The tendency of the Rushworths to make foolish matches, hmm? Has to be a Mansfield Park reference 😂 #hashtagbrigade

My Storygraph July wrap-up! No idea why I seem to have picked up the pace in the second half of the month but I‘ll take it.

Since I finished Animal Farm, I‘m updating my list. #bookspin #bookspinbingo

I‘m glad I finally read this—and glad I read it as an adult, not in school. My history classes definitely didn‘t give me the necessary understanding of the Soviet Union (though perhaps an English teacher would have). I know a lot more about that period in history now, and I‘m sure that gave me a fuller appreciation of this satire. Don‘t let the pigs have all the apples, folks.

Gaskell writes such real-feeling characters. I didn‘t like this as much as Ruth, but maybe I would have if she‘d lived to finish it 😢 I definitely still hope to read the rest of her novels. Thanks as always to @BarkingMadRead and the #HashtagBrigade for another fun buddy read!

My Kobo informed me that a T. Kingfisher book I hadn‘t read was on sale today, so naturally I grabbed it!

#bookspin list for August!

Lots of fun new characters in this—I liked Prince Inga, King Rinkitink, and especially Bilbil the talking goat. It has an actual plot, too, which made it even more fun. However, Oz is barely relevant. The title is strange since not only does Rinkitink only spend a couple of chapters in Oz, he‘s not even the main character. Why not call it Prince Inga in Oz? #BeyondtheYellowBrickRoad

First I show up in this book, now another one of the books I‘m reading!

"A green-haired girl lounging on the pink silk chaise with the blood stain on it shouted that it was a minute until astronomical dusk."

My hair is currently blue-green. A pink silk chaise (even with a blood stain) is a place I would lounge. My child regularly informs me of the times of civil dusk, astronomical dusk, golden hour, and day and night. Have I just appeared in the book I‘m reading?

Maybe I just don‘t remember anything about this book besides the names of some of the characters. Very little of this is familiar!

So glad I read this *after* Songbirds and Snakes—there is stuff in this book that is really enhanced by knowing Snow‘s story, and perhaps more important, I liked this one a lot more. I thought I knew how Haymitch‘s story would go but this kept surprising me, even though I knew the broad strokes. It was fun to see so many familiar characters—and some of them surprised me, too. I‘m thinking about rereading the original trilogy now.

Excited about this #littlefreelibrary find!

“…we encounter text [produced by an LLM] that looks just like something a person might have said and reflexively interpret it, through our usual process of imagining a mind behind the text. But there is no mind there, and we need to be conscientious to let go of that imaginary mind we have constructed.”

The art in this is very “standard manga style,” which I‘m not a big fan of, but it was done well—the characters are all very well distinguished. (I particularly enjoyed how evil Lucy Steele looked and how stupid her sister Anne looked.) This is quite a faithful adaptation, surprisingly comprehensive, though I missed Margaret‘s funny lines and there‘s some over-the-top romantic bits at the end. Good way for a manga fan to get into classic lit!

Wow, I did not remember the beginning of this being so dark. 😰

Great queer YA retelling of Northanger Abbey! I loved Catherine‘s obsession with gothic novels updated to Cade‘s obsession with horror movies. The gay fears and love story felt very real, especially for teenagers in rural Texas.

Unfortunately, when I showed this to my gay classic-lit-and-horse-loving friend, he informed me that this artist is just as bad as all the others at drawing horses 😂

I really wanted to love this short story! It had some great ideas, really interesting worldbuilding, and compelling characters. There were places where the writing was beautiful. But it desperately needed an editor. I wouldn‘t say no to the world being more fleshed out, either. I might read more by this author but I will be checking the sample first.

Fascinating book! I don‘t know if this is more comprehensive than the embroidery one or if I just know more about embroidery (or less than I thought, since I expected sashiko to be in that one and it‘s in this). There are three projects I really want to make. I might have to buy this book (it‘s a library borrow) as well as the supplies. #LitsyCrafters

Patchwork quilt made by my MIL!

This book struck a decent balance between “plot” and “random punny adventures.” Some of the things that irk me about other Oz books were definitely present here (are Glinda and Ozma *really* all that great?). But I just loved Trot, Cap‘n Bill, and the Orks so much that I can‘t downgrade the rating. #BeyondtheYellowBrickRoad

A character has been turned into a grasshopper and another character asks “Can you give molasses?” The first character opines that he is not that kind of grasshopper. Does anyone have any idea what they are talking about? I searched “grasshopper molasses” and just got stuff about making a grasshopper trap.

Wow! I‘ve never heard of this Korean style of patchwork before, but it‘s stunning! It‘s called jogakbo or chogakbo and I‘m definitely going to have to try the project and look into the style more deeply.

I liked that this had more of a storyline and less randomness than previous Oz books. Betsy Bobbin and the Shaggy Man are delightful. However, I was constantly frustrated that the horrible Love Magnet works differently than it did in the past (presumably so it can be defended against), and the nomes‘ personality changes didn‘t stick, other than the king inexplicably getting a new name.

Celehar is so well liked and so bad at knowing when people like him. It‘s kind of adorable.

I would really love to read Katherine Addison‘s worldbuilding notes.

Picked up this #bookhaul (and a journal) at my local bookstore today. My bookshelves are getting… a tad overcrowded. I really need to get myself to read more books I already own, so hopefully I can donate some and make room!

I picked this up based on the title, but I found it pretty boring (the witchcraft is mostly set dressing, which would be fine if I liked the characters more) and didn‘t like the art style, so on to the next.

This book intertwines the POVs of the five Haddesley siblings, latest in a family that has an ancient compact with a bog, in which they give the bog the body of their patriarch and it gives them a wife for the new patriarch. I absolutely loved it. Magrat isn‘t a huge fan of being used as a book rest, but it didn‘t scare her off my lap.

#storygraph roundup for June.

Getting my #bookspin list in just under the wire! @TheAromaofBooks

A lot of the criticisms of current “AI” technology in this book wasn‘t anything I hadn‘t heard before, but the book does bring it all together and show the destructiveness of the hype. The chapter on fighting the hype is very helpful, though I‘m skeptical that satire will do more than make AI believers double down defensively. I definitely recommend this book to fellow AI skeptics.

“Her siblings were not… just the same as they had been ten years ago. They were worse. They had spent the decade of her absence growing around one another like roots in the same crowded patch of earth, contorting themselves so everyone could fit.”

My husband and I may have spent a little money at the bookstore today…

Low pick, mostly because of the aforementioned #undramaticirony. It did get revealed in the next chapter. I also felt that all the conflicts were resolved too easily. However, I loved all the characters and found the main three all relatable in different ways, which was nice. The poly and queer rep felt very true to life, and I just loved the endings (it felt like the last two chapters and the epilogue were all different endings)!

It would have to be fantasy. That‘s probably 90% of what I read anyway. If I were compelled to only read fantasy, maybe that would release some guilt about not reading more widely 😆 #sundayfunday

Gah. I was excited for this polyamorous romance and really enjoying it so far. Then I hit the halfway point and the main character reads some paperwork and discovers!!! Some DRAMA!!!

No idea what the drama is.

I‘m annoyed. I‘m going to give it one more chapter. If the drama isn‘t revealed by the end of that chapter, this is a DNF (and maybe even if the drama is revealed).

The Patchwork Girl herself is pretty fun, but most of the other characters are annoying. I‘m getting kind of sick of Baum‘s formula of “some characters get together and travel around Oz, encountering all kinds of weird people and things that have never before been mentioned existing, and the problem is solved in a way that could have been done all along.” I did enjoy the bits of romance between Scraps and the Scarecrow.

I‘m on a vacation in the Poconos as I read this book! What a fun serendipity.

Absolutely fascinating, compelling book! My mind was blown over and over again. Did you know that termites don‘t actually digest wood?! They chew it up and bring it back to their mounds to be digested by fungus, and then the termites consume what the mushrooms leave! Amazing.

Photo courtesy my husband, since I spotted but failed to photograph the tiny mushrooms on this tree.

Cute queer romance. Shallow story retelling The Legend of Sleepy Hollow but with real magic and ghosts. Normally YA queer romance graphic novel retelling on a Halloween theme would be my EXACT cup of tea, but I just didn‘t find this compelling. The villain was really over the top.

I was fascinated by the setting of this book—a magnificently luxurious hotel in West Virginia haunted by magical springs, run by a brilliant and determined woman who is furious to learn the hotel will be used to house detained foreign nationals as World War II begins. The characters were harder to get into, since their POVs are not very deep, but the beautiful writing carried me along.

I met a sweet dachshund and had to include his picture!

Such a cute, funny book! Perfect for new parents… or parents of any age who can remember the newborn days (however foggily… ah, sleep deprivation). It‘s a very short, quick book, mostly comics of one or a few images, and I giggled on nearly every page. And yes, this is exactly what my mom was like.

My kiddo wanted to go to the library to get a summer reading game board and I had a hold to pick up. Then he wanted to play on the library computers so I was left to wander… #libraryhaul

Thrift store #bookhaul!!!

It took me a while to get into this. I don‘t think I remembered book 2 very well and it must have bothered me that the main characters were all separated. Once they started to get back together I was more interested and read faster. I really liked some of the new characters in this book. Somehow fairly early on I felt that this was not a concluding volume and went to Deonn‘s website, which led me to her Instagram, which confirmed: 4-book series.

This book is mostly the same advice on clearing out your closet that you see everywhere else. It‘s even a bit repetitive in itself, and the outfit photos are boring and weirdly repetitive. The focus is on finding and dressing for your individual style, but the author has some very specific ideas about style that she weirdly gives as universals. However, I really liked the “three words” system she gives—there‘s more to it than it sounds like!

“Nobody was autistic in the past!”

Lord Hollingford: shy, doesn‘t know what to say to people who don‘t have the same interests as him, would have learned from a book of small talk, simple character, famous scientist

I read a lot in May… partially at the cost of getting behind on my podcasts because I was listening to Sabriel 😆

There‘s a Clare in this book! Good start 😄