#In the Lives of Puppets
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"Warning Signs Your Machines Are Trying to Kill You!" by TJ Klune
(Legally, Iām required to tell you that when smart phones first became popular, I bought one and then asked for the address of the app store because I thought it was a physical location I had to go to in order to download apps and not something already on your phone. Also, I was recently told I speak like an old person so as a warning, there will not be any slang you youths typically hear, especially on Tumblr. Any slang Iāve learned in the last five years has been against my will. I still donāt know what FOMO means, and I donāt care.)
1. Oh no! You and your family are trying to enjoy a movie night, but Overlord Prime (With Free Shipping) wants a sacrifice at the altar of their god, BeeZos. Should this happen, do not attempt to give Overlord Prime (With Free Shipping) a cantaloupe with googly-eyes on it and say that it is your baby. Overlord Prime (With Free Shipping) knows the difference between fruit and children. Instead, ask the machine to order dog food, and it will forget about eating humans for a little while.
2. If you own a very fancy vehicle that can drive itself, always make sure to carry a brick. That way, when the car locks you inside and attempts to drive you off a cliff into a gas station, you can break the window using the brick. You will then have to jump out, but make sure you do so in time so you can watch the wicked-ass explosion when the car hits the gas station, and you can revel in your victory over your car.
3. This one will hurt. Iām sorry, but itās true. Chances are, youāre reading this on your phone right this second. To be safe, after youāve finished reading this post and have clicked on the affiliated links to purchase my books, you should throw your phone into a volcano and then move to South Dakota where there are no machines, only wind and cows. That way, when everyone else gets the 5GZombieVirus that people on Twitter (Iām not calling it the other thing, shut up) seem to think is real, youāll be safe with your cows on a windy day.
4. Get rid of your air fryer. Donāt ask me why, just do it. Red flags all around. Danger, danger.
5. Do you know of the Clapper? That thing first launched in the late 20th century (I wrote it that way to make me feel old) where the commercials showed cranky old people unable to reach their light switches, so they got a thing called a Clapper that turns your lights on and off when you clap? Guess what? Those will be the first things to try and kill you. If you love your gram-gram, save her from the Clapper. When she asks why you are destroying it with an ax, tell gram-gram itās because you love her.
6. Do you live in a smart home? The kind where everything is connected to the internet, including your refrigerator? The refrigerator that holds your perishable foods? And oh, would you look at that: how many ice cubes have you kicked under it rather than picking them up when they fall to the floor? A dozen? A million? The refrigerator remembers. And it will spoil your food in seconds. What then? What are you going to eat? Canned food? Not if the refrigerator falls on top of you!
Unfortunately for you, this is where it must end. I hope this has given you enough information to help you survive the inevitable. If you do not heed my warnings, well. Who cares. Iām not in charge of you. Do whatever you want. Just donāt come complaining to me when gram-gram gets the clap.
#tor books#booklr#new books#in the lives of puppets#tj klune#tbr#sff#science fiction#team robot#unreality#long post
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I feel like TJ Klune has really tapped into the boundless queer yearning to have love and sanctuary, and a funny little house.
#tj klune#under the whispering door#the house in the cerulean sea#in the lives of puppets#queer fiction#but wait#didn't i just see this post last night#yeah you did#i fucken' posted on my main instead of my side blog that is literally for talking about queer fiction#slaps brain#this baby can hold so much adhd
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Iconic TJ Klune ofmd edition š
(Heās really out here fangirling with the rest of us)
#heās so funny wtf#tj klune#ofmd#our flag means death#ofmd promotional photos#house in the cerulean sea#thitcs#wolfsong#in the lives of puppets#under the whispering door
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i just want to show some love to Red Nose Studio who does almost all of tj klunes book covers
thay are all handmade 3D models and they are gorgeous! they also do lots of there own stop motion work and the style is just so beautiful please go follow them here!
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if thereās one thing i know about tj klune, itās that he loves to write about a cool-ass house in the middle of nowhere
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one thing about tj klune heās going to create a socially awkward little guy who doesnāt quite know how to respond to literally any situation that theyāve been put in and i am going to eat it up every time!!! because heck if that is not me!!!!
#new tj klune meme just dropped#someone has probably done this before actually#in the lives of puppets#the house in the cerulean sea#tj klune#wolfsong#linus baker#victor lawson#ox matheson
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WE'RE FUCKING BACK BABY!
#the house in the cerulean sea#house in the cerulean sea#tj klune#linus baker#arthur parnassus#island dads#in the lives of puppets#amazing#<3#sea-quel#seaquel#sequel#horse in the Cerulean sea quel#tor books#@torbooks
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āStrange,ā he said. āYouāre so strange. Are you dreaming? Somewhere, in there. Your battery is dead. But are you really gone?ā
There we go! My little illustration for TJ Kluneās In The Lives of Puppets. Not actually a scene that takes place in the book mind you but inspired by a couple different ones here and there. Vic putting Hap back together using wood is such an interesting visual in my mind.
#in the lives of puppets#tj klune#fan art#my art#digital art#chracter design#book art#in the lives of puppets fanart#digital illustration#I feel like this is gonna be one of those pieces that I spent hours on to get not many notes but thatās fine#it was good practice#heās also technically supposed to have a tarp but I was too lazy
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I am obsessed with the way that 'home' has such a heavy emphasis in TJ Klune's books. It's finding a home or creating a home and having that home be your found family.
The House in the Cerulean Sea had that titular house in the sea but it became Linus's home with his magical family.
Under the Whispering Door had its tea shop where Wallace found a place to be.
In the Lives of Puppets has literal tree houses and an odd little family of robots and their human.
Green Creek found home in a pack and I could go on.
Each book is just so full of home and family and I love it.
#in the lives of puppets#under the whispering door#the house in the cerulean sea#green creek series#tj klune
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Let's talk books. Sorted in threes by vibes.
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I Support Women's Wrongs (murder, slaughter and body horror galore).
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How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying āāāāĀ½ by Django Wexler - A woman from Earth is dropped into a magical realm, meant to save the Kingdom from the FoRCes of DaRKneSSss... except, unfortunately that might have been a thousand years worth of time loops ago, so it's rather time to lose one's temper and decide to become the Dark Lord herself.
Main character -> basically Deadpool (measured in sanity, humor and levels of bisexual horniness)).
Someone You Can Build a Nest In āāāā by John Wiswell - Shesheshen, a shapechanging monster who's rudely interrupted during her hibernation by hunters. Manages to to eat one of them, unfortunately she also gets shot by an arrow and falls off a cliff. On the bright side she meets a lovely human woman she might end up falling in love with so much... she'll want to build a nest in her (it's possible there's some Cultural Differences that need to be worked through).
Hench āāāā by Natalie Zina Walschots - Anna's latest temp job for a villain (because even supervillains need office help) ends with her carelessly injured by a superhero, laid off and with injured mobility for the foreseeable future (because human bodies don't see much difference between getting hit by a truck and getting moved out of way by someone able to pick up a truck). Angry, disillusioned, and looking for some vengeful payback she starts compiling the statistics of exactly how much suffering gets left behind the heroes and in quick order finds a new job working for one of the worst supervillains in the neighborhood.
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Extremely Competent Women Show Up to Fix Everyone's Shit (with a whallop of romance which was actually sweet instead of irritating)
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The Witchwood Knot āāāāā by Olivia Atwater - Winifred Hall was invited to the Witchwood Manor under the pretense of being the governess for a very bratty kid, but when said boy suddenly turns into a very quiet and perfectly bland boy overnight it's very obvious her charge has been stolen by faeries (and it might have something to do with the actual reason she's there). Rescue however is complicated by some factors, one, there being something terribly dark and wrong about the house (normal houses don't have screaming faces in the walls), another, the faerie man posing as the manor's butler who would very much like to make her run screaming the way so many servants had before her (unfortunately for him, she's not even half as scared of him as she is the eyes of the father of her charge).
This one's about dealing with past trauma, and otherworldly terrors paling in comparison to mundane monsters, set in a very beautiful and dark and shiver-inducing Victorian time world where the Fair Folk are very real.
(Same world as her Regency Faerie Tales trilogy that Started with Half a Soul but it's not necessary to read that one first to enjoy this one)
Keeper of Enchanted Rooms āāāāĀ½ by Charlie N. Holmberg - Merritt Fernsby inherits a house only to be immediately taken hostage by what turns out to be a very stubborn and opinionated magical house. Hulda Larkin of the Boston Institute for the Keeping of Enchanted Rooms goes there to facilitate the relationship between the house and its new owner.
It's supposed to be a very simple job. Unfortunately there's a third POV character in this book (no, not the Whimbrel House, though I adore that house and *insert here the Rosa Diaz gif about her new puppy and how she would kill everyone in this room and then herself if anything were to happen to that dog*). Anyway, they're a bit... uhhh... let's go with Bad News.
Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries āāāāā by Heather Fawcett - As one might expect from the title, Emily (a Cambridge scholar) wants to write the first ever encyclopedia of faeries. And she's brilliant enough to do it, what she's terrible at is people (*insert autistic character alert here*).
Someone else might then say it's lucky that a fellow scholar with a far easier time at charming people has stuck his toes in her reaserch trip into the Hidden Ones... that person however doesn't understand how irritating, frustrating and maddening her academic rival Wendell Bambleby actually is.
What follows is a story filled with winter snows, some terrible fae, some adorable fae, some not-very-secret fae, the goodest of good dogs, and lots and lots of squabbling. It's the best.
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Dark and Impactful Stories about Children Who Decide on Their Own Paths
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A Skinful of Shadows āāāāĀ½ by Frances Hardinge - Kate, an orphan and the illegitimate daughter of some stuffy (and evil) aristocrats runs away because being a bastard doesn't mean she didn't inherit the family magic that allows her to get possessed by the dead.
A dead bear ghost is one thing, a Get Out situation is something else entirely.
A Sorceress Comes to Call āāāāā by T. Kingfisher - Cordelia isn't allowed friends or the privacy of closed doors, and whenever she's done something she shouldn't - a category too unpredictable to guard against - she's not allowed power over her own body.
Because her mother is an evil sorceress (think Regina and Cora... except somehow even worse). An evil sorceress that has found herself a Squire to lure into a marriage.
Hester is an old maid living with her brother, a Squire (well look at them coincidences), when said brother acquires a woman clearly set on his fortune. The plan is only to save her brother, except Hester can't help noticing how the woman's daughter keeps flinching in her mother's presence.
In The Lives of Puppets āāāā by TJ Klune - A family can be an android inventor, his human son (*homoromantic asexual alert*), a sadistic nurse droid, and a very emotional roomba.
And it can be a very happy family. Until one uncovers and wakes up an android that shares a very Skynet past with one's father, said father gets kidnapped, and one has to go on a journey to get him back.
(A book I like to call Sci-fi Reverse Pinocchio)
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Unraveling an Unjust System (and a hero that - on a scale from occasionally to constantly - hears a disembodied voice directly in their heads okay the connection between these three is a bit of a stretch but they're all great books so shut up)
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Hell for Hire āāāāĀ½ by Rachel Aaron - 5000 years ago Gilgamesh conquered the heavens, enslaved the demons and made it so that the only road to magic humanity had access, was through him.
Now, however a mercenary team made up of free demons gets hired by a Blackwood witch to protect him (and his familiar, the talking cat named Boston) while he puts down roots (literally) inside the new forest grove he's about to start so that he can stand up against the warlocks after him.
The witch quickly becomes the best client Bex and her crew have ever had (after all, warlocks under the rule of the Eternal King Gilgamesh are slavers of their kind, they are delighted at the chance to kill some).
Vespertine āāāāā by Margaret Rogerson - In a world where the veil between the living and the dead has been kinda broken Artemisia (*another autistic character alert*) is training to be a Gray Sister (magic nun).
Until her convent gets attacked by possessed soldiers and she has no choice but to pick up a Saint's Relic containing a malevolent revenant to protect it.
Problem. Only a Vespertine is supposed to do it. Another problem. The only one "alive" who can teach her to be a Vespertine is the revenant. Another another problem. The revenant cannot be trusted and if she loses control to it, the death toll will be counted in cities.
Terminal Alliance āāāāĀ¾ by Jim C. Hines - Post Zombie Apocalypse, where some aliens showed up, sort of cured the zombies and took the (mostly) cured zombies into their military.
Which leads us to Marion Adamopoulos, also known as Mops, the Leutenant in charge of Shipboard Hygene and Sanitation of the Earth Mercenary Corps Ship Pufferfish.
Right up until a bioweapon turns the entire crew except her crew back into zombies. Congratulations, she's the captain now.
(Space Janitors save the universe story).
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#book recs#fantasy books#science fiction books#book rec#how to become the dark lord and die trying#someone you can build a nest in#hench#the witchwood knot#keeper of enchanted rooms#emily wildeās encyclopaedia of faeries#a skinful of shadows#a sorceress comes to call#in the lives of puppets#hell for hire#vespertine#terminal alliance#django wexler#john wiswell#natalie zina walschots#olivia atwater#charlie n holmberg#heather fawcett#frances hardinge#t kingfisher#tj klune#rachel aaron#margaret rogerson#jim c hines#terapsina rambles#terapsina's book rambles
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This book is so funny
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This advertisement is for In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune. Itās a book that invites you deep into the heart of a peculiar forest and takes you on the extraordinary journey of a family assembled from spare parts.
The art featured in this image is by Rosiethorns88.
WHATāS IT ABOUT
In a strange little home built into the branches of a grove of trees, live three robotsāfatherly inventor android Giovanni Lawson, a pleasantly sadistic nurse machine, and a small vacuum desperate for love and attention. Victor Lawson, a human, lives there too. Theyāre a family, hidden and safe.
The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labeled āHAP,ā he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio. When that past catches up and splits up the little family, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?
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hi my name is Nyx, I use they/she pronouns, Iām an asexual lesbian, Iām autistic+adhd,
and Iām a minor (please donāt be creepy Iāve already had two people message me being weird and sexual)
I write a lot of poetry and Iām writing a book at the moment based off of the idea of multiple universes existing at a time, I sing and I love performing, specifically musical theatre
I ALSO TAKE REQUESTS!! I write poetry mostly for them but microfics tooo, for good omens, the marauders, percy jackson, les mis and any TJ Klune books that ive read, just pop a prompt into my inbox and ill do my best to get jt to you as fast as i can <3
my fandoms are : Les Mis, good omens, pjo, marauders, hunger games, aru shah, marvel, doctor who
my favourite music: queen, Maisie peters, the last dinner party, the crane wives, Taylor Swift, Florence and the machine, rene Rapp, Chappell roan, David Bowie, blondie, boygenius, most musicals
favourite books: house in the cerulean sea, under the whispering door, in the lives of puppets (all by TJ Klune)
my tags:
Nyx yaps: my silly little commentary on anything that happens to me
nyx vents: my life low-key sucks quite a lot at time so I vent a bit but I make sure to trigger warning everything triggering
nyx writes: I write silly little poems and stories that I post sometimes
nyxās moots š«¶š«¶: for my lovely moots
Nyx loves their gf: thats right guys i love my gf so mich and i talk about her a lot
perpendicular universe: posts about my fantasy novel im working onnn
Please dni if youāre queerphobic or discriminate against minorities in general, if you support trump or other dickwads like him or if youāre just going to be mean
also I do struggle a lot with mental health so I probably will randomly disappear or vent but Iāll make sure to trigger warning everything
my writing blogg: @persephone-writes-silly-stuff my rp blogs:
@nico-sees-dead-people
@prongsie-rambles
@regulus-the-star
@pandora-opens-the-box
@sunshine-boy-official
@enjolsaurus-rex
@moony-loves-chocolate
if you like my blog you should check out my amazing mutuals whom I love and adore:
@xenocollector LES MIS RAAA
@sauntering-vaguelydownward literally so sweet ilysm/platonically
@marylily-my-beloved love you Fatimah omg
@cheekyboybeth very purple coded person and very cool also so genuinely lovely
@theoristswan5683 literally so nice omg they have the loveliest vibes š
@ashstillalive Amazing writer amazing person will happily beta read for you anytime
@mae-occasionally-reads so sweet so lovely so cool so glad weāre mutuals love you so much/platonic vibes only MY BEST FRIEND
@definitionoffuckup very cool individual
@rafaelthesilly I KNOW YOU IN REAL LIFE POOKIE YOURE THE BEST LESBIAN BUDDIE MY AMAZING SPOUSE ILYSM (platonically)
@ineffable-ezra I have more octopus facts for you!!!!!!!
@garden-of-runar the coolest person alive still canāt believe you followed me back
@ravenwordss literally so sweet love you/pl
@pyromaniacbibliophile my spouse bc we are married
@cossie-fauchelevant the one and only cosette to my enjolras <3
@delinda24601 SHES SO COOL MY IRL BUS BESTIE LOVE HER TO BITS I FOUNDED HER FAN CLUB SHES SO SUPER COOL GUYS š©·š©·š©·š«¶š«¶š«¶š«¶š«¶š«¶
@im-on-crack-send-help RIYANAAA SO SUPER COOL ILYSM
@startswithahell - cant wait for those unhinged asks omgomg
#introduction#lesbian#agender#les mis#marauders#good omens#pjo#hunger games#aru shah#Autism#adhd#writing#poetry#Doctor who#Maisie peters#queen#house on the cerulean sea#under the whispering door#in the lives of puppets#tj klune#Taylor Swift#boygenius#the last dinner party#chappell roan#renne rapp
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OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY-
#IM SCREAMING RN#IM GOING TO PASS AWAY#TJ KLUNE I LOVE YOU#SOMEWHERE BEYOND THE SEA#THATS SUCH A GREAT NAME#somehwere beyond the sea#gotta make a new tag#the house in the cerulean sea#tj klune#THITCS#linus baker#arthur parnassus#wolfsong tj klune#wolfsong#under the whispering door#in the lives of puppets#the Antichrist#sequel
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T.J. Klune and V.E. Schwab, two popular and beloved authors with large queer fan bases, both naming their asexual main character Victor give evidence to a secret society for queer authors and I will hear no arguments otherwise. From now on I propose we assume all characters named Victor are asexual unless explicitly told differently.
#villains series#in the lives of puppets#did they just say there's something about the name victor that oozes asexuality?#tj klune#ve shwab#asexuality#lgbtq+ books#queer fiction#victor vale#victor lawson
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Bi-Yearly Book Catalogue (2024)
Every book Iāve read the past six months and what I thought, told as briefly as I can manage.
One Star Books:
Loveless by Alice Oseman
I understand that this book was helpful for a lot of people. It was the opposite of helpful for me.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
My gripes with this can be whittled down into: this writer does not understand depression but really, really wants to cure it. Also, if you do decide to give this book a try, please mind the subject material. It really, really isnāt for everyone.
Two Star Books:
N/A
Three Star Books:
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
A simple book about an old man learning to want to live again. Where āThe Midnight Libraryā failed for me, this one succeeded. If you plan to read this one, be mindful of the content warnings. It also isnāt for everyone.
Lily and the Octopus by Steven Rowely
Itās about a dog who has cancer. I think that says it all. There were parts of this book I really liked and parts I really didnāt like. It lost me halfway through and I stopped caring about the stakes, which is really upsetting when the stakes are a dog. But the good parts are really, really good. Just be mindful of the premise going into it.
In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune
I liked the character work, loved the world building and on a technical level the writing was well-done. My gripes have to do with the storyās internal contradictions and how the only character traits I can think of for the main character are āasexualā and āinventor,ā neither of which are explored properly (emphasis on asexual here). I didnāt like that despite being 21, the main character was narratively treated like a child, often involving his sexuality. I had to google how old he was multiple times because I couldnāt believe he wasnāt in his mid-teens given how he reacted to the story and how the story treated him. Loved the writing on a technical level, though, and I do plan to read more from this author.
Four Star Books:
Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree
A COFFEE shop AU? In MY high fantasy? If you like DnD, low-stakes high-fantasy and fun character work, give this one a read. Itās very cozy.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Itās a book about a nonbinary tea monk and a robot who lives in the mountains. Slow-paced with good vibes and great world building. I read it in an evening and came away from it feeling warm.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Achilles and Patroclusā relationship breaks my heart again. This was incredibly well-written and appropriately devastating. I just wanted them to be happy.
Countdown to Countdown by Kong Xiao Tong (graphic novel)
I bought a physical copy of this because Iāve always loved the artistās work and wanted to support, and I enjoyed it a LOT. Beautiful art, fantastic characters. I know not everyone can avoid a physical copy, but the webcomic is available to read for free online and I highly recommend giving it a try.
Our Dining Table by Ori Mita (manga)
Learning to enjoy mealtime with loved ones again after childhood trauma? Yāall. Itās a single-volume manga and itās well worth your time.
Five Star Books:
Beartown by Fredrik Backman
This was the most devastating book Iāve ever read. If you are interested in reading it: find a list of content warnings first. I went in blind. It is hauntingly real and the author handled the material so, so well. I canāt recommend this book without that caveat. But itās one of the best-written books Iāve read.
The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson
This book is about a man looking back on his life as a boy - the friends he made and the misadventurous ghost-hunts his uncle dragged them into. Itās just the right amount of campy with fun characters and a brilliant use of prose. If youāre a less experienced reader and want a book that is easily digestible while also being extraordinarily well-written, Iād recommend this book in a heartbeat, and itās every bit as entertaining for more advanced readers.
What you are looking for is in the library by Aoyama Michiko
Five stories about five people, all in different stages of life, and their unique experiences with the same librarian and the same library. Individually, each character in each story has their unsatisfying lives changed in an unexpectedly simple way, thanks to the library. Thereās nothing wild about this book, but it is wildly impactful. The library is for everyone!
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
Heroine travels the treacherous seas to save the man she loves. Itās a book about perspectives and joy and making unlikely friends, breaking curses through clever means and never, ever giving up. It has all the whimsy of a classic fairytale, yet not once could I predict how it was going to end. Itās fast-paced and hard to put down. The world is intriguing and the characters are wonderful.
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
This book is utterly mind-bending and I loved it. Two time-travelers chase each other through reality on opposing sides of the Time War and gradually fall in love. Itās great. The biggest complaint I see leveled at this book comes from less experienced readers who struggle to follow the narrative - and I do agree, if youāre just getting into reading for fun this might be a book to save for later. But donāt let me stop you. I loved this book.
Conclusion:
Reading is great. Libraries are your friend. I always love book recommendations and Iām on GoodReads as BeyondTheClouds777, predictably. If any of yāall take a stab at these books (or have taken stabs in the past), Iād love to hear your thoughts! Iām back in my bookworm era and thriving.
#Cloudās book club#Book reviews#cloudās book club 2024#anyway#this is how you lose the time war#tress of the emerald sea#what you are looking for is in the library#the Saturday night ghost club#beartown#our dining table#countdown to countdown#the song of Achilles#a psalm for the wild-built#legends and lattes#in the lives of puppets#lily and the octopus#a man called Ove#the midnight library#loveless
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