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 😄

June #bookspin list!

This is a really excellent craft book! Detailed written instructions and clear photographs explain English paper piecing very thoroughly. There are lots of project ideas, though only one is shown step-by-step (the pentagon ball)—it‘s pretty much obvious how to do the rest, since she gives clear instructions on joining shapes and doing appliqué. I can‘t wait to get started doing some English paper piecing.

So much fun! It‘s 1930s Mississippi and magic is widely known, but Black people are forbidden from having or using it. Two Black and Choctaw girls, one of whom is Deaf, need money to pay for a magic license. Their cousin suggests they join illegal broom races. Brooms has a wide variety of representation of all kinds and a great, exciting story. I also liked the simple but expressive art style. Thanks, @Kenyazero for inspiring me to get this!

I‘m not a big audiobook fan but I loved this! I think it‘s a combination of the fact that I‘ve already read this book a few times and Tim Curry‘s masterful narration. I especially enjoyed his drawling Mogget voice!

My #doublespin this month was “a zine” so I‘m finally getting a start on my (not huge) zine collection! This zine was both fun and well researched, with several pages of sources at the end. It was almost as professionally done as a published graphic novel, except for one place where the formatting was apparently messed up 😂 I had good timing to read this, as I expect a friend over soon who would love it, so I‘ll pass it on to him!

This was an enjoyable little creepy novella full of tarantulas. I liked Anatema as a horrific employer and love interest a lot, and the world was very well drawn for such a short book. What was missing for me was Dália, the narrator. At a few times she mentions feelings or thoughts she seems to have had for a long time, but never came up before. I didn‘t feel like I could connect with her at all.

Not my favorite T. Kingfisher, but that‘s like saying that poppies aren‘t my favorite flower—I‘m still glad to have them! Nicely creepy and filled with fun characters. I wish I‘d already read the story this is based on, “The White People,” but I plan to read it this spooky season and I‘m sure I‘ll think back on this book when I do. And I may never look at deer the same way again!

One of my favorite movies! I didn‘t know there was a book!

Strange book. I really liked the world and the way the story was told, in a complex nonlinear way that was fairly easy to follow due to date stamps (I still had some confusion about which things happened before and after the dome, but that didn‘t detract). Lots of interesting characters. Unfortunately, the POV character is a lazy, greedy, sex-obsessed bore. I did not enjoy spending time with Kaaro and I really don‘t get what Aminat sees in him.

I liked that this book had a bit more of a plot through-line than others. Of course, the invasion plot chapters are interspersed with Dorothy having adventures and meeting silly beings all over Oz. Lots of puns and bits that are very reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. It really grates on me that Dorothy never thinks that if something can reason and talk to you, it deserves to choose its own fate.

I‘m enjoying this book, but I sure wish there was less about sex and erections.

This was even better than the first book! It really got into the political complexities of Zetian‘s world (which mirror our own). I appreciated that she learned that, as she puts it, “drastic actions have drastic consequences.” In so many ways! I could hardly put it down as I got close to the ending. Can‘t wait for the next book!

This book is hard to review. It‘s a manifesto for Liberatory Harm Reduction, but it isn‘t organized enough to be a manifesto. However, I think the scattered presentation is to its benefit; it‘s all about humans being humans, and humans don‘t live neat, organized lives (especially the queer, trans, BIPOC, street and sex workers this book lifts up). I was only passingly familiar with harm reduction, so I learned a lot.

Here‘s my #bookspin list, just squeaking in!

The title of this book is the rallying cry for Iranian protesters after the murder of Mahsa Amini by police. This graphic collection pulls no punches. I was disturbed and inspired. I know a lot more and have a much better understanding of the recent history and current state of protest and repression in Iran. And, unfortunately, some of it reminded me very strongly of the current state of politics in the US. 😞

Another adventure through strange and random lands. Another thing that is pretty dark if you think too hard about it, which Baum clearly didn‘t intend the reader to do. The characters were fun, and while I‘m getting pretty sick of the way Baum correlates beauty with goodness/friendship, at least he subverts that a little in this book.

This starts out slow—the witchcraft takes a while to show up—but builds to astonishing intensity. The real-life horrors of the Home for Unwed Mothers combine very well with the magical horrors. There are some extremely intense depictions of childbirth that I could feel viscerally! I truly felt like all the characters were real people. The epilogue fell a little flat for me, unfortunately.

I won this book in an Instagram giveaway. I‘m so excited to read it! Look at that cover, those sprayed edges, the stickers the author included! 😍🫀

I don‘t think I‘ve ever seen a fictional depiction of pregnancy rhinitis before. It‘s not a well-known side effect, and it was one of the worst parts of pregnancy for me—my nose just running constantly. So it‘s really cool to see this main character also having to deal with it!

I really enjoyed the world of this book, the dead and missing gods and the way the magic worked—primarily, controlling (or at least trying to control) the essence of death. I felt at a remove from the POV character much of the time, since it was clear she was hiding information about her own past, even from the reader, but that didn‘t annoy me too much since she was also trying to keep it from herself. I loved the twisty plot.

Today‘s #libraryhaul—I returned one and picked up two so I‘m behind again 😂 I think I heard about Rosewater on a podcast and I don‘t remember what it was about but it sounded incredible. But Not Too Bold references a nice creepy fairy tale and the back said “dark fiction” and “Latin” and “sapphic” so there was no way I was leaving without it.

Love a #littlefreelibrary haul!

What a delightful book! Oddly paced, for sure, but worth the time it takes to get there. I‘m glad I finally read it.

I‘m reading this as an ebook, but I just had to share the gorgeous copy that my library has. The page edges are shiny gold! 🤩

“I don‘t think one has much option about keeping a cat,” Laura said. “If it wants to stay with me, it shall.”

It seems the Cat Distribution System was in full effect a hundred or so years ago! (Featuring: Magrat!)

And here‘s my #bookspin list for April! @TheAromaofBooks

There‘s nothing wrong with this book. I just don‘t have any enthusiasm for it. And why bother spending time on books I‘m not enthusiastic about?

This is a very fun read. I loved how Rae embraced her villainous character. It irritated me how she kept believing (or trying to convince herself) that things would happen the way she half-remembered them going in the book, even though her very presence in the plot massively changed things. The ending was a great twist! I think book 2 comes out soon and I‘ll definitely be reading it, but I‘m not running out to buy it.

Lots of fun craft ideas in this book, mostly using old sweaters or other clothes you can buy at a thrift store. I liked the cute illustrations but at times they made it unclear what to do. I‘m sure I could work out what to do if necessary though. Also unclear at times were the British words unfamiliar to this American 😂

Murder! Conspiracy! Intrigue! That was a great deal of fun, made even more so by reading it with the #hashtagbrigade. It has its issues due to the time period, but the characters are surprisingly complex—even the villains, while being over-the-top evil, have real depth. Thanks as always to @BarkingMadRead for being our hashtag queen!

Very fun and silly story! It reminded me of a couple of the Narnia books—I wonder if Lewis had read it. Dorothy, the Wizard, a boy named Zeb, a horse named Jim, and a kitten named Eureka travel through many lands under the earth, each dangerous in its own whimsical way. The Wizard is kind of a badass in this book. It irritated me that it took Dorothy so long to come up with her solution. But at least her speech didn‘t have so many apostrophes.

For my Grady Hendrix fans: one of my favorite witchy podcasts did an interview with him! I haven‘t read any of his books yet but after this interview I definitely will. When he starts off his discussion of researching witchcraft with “it‘s complicated” you know he really did the work.

https://newworldwitchery.com/2025/03/14/episode-258-witchcraft-for-wayward-girls...

Did I need two new library books? Absolutely not. Did I pick some up anyway when I went in to make returns? Indubitably! #libraryhaul

This book is exactly what it says it is: techniques, patterns, and samplers for blackwork embroidery. Unfortunately, it doesn‘t have any information about doing blackwork on clothing (as it historically was), which is what I really want to do. But I suppose I can practice on Aida and figure out the rest myself.

What an absolutely spectacular book. Alix E. Harrow is officially an auto-buy author. In fact, I was six pages into this when I decided to buy A Mirror Mended (I already have A Spindle Splintered) so I can read alllllll of her books.