I liked this even more than Paladin's Grace, because the characters are such delightful gentle giants.
More at my blog: https://willaful.wordpress.com/2025/05/22/tbr-challenge-paladins-strength-by-t-k...
#SeriesLove2025
#URC rodent on cover. (The main one -- this is an alternate.)
There was no town. There was only the road, which was damp clay splotched with stones, like a toad's back. Perhaps the whole world was a toad. It was no stupider than anyone else's cosmology. Clara would leave the order of St. Ursa and found the order of St. Toad. They would sleep a lot. Yes. Sleeping seemed like a good commandment for the order. Sleep and hot tea. Yes.
Pleased with my #JumpStartSummer weekend. Despite spending 4 1/2 hours on Eurovision 🤣, I met my goals of reading Erasure and Floating Hotel, listened to a couple of hours of Great Big Beautiful Life, cleaned a bunch of short reads off my ereader and am in chapter five of Paladin's Strength. Will certainly read for at least another hour tonight, but might as well post now.
Character-driven science fiction of the kind described as cozy, notwithstanding murder and torture. The premise is great, like an old star-studied movie: a lot of people, all with their own secrets, living out interconnected stories in an hotel spaceship. The plotting isn't as well done as the prose, and I felt let down by the ending, though it does have some lovely poignancy.
Unless you count the Lord of the Rings as one book, which I don't really, it's probably this fanfic, which according to GoodReads has 2184 pages.
I don't even read fanfic! But this one was so popular with my family members I gave it a try. It wasn't as good as rereading The Lord of the Rings again, but it was interesting.
My brain was too tired for my current book (The Floating Hotel) so I read a bunch of little free stories that were cluttering up my ereader, mostly extra epilogues to romances. I don't know why I bother, they're hardly ever worth reading, but at least I did a lot of deleting. I don't even like digital clutter!
#JumpStartSummer
There are many horrible sights in the multiverse. Somehow, though, to a soul attuned to the subtle rhythms of a library, there are few worse sights than a hole where a book ought to be.
I got to a good start on #JumpStartSummer by not being able to sleep last night 🙄 and finishing Erasure. (Full disclosure: I skipped most of the story-within-a-story, and feel completely justified. 😂)
This was so much more than its main plot description... bitter and satiric yes, but also very quietly human and deeply sad.
#AuthorAMonth
An accidental reread, but that's okay because I liked it both times. There are a few stinkers, but the general madness level is on point.
There are a handful of supervillains who go in for the world-saving routine. It's usually an excuse--dramatic speeches, hijacking the airwaves, self-righteousness and posturing, and it's amazing how saving the world always seems to boil down to giving them personally whatever they want.
This is definitely interesting, but I felt a certain amount of skepticism about it as “science.“ I have a Psychology degree and not only have I seen a fair amount of what I learned in college debunked, but I also had to participate in an experiment which I found completely bogus. Nonetheless, if you accept their theories it does make sense out of a lot of otherwise inexplicable behavior. I would love to see a new update on Trump, *again*. 😫
A late #BookSpinBingo entry. I wasn't going to do it this month, because I've been feeling too pressured with reading goals, but I've decided that sticking to the actual BookSpin list version will fit with what I'm trying to do.
I enjoyed this so much! It's a trope-based romance but doesn't expect the tropes to do all the work. The characters are very real and imperfect, which just makes their tender care for each other all the more romantic. And Amsterdam sounds so amazing... can I go please?
A bit like Thank You For Listening, but about podcasts rather than audiobooks. I had some niggling issues but mostly enjoyed it, and there's a nice “worm turns“ arc for the main character. The author also narrates the audiobook.
As an immigrant estranged from her family, Tao has gotten used to a solitary traveling life with only her mule for company. But then she starts encountering others on their own complicated journeys, and everything changes. A sweet, comfortable found family story, though it goes off the rails in the middle which stopped me from loving it as much as I might have.
#TBRTarot make your own prompt: leftover challenge read
#Roll100 Feb.
“I would ask you to remember Tao, as one woman with power to another--the greater good much always come before the personal.“
“No,“ said Tao. Here, at last, was something she was sure off--something that she had learned in her journeys, that perhaps the High Mage had not. “You're wrong. There's no such thing as greater good--there's just good, and the more of it we can do, the better.“
I feel terrible, but I read fully half and then just couldn't go on. I was so bored! Almost every conversation was cringingly lifeless! 😩 😭
#OokBookClub
A powerful, necessary book. I appreciate that it was fairly short and easy to read, because it's such an intimidating topic.
#MonthlyNonfiction2025
pickKingfisher says that she wanted to write a fluffy romance, but wound up with a few too many severed heads and rotting corpses. I'd still put it in the fluffy, and formulaic category. Luckily it's also sweet, relatable and often funny, with a nice slow burn.
#SeriesLove2025
A soft pick. I really enjoyed the details of intimacy coordination work and the characters reinventing themselves, but the slow burn romance fizzled out instead of blazing.
(Can't complain about three #ISpyBingo squares for my first book of the month though!)
Can someone remind me of the title of the book we read for #SheSaid about how neighborhoods closed down swimming pools and public areas rather then desegregating them?
@Riveted_Reader_Melissa
An adventure romance that reminded me of On The Island -- and honestly, I'm a lot older now than when I read that and I wasn't always sure my heart could take it! 😂 The adventure section is excellent but I felt the ending hit some false notes that took away from the authenticity of the rest. The audiobook is very well narrated.
Quite a good month, even though one cover really let me down! (Into the Woods had a tent instead of a cabin, even though there are literally no tents in the story, and the MMC's painted fingernails are not depicted!)
I'm an outlier but 250 pages of Talking It Out was a bit much for me.
Inside his decision-making software there were two subroutines in the shape of wolves, and one insisted that he stay, and the other insisted that he could not stay. Neither of which seemed to be natural behavior for wolves, but Uncharles could only assume this was another aspect of his undiagnosed defect.
He let them fight until one ate the other.
The look on her face...so relatable.
I'm glad this wasn't as dark as the cover suggests. Chloe, a popular high school girl, thinks her autistic older sister Ivy is yearning for a boyfriend -- but her attempts to set her up have unexpected consequences, both bad and good.
Although I don't love books about disabled people that don't center them, I did appreciate how caring and accepting Chloe is, even if she's not always wise. And I related to her a lot.
This is a section from “Reasons for Staying,“ my favorite poem from this. You can read the full poem here: https://griffinpoetryprize.com/poem/reasons-for-staying-vuong/
I definitely didn't get all of these poems, but even the bits and pieces I did were powerful and evocative.
#QueerBC #NationalPoetryMonth
Exciting, engrossing historical fiction about three women who worked at Bletchley park during WWII and the impact that time -- of personal freedom on one hand and intense secrecy on the other -- impacted their lives. It is on the melodramatic side but interestingly, some of the most astonishing elements were drawn from true stories. (I was a little uncomfortable that Prince Phillip is a major character.)
One of the characters is almost (cont)
My #DoubleSpin for April is a soft pick. It has a lot of good points and is very readable, but the romantic chemistry between the leads just didn't gel into something wonderful.
More thoughts here: https://willaful.wordpress.com/2025/04/22/into-the-woods-by-jenny-holiday/
@TheAromaOfBooks
•favorite genres : Romance, classic/middlebrow fiction, memoir, books about being queer.
•desert island reads?: Lord of the Rings, Miss Pym Disposes
•What‘s your go-to reading snack? pecans
•Weirdest or most interesting place you‘ve read a book? The Andes mountains. My husband was so annoyed with me!
•What do you do when you‘re not reading? Housework, listen to my kid's drama, dance, garden, write political postcards, fret.
#BibliologistBio
This camp has *cabins* -- there is literally not a single mention of a tent in the book. So what do they put on the cover? HARUMPH!
#ISpyBingo
... he has lost his temper. He was really very fond of his temper, and rather enjoyed referring to it with tolerant regret as being a bad one and beyond his control -- with a manner which suggested that the attribute was the inevitable result of strength of character and masculine spirit. The luxury of giving way to it was a great one.
#PersephoneClub
Halp!
I read about a graphic novel here and stupidly wrote down the call number at my library without the title. Of course I couldn't find it. It's shelved in YA here and the author's last name begins with BUT. Anyone have any idea what it is?
This was a *lot* -- and kind of tough to read during this time when real life is the same. But Bardugo did a beautiful job of tying all the series' loose ends together for a very satisfying conclusion. Her plotting is so clever! I'm surprised to see that others think another book was being set up, but I certainly won't complain if it happens.
#AllergicToChunksters
#SeriesLove2025
Unlike others, I liked this more than the first book, probably because I find YA about type A students kind of tiresome. Also, it's so relatable in its depiction of the highs and lows of beginning college. I really liked how it interrogated what the HEA looks like for a very young couple, with honestly and hopefulness.
More at my blog: https://willaful.wordpress.com/2025/04/16/tbr-challenge-past-present-future-by-r...
#SeriesLove
A darker, more cynical version of one of Streatfeild's “shoes“ stories, in which an exceptionally beautiful girl achieves success and adoration without having a spark of human kindness in her soul. The title is a biting commentary on what society values in women. A pick because it's entertaining and has a fascinating “illicit“ relationship in it, but be warned, it's deeply sad.
#BookSpin
@TheAromaOfBooks
1. Six of Crows & its sequel, The Prospects by KT Hoffman, Past Present Future by Rachel Lynn Solomon and Going Postal by Terry Pratchett (again!) About the characters and the insights for all of these.
2. There are 11 I bothered to note down. I'm regretful about Compound Fracture, which has such an interesting main character. The others I was just meh about.
1. That's the one financial thing my husband deals with and he got it done promptly. We've already gotten refunds.
2. Revitalization.
An enjoyable memoir/literary dive about the ways that reading Jane Austen helped the author mature, discover his core values, and find happiness. I was a bit put off by his gender essentialism at first, which seemed to belittle Austen even as he was trying to praise her, but as he grew up in the pages, the book grew on me. Not sure I'll ever agree with him on Mr. Woodhouse though. 😉
#PemberLittens #JaneAustenThenAndNow
Today I'm partially in Manhattan, partially in Boston, and occasionally in Seattle, navigating the complexities of the first year of college and long-distance love.
#whereareyoumonday
@Cupcake12
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(And people don't get why I don't want to see the Murderbot show....) 3h