This magical murder mystery had some cozy vibes and great rep (MC with fibromyalgia, lesbian/gay MCS, nonbinary side char), & I'd rec it for folks into paranormal fantasy who don't mind flashes of brutal violence, fairly immature MCs (I think I'd categorize it as YA?), and overt mustache twirling. There were a lot of side themes! I'm curious if the next book settles down a little and decides if it's doing a cozy or a hard-boiled detective mystery.

When I was trying to decide whether to dnf this, I read a review that called it “all tell no show” and that is completely, infuriatingly accurate. There‘s a workplace drama and a post-colonial exploitation adventure story that are juxtaposed. Almost all plot is related via monologue from two narrators, sometimes secondhand, and is rife with judgement in which the reader is invited to partake. So, all in all not a comfortable or even all that ⬇️

A lovely, slightly bittersweet, book of interconnected stories that revels in the beauty in everyday life. A front runner among the #tob25 books for me.

51/100 for today's #tlt thanks for the tag @dabbe !
That was ALot of Jansson and Dahl! My fav are in the collage, but i have to admit Dahls books have influenced my sense of humor bunches, for good or bad. And now I'm also disappointed in Gaiman. So 😩
I am unsure about the inclusion of LoTR as a children's book? Plus my personal pref would have been for Five Children and It for Nesbit, and where's Secret Garden? Tagged looks interesting!

A better picture of AllTheBooks that came in from being on hold at once at the library. Jeez, that‘s what I get for trying to game the system and have future holds to look forward to! 😅
My pup looks unimpressed by the future distractions for my time…
Currently reading and enjoying the tagged for #tob2025

Honestly, this is probably a fine book but I kept feeling like it‘s a poor-man‘s Starless Sea.

So instead of comparing the two, here‘s a pic of my pup photobombing my photo of the stack of library books that i tried to space out with holds but still managed to have all come in at the same time.

This was a nice way to start 2025. Would I prefer resolution to one/any of the plot lines? Sure. Am I here for tea and book shops run by fantasy lgbtqia couples and including cuddly griffon babies (pups? Cubs?)? Absolutely.
#weeklyfavorites25 @Read4life

Singing to trees, you say? Well, sure! Why not? @AllDebooks #naturalitsy

#12Booksof2024 i had a number of surprise 5-star reads to round out 2024, but i think this tragedy (about ancient Greek tragedies!) and set in ancient Syracuse won my heart.
A great year! Thanks for hosting @Andrew65

#12Booksof2024
October was for horror, so here is a selection of my fav. horror read this year. A good year for horror (and even missing one, I forgot Diavola).
My favorite read in November is tagged because it was lyrical and engrossing world building. I love finding out that books I bought years ago but were scared off from due to their hype are worth it after all!

I‘m trying to decide if I‘ll continue this #tob25longlist title so I came to Litsy! The prose just reads very … workmanlike? … and the narrator is reminding me of my brother in law. 🫠

I'm trying something new for 2025 #bookspin, pulling from a list of books currently speaking to me for the bookspin drawing, and using buddy reads + planned reads, and leaving room for more mood reads for the #bookspinbingo board. I think a lack of structure may be good for me, I've been treating reading too much like a sport lately!
#bookspin is tagged and #doublespin is The White Lady 🎉

I guess this was my year of retellings/reimaginings! And my feelings of solidarity with the woman in the attic won out in the end ✊🔥
Bracket from @Catsandbooks
#bestbook2024 #2024bookoftheyear
I wonder what trends I‘ll see in 2025!

#12Booksof2024
Have you taken down your Christmas decorations yet? Me neither. I'm also not yet over my disappointment in the movie Apocalypto, since it spent too little time recreating vibrant mesoamerican cultures and the anachronism at the end still kinda gets me going. Which brings me to the tagged, which was everything I wanted Apocalypto to be and more. Also even more strange... Was not expecting the T Rex song 😂

#12Booksof2024 August
I read or heard an interview with Arden somewhere that this book came about when she started thinking about how this time period changed so many of our perceptions of the world and she decided to write about how it might have changed our perception of the devil. I deal with WWII a lot for work and the idea of this - the devil finding a new calling in WWI France - really spoke to me.

#top24of2024 roughly arranged from top to bottom and left to right in grids of six 🙃 I always enjoy seeing the overlap/lack thereof depending on how I try to decide on my fav book of the year! #top24of24

#12Booksof2024 I had 4 (!!!) five star reads in July, but one was James (James needs no hype from me) and I may rave about one or more of the others some other month, so instead I'm picking the first in this weird, cozy sff/mystery mashup about a woman who appears to attract murders. It was much more fun than it had any right to be, and I went looking for the sequel immediately.

June #12Booksof2024

#12Booksof2024 May favorite

So... This was actually a really fun exercise 😈
Some months had few misses, and there's a mix here of bails/not for me rn vs things I legit think aren't great.
Tagged I am celebrating because it is the first in a series that I think i will likely continue anyway 🤪🎉 - I think books after this one won't have the things that bugged me, mainly the way the male MC treats the female, and the whole cw portion mid book is one of my trigger topics.

#12Booksof2024 April was a great reading month for me and contributed a few books to my best-of-2024 list. My fav non-fiction came from this month (and from #naturalitsy : 8 Bears), but ultimately I guess I'm just a sucker for Acevedo. Plus, this novel did such an expert job exploring the diversity of women's experiences in an immigrant family that I was enthralled.

#12Booksof2024 March is for #tob2024 - here are the books from last year's shortlist that stuck with me - though I'm not sure they are all universal favorites and may be another sign that my reading trended to the surreal this year...

I'm tardy for #12Booksof2024 but I love seeing and participating in this event, thanks for hosting again, @Andrew65 🤗
Since I'm playing catchup, here's Jan and Feb - Bourdain for Jan for his sheer charm humor and swagger and Friday Black bc the 2024 #auldlangspine list from vivastory (did they change sn? I can't tag them) really set a mood for the whole year in thoughtful sff.
PS the story arc about Black Friday is even seasonally appropriate! 😆

I really liked this, thanks #tob2025 longlist! I was avoiding it based on the blurb, which made it sound like Rainy is pursuing a runaway wife through a dystopian landscape both twee and surreal. This is misleading, as Rainy‘s wife dies 80 pages in, and the surreal elements are mainly due to the unknown and therefore somewhat terrifying motives of others and not to an anthropomorphized Lake Superior.

I really wanted to like this, but it was like the author couldn‘t find enough information about the 35 (!!!) women that worked in the Curie lab to make their stories engaging, and so relied on MSC‘s life (which is perhaps better told elsewhere?) and on snippets of chemistry to fill in the gaps. Lack of focus, and the verbatim retellings of slanderous and misogynistic letters/newspaper articles/etc were a bit triggering, too, as a scientist.

Well, well! Looks like I have some excellent horror to look forward to next January thanks to this lovely and chilling #auldlangspine spine list from @Lin3han 🤗 I always love Kingfisher, and The Graveyard Book is a fav, so I'm sure I'll get on well with you and your books! I'm intrigued by the Crown of Nyaxia books but sometimes YA does not agree with me... Is the series very angsty?
Thanks for the thoughtful as ever pairing @monalyisha 🥰

Recently found quote in my camera roll ❤️

I loved this, it was brilliant, but then maybe it is something only another Classicist would love? I have beef with the blurb calling it a comedy, it is def a tragedy, if a madcap one, and it is about POWs being forced to perform in order to eat, so rather brutal for even dark comedy. But there were still some flashes of beauty, and I appreciate the decisions the author made in plot and execution. #tob25 #tob25longlist

An innovative take on vampires and a very enjoyable audiobook. I loved the fact that the pov is that of a single mom, and heartily recommend sticking around for the conversation after the book ends in the audiobook between the author and the narrator about themes that could be read into the book: including ableism, neurodivergence, single motherhood, etc (both women identify as autistic and the narrator identifies as deaf among other things).

Oh no. I did an audit on my spending, and here are all the books I bought this year and promptly forgot about. Thoughts on which I should prioritize for the end of the year?

I did it! Look at the size of that chunkster. I am so used to kindle books that the mechanics of reading a book this heavy were really hard 😆 and I read it in small chunks because it is also super dark - dark magic/occult, dark Argentine history, genocide and colonialism and torture - but I was fascinated by the undercurrent of class critique and the dark magic itself. A challenging read but ultimately rewarding, tho the end left me wanting.

I didn't mean to sound like I hadn't found new things to read in the #tob2025 longlist! Above the line are books that have been on and off my monthly tbr stacks all year and which I'll now try harder to fit in, and below the line are books newly on my radar 🥰 I can't believe I missed the newest Rivers Solomon!

Happy #tob2025 longlist week! I've not read a ton of them (no surprise given my comfort genres); what I have read is primarily thanks to litsy suggestions (😘 #camplitsy24). Not much that was a surprise tho -lots of repeat authors?- and James in particular seems like an obvious choice. But it was fantastic so... 🤷🏻‍♀️
My list by enjoyment in the reading is above fwiw! Highlighting the tagged bc James gets plenty love wo my help 😜

It‘s sooo squishy!!! Thanks for the thoughtful package @KaylasReadingNook I love it 😻 I‘ve not read this Stephen King yet, and I‘m looking forward to enjoying everything. I‘m pretty sure that puppy is nefarious, too. Right?
#allhallowsreadswap #ahrs
Thanks for organizing @MaleficentBookDragon

@BethM I‘m enchanted! 🤩 the candy fits me perfect, how did you know? And I can‘t wait to try the bath bomb! Thank you for the thoughtful #hhs #hhs24 and thanks for organizing @wanderinglynn

Forgive the excess of stickers, just wanted to do a quick post while I was thinking about it that my #ahrs and #hhs packages arrived! I‘m very excited to open them 🤗

I almost forgot to post that I sent my #ahrs #allhallowsreadswap #ahrs2024 today! Should be there by the end of the week. My dates were off thanks to the Monday holiday so just under the wire lol @MaleficentBookDragon

Audiobooks 3-6 for #hauntedshelf :
I enjoyed them all except The Horoscope Writer. Tagged was a nice palate cleanser fantasy satire told from the pov of a reluctant dark wizard. However I enjoyed the claustrophobic space-spelunking horror vibes from The Luminous Dead and the confirmation I got from How to Sell a Haunted House that puppets are indeed more creepy than dolls, and I'm ready for more spine-tingles for the week ahead! #flerken

A pic of #HHS package taken as I left the house - it‘s away now, should arrive by the end of the week! #hhs2024 @wanderinglynn

Well, that‘s an “ugh, my rival” glare if I‘ve ever seen one! #catsanddogs #dogsoflitsy #readathon #hauntedshelf #flerken

There were actually MORE eyes than expected. As advertised? But still. Ew.
#hauntedshelf #flerken book 2!

Book one of October /#hauntedshelf is this memoir. It is, apparently, super-controversial and polarizing, but in general I found it to be a very engaging read that is informative on the subject of how everyone may not process or engage with emotions in the same way. I dunno if there‘s as much science as I wanted, and I dunno if I believe everything happened in this book as stated, but I also dunno if that matters as to its enjoyment value.

#hauntedshelf recs, clockwise from tagged:
1. For the tame, my fav middle grade horror series
2. For those that don't mind body horror and find ikea to be slightly creepy to start with
3. For the monster lovers
4. For the lover of women-centered retellings
5. For the slasher lovers
6. For paranormal romance
In case you needed more spooky-season inspo! #flerken @PuddleJumper

Finally catching up on this quiet little novel for #ClassicLSFBC @RamsFan1963
Y‘all‘s callbacks to Star Trek felt apt - this was about as cozy as SciFi can be. Reminded me of the Ilona Andrews series a bit too 😂(⬇️)
I didn‘t love the literal hand of god ending but liked that it seemed like Enoch would get the chance to reenter humanity and alleviate his loneliness. Do you think he‘ll let himself start aging again?

#flerken #hauntedshelf
1. I think this changes daily 🫣 currently I‘m leaning to the tagged bc of the miniseries
2. My partner and I try to carve pumpkins every year, and we love to decorate
3. Pumpkin beer - and did you know TJs has pumpkin spice Irish cream? Omg
Or piping fresh off the frier apple cider donuts!
4. Bingo boards!

My #hauntedshelf team #flerken tbr has options and bingo boards built-in😜
October's #Bookspin is all about buddy reads and ongoing challenges, and I've created 2 lists for #readyourebooks / #readyourkindle in honor of all the spooky books I've collected in years past. #castthedie is for library loans. Overambitious? Yes. Overexcited? Oh, yes. But man do I like both making lists and having options for mood reading.

This sapphic regency romance with gods and fairies is a low pick. The second half kind of dragged, but the framing was fun and I had some laugh out loud moments.

#5joysfriday
1. The weather is approaching fall vibes - my favorite 🍁🍂
2. Caught one of the nights the zoo was open late 🐅
3. Tried an online nail wrap store and they‘re really cute + the store owners sent a hand written thank you note with my order - aw
4. This weird tomato bouquet I made is thriving so well I may have to plant it? 😆
5. Going to a coworker‘s wedding reception tonight! Party time!

*Less than a week until #Hauntedshelf but there‘s still time to join! See link below to sign up or @PuddleJumper for more details.
True story, I‘m here for the bingos. And the vibes.

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