, so I don’t know what that means, necessarily, but in context, I don’t think it would be very demure or mindful to turn around and dismiss Octavia offhand here. There is a lot to dig into with this book, it’s just not always palatable. Maybe a lot of the unresolved issues would have been resolved if the series been able to conclude as planned. However, reflecting on the Xenogenesis series I read last year, those problematic themes of consent and gender that were throwing out red flags at the beginning of book 1 had literally gone nowhere by the end of book 3. Regardless of taste, there was meat to the story and the ideas, but not everybody is hungry enough to eat it. It isn’t without merit, but this book is not for the easily squeamish or the unfortunately literal. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/a617d8a9-05d9-4cec-8818-16c8ecfee85e/the+will+of+the+many.jpg 2024 - 17. The Will of the Many James Islington 4/5 Reading Sounds: I’d Rather Be Me by, Barrett Wilbert Weed The reputation that this book has garnered since its release only last year is impressive to say the least. Every other fantasy reader on TikTok and YouTube has reviewed The Will of the Many, and it seems that more often than not, it ends up on their “Best of Something” list by the end of the month. And if the general clamor wasn’t enough, there was a seemingly unanimous agreement that the end of this book is so mind-blowing that nobody sees it coming. The ending just wasn’t that good in all honesty. It maybe has the potential to be something good at a later point in the series, but for now it was kinda like, “Oh, that was the end?” And it was the end. That being said, Vis is a compellingly unreliable but compulsively readable narrator, something Islington leans into as far as he possibly can. He creates unbearable tension that somehow does manage to exponentially grow over the full course of this book. At the start of this story, Vis gets adopted into a powerful family and is sent to a famously competitive boarding school where he is to be trained alongside the progeny of the Republic’s elite. His social circle isn’t great to begin with, but by the end he is technically surrounded by peers, mentors, family, and friends, but, still, not a single character feels like a true ally. The secrets Vis keeps close to his chest–including those he hides from the reader–aren’t insignificant, so from whom is he supposed to ask for help who wouldn’t immediately turn him in? He can’t even find it in himself to blame the others, juggling his hatred of the Republic with his sympathy for those who grind away within its masochistic pyramids. They all live under the fists of an unimaginably powerful few, but those few are being constantly fed their power through the Will of the rest of the Republic (wink fucking wink). The magic system was another interesting part of this book, but the students at Catenan Academy aren’t actually allowed to use Will. The reader hears only theoretical discussions of it, and usually only snippets of classroom discussions or gossip. The scenes where Will is actually used are so few and far in between that it was pretty difficult to piece together the logistics of what was actually happening–or the dangers of what could potentially happen. By taunting we hungry dogs with bones of unrealized pathos and incomprehensible magic, Islington will doubtless keep up with the frenzy whenever book 2 is released, but the question remains what will happen after that. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/5c4ad36c-eb2f-48df-8afa-fdae705e37f3/strange+the+dreamer.jpg 2024 - 16. Strange the Dreamer Laini Taylor 5/5 Reading Sounds: Head to Stars by, Jack River I was 18 years old the first time that I read Strange the Dreamer. I was getting ready to graduate high school, preparing myself for a journey that cannot be truly prepared for. In some ways, it was the perfect time for me to read a story like this. Lazlo Strange is an orphan and an apprentice librarian who has spent his entire life reading fairy tales and stories, with a peculiar fascination with the nearly forgotten city of Weep. Nobody from this city has been in contact with the rest of the world in many years, and with no explanation as to why, even its original name has now been lost to the ravages of time. Strangely, nobody seems to even want to talk about it until Eril-Fane, otherwise known as the Godslayer, arrives in search of people who can help Weep overcome a secret problem that has been overshadowing his city, Lazlo jumps at the opportunity to help and travels with him to finally see the city that has captivated his imagination for so many years. Their troupe accrus an alchemist, a climber, an explosionist, a couple who invented a flying machine, and more, but to solve what problem remains still a mystery. As Lazlo finds out more about the strange situation in Weep, he is introduced to Sarai, one of the children of the murdered gods who survived and is living in hiding within the castle. Because, oh yeah, in addition to the Godslayer’s seemingly randomly assembled crew, there’s another cast of characters living inside the floating castle who have survived the fates of their families. Much like Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, this story centers around a war older than those involved, and it questions how hatred, fear, and hope can be sustained or nourished. Why would people fight in a war that they can’t remember the beginning of? Are children responsible for the atrocities of their parents? What does it mean to seek redemption? Is that a heroic story, or is redemption an inevitably selfish character arc? I have seen so many people say that this is one of their favorite fantasy books of all time, and after revisiting it, I definitely have a newfound respect for it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/5b594289-7992-41d5-92a1-ba1500c6ebe4/dreams+of+gods+and+monsters.jpeg 2024 - 15. Dreams of Gods and Monsters Laini Taylor 5/5 Reading Sounds: Gods & Monsters by, Lana Del Rey Reading this series for the first time in such a long time–especially books two and three–has been a very intense experience. Days of Blood and Starlight ended with Thiago almost raping Karou and earning himself a knife in the throat right before Ziri unexpectedly returns from what was supposed to be a suicide mission into Eretz and convinces Karou to kill him and put his soul into Thiago’s body so that they can regain control of the rebellion the same night that Akiva and Liraz show up with Hazael’s corpse in the hopes that Karou can resurrect him (she can’t). The next morning, Zuzana shows back up at the kasbah to tell everyone that an army of angels has appeared on Earth and is soliciting the pope for nuclear arms. Karou and Akiva decide to combine the chimaera resistance the misbegotten soldiers Akiva is hiding in Karou’s (Madrigal’s) childhood home, the northern Kirin caves back in Eretz to organize a final fight against Joram. This is the realization of their original dream back in book one: to create a world where seraphim and chimaera could live side-by-side. They must confront the dissonance between dream and reality when these groups of sworn enemies do not want to mesh. When this was first released in 2014 it was in the midst of the big YA dystopian trilogy boom, and Dreams of Gods and Monsters definitely sets this trilogy apart from the rest by being a well thought out and satisfying conclusion. Sometimes it veers toward too clean of an ending, but this really lets the language and world building shine. In this book, Laini Taylor again cracks open this world much like she did at the end of book one. In book one, it is the restoration of Karou’s memories of her life as Madrigal that shifts the story from being a typical YA urban fantasy romance to something a bit more epic in scale. In this book, Taylor introduces a new character Eliza through whose eyes we discover the story of the Fallen seraphim who were cast out of Eretz so very long ago, and we learn how seraphim came to be known in Eretz as well as Earth. This story takes on a sort of creation mythos, explaining the coexistence of these worlds as well as the existence of many others long forgotten. These universes are layered like pages in a book, one next to the other. When the as-yet-Unfallen seraphim went to explore and map these alternate universes, they unknowingly drew the ire of some Lovecraftian beasts which chased them all the way back home, ripping through the fabric holding these universes apart in their wake. The Stelians–the only seraphim in Eretz other than Akiva who still practice magic in their far-flung Southern Isles–are finally able to seal up the universe behind the fleeing crew of explorer seraphim and have dedicated their lives ever since to holding the way shut in order to protect Eretz and, by extension, Earth. This book was fairly long (over 600 pages), but when you add in this lavish backstory that was plopped in at the very end of the series, it could have been even longer with no complaint. Some might say that the story goes on for too long, but in this book the characters almost take a back seat to the story they exist within, and it creates the sense of a world that doesn’t have to end. As the final page approaches, it feels like a journey just begun and readers will want to know more. This book is how Taylor explains the continuity between her books. The Fallen seraphim and their journey through the universes is the creation myth shared by her other series beginning with Strange the Dreamer, and rereading this series has definitely made me want to revisit that one as well. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/fe9d922c-f59d-4392-9552-b83ab5584b0f/days+of+blood+and+starlight.jpeg 2024 - 14. Days of Blood and Starlight Laini Taylor 5/5 Reading Sounds: Back In Town by, Florence + The Machine I used to reread Daughter of Smoke and Bone semi-regularly, but I don’t think that I have revisited the second or third books in this series since I initially read them upon release. After the events of book 1, Karou is on her own now–or something worse than on her own. She has found the surviving chimaera resistance and has become their new resurrectionist in the wake of the seraphic genocide of Loramendi and the death of Brimstone, all at the hands of Akiva who revealed the secret of chimaera resurrection to Joram (King Seraph) literally as soon as he was forced to watch the execution of Madrigal and then escaped Thiago’s torture chamber. I was pretty anxious that after not reading this book for several years, it wouldn’t hold up to how much I remember enjoying it when I was younger. Especially with the subject matter of this series, it can be a precarious line to walk. Early in this book, Karou is finally reunited with Zuzana–her human classmate from Prague–and has to fill in her friend on what’s been going on. When Zuz presses Karou for an update on Akiva, Karou responds something along the lines of, “Imagine Romeo and Juliet, except when Juliet wakes back up Romeo has massacred her friends, family, and people.” It becomes a stretch to believe that anyone could forgive–let alone fall back in love with–someone who has committed acts such as these. However, at the end of Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Karou regains the memories of her past life Madrigal and it seems inevitable that she will eventually forgive Akiva. Maybe it is the fairy tale feeling that runs through all of Laini Taylor’s work, but even all the angst and shadow in Days of Blood and Starlight couldn’t honestly convince me that these characters will not make up and kiss before the final curtain. The story and plot are so lush and ever-expanding that Laini Taylor more than gets away with it, and Karou never feels limited by her love story. Rather, Taylor leans into the exploration of how Karou is going to love Akiva in spite of these things. How does love continue to grow in the presence of hatred older than memory? Are people who do bad things irredeemable? Do they deserve to be happy again? The love story is central to the plot, with an ultimate ending that feels somewhat obvious and a premise that is straight-up uncomfortable. Taylor is able to spin this dreadful combination to her advantage and generate enough tension to tease out readers’ wonderings for (at least) two books (Spoiler alert: book 3 is really fucking good too). Going into this re-read, there were several scenes that I remembered from the last time I read this (over ten years ago): Zuzana dropping a pee balloon on Kaz in the opening chapter (didn’t actually happen), Ziri being crucified with swords and ripping his hands into horseshoes while escaping (worse than I remembered), Ziri falling and his horn hitting the ground so hard that the tip snapped off (just as bad as I remembered), and Thiago trying to rape Karou (…). Whether surprising or not, this entry into the series is aptly titled. While I know Laini Taylor’s writing for its magical feeling and whimsy, for this book specifically I was expecting viscera and gore because that is mostly what I remember from it, and I wasn’t wrong. Laini Taylor’s tendency toward purple prose and vivid imagery doesn’t falter when she gets to these intense scenes. Whether it be Thiago’s demeanor in every scene he shows up in, a body horror heavy sequence like Ziri’s hands and horns, or even a passing description of the self-inflicted bruises Karou uses to tithe for magic, the unflinching strength of the writing makes everything hit all that much harder. This book feels like a war story, not a love story. It is both, though. Taylor brings up cake a lot, and chocolate, comparing them to happiness. They are desserts, and you can’t just have dessert whenever you want; you have to earn it. Days of Blood and Starlight is not not work, but it is so delicious it might as well be dessert. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/aad96b5d-7206-438e-ae40-b2132a37b104/daughter+of+smoke+and+bone.jpeg 2024 - 13. Daughter of Smoke and Bone Laini Taylor 5/5 Reading Sounds: Starburned and Unkissed by, Caroline Polachek I don’t even know how many times I have read Daughter of Smoke and Bone at this point. When the final book in this trilogy was released, I am not sure that I ever went back to reread the second or third book in this trilogy–because of their size more than anything–but, I have revisited this first book more times than I can remember. Laini Taylor’s writing has always been some of my favorite, and over the years, this has become quite the comfort read for me. At just over 400 pages, this book introduces readers to Karou, a seventeen-year-old, blue-haired art student living in Prague who runs teeth-collecting errands for her inhuman foster dad Brimstone who lives on the other side of a magical door she’s pretty sure leads somewhere not on Earth. This series starts out feeling like a classic YA urban fantasy romance–complete with a chosen one, a snarky best friend who provides the best dialogue in the book, and even some insta-love, for good measure. Maybe it is because I read it during high school, or maybe it is because of how many times I have reread this book since high school, but this feels like a blueprint for YA fantasy. As readers follow Karou on her journey, they uncover the gut-wrenching meaning behind the teeth she collects for Brimstone and the terrible cost of the wishes that he pays her with. In this book, Karou’s life is still largely anchored on Earth, and this creates an atmosphere that is at once familiar and not. Readers will have an accessible jumping-off point here, especially for a series that makes the leap from this YA urban fantasy beginning to to the high-fantasy world where it all ends. Taylor does an excellent job of introducing readers to the world, and opening up the story one piece at a time. The writing is intricate, and the prose compliments the story like ivy climbing a wall. The pacing of this book is something to behold, as well. It is hard to say exactly where things take off, but from humble beginnings in art class and hipster Czech cafés, this story reveals multitudes. Laini Taylor is able to go from high school drama–boys and homework–to a fantasy war story without ever feeling off-beat. It has been a long time since the last time I read this book, though, and the light-hearted feel of it definitely strikes me differently than it used to. This was my favorite book of the series when I first read it, and I think this was largely due to the whimsy Taylor writes into every line. This aspect of her writing lends itself to a sort of fairy-tale aesthetic that isn’t always so present for the rest of the series. At the end of this book, the reality of Karou’s situation comes crashing down on her, and everything is launched at full speed into the rest of the series. This book feels sweet, innocent, playful, young–but the ending strikes a stark contrast. In what could be considered a coming-of-age story about a magical teenage girl, Karou has finally come of age. She has grown into herself in more ways than one, and readers are left with the question of what she can possibly do now. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/13f9042d-d1f0-499a-a6cb-d3390ae5f359/nona+the+ninth.jpeg 2024 - 12. Nona the Ninth Tamsyn Muir 5/5 Reading Sounds: The Prawn Song by, Superorganism It was a bit daunting to pick up this series again so soon after reading it. I mean, these were some of the last books I finished last year. To be fair, I started Gideon fairly early in the year and struggled through the first half for nearly 6 months before it clicked for me. There was a sense of disorientation the first time through. I didn’t know what to pay attention to, and by the time I figured that out, it was already time for the next book. That does seem to be Tamsyn Muir’s signature style: alluring and incomprehensible. But this reread of Gideon, Harrow, and Nona somehow took less time combined than the time it took to read Gideon the first time. And as I’ve said over and over since restarting this series, it felt like a completely different experience this time around. And while rereading the first two books felt like an easter egg hunt, looking around for the bits and pieces I missed before, this book was almost completely transformed. Nona is a brand new character when she shows up, and just knowing who she is at the beginning of this reread completely shifted my reading experience. It kinda blows my mind that I read this the first time not knowing who Nona is. I also couldn’t drag my mind away from thoughts of how this book fits into the overarching plot of The Locked Tomb series as we know it. Muir has made it known that Nona was unplanned, born of a too-long introduction to what was supposed to be the third and final entry in this series–Alecto the Ninth. Taking into account that this book is canonically classified by the author as a glorified prologue to Alecto is so insane, because this book tackles so many points of the overall story that have been shied away from or circumnavigated up until this point; the political reasonings behind all of the conflict between Blood of Eden and the Nine Houses are finally expanded upon; the living conditions of the displaced populations affected by John and his lyctors’ thousand years of work distracting the Revenant Beasts; the history of humanity’s undoing and John’s (unreliable, at best) account of how he brought about the apocalypse that he is worshipped for saving everyone from succumbing to. Many of these questions are asking after such essential pieces of the driving conflict behind the plot that it makes one wonder how Muir was able to lead readers up to this point without incident. Maybe the reviews claiming her writing style is “too confusing” are the resulting casualties of this stubborn muddying of narrative, but the satisfaction of rereading this book and finally seeing all the pieces slide into place far outweighs the frustration of pushing through the first time. This is absolutely one of those situations where the more you read it, the more you will find to enjoy, but there won’t ever be an experience quite like reading this for the first time and not knowing what the fuck was happening. After this reread, I definitely feel a fuller appreciation for this book, and the series as a whole, and I loved finding answers to questions that I came out of my first read-through not quite understanding. There were also plenty of characters that I didn’t realize it was so important to pay attention to the first time I read the series–Camilla, Palamedes, Coronabeth, and Ianthe to name a few. Once again, thinking about Nona in terms of being the introduction to Alecto makes the entire series feel a bit more fluid and continuous than I was previously aware of. The characters I assumed to be “side characters” aren’t the throw-away personalities I assumed them to be at first. Ianthe spends most of book 1 hiding and trying to be ignored, and Coronabeth spends most of this time performing in the wake of Ianthe’s disappearing act. Being able to trace threads such as these made the second and third books all the more sweeter. It really cannot be said enough how much better this book becomes upon revisiting it with a fuller understanding of what’s going on. I am unsure if I would read this again before the release of Alecto the Ninth–but, who am I kidding? I probably would and will. For now, all I can do is cross my fingers that Muir releases another short story in the meantime. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/0cde76bf-089e-41f6-8abd-62a24c992fab/harrow+the+ninth.jpeg 2024 - 11. Harrow the Ninth Tamsyn Muir 5/5 Reading Sounds: When There Was Me and You by, Vannessa Hudgens I can’t confidently say that I am surprised that The Locked Tomb series is better on the second read-through, but I have to admit some level of shock at how much better it is. When I got caught up with this series the first time, Harrow was immediately my favorite entry out of the the three which have been published so far. Gideon the Ninth could sometimes feel a bit like Deadpool where the jokes are coming so fast and hard that it almost feels like overkill for Gideon to be so heavy-handed with the sarcasm and general snark on top of things. Much like Deadpool this book also feels like a holding place for Easter eggs and morsels of backstory that are key to understanding what just happened in the first book, because–let’s face it–Gideon didn’t know what the fuck was happening, and there was no way she could explain it to the readers. It was an unexpected respite moving from such a confused headspace to the more intellectually-driven and deadpan perspective of the Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus the Ninth, Heir to the House of the Ninth, and the Ninth Saint to serve the King Undying. This last bit is important, because we just ended Gideon the Ninth seeing Harrow eat Gideon’s soul in order to become the ninth lyctor to serve God. So why is Harrow still unable to access the full reserves of her newly-discovered lyctoral abilities? This is where book 2 picks up, and Harrow spends the majority of this book trying to convince the reader that nothing out of the ordinary is happening, everything is okay, and she doesn’t have anything to worry about except some slight bouts of insanity which have begun to rip apart her waking life at the seams. Oh, and she’s also trying to convince herself and the reader that Gideon doesn’t exist, or that she didn’t exist, or something. The first time reading it, I was so confused that I couldn’t do anything but keep pushing forward and treading water, trying not to drown. This time it was so mind-blowing to see all the trapdoors and hidden meaning that Tamsyn Muir was able to plant from the beginning. Whereas the plot twists and reveals were shocking and confusing the first time, seeing them hanging at the back of the stage just out of our main characters’ fields of vision might be even more suspenseful somehow. Dramatic irony or something like that. It was also shocking to see the structure of the plot in this second book. It feels like so much is going on, but when the main pieces of plot progression are mapped out, there truly isn’t that much going on. And Harrow is such a delightfully cynical perspective to read from that everything becomes a joke in a very perpendicular way to Gideon. If I could give this more than 5 stars for the second read-through I absolutely would, but alas. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/a4809234-5c53-407d-ba4f-f94dd8415838/the+mysterious+study+of+doctor+sex.jpeg 2024 - 10. The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex Tamsyn Muir 3/5 Reading Sounds: Oath (feat. Becky G) by, Cher Lloyd The Locked Tomb series has so many standout characters, upon finding out that there is a canon short story featuring Palamedes and Camilla it became an immediate top priority. Muir takes a deep dive into the childhood of the sixth house’s necromancer adept and cavalier primary, following these two characters at 13 years old while they are still in what seems like school? Military training? It isn’t 100% clear, honestly. Together these precocious sixth house trainees solve a mystery that was on track to stump an entire posse of librarians and research assistants. Overall, this story didn’t add much to the canon of The Locked Tomb series, and fans of Gideon the Ninth need not worry about missing some big plot point by not reading this short story first. If anything, this short story feels like due diligence after making Camila and Palamedes such central characters in Nona the Ninth. They love each other so much that they spend most of their time on the page searching for the perfect path to Lyctorhood, and this venture back to their childhood gives this search much more of a tangible weight than the passing comments made in Gideon or Harrow. This story is also the only look readers have gotten into life in the Nine Houses outside of Drearburh or Canaan House. While it was nice to beef up the characters of Camilla and Palamedes, this story did feel a bit lackluster. And although there were some interesting points in the story, it mostly served to make the reader even more curious about all the characters who haven’t been in a short story yet, or more curious to explore the rest of the Nine Houses that readers haven’t managed to breach yet. It was a great way to spice up this current re-reading of The Locked Tomb series, as I wasn’t even aware that this short story existed the first time I read the series. Hopefully this isn’t the last short story of its kind. I think I’d part ways with several fingers for a story like this about the Tridentarius twins growing up in the Third House. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/648db1cf-1ba8-4d6e-becc-f27ed223149f/a+well+fed+companion.jpeg 2024 - 9. A Well-Fed Companion Congyun “Mu Ming” Gu, Kiera Johnson (translator) (Illustrated by, Park Inju) 2/5 Reading Sounds: Knowing Me, Knowing You by, ABBA It was like the daemons from The Golden Compass, but with robots, and turned contemporary. Mu Ming’s A Well-Fed Companion follows feline-companioned Hairou who’s getting to know the new guy in the office—whose spirit companion is also a cat. The driving force of this story feels to come from the idea of living as a cat-person in a dog-person’s world. When the low white noise of her colleagues absently playing with their dog familiars underneath their desks during work ceases every day for the lunch-hour and Hairou is left alone to peer down from the window at the trails where everyone enjoys their break alongside their canine robot familiars it’s not unreasonable for her to miss her cat at home. It’s not like Hairou can bring a cat into an office filled with dogs every day. The concept and the premise are fascinating, but the short format of the story (“It’s a short story,” says the lumpy man pawing at my window) feels limiting here. Maybe it is because a lot of the short stories I read are from larger fantasy worlds I have already read about, but I struggled to latch onto what was going on or feel invested. The spirit-animals themselves were interesting, but Hairou’s narrative didn’t necessarily veer far enough towards them to properly scratch that itch. She is understandably more focused on their application within her own life. It is mentioned in passing that people were once known to have spirit animals like a snow leapord, elephant, or whale, but now she doesn’t know anyone who doesn’t have a house cat or a dog. Is this because she lives in a city? Because people are boring? Do the computers just not give anyone any other animals? It’s not like there aren’t interesting things about this book, but they seem to whip by faster than the story can dive into them. The ending felt strangely sober and gravely hilarious, and yet abrupt. Hairou never felt deep enough to personally connect with, but that is certainly in-line with the other obstacles she faces. Overall, this was interesting enough to revisit and probably would be even better after having time to sit. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/5073a619-5b9f-406d-a763-c775af46c656/super+bass.jpeg 2024 - 8. Super Bass Kai Ashante Wilson (Illustration by, Wesley Allsbrook) 3/5 Reading Sounds: Super Bass by, Nicki Minaj Kai Ashante Wilson’s fantasy universe launched with The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps in what was kind of a tough sell as far as first books go. What ended up being a very rewarding read did take what felt like conscious effort to push through. The prose was delicious, and readers can procrastinate the labor of moving on across the plot with the excuse of letting Wilson’s language take them under. But at a certain point readers will keep reading and probably find themselves asking what is going on? The narrative these stories use doesn’t really slow down for world-building, and most of the time it feels as though key details of the world are only being forked over only just as routinely as they become relevant enough for a character to explicitly state it. Otherwise, it’s kinda just touch-and-go. The next book A Taste of Honey made up for this in a lot of ways, focusing more on the human aspects of its characters, remaining in one location for the majority of the story, and honing in on a love story above all other plot points. This was an improvement for many reasons, but mostly because of the sheer length–or lack therof. However, it could just be that the more one knows about this world, the more enjoyable each individual story becomes. A reread may be inevitable… Kai Ashante Wilson has created a fantasy world that feels very realized. It feels like every time one is able to enter this fantasy realm, one is able to come away just a little bit steadier on their feet for next time. In this way, although this was technically released before The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps was ever published, it does feel much easier to move through having already finished both novellas currently set in this world. This short story follows Gian, a twenty-three year old ex-soldier who has recently returned from war. He has been low-key dating this boy from a neighboring village named Cianco, and although his family hasn’t met him yet, Gian feels like this love is special, maybe even moreso because of how quickly he has fallen into it since escaping the bloody viciousness of war. His 3 parents (because marriages are only for sets of 3 partners) are worried that Gian hasn’t introduced them yet because of their low social ranking, and readers soon come to find that this may be closer to correct than Gian initially lets on. Cianco is actually the Summer King, and Gian is accompanying him to his village as the Summer King’s lover. Super Bass felt rooted in the human emotion of Gian’s struggle to own his love for Cianco, and this feels like a stronghold for Wilson. A lot of his most powerful and gripping stories are love stories, regardless of the fantasy or political elements going on in the background. This was an extremely readable and enjoyable short story, and it is just another tantalizing morsel in this magical universe that Wilson has created. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/a5f71231-6519-4410-a10b-b67f06aa6eff/the+dream-quest+of+vellitt+boe.jpeg 2024 - 7. The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe Kij Johnson 3/5 Reading Sounds: meta angel by, FKA twigs The world that The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe lives in is one that feels all at once unrecognizable and familiar. Although author Kij Johnson based this story off of an H. P. Lovecraft novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, I went into this story without any previous context regarding the original source material. I wasn’t sure if I would need to Google the original to read up on the backstory or if I would be OK as is, and in this sense, readers can confidently read this book without needing to worry about missing out on anything or not being able to follow the story. That being said, there were many themes that come up throughout the novella which have a different level of impact when one understands what Johnson is reacting to in the original text. This novella follows the story of esteemed professor Vellitt Boe as she travels across the dream-lands she lives within to catch up to a runaway student from her college before she is able to cross over to the waking world. During Vellitt’s journey, she is constantly reminded of how her gender and identity affect her journey. The way that people treat her in passing, the way that she is forced to present herself, the way she must re-contextualize the journey she is on through the lens of each man she must deal with along the way. Not to say that it doesn’t feel grounded, but with the context of Lovecraft’s original story, it makes so much more sense what it is grounded in. The total absence of women in Lovecraft’s original novella, the ever-present racism and sexism throughout his repertoire, these are things that cannot be ignored; Johnson’s choice to root this story in such a setting (in such a canon) is intriguing, and there are many instances of her peeling back a layer of this canonically fucked-up setting to expose a sore spot that may or may not ever be resolved. What does it mean that a world dreamt of exclusively for and by men only has ninety-seven stars in the night sky? Lovecraft is a figure that can be polarizing in many respects, regardless of the impact he had on literature as a whole. It is interesting to note that when one looks up reviews for this book, one of the top hits on Google is a review from the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society giving this story 1 star, noting, “One gets tired of hearing about all of the racism and sexism in the works of H.P. Lovecraft. My opinion is that if his writing has so deeply offended you, simply close the book and read something else.” I have yet to decide whether this is earnest stupidity or rather genius parody. It is reminiscent of reading Fight Club and wondering where the disconnect lies: did the entirety of society misunderstand the meaning or did its author? These are important questions to be asked, and fantasy as a monolith has yet to reckon with them. Johnson is one soldier in a war that spans as far ahead in time as our imaginations can take us. And although a war may seem far-fetched, reviews like those left by the literal H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society should make readers take it seriously. Can authors inspired by Lovecraft still hold him accountable for the racism and sexism that characterizes his canon? If they can’t where does that leave Lovecraftian horror besides last century? Only time (and the readers) will tell. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/3d7bd70d-597a-488c-8432-50b6d7aaa41c/gideon+the+ninth.jpeg 2024 - 6. Gideon the Ninth Tamsyn Muir 5/5 Reading Sounds: Kids on the Boardwalk by, Hop Along Reading this book the first time, there was an overwhelming sense of urgency to re-read it, if not immediately, then as close to immediately as possible. The amount of lore and world building going on in Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series is brain-numbing, and the first time reading it can feel like a blind stumbling and groping towards the ending. Mammoth disembodied pieces of exposition and background information disguised as canonical jargon whip past first-time readers, leaving nothing but colorful chemtrails of ambience and mood in their wake. It is not to say that the first-time reading experience with this book is not worthwhile or enjoyable, but there is so much to be absorbed that cannot possibly be appreciated appropriately until readers gain the holistic context of. books one and two and three (and four?). It was a somewhat difficult decision to reread this book so soon after reading it for the first time (within a month or two, really), but the fact remains: This book begs to be revisited before the first visit is completed. Reading characters like Dulcinea and Protesilaus, or Coronabeth and Ianthe, with the ending of the first book in mind–as well as the context provided by later entries in this series–made for a brand new reading experience. The rereadability of this series is genuinely insane. And this is coming from a reader who didn’t totally enjoy Gideon the Ninth the first read-through. It took a good 3 or 4 months to finish it the first time, though admittedly this was in large part due to its confusing nature. Shocking, exhilarating, REWARDING: these words come to mind when thinking about the difference between the first and second reading of this book. What was a 3-star rating throughout most of the first reading became a solid 4 stars thanks to the absolutely shell-shocking climax, but upon rereading it has become 5 stars through the sheer amount of easter egg hunting set out for returning readers. This book was delightful, even more so the second time through, and Muir’s writing will definitely leave readers wondering if there is more to be uncovered in Gideon after the final installment of the series Alecto the Ninth is released (whenever that may be). Long live The Locked Tomb rereads, and the King Undying! https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/b6ba3615-087e-4e42-8af8-502d5163cdc7/the+seven+husbands+of+evelyn+hugo.jpeg 2024 - 5. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo Taylor Jenkins Reid 2/5 Reading Sounds: Casual by, Chappell Roan This book was such a crazy ride. That may be in part due to the medium it was taken in through–audiobook. The longer this book has to sit, the higher the highs seem, but there were a few nagging issues that stayed at a heel throughout. Readers follow the story of legendary Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo from the woman herself as dictated to the surprised, new journalist Monique Grant who is to break this exclusive, tell-all story. Evelyn’s sordid past is told in seven chapters, her ex-husbands. Early in the story Evelyn states she never married the love of her life and costar Celia St. James (“I was surprised at the LGBTQIA+ theme,” sayeth the wide-eyed straight). Think Valley of the Dolls with less slurs, but with more homophobia. Evelyn also makes a point multiple times to emphasize her Bisexuality, calling out the biphobia and bi-erasure she has experienced as well. This was surprisingly thoughtful, but confusing when taken with the context of the general plotline. There are unbearably cringey moments like Evelyn finding out her best friend is gay when she asks him why he’s never made aggressive sexual advances on her at work. His response: “You’re not my type.” And she just knows. In retrospect, that is truly hysterical though. Then there are decadently unhinged moments later in the story that honestly balanced everything out in a lot of ways. Overall, I ended up liking this less than I thought I would when I started it, but way more than I thought I would when I was halfway through it. Not sure when I’ll pick up another book from this author, though. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/871261f9-7972-4fa7-8081-ee8536f2b4f8/yellowface.jpeg 2024 - 4. Yellowface R. F. Kuang 3/5 Reading Sounds: Crocodile Tears by, Ängie & Skoj After reading R. F. Kuang’s Hugo-snubbed historical fantasy epic Babel last year, it was very exciting to read her first foray into literary fiction with Yellowface. And what a switch-up it was. The scale of the story, the narrative focus, and the pacing were all incredibly different from anything Kuang has written before. Yellowface follows June, an author whose first and only novel has not had the commercial success she had hoped for. When she witnesses her college-best-friend-turned-bestselling-author-turned-supposed-archrival Athena die one night in her apartment during a pancake-eating contest, June steals her latest work-in-progress manuscript, fills in the blank spaces, and gets it published as her own work. June is an incredibly dislikable protagonist (reminiscent again of The Old Man and the Sea, The Catcher in the Rye, My Year of Rest and Relaxation), and as Yellowface is written entirely from the first-person perspective, there is no reprieve from her awful inner dialogue. There were many things about this book which were enjoyable: the insider look at the publishing world, Kuang’s deft inclusion of themes from previous her previous work (“Every act of translation is an act of betrayal”), and the surface-level idea of using an unreliable narrator. What could be a by-the-book book-about-a-book is transformed from a classic lit fic piece to a possibly queer romance to a social media epic to a thriller to a ghost story. What begins as a simple and straightforward plot spirals into just as hectic and unhinged a fallout as you would expect from such a setup. However, the grating personality of June and the general online-ness of the book began to take its toll towards the middle/end of the book. It was reminiscent of Catcher in the Rye in the way that the protagonist was so aggravating that any initial emotional investment was fastidiously scrubbed away by the time the middle of the book rolled around. The last 100 pages or so were an exercise in seeing how long the protagonist can believably drag this out. And it was believable. As outrageous and long-winded as this plot can come across, not one part of the novel seems too far-fetched to be reality except for the parts that are most likely exaggerated or flat-out lied about by June herself. Did she really try to help Athena not choke to death, or did she just stand by and watch? Is June’s mom really that cringey and annoying, or is June just trying too hard to convince the reader? Was June’s first novel really overlooked, or was it just bad? At the end of the day, the quality of the writing and overall plot outweigh any personal issues with the novel, and it does seem like a book that may be more enjoyable the second read-through. Without the constant stress of wondering when the hell with this finally be over? readers may be able to rest a bit and sink into the spectacularly spoofy drama that Kuang creates. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/762a5c28-2eeb-449c-a255-01b90cd69f63/my+year+of+rest+and+relaxation.jpeg 2024 - 3. My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh 5/5 Reading Sounds: Landmines by, St. Vincent This is the first time I have read My Year of Rest and Relaxation since I wrote my 2020 review of it. That review was posted about 2 months before COVID, and so much has changed since then. I remember reaching the end of a mad 2-day haze where I read this book almost 3 times back-to-back, and writing a review that veered closer to a rant-y voicemail than a thoughtful critique. I had finished this book, immediately gotten my sister to read it (“This makes me very sad for you, Aaron,” she said upon finishing) and then passed it to a friend (whose reaction also seemed less enthusiastic than my own). A large part of the reason I haven’t read this book again since then is, I guess, because I was kind of worried that it wouldn’t live up to the excitement I remember feeling upon reading it that first time. I shouldn’t have worried, of course, because after picking this up again on a whim, I was pleasantly surprised that My Year of Rest and Relaxation still hit the same key notes it did for me last time. While Moshfegh’s narrator in this book is nameless, whiny, annoying, and generally intolerable, her perspective and story remain completely engrossing and compulsively readable. In my last review I compared her to Holden Caufield as well as Hemingway’s old man (the one with the sea), and that comparison has only grown funnier to me since then. These are characters who move through their stories largely alone, isolating themselves from the world. Most of the human interactions in these stories are minimal, forcing readers to learn about them through their own convoluted and twisted narratives of what is happening. Holden bitches at readers for the entire book about how awful and phony everyone is; meanwhile, he is seemingly on a douchebag tour of his own, hitting up everyone he can think of to do absolutely nothing except remind them why they’ve been avoiding him for so long. In The Old Man and the Sea, Santiago has taken this monumental task of catching this giant fish onto himself, with little to no direction from anyone else. He spends the whole book chasing a self-imposed task of life-changing significance (according to himself), and weirdly this also feels parallel to what’s going on in MYORR. The protagonist has realized that she needs to do something about the state of her life and has created a monumental goal to achieve for herself. She knows this sounds crazy, and she doesn’t know exactly why this is so important, but it is passed off as a sort of rebirth. It takes these themes of self-discovery and turns them on their head. The protagonist is dedicated to losing her own adult self in order to find a newer, stranger, hopefully better, version. It is almost like an inverse bildungsroman–the loss of self acting as a cleansing or renewal. The more I think about it, the similarities between this book and Old Man and the Sea keep striking me as the most significant. I remember reading OMATS in 8th grade and writing a book report about how much I despised it, and maybe that is why the comparison appeals to me so much here. While MYORR’s protagonist is definitely on a journey parallel in structure/meaning to that of Hemingway’s Santiago, Moshfegh does not write with the sympathy of someone who has lived long enough to search out this rebirth. Rather, the protagonist is almost a cartoonish portrait of early-2000s neuroticism and burn-out. And as outrageous as that comparison may be, if you follow this thread back to the near-fatal journey of the wizened Santiago, it only gets funnier. It feels like a gut-punch to readers of the classic self-discovery novel. There were definitely moments that remain cringey still (that ending, though), but overall this remains a 5-star book for me. And as laced with anxiety and spiral-inducing lines of thought as it is, it somehow remains a very comforting read regardless. I am glad that I was able to find the time to reread this, and I am now considering a revisit of some more of Moshfegh’s works this year. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/77f4673e-fe45-4666-b19e-8ff702f58cfe/a+taste+of+honey.jpeg 2024 - 2. A Taste of Honey Kai Ashante Wilson 4/5 Reading Sounds: Buyer’s Remorse by, Daniel Caesar (feat. Omar Apollo) Don’t be confused–A Taste of Honey is not book 2 of Kai Ashante Wilson’s fantasy series he began in 2015 with The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps. Rather, this 2016 novella A Taste of Honey is set in the same universe as its predecessor, but that is pretty much where the similarities end. Where The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps felt like an adventure story following Demane as he traveled south with the Captain and their caravan, focusing on the dangers and epic scale of this journey, A Taste of Honey is much more static, focusing instead on the romance between royal cousin and animal-whisperer Aqib, and a handsome visiting soldier Lucrio. The scale of this story felt much more restricted than Wilson’s debut, but this is in contradiction to the massive world-building that occurs within this sophomore novella anyway. Although there is no great journey across the continent taking place in this book, readers will still discover new information and lore regarding the history of this fantasy world. It was very satisfying to get more interactions with the gods who are discussed almost tangentially in Wildeeps. With the context given in this book, it makes sense why Demane felt so alienated during his travels south through the Wildeeps. The politics and social issues discussed in this book made the world feel all that much more real, as well. This was largely done through Aqib, who as a close relative of the royal family, has much access to the behind-the-scenes goings on around the kingdom. He was not necessarily a great protagonist, though, and at times, he gave demon twink energy. Not saying that’s necessarily bad, but it did become hard to root for a character who went around treating people the way he did. His family interactions were engrossing, though, and the sympathy this built up throughout the story led up to a very satisfying and emotionally-draining climax. With only 160 pages, the amount of trauma Wilson is able to tap into is truly astounding. Towards the end, there was a sense of foreboding, knowing that something bad is coming. The idea that reading slower, and spacing out reading sessions would lessen the emotional toll of such a book. This was not the case, and readers are likely to still be taken by surprise by the ending. There was a point where certain outcomes felt inevitable, but Wilson was able to subvert these expectations while still rending tears from the most cynical readers. This book was not a continuation of its predecessor, and after the initial shock of this realization, readers will not be bothered by this in the slightest. Kai Ashante Wilson was able to take this world and show not only that it works on a global or national level, but it works on an individual and emotional level as well–like world-building in reverse almost. Or inverted or something. Either way, this was absolutely devastating in the best way possible. Here’s to hoping that this won’t be the last exploration Wilson leads readers through in this world. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/a4230cfd-af35-4698-9f6f-3163623d8a36/the+sorcerer+of+the+wildeeps.jpeg 2024 - 1. The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps Kai Ashante Wilson 3/5 Reading Sounds: Running up that hill by, Blue Pearl In a 2020 interview with Tamsyn Muir (The Locked Tomb series), the author was talking about being a part of the 2010 cohort of the Clarion sci-fi writing workshop and said, “[Among] my less stealthy fellow Clarionites are names like John Chu, Kai Ashante Wilson, Leah Thomas, Kali Wallace, Karin Tidbeck, Greg Bossert. Imagine being at Clarion for the first time and you’re handed your first ream of paper and told it’s a Kai Ashante Wilson story. You just dissolve. Your ego dies.” After seeing praise like that it’s basically impossible not to check out what all the hype is about. The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps is Kai Ashante Wilson’s first published book, and every line of this book was delicious. At just over 200 pages, this is not a long novella by any means, but that does not mean that readers should rush through it. The language is dense and savory, with prose that begs to be read twice, thrice, and then again. Wildeeps follows Demane, a demigod living on Earth after most of the gods have eloped to live in the heavens. Demane is part of a caravan approaching the Station at Mother of Waters, the last point of civilization before they enter the Wildeeps as they travel south. His divine heritage seems to be a semi-understood thing amongst the men of the caravan; they do not seem to explicitly understand–or at least admit that they understand–that he is a demi-god even as he performs miracles in front of them along their journey. They are superstitious to the point that Demane feels the need to hide his demi-god status to some extent, but they still don’t mind enough to turn down the fruits of Demane’s unexplainable efforts. They are willing to scramble for exonerating explanations as to how their dear friend Demane can perform these mind-boggling feats. Everyone is willing to accept these oddities without question, except for the Captain whose azure hair would expose his divine lineage if he did not keep it covered up so fastidiously. The Captain works as the middleman between the merchants funding the caravan and the brothers employed by the caravanmaster. Their travels have been normal until recently, as they approach the edge of the Wildeeps. Demane with godly senses predicts they will soon encounter a sabre tooth jukiere, a fearsome beast they are ill-prepared to face. Wildeeps essentially follows the caravan as they approach and eventually enter the Wildeeps and eventually must defeat the awful jukiere. The plot felt a little vague at times, and it was easy to meander into the setting and look around instead of focusing on the main plotline. While it was atmospheric and captivating, the ending didn’t quite stick the landing. It was a definite ending point, but the treatment of Demane’s and the Captain’s fate felt dispassionately handled; these complex characters felt like set pieces in something larger, something not yet revealed. And while this book does succeed in telling a self-contained and -sustaining plotline within this amorphic, yet unexplained larger scheme, the question Why? lingers. There is a second book in this series, but The Sorceror of the Wildeeps doesn’t give any indication of where the second book may be headed. There is no clear direction to move in, and so readers who need a clear and directive overarching plotline may feel frustrated. Vibes, atmosphere, and worldbuilding are the focus here, and, that being said, these aspects are all painstakingly delineated. This book refuses comparison and begs to be read over and over again. https://www.aaronaads.com/2025 daily 0.75 2025-12-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/03f12003-e223-4659-b4c6-a60d0acf73ee/all+about+love.jpeg 2025 - 16. all about love: New Visions bell hooks 2/5 Reading Sounds: What About Love? by, Heart When I told my friend that I had never heard of this book before, their jaw dropped. When I told them I had never heard of Bell Hooks before, their shock convinced me to stop by the bookstore that same day to pick it up. A quick Googling session confirmed for me that it was in stock at my local bookstore, but later, as I was walking around, I could not find it at first. There were a few keywords floating around in the back of my head from my earlier research, but these words weren’t turning anything up on the shelves: non-fiction, philosophy, self-help, memoir. Nada. Finally, after double-checking their website to make sure it was in stock, I asked the front desk for help. They answered, a little exasperatedly, that yes it could be found in the women’s studies best sellers section. Feeling a little dumb, I grabbed the book, and cracked it open on the walk home. My mom has my copy now, or I’d pull some direct quotes, but in the first pages of the book titled Introduction, Hooks talks about the constant plight of women studying this topic of love. She says that women who study love are usually placed within a box of women’s studies or gender studies; but when a man studies the same topic, he is considered a social scientist or a researcher of sorts. This diminishing of the female perspective on such a universal experience is one of the reasons that society has such male-centered, patriarchal views on love as a whole. And then I think about the fact that all about love was not on the shelf next to memoirs or nonfiction. They didn’t put it in philosophy or self-help. They put it in women’s studies. Pushing further into the book, Hooks has sectioned out her ideas into chapters about things like childhood, spirituality, romance, loss, healing, and more. I think what surprised me most about the book was how raw it feels. The more I read, the more I faced this feeling in my chest that I did not agree with everything she was saying. There were a few instances where I thought, I would not handle this the same way as she is. At one point, she recalls a good friend of hers who was in a dispute with her daughter, Hooks’ godchild, about receiving an allowance. She successfully helps mediate the two and negotiates an agreed allowance for her goddaughter, claiming the moral of the story is that parents should be able to listen to their children better and take them seriously when they ask for stuff like allowances, because that can help build responsibility. And that sounds nice and everything, but in my head the alarms were blaring; so many things could have gone wrong in that situation. Another adult getting involved in a conflict between a parent and child in my experience would always end pretty poorly. But when I mentioned this to some friends, it was brought to my attention that this could be a cultural difference. The function of a godparent is not something that was ever really important in my family life. I don’t even think I have an official godparent, so the idea of an external adult force in my life being able to mediate between me and my parents is kind of mind-boggling. Later in the book, in the chapter about spirituality, Hooks tries to separate her ideas from religion, as she makes it clear from the beginning of the book, that she does not agree with a lot of traditional Judeo-Christian religion. However, her childhood faith bleeds through all over the place. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t think she was trying to do it, and the messiness of it doesn’t help her case about being taken seriously as a researcher. Bell Hooks does have good taste though, pulling quotes from all over the place. all about love feels like a complication of really good ideas that she has pulled from really fascinating thinkers, but I’m still left feeling that she didn’t contribute a whole lot to the conversation herself. The book reads like a juicy opinion piece from some lifestyle blogger. Maybe very ahead of its time in a way, but a pop piece nonetheless. And for what it’s worth, I agree with most of what she’s saying in here. She could have called it How to Not Be an Asshole For Dummies, but people would have thought she was being condescending. I am aware that this is the first book in a sort of trilogy titled A Love Story to the Nation, and I am tempted to pick up the second book. I think I might hold off, and maybe this would be a good summer read if I find myself in a slump next year. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/4e897ba1-336f-4fe9-8688-8521f93f2edd/watchmen.jpeg 2025 - 15. WATCHMEN writer: Alan Moore illustrator: Dave Gibbons 4/5 Reading Sounds: Get Happy / Happy Days Are Here Again by, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande I only kind of remember when the 2009 movie adaptation of Watchmen came out in theaters. The trailers are pretty iconic. The moody noir vibe, the bright yellow logo, Dr. Manhattan (even if I didn’t know his name). I felt aware that this existed, but I don’t think I really knew what it was till recently. I was discussing how crazy I thought it was that someone I knew read Kiss of the Spider Woman in a Florida public high school, when someone mentioned that they read Watchmen in a Chicago public high school. Maybe I should not have been so surprised by this, but I definitely was. I had no idea that Watchmen was, like, studied in lit classrooms. All the sudden this book that had existed on the periphery of my radar became much more enticing, and I ordered a used copy online so I could dig in. And when I tell you, I was completely shocked at what this story turned out to be, that is a complete understatement. Because I truly had no context for what this story was. For one thing, DC comics always makes me think of the Justice League or Teen Titans, these super heroes that exist in made up cities like Metropolis or Gotham. Maybe they are based on real-world places, but Watchmen actually takes place, for the most part, in New York City. It also follows two different superhero teams, not just the Watchmen, although one kind of replaces the other. Only one hero has powers, Dr. Manhattan, while the rest of the Watchmen and their predecessors the Minutemen are merely masked vigilantes (like a million Batmans and one Superman). Dr. Manhattan is able to see the past, future, and present all at once, and understand the atomic makeup and history of everything he comes or ever will come into contact with; he can teleport anywhere instantaneously; and he seemingly cannot be killed. He seems to be a human embodiment of the Manhattan Project, or the Atomic Bomb. The rest of the world is uncomfortable with the presence of Dr. Manhattan, especially as his political alliances are very clearly American, no matter what he may protest. Dr. Manhattan is too far above such human things as politics, but his very continued presence on American soil and in American cities says more than he may feel comfortable admitting. Early in the book, Dr. Manhattan exiles hisself to Mars, leaving the rest of his retired vigilante comrades to fend for themselves in the wake of a string of what investigative protagonist Rorschach has labeled “Masked Murders,” or deadly crimes targeting inactive supers. The problem is, with general anti-superhero sentiment already ubiquitously found across the world, there is not much weight behind solving these murders or protecting the remaining at-risk now-civilians. While tracking down persons of interest and breaking probably a lot of laws, Rorschach is framed for a murder he didn’t commit and thrown in jail, bringing the number of people who care about this evil plan to zero. It is interesting to see the Watchmen used as a metaphor for the US, because that pretty much means that the rest of America is supposed to be a metaphor for the rest of the world. At one point towards the end, they go so far as to compare the Watchmen to the KKK, saying, “The Klan originally came into being because decent people had perfectly reasonable fears for the safety of their persons and belongings when forced into proximity with people from a culture far less morally advanced.” Flip back to chapter 2, where Nite Owl asks the Comedian, among the wreckage of a smoking street he just managed to clear expeditiously via grenade, who exactly they are protecting society from. The Comedian responds, “From themselves.” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/5eac121b-db1d-4b90-a25d-458bfa3360f7/wishing+on+a+star.jpg 2025 - 14. Wishing on a Star Deborah Gregory 2/5 Reading Sounds: Hung Up by, Madonna For the longest time, I did not really fuck with digital books at all. I used to have a basic version Kindle in middle school, but I was never able to use it as easily as I was able to read a physical book. It wasn’t until recently that I started really attempting to listen to more audiobooks and keeping more digital books on my phone, especially for the moments I find myself with nothing but my phone to keep me busy. I have some partially-read Lovecraft short-stories (Novels? Not really sure, to be honest. They’re pretty short.) and Wuthering Heights (Also partially-read) downloaded on my phone, but it’s been months/years of minimal progress. None of these would compel me to pick them up when I was waiting in line somewhere or without Wi-Fi, like I initially intended. I finally decided to try downloading something lighter, easier, and more fun. Maybe that would encourage me to actually read whatever it is. Something like The Cheetah Girls. I read this book mostly checking out at the grocery store and while flying. For this specific purpose, it was pretty perfect. I din’t really know what I was expecting going into it, because I didn’t watch the Cheetah Girls on TV, and if I saw any of the movies it was a really long time ago. The main character Galleria (Raven Symoné’s character) is just starting high school with her best friend Chanel, and they are already completely dead set on being superstars when they run into the eventual other Cheetah Girls. I remember a bit of plot from one of the movies about the girls discovering that one of them was adopted, or living in a foster home, or something like that. It was a pretty big deal in the movie, so when Dorinda introduces herself to Galleria and Chanel at the beginning of the book, I was surprised that she immediately told them she was a foster kid. Then come Anginette and Aquanette, the southern gospel-choir twins, and I catch myself wondering, weren’t there only four Cheetah Girls in the movie? (Yes.) Galleria is an extremely likable protagonist. She is the always-obvious leader of the group, with charisma coming out of her ears and some jokes that genuinely made me laugh out loud while reading. She is constantly coming up with new nicknames for her friends, thinking about leopard print, writing new songs, and talking about empowering the people she cares about. You almost forget that all of her friends are her backup singers. A few times she scolds the twins for carrying hot sauce bottles in their purses, until she finally snaps at one point, saying they have to carry packets so the glass won’t break and make a mess on everything. “‘That’s a Cheetah Girls rule!’” Icon. Identity is also very important to Galleria, and as she introduces everyone in the cast, she lets the reader know what their background is (detail-oriented), including any family history she might know off the top of her head (nosy). It is adorable. There is a scene right after they meet the twins, where Galleria says, laughing, that Chanel will bring the piñata to the party or something. It was kind of cringey, but then a chapter or two later, Chanel confronted Galleria about it, and they had a conversation that I wasn’t expecting. The first book ended with their first real performance as the Cheetah Girls, at the Kats and Kittys Klub Halloween Bash, which, outside of Dorinda’s slight wardrobe malfunction, goes off spectacularly. Wonder what happens next, haha. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/f0980d14-0967-44cf-b718-61c771f21d8f/harrow+the+ninth.jpg 2025 - 13. Harrow the Ninth Tamsyn Muir 5/5 Reading Sounds: June 9th Nighttime by, Florist So what happened was I was actually reading something else. A book. A book I haven’t read before. But then one of my friends got their audiobook of Gideon The Ninth from the library, and just the prospect of someone new to talk to about this series got me so excited that here I am, two weeks later, with an annotated copy of Harrow the Ninth. This has consistently remained my favorite book in the series every time I have revisited it, but this is the first time I have had to so closely examine some of the critiques that I hear people giving this book: namely, that it is slow, boring, and confusing. I actually struggled to get through Gideon the Ninth the first time I read it because I though there were some really wonky pacing issues, and even though it never suffered from that same issue upon reread, that was not an issue that I ran into at all with Harrow; not the first time, and not now. Harrow takes place over the course of two month-long timelines. One timeline takes place in Harrow’s brokenly misremembered alternate history of the events of Canaan House in Gideon the Ninth. In her new version, Ortus Nigenad accompanies her from the Ninth House to the First to serve as her Cavalier Primary. The other timeline takes place in the present time with Harrow aboard the Mithraeum, God’s giant space station for him and his lyctors. In all honesty, when I look at the actual pieces of the plot, I can understand the argument that it is kind of boring. In the way that Gideon felt like a murder whodunnit mystery, Harrow feels like a slow-burn psychological thriller, with Harrow creeping her way through unfamiliar environments and surrounded by incomprehensibly ancient beings of immense power and Ianthe. She spends a lot of this book soaking up information, much like the detective I always wished Gideon would be back at Canaan House. Although, with Gideon’s slack-jawed, wide-eyed perspective, it was difficult to focus her on anything long enough to understand. Meanwhile, Harrow is so neurotically hyper-fixated on every little detail, it kind of goes all the way back around toward being unhelpful again. Some of my favorite scenes are still the soup scene, the other dinner scene, and the Ianthe’s arm scene. I think that the argument that this book is confusing is also a difficult one to refute. Harrow is a mishmash of ideas, hints, allegations, punchlines, nicknames, confessions, setups, and who even knows what else. Annotating during this reread was a very new experience, and it helped organize a lot of thoughts and ideas that I have about the series. First, I tried to mark every main character with a color or something so that I could easily find them when flipping through the book. Then I started tracking certain themes and ideas that I noticed popping up a lot. These included: halves, time, babies/children, the Body speaking, mentions of swords/references to Gideon, notes, and anytime someone said something along the lines of, “this isn’t how it happens.” The connections that started to pop up when I kept track of these themes were very interesting, and they often led me to notice other things that I want to look for on my next reread: brains and animal/predator-prey relationships. I think that Harrow has some of the biggest hints in the entire series so far regarding the plot of Alecto. Augustine asks John how he could have possibly manipulated Alecto into lying to him and the rest of the lyctors about pretending to be John’s bodyguard so nobody would realize she was his cavalier. What did John say to Alecto that convinced her to keep her mouth shut when all her friends started killing each other. Is that part of why she swore an oath to Anastasia so long ago? So many questions. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/e0e34b35-00e1-4c81-a1ce-b45f7c7f7d19/where+the+hell+is+nirvana.jpg 2025 - 12. Where the Hell Is Nirvana? Champ Wongsatayanont 4/5 Reading Sounds: I Know The Way by, Dances with Water This novelette follows Garmuti, an official employee of the Karma Calculation Department (Thailand Division), as he tries to scam his way to Nirvana. It was like Office Space meets The Matrix or something like that. It starts out with what looks like a nutrition label and turns out to be a daily record of karma points earned and lost by some poor Earthly soul for Garmuti to tally up and deliver their end-of-day karmic total. Garmuti desperately wants to ascend to Nirvana, but he is close to the cutoff of 1,000,000 karmic points, at which point he would descend back to humanity, becoming even further from his goal. The humanization and humor in this was pretty fun, but it was very confusing at times. There are a lot of Buddhist religious terms that I found myself googling, and there were some words that I googled and was unable to figure out what they were from. I may have been googling the wrong thing, or these elements may have been total fantasy. Garmuti is so close to descending back to humanity that he has even begun experiencing such revolting earthly sensations as hunger and lust. At one point, Garmuti’s manager tells him that it is easier for humans than devas or devis to reach Nirvana, because the human experience is so key to the attainment of spiritual enlightenment. Someone else suggests that Nirvana doesn’t even exist, since anyone who continues ascending is not likely to come back for a visit or to chat about what happened to them. Nevertheless, Garmuti soon figures out a way to skim fractions of karmic points from the influx generated by his only-slightly-scummy Anumodana Tax. From now on, any time a human says Anumodana, they receive +2 karma points, and with Garmuti getting pieces of every single instance, he jettisons quickly through the layers of heavens still remaining between himself and Nirvana. Right at the moment of enlightenment, however, the story crashes around him, and he finds himself burning in hell, paying off a debt of -999,999,999,999 karmic points. Overall, I really enjoyed the story and the storytelling. Writing about a celestial dimension, and levels of celestial dimensions at that, getting more convoluted and dazzling with every step, is a hard task, and it is handled beautifully. Cosmic oceans holding universes behind a cosmic wall are compared to bathtubs, bringing the overwhelming right back down to Earth. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/17e1d572-5384-497c-b9cc-42e2df84e69b/kiss+of+the+spider+woman.jpg 2025 - 11. Kiss of the Spider Woman Manuel Puig 4/5 Reading Sounds: I Dreamed A Dream by, Anne Hathaway My BFF gave me this book when we were like 17 years old, and I didn’t make it more than a few pages in until a few months ago. She read it for school (thank you for the starter annotations, love you <3), and I remember her telling me how good it was. The writing style is very similar to a play, mostly written in script-like lines of dialogue. It reads like a script essentially–noticeably missing, however, any sort of stage directions. Molina and Valentin are cell mates in an Argentine prison, and the majority of the play is written in unnamed lines of dialogue. Molina often spends pages and pages retelling the plots of his favorite movies to Valentin to pass the time. Things start to unravel around who these prisoners are. Valentin is a political prisoner, the member of some unclear revolutionary group trying to overthrow the Argentine government; Molina is gay, obsessed with fantasy movies and ambiguously charged with influencing a minor. The book often follows a stream-of-consciousness structure, so I am unsure if there was more explanation of Molina’s arrest, but I finished the book still very unclear on exactly why he was imprisoned in the first place (outside of just being gay). This stream-of-consciousness style came out in two main sections of the book: Molina’s movie retellings and these weird sections of character backstory that flipped into like some sort of new third-person omniscient POV that kind of threw me off. Some seemed to be from Valentin’s perspective and some from Molina’s, but there was no solid indicator either way. These sections were important to the story, and as much as I tried to hurry through them because they were hard to read, I tried to catch myself and absorb some of what was going on. Molina discusses the struggles of being a flamboyant, feminine, homosexual man in 1970s military-occupied Argentina. It’s pretty relatable, oftentimes bordering on homophobic and transphobic. There’s a lot of self-hatred in this book, which is at odds with the idolization of female starlets and actresses whose whole shtick was being magnificent. Molina’s internalized homophobia and the unrealized transphobia and misogyny responsible for it are not specifically addressed for the most part, but Valentin is a surprising foil to these themes. He pushes back on Molina throughout the book, never willing to accept these “romantic” or “traditional” views as final. This conflict is further investigated through a series of connected footnotes that appear throughout the novel. These footnotes are psychosocial in nature, detailing the earliest Western thinkers on and writings about the origin of homosexuality. Monotheism, and Judeo-Christian religion specifically, take a lot of heat in these footnotes. Puig quotes scientists like D. J. West, Sigmund Freud, and Anneli Taube, citing an ongoing scientific conversation (or argument). They go back and forth on topics like sexual repression, gender roles, nature versus nurture, and more. These footnotes are smartly placed within the narrative to provide additional depth to the story as it progresses. About halfway through the novel, it is revealed that Molina is a spy who has been planted in Valentin’s cell to get close to him and find out any information possible about the resistance. In return, Molina has been promised a pardon, freedom, and the chance to see and take care of his elderly mother once more. Molina is faced with the decision to betray his new friend for the same government that he is already currently being oppressed by, or he can learn how to live for something bigger than himself–like that silly Valentin keeps talking about. I didn’t think I liked this book that much till I got to the end, and then I cried so much in the last few pages it was making it hard to see. I would rate this five stars, except for the confusing stream-of-consciousness scenes that I struggled through a lot. I have a feeling that rereading this would be less confusing. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/a1aedf5c-d1ad-4985-ae02-cfeba65d1d01/nona+the+ninth.jpg 2025 - 10. Nona the Ninth Tamsyn Muir 5/5 Reading Sounds: The Firebird Suite: VII. Infernal Dance by, Igor Stravinsky & Columbia Symphony Orchestra “John loved her. She was John’s cavalier. She loved John. For she so loved the world that she had given them John. For the world so loved John that she had been given. For John had so loved her that he had made her she. For John had loved the world” (pg. 471). So this is the third time that I’ve read Nona the Ninth. It’s also the first time that I’ve read Nona the Ninth on audiobook. Correction: the epilogue of Nona the Ninth was actually my first taste of the Locked Tomb audiobook series, but this is the first time that I’ve listened to it on audiobook all the way through. I also think that this has been one of the most rewarding rereads of the entire series for me so far. The last time that I read this book was last year, and at the time I had nobody to talk to about it. I think that the bottle-up of confusion and overstimulation which seem at this point to be hallmarks of Muir’s world building was only exacerbated by the fact that the only ideas I was bouncing around were kind of disorganizedly ricocheting around in my own head with no outlet (outside of you, Aaronaads.com, how could I forget you?). Now, being able to call my sisters and talk whenever I find something new makes it a lot easier to filter through everything. Or maybe it just provides new filters to read through. This was also the first time that I stopped to savor the short story tucked in the back of the book behind the epilogue. “The Unwanted Guest” follows Palamedes during the battle for Naberius’s body with Ianthe, and it is written in a script format. While sometimes, the format shift could be distracting, it felt weirdly natural in this instance. While Palamedes isn’t the strongest necromancer, and he isn’t the most laugh-out-loud comedian either, but he takes the spotlight in this story so smoothly it could leave readers wondering where his POV chapters have been hiding all this time. The premise of this short story is pretty simple. If Pal can correctly guess which one of seven on-stage coffins in Ianthe’s mind-stage contains the body of Naberius Tern, he gets to take the reins. I guess, we know at this point, starting the short story, after the events of Nona, that he wins the battle for control. But that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable to watch as he skillfully peels away the layers of sarcasm and irony cocooning Ianthe like a meatball. She literally murdered Babs and left Corona, sobbing and hysterical, on the floor of Canaan house amidst the wreckage of basically everything they’d spent their lives working for together up till that point. She talks about knowing Babs since they were born, but maintains he was nothing more than a “perfect tool” that was always meant to be used at the right time. Why should she regret his murder? Pal gets Ianthe to all but confess that Corona is part of her endgame, and thus immune from any collateral damage she has forecasted. This puts Corona in a powerful position during Alecto; she could betray all of Blood of Eden, Paul, Harrow, Kiriona…or she could betray her sister. But the sides are getting kinda too far away from each other to have any hope of Corona bringing them together again. Pal also pushes the idea of soul permeability—to Ianthe’s dismay. It is much harder to continue stomaching and enslaving your childhood best friend’s eternally undead soul to power your immortality and god-like necromantic powers after you realize it’s simultaneously forever gooing and osmosis-ing all over your own soul. It also begs the questions, how much have the lyctors changed since their first ascensions? How much has John changed, or do those rules apply to him? Did Harrow’s soul change after coming into contact with Alecto? I need to chill. I don’t know when the next book is coming out. Thanks Ms Muir. ILY. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/4818c506-4fbe-4b9c-b233-2cdcec6b9966/everything+i+never+told+you.jpeg 2025 - 9. Everything I Never Told You Celeste Ng 2/5 Reading Sounds: Smoked by, Hayden Pedigo I recognized the cover in a neighborhood library, because I’m pretty sure this was Tumblr famous. Atmospherically, it’s reminiscent of some timely YA novels of a similar viral origin–thinking along the lines of We Were Liars and 13 Reasons Why (although, I am pretty sure this is not a YA novel). Following the Lee family, an interracial couple with three kids, across generations leading up to sixteen-year-old Lydia’s suicide, this novel feels like a family biopsy, dissecting the tragic event that forever changes the way James and Marilyn live with and love each other as well as their children. The two references I listed above are also notably not both entirely positive. We Were Liars is harmless, and pretty good as far as really short psychological-thriller-family-dramas go; but 13 Reasons Why gets into trauma porn territory, and that is where I think this book goes sort of awry. It’s not that these situations aren’t realistic, relevant, appropriate, etc., but the presentation starts to feel weird when some incredibly impactful and relationship-changing plots like an entire affair gets wrapped up with a sentence to make way for another cursory chapter to wrap up some main plot stuff with a telenovela-worthy scene that will leave many readers wondering, “is she really pushing a love story right now?” I think the largest issues in this book were abandonment issues. They were everywhere. James describes trying to get over the pain of Marilyn unexpectedly leaving him and the children like pressing on a bruise repeatedly till the pain becomes less and less. Only this pain wouldn’t go away as many times as he pressed and pressed and pressed. These themes started to feel heavy, drowning, suffocating… Probably on purpose, I’m sure this was on purpose. (Pointedly not mentioning spoilers). (Vomits). This book was pretty good, and it honestly kind of made me nostalgic for unhinged mid-2010s Tumblr, but this just isn’t something I reach for much anymore. Is there a place for this type of fiction? Yes. Is that place back in the neighborhood library to casually traumatize someone else? Yes. Good luck fellow wanderers. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/bb723fbf-d687-48f2-a40a-792e4f7ded1d/the+westing+game.jpg 2025 - 8. The Westing Game Ellen Raskin 4/5 Reading Sounds: American Teenager by, Ethel Cain I finished Empire of Silence on a plane ride to visit family, and when I landed I didn’t have any other book to start. I found an old copy of The Westing Game with some reading class assignments from my little sisters tucked in the middle. I kept the hand-decorated construction paper detective notebooks as bookmarks and jumped into this book which I don’t think I’ve read since elementary school. This is a whodunnit novel, something I’ve been reading quite a lot of lately now that I think about it. Gideon the Ninth, Darkly… One of my favorite tropes from this genre of mystery novels has to be the character lists, and The Westing Game is no exception. The first chapter ends with a list of all the new tenants who have been invited to live in the luxuriously glossy new Sunset Towers, a new apartment building (with uniformed doorman and maid service) just across from the old Westing house. The occupancy is listed out by unit, even detailing the coffeeshop, podiatrist office, and Chinese restaurant run by various tenants. Soon after moving in, sixteen seemingly unrelated individuals are invited to bear witness to the final will and testament of Sam Westing, the millionaire who has left two million dollars as well as the truth behind his death up to this group of unfortunate new apartment neighbors. The introduction to this 2004 Modern Puffin Classics edition is written by the book’s editor Ann Durrell, who remembers, “She said that she wrote for the child in herself, but for once I think she was wrong. I think she wrote for the adult in children. She never disrespected them or ‘wrote down,’ because she didn’t know how.” I don’t think that I read the introduction when I first read this book back in school, but it is interesting to read now, because I certainly had a different experience reading this time around. There are layers of running commentary throughout the novel about capitalism, classism, racism, ableism, misogyny, so many things that I have no recollection of discussing with my 5th grade class. Sam Westing is a polarizing figure in the novel, this man with such uncertain and unbelievable ties to this unlikely group of players. Who actually knew Westing? Who would have benefitted from his death? At times, it feels like Raskin is putting all the characters in her hands like dice and giving them a good shake. A fitting metaphor for the game-loving Sam Westing. Coming out of this book, my favorite characters were definitely the Wexler sisters, Turtle and Angela. I have never written a book before, but this is the kind of book that makes me want to write a book. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/7bafe5af-f3b9-4205-beea-dcb159fbad02/empire+of+silence.jpg 2025 - 7. Empire of Silence Christopher Ruocchio 2/5 Reading Sounds: Man of the Year by, Lorde I don’t really know where to begin with this one. I think I was recommended this series from the same TikTok account that convinced me to read The Locked Tomb series. I had this idea that epic sci-fi fantasy might be my next big thing, but I’m not sure if that hypothesis was proven or not. This book has taken me months to get through, and it seems as though I’ve been complaining about it the whole time. Empire of Silence follows Hadrian “Had” Marlowe as he is banished from his home planet by his noble family and sent to study with the government’s religious sect known as the Chantry. Luckily, he manages to escape this predicament, instead ending up on some backwater planet called Emesh where he spends most of this book trying to survive the unfamiliar atmosphere. The cover of this book brags about being “Sci-fi at its most genuinely epic,” but this could be debatable. On one hand, the scale of things felt thoughtful. We didn’t jump to a million planets, and even the travel from his home planet Delos to the main setting of this book, Emesh, felt weighted. It was a big step, and it took a long time. There were a few scenes that really stood out to me, like when they first discussed the Cielcin in-depth. At the beginning of the book, they just seem like a scary background presence, but before long, Hadrian starts dropping some bombs. He says that over the course of humanity’s conquest of the known universe, they have encountered forty-something forms of intelligent life and enslaved every one of them–until the Cielcin. The Cielcin are tall, pale, sharp-toothed, vaguely cannibalistic, and most importantly, inhuman. The Chantry has spent all of Had’s life demonizing the alien Cielcin race and preaching humanity’s god-given right to conquer and rule over them. On Emesh, Hadrian is forced to live in the poor conditions and squalor created by that planet’s ruling house, he is forced to fight in the coliseum-like war-games between the enslaved and celebrity classes of fighters, and he eventually comes face-to-face with the planet’s own native species. There is a lot to sift through, and it should have been exciting. But for some reason, I thought it would be much faster-paced than it was. I was expecting an epic adventure story, yet this felt more like a character study. Many sci-fi and fantasy series are slow in the beginning, so I am struggling to decide whether or not to continue with the second book. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/9fff9978-96ac-4632-828d-27de68a73286/Nolmyna.jpg 2025 - 6. The Nölmyna David Erik Nelson 4/5 Reading Sounds: I’m Still Here (Jim’s Theme) by, John Rzeznick This was a really cute story I found on Reactormag.com, a welcome distraction from my current read (Empire of Silence). This short story follows the ex-co-host from a haunted house reality show as she finds out that her recently disappeared cousin has more than likely fallen victim to his haunted Ikea chair. Funny, bizarre, unsettling, this story was a quick read during a slow work morning, and it definitely scratches the magic realism itch that has a habit of sneaking up on me every once in a while. The author is Jewish as well as the protagonist and her family. I don’t see a lot of stories about Black Jews, as pointed out by the protagonist herself, and this was interesting for sure. So many Jewish holidays really lean into the idea of Jews being on the outskirts of society and having to fight for their right to simply exist. It is ironic when folks are confronted with the idea that Jews may also be the perpetrators of social isolation or religious/ethnic discrimination. The characters in this story aren’t white enough to avoid the hate sent their way for simply being something else, and they aren’t seemingly Jewish or Black enough to seek shelter within those communities or safe spaces either. They are united through the experience of rooting through the homes of others to debunk their irrational fears and made-up hauntings, as well as that of the chair that this story is named for. The police don’t seem to care about what really happened; rather, they are more focused on tearing up homes and planning stake-outs in order to pinpoint evidence or suspects that don’t exist. It is left to the main character and her missing cousin on the outskirts of this situation–that should in all honesty definitely center them–to scrabble for pieces and understand this breach in the cosmos that they have unknowingly stumbled upon. Overall, I thought this was a really fun sci-fi story, and I would be very interested to check out more writings from this author in the future. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/7e9a4b33-18a6-4172-a1fd-6929677dea8a/gideon+the+ninth.jpg 2025 - 5. Gideon the Ninth Tamsyn Muir 5/5 Reading Sounds: Memory by, Elaine Paige This is now the third time that I have read Gideon the Ninth by, Tamsyn Muir, and it somehow gets better every single time. Perhaps it is my personal reading style that I miss so many things on the first and second read-throughs, but I just feel like I discover so much every time I reread this series. I remember feeling that this novel was somewhat inaccessible for a good chunk of the time I was reading it the first time, and it is very satisfying to find upon revisiting it that there has always been more than enough intrigue here to go around once you are properly equipped to discern it. I have to assume that anything that is at this point unexplained will be directly relevant to the plot of Alecto the Ninth, whenever Muir sees fit to birth her. Some moments that I really enjoyed during this reread: Palamedes’ rant against Judith after she tried to challenge the Sixth for their keys; imagining Jeanemarry sounding like Puss in Boots; everything that came out of Cytherea’s or Teacher’s mouths. At one point, right after Gideon finds Protesilaus’s head in Harrowhark’s closet and runs off to snitch to Palamedes, Camilla is then sent to gather Harrow herself while Palamedes has this truly heartwarming scene with Gideon. She tells him about how she snitched on pre-adolescent Harrow (karma) to her parents for opening the Locked Tomb right before they and their cavalier primary Mortus hanged themselves in shame; Palamedes becomes the first person to ever tell Gideon that the choices of adults are not the faults of children, and then at some point they end up kind of awkwardly holding hands. Right then, Camilla walks back in with Harrow literally handcuffed to her, and Gideon freaks out thinking they are holding hands too. That was kinda funny, but I need a short story explaining how Camilla managed to handcuff Harrowhark Nonagesimus to her. There were also some frustrating moments, like wanting to shake everyone for not paying any attention to Ianthe. Towards the end she points out the very simple mathematics that everyone seems to overlook in their most holy of histories: 16 servants went to Canaan House all those years ago, and only 8 Lyctors emerged. What happened to their cavaliers? While I see how the reader is never given enough information to ask this question on their own until Ianthe mentions it, I genuinely do not understand how Ianthe is the first person in all of this book to ask this question. Before reading this, I kept saying that the Eighth House is not present enough in the currently-released books, which leads me to believe that they have a bigger role to play in Alecto, but I finished the book second-guessing this assumption. Silas Octakiseron and Colum the Eighth are not absent from this book, they are merely annoying in this book. Harrow leaves them in the background mostly, and they are completely absent from Nona. which kind of makes me think that they might somehow still be alive. If they are, I would be really annoyed to see them in Alecto. But maybe she could become the second zombie hottie to punch Colum in the face. Overall, I really like reading this book, and it seems to get better every time I come back to it. I am kinda getting sick of writing about it after every time though. Haha. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/5d5cc681-aa15-41ec-80bc-dffa9b09337e/the+hot+zone.jpg 2025 - 4. The Hot Zone Richard Preston 2/5 Reading Sounds: Toxic by, Britney Spears The last time my grandpa came to visit me, he bought me this book and told me it was one of the scariest books he’s ever read. On the back of the book, Stephen King says the same thing. They are both right, because this book made me feel physically ill at multiple points while reading. At one point, I was reading about a baseball sized pocket of blood collecting beneath the skin of a dead ebola monkey’s inner thigh while sitting in the middle seat on an airplane. When I read that, seated between two strangers, I audibly gagged, and I am audibly gagging writing about it now. The Hot Zone details the discovery of ebola, as well as that of some of its closest relatives, for additional context. Preston goes back to Africa to study the origins of ebola in Kenya, very near the birthplace of AIDS. He follows multiple outbreaks that occurred before the virus was ever seen in the US. Later in the story, the US Army becomes involved when an ebola outbreak occurs in a single DC primate quarantine house, designed to hold monkeys that are coming into the US from around the world before being distributed throughout the country. Of the 100 monkeys who were exposed to the virus, 29 of them died. After, all 450 monkeys in the quarantine house were euthanized. The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) is a significant player in all of this, as well as the CDC. By the end of the book, we find out that the strain seen in these monkeys just so happened to be non-lethal in humans, with all who were exposed showing no symptoms, and thus a major global health crisis was averted. The scary part is how little we know about these viruses and their spontaneous ability to jump from host species to host species. Preston brings up examples like human ebola outbreaks and the AIDS epidemic, saying that if a strain of ebola as dangerous to humans as the one faced by USAMRIID in DC was to monkeys, we could see something like the Black Plague again in our lifetimes. It’s also somewhat important to note that there are several instances in this book where people contradict each other and the actual events might be a left unclear. However, most of the book is informed from US Army employees, and they will always serve the best interest of the Army. It feels like there were several instances of USAMRIID employees who were interviewed for this book hiding information or misleading with less-than-true information. I believe that they were a lot more conniving then they wanted Richard Preston to think. Many of the questions from this book that have not been answered yet are chalked up to the fact that researching these avenues of thought could be prosecuted as conspiracy to commit biological warfare, and the US Army doesn’t engage in biological warfare. So everyone is supposed to believe that even though they strong-armed the CDC out of the way so they could handle this without supervision, the US Army wants everyone to believe that after going out of their jurisdiction to take control of this station, while unsupervised they got rid of everything they were supposed to. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/f8cee8e2-88f4-4c06-8242-3e5547b18b52/the+bands+of+mourning.jpg 2025 - 3. The Bands of Mourning Brandon Sanderson 4/5 Reading Sounds: Dlp 2.1 by, William Basinski The Cosmere is huge, and everyone says to start with Mistborn: Era 1. Well, not everyone, but that’s where I started. So here I am, now finished with both Era 1 and the first 3 of 4 books in Mistborn: Era 2. The thing is, Era 1 was pretty good. It can be hard to judge fairly with all the clout that Sanderson has gotten since publishing The Stormlight Archives, but the original trilogy consisting of The Final Empire, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages was genuinely delightful. Slow at times, and kind of cloyingly political, it held my attention and genuinely provided some yearbook-worthy moments. Era 2 has felt kind of slow in comparison. The first book The Alloy of Law feels like a 350 page prologue. Shadows of Self was around 400 pages and finally dropped hints of a larger plot beyond the pilot episode droppings of book 1. Book 3 The Bands of Mourning picks up with a boring wedding that’s been getting planned since the first book, he said with enthusiasm. Steris was introduced as more of a political ally than anything in earlier books, and there is not much emotional investment here. However, from this point on, the story only got better and better. In classic cartoonish, western, Era 2 fashion, Wax shows up to his own wedding late (just in time), Mr. Incredible style. Of course, a water tower then falls through the church roof and our cast is soon whisked off on an adventure instead. This time, they are traveling outside of Elendel to New Seran, a city at the very southern edge of the Basin. The Kandra have asked Marasi for her help searching for one of their own researchers who has come back from the far southern mountains missing one of his hemalurgic spikes and raving about the mythical Bands of Mourning, rumored to gift their users Allomantic powers regardless of their natural Allomantic inclination or lack thereof. Wax–who turned down the Kandra when they asked him (before Marasi)–conveniently remembers that super important political thing he has to do that is just coincidentally in the same exact place. Wax is so silly like that. Wayne, Steris, and MeLaan come along too, thankfully so, because they kind of steal the show all book. The group dialogue is fast and quippy, and three books in, there is a sense of earned familiarity. Now that they are outside of Elendel, they can see and discuss how central the city has become to the entire Basin. Are the outer Basin dwellers right in their feelings of resentment toward their capital city for so strictly overseeing all economic and political goings on within the Basin? If the Bands of Mourning were real and Allomantic powers were something that could be purchased or gifted on a whim, what would that bode for these political undercurrents? In addition to the inconceivable power of the Bands of Mourning, this book introduces flying ships and an entire uncontacted civilization who worship the Lord Ruler from Era 1 living to the south of the Basin’s borders. The end of Era 1 hinted at the eventual future introduction of firearms and motor vehicles into the Mistborn universe, so it is exciting to see this idea of technological advancement being used within the actual meat of Era 2, rather than just as a cliffhanger teaser at the end of a series to leave readers checking Sanderson’s Twitter for the another update. The end of this book was also very satisfying. There are many people who say that, out of all of his books, this is one where Sanderson starts introducing big, overarching, interconnecting Cosmere-esque ideas. Now, as a Sanderson reader who has only gotten through Mistborn: Era 1 and part of 2, I couldn’t tel you what those ideas are, necessarily, but there are some cool fucking scenes at the end of this book. Wax dies and has a whole “Welcome to being dead,” walk down the upper atmosphere with Sazed/Harmony which was absolutely riveting (and also probably related to bigger Cosmere things?). There was a moment right when Marasi picked up the Bands of Mourning herself, and I thought she was going to become a god like Sazed. Wax and Sazed/Harmony saw the flash from way above the planet and Sazed said it was “‘Trust.’” I totally thought that Trust was gonna be another god like Harmony, and Marasi was ascending. But I guess the Bands of Mourning aren’t infinite, they are just simple metalminds with enough power to very briefly trick readers into thinking Marasi might be a god. Overall, very exciting and fun, I would love to finish this series with book 4 The Lost Metal–even though the copy I found doesn’t match the others I’ve been reading. We will see at that point if I’m feeling up to those big boys from the Stormlight Archive. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/ff608865-247e-4393-8e69-79d6e46dec9d/darkly.jpg 2025 - 2. Darkly Marisha Pessl 4/5 Reading Sounds: Dark But Just A Game by, Lana Del Rey Marisha Pessl has had my heart ever since I first picked up Night Film, what, almost ten years ago now. Jeez. Since releasing Night Film, Pessl has stuck to Young Adult fiction, with Neverworld Wake and now her newest release Darkly. Her signature flare for the obsessively detailed and neurotically organized is somewhat stifled within the YA genre; extensive footnotes and meandering plot lines are celebrated hallmarks of her adult novels, but this characteristic lavish sprawl is noticeably absent. Night Film often spent chapters and chapters precariously creeping through the story like a confused video game avatar, interspersed with web pages, letters, and various media to further cement the story in reality. Darkly keeps the letters and other media created for the book, but it loses much of that addicting “fluff” (for lack of a better word) that fans of Pessl have come to love in her adult works. That being said, every single sentence of this novel packs a punch and hurtles the reader ever closer to the end–as good YA should, honestly; and mixing a Marisha Pessl-level psychological thriller with the pacing of a modern YA novel is a crackhead approach to storytelling that I am fully in support of. Much like Night Film, Darkly is about a genius creative with a cult following that kind of gets of away from them. In this case, Darkly follows the elusive Louisiana Veda, the late mastermind behind Darkly board games which swept the globe by storm and garnered themselves and their infamous creator a dangerous reputation. Arcadia “Dia” Gannon has been selected to participate in a highly competitive Darkly internship program this summer, alongside 6 other high schoolers from around the world. They are flown off to the Darkly factory and briefed on the situation: Someone has stolen a secret original Darkly game and is holding secret playings with the local children. One missing local child–gone from his room without a trace–is suspected to be somehow connected to these underground gamers. Dia and the other interns feel like CLUE characters, and you know what? The entire book feels like a love letter to the cult classic, or maybe one to cult classics in general. Pessl does seem to fascinate over the enigmatic, and her most iconic characters are inevitably portrayed in bits and pieces, through third or fourth party information: stories of stories. The interns definitely read as two-dimensional as the aesthetically complementary characters in the games they obsess over, but it’s ok because Pessl posted literal board game character cards for them on her Instagram. Self aware queen. What makes up for this is the legend, the mythos, and the mystery she summons around characters like Louisiana Veda. There is a revelry in the unmasking of the unmaskable and the knowing of the unknowable, but it is a short-lived and sober one. Pessl’s stories are always decadently layered, literary baklava dripping with intrigue and sprinkled with whimsy. There is a delight in the story itself that encourages readers to latch onto the wildest theories imaginable. Nothing is impossible in a book like Darkly, because there the implausible is already legend. This feels like a technically perfect novel, and I only give it 4 stars because it didn’t lend itself to the lingering and snooping that Night Film and Special Topics in Calamity Physics so readily do. And I didn’t realize till halfway through that this is the first book in a planned series. There will be at least one more book according to the same Instagram post referenced above, and I will once again buy it on publication day. Live, Laugh, Marisha Pessl. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/8b575809-603b-46fd-a3a3-58a47025adb3/the+mists+of+avalon.jpg 2025 - 1. The Mists of Avalon Marion Zimmer Bradley 3/5 Reading Sounds: Look Mama, I’m Trying to Change by, Dale Hollow Before I can really review this book, I have to talk about the author. When I read The Bright Sword last year, the empathetic portrayal of Morgan le Fay was a shock, and my mom encouraged me to read this book because it more closely follows her story. After starting this book, I went back to the acknowledgments in The Bright Sword to make sure that I didn’t miss the part where he mentions The Mists of Avalon or its author as inspiration. I checked all the extra pages too, and then I started to Google. I found out about the allegations against the late Marion Zimmer Bradley and her husband (1 2 3), and it deeply affected the way that I read this book. There is a lot of child abuse and sexual violence in this story, and although many will say, “But it is historically accurate,” it is still weird as fuck that a story about that stuff is written by a child abuser and sexual predator. That being said, it pains me to admit how long this book took me to finish. I thought for sure I would be able to finish this in 2024 with enough time to possibly read something else after (if not more than one somethings). That, apparently, did not happen, and the only book I was able to read toward the end of the year aside from this one was Harrow the Ninth, which I was listening to on audiobook when I was driving or otherwise unable to read with my hands. I began reading this book in October, and it wasn’t a lack of enjoyment that caused it to take such a long time; it was genuinely the density and volume of the story. The plot in this is huge, and I was unprepared coming into it for how comprehensive the existing Arthurian canon is. I read The Bright Sword last year, and that was kind of my first introduction into “King Arthur” stories, but I didn’t realize how much of that stuff was actually canon. When Morgan le Fay shows up in The Bright Sword, she complains about basically everything that happens in The Mists of Avalon, but it sounded so out of pocket that I didn’t realize she was just describing what is the actual canonical story of King Arthur. It is also worth noting that The Bright Sword happened kinda sorta outside of the actual Arthurian legend itself, while The Mists of Avalon is just a retelling of the classic story from the female characters’ perspectives. At the beginning of this book, I was extremely compelled. I flew through the first 200-300 pages, and I felt genuine interest in the plot and the conversations that the characters were having with each other, particularly surrounding Christianity. But the more they had these conversations, the more confused I became as to how we were moving further and further away from resolving the conversation. It seemed that they were saying the same things over and over and over again. Gwenhwyfar’s whole “How can a good Christian not be an oppressor?” sob story was old before it started, and that’s how most of the big ideas running through this story played out. Morgaine is struggling to come to terms with the fact that nobody is super down with the idea of her having an incest baby with her brother, and she spends the whole book asking why it couldn’t have been her cousin Lancelet who she is in love with. Everyone around her, is becoming more and more Christian with the passing years. Even Arthur and Lancelet, both born of the same old lineage as Morgaine herself, are moving away from the religion and culture that they were born into and adopting these new Christian tenements. Morgaine doesn’t want to be left in the past with the mists of Avalon, forgotten, but it seems that her friends and family are not going to bring her with them into the future if she keeps up with this whorish pagan incest baby shit. These motifs were nearly omnipresent, getting sliced, diced, and dissected through every scene of the book, but there seemed to be very little progress or growth in them. The things these characters say, do, and believe at the beginning of the book are startlingly similar to those at the end, and for such a long book, this is frustrating. Morgaine’s big come-to-Jesus moment (-.-) at the end of the book was when she realizes that the Goddess has always been present in the Virgin Mary… But, like, haven’t they literally all been saying that since the beginning of the fucking book? Right? My mom told me that this is her favorite book of all time, that it has meant something very different to her every time she has reread it in each decade of her life. I don’t necessarily know if I would read this book again, but I am interested in reading further in the series eventually. https://www.aaronaads.com/2026 daily 0.75 2026-03-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/4098f74f-9c98-448f-b7c5-8a3e91b8bb6f/pride+and+prejudice.JPG 2026 - 2. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen 5/5 Reading Sounds: Before You Break My Heart by, JADE In my tenth grade Pre-AP English Lit class, although most of the books on our syllabus didn’t spark much of an interest for me, I remember that Pride and Prejudice by, Jane Austen particularly stood out. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/2549ae6d-54c6-406e-9c4c-fafd1f1f5f17/wuthering+heights.jpg 2026 - 1. Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë 5/5 Reading Sounds: Nowadays / Hot Honey Rag by, Renée Zellweger , Catherine Zeta-Jones & Taye Diggs For a while now I have Benn on a journey to read more digital books. I wrote a bit about this last year in my review of Wishing on a Star by, Deborah Gregory. I even specifically talked about trying to read Wuthering Heights on my phone, but it never amounted to much in the way of real progress. Over a year after I downloaded it, the book, I was still only 13% through the book. I was not connecting with the language, specifically, and the story fell flat for me in every way. Not even the impending release of the 2026 movie and associated Charli xcx album was enough to tempt me through the end of the book. When the trailer for the movie was released, I was shocked; it was being marketed like the next smutty fantasy adaptation (minus the fantasy haha). Had I completely misunderstood the tone of the book? My sister told me, yes, I had. Still, I could not get even another percent through the book before the movie eventually came out early this year. I went to see it with my sister, and once again, I was blown away. Weirdly sexual overtones aside, the movie was funny. I don’t think I enjoyed it all that much, but after the credits rolled, I had a few more questions for my sister: How different was the book from the movie? (Very.) Was Catherine that funny in the book? (Yes.) My curiosity was piqued enough to pick it up again, and I finished the rest of the book in two weeks. I am not sure how I missed the humor of the book when I first tried to read it; I feel a bit dumb, like the movie had to give me permission to look for the jokes before I could pick up on them at all. Regardless, I did think the book was very funny. Catherine is the predominant source of humor in the first half of the book, before she dies and her daughter takes over the role of “main character” for the rest. This introduced another source of confusion, though, because the movie shifted the story in such a way that Catherine does appear to be the protagonist, however meager her character arc seems. That made more sense to me in the book, because she died halfway through, and I realized that she definitely is not the protagonist. I was then left to wonder who, if not Catherine or her daughter, because a protagonist cannot only star in half of their novel, right? I narrowed it down to Nelly the narrator or Heathcliff the anti-hero, before finally landing on Heathcliff. Throughout the book he deals with the systemic racist that causes Catherine to say a union to him would “degrade” her. His rags-to-riches storyline and the ultimate way in which he gives up on his life’s devotion to revenge at the very last minute was the most protagonist-y character arc in the whole book. Even with the seeming mobility and influence of Catherine’s character (and that of her daughter), there is no fully realized character arc to point to. I had also heard from various sources that Catherine is “crazy”. But I related to Catherine too much to accept this flippant summary of her character. In a world that is run on social politics and conservative pre-Victorian niceties, Catherine reacted to the bullshit in much the same way I believe that I would respond. She called it out, and largely refused to participate unless she could strong-arm everyone into doing it her way–which she was able to do a surprisingly and inordinately large amount of the time. In this way, the book really did remind me of another fantasy story, Peter Pan. In the same way that Neverland bent to every whim of that prepubescent anti-hero, summoning storms to accommodate his tantrums and summers for his joys, the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights and its surrounding country are very much at the beck and call, it seems, of Catherine Earnshaw. No matter how preposterous her behavior or how inappropriate her etiquette, everyone cannot help but absolutely obsess over her. And she’s so toxic about it, it almost makes me jealous. 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Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/1622663559344-XUKDGX6GMEPBQ8Y1WR9W/sundaydrive_withturoscreen.jpeg Work - Spotify - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/1622663584087-6PSZEWVGZF5HVSB4U3S7/Tweets.jpeg Work - Spotify - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.aaronaads.com/work/clue monthly 0.5 2021-10-16 https://www.aaronaads.com/work/amtrak monthly 0.5 2021-10-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/1587608276138-4SSWOXCLLZOXEI7UFU9L/1.jpg Work - Amtrak https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/1587608275352-3KJTKOZJ2XC2R7OBOKVK/2.jpg Work - Amtrak https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e9114b970f579564255e103/1587608274351-QQCDCDKLKSFI4R14MYZG/3.jpg Work - 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