#Nona the Ninth is on my reading challenge as ‘a book about a family’

[crowclubkaz]

a family isn’t always a man a woman and a child. sometimes a family is a child in a grown woman’s body, a man and a woman sharing the same body, a big strong lady in a big strong dude’s body, and also a six legged dog

[halfdeadfriedrice]

2022 Books in Review!

Some half-dead fried reflections about how my annual 100 books challenge went! With recs (a few)! Behind a cut because it's self-indulgently wordy.

This year I read:

32 manga

7 non-manga comics and graphic novels

11 audiobooks

2ish short stories (i'm SORRY i was SHORT this year and also I wanted to track them)

Which makes it 49 novel (-length, I am also counting the single prose biography here, - 39) /novellas and assorted (12) /poetry books (2) /short story (collections mostly - 5)

Things rec'd to me: 4-ish things! (one of the manga series counts)

I tried: 23 new authors!

Which does mean that traditional(ish) novel-length scifi/fantasy edged tied with graphic formats, except a bunch of them were audiobooks, so the majority (on this slightly wonky pie chart) of pages in front of my eyes this year were illustrated! Honestly a lot of this year was spent video gaming, and also; I didn't find a lot of books I liked!

My favorite books of the year: A lot of my favorite stuff this year were sequels I'd been awaiting!

The Oleander Sword - Tasha Suri Sequel to "The Jasmine Throne," it's some pragmatic, powerful, incredibly devoted queer ladies doing coups, seizing power, murdering their brothers, etc. Middle book in series, maybe I knew a bit more about how this one would go than The Jasmine Throne, which was absolutely ruthless, but I loved where it went as a sequel and I long for the third.

Into the Riverlands - Nghi Vo Technically the third in a series (The Singing Hills Cycle) about a wandering priest who collects stories for an archive - all sorts of stories, everyone's stories - but it stands alone, and it has the martial story flavor that unfortunately all the shonen anime and wuxia stories have given me a preference for. I like knight-errants and wandering samurai and People Who Punch For the Good Of Others, what can I say.

Only a Monster - Vanessa Lem Recommended in the back of CS Pacat's Dark Rise, a book I wanted to like more than I did and am hopeful about its sequel, Vanessa Lem's "Only A Monster" (first in its series?) is DOING enemies to lovers it is DOING it dark and scary and fun. Time travel but it's killing people? Can you save the people you love, and at what cost to the world? 10/10 would thrill again.

Nona the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir Third in the Locked Tomb series; it's a puzzle box unfolding, and while I love Nona, who is a perfect baby, and am obsessed with the Cam/Pal/Pyrrha dynamic, and of course the prose is wonderful and funny and scary, I am chomping at the bit for Alecto. I think, much like Gideon, which needed Harrow for me to start recommending it to people, but probably remains my favorite book in the series, I await Nona's echo. But also genuinely one of my favorite reads this year.

Undercover and Princess Floralinda and the Forty Flight Tower by Tamysn Muir Floralinda's a reread but Undercover is new; without reservation (I mean, unless you don't like dark things and a bit of gore) I recommend Muir's novellas, which are queer and loving exercises in genre and funny as hell

Flyaway - Kathleen Jennings A fairy tale sort of story, but one set in and pulling from Australian mythos; small town drama and generations of families issues and questions about personhood and all the fun things you can do with a myth. The beginning is confined - push on.

The Golden Enclaves - Naomi Novik I slipped and fell and am currently reading a slightly-more-than-mediocre HP longfic and it is making me crave a Scholomance reread, which has definitely been marketed as an HP read-instead but like, lets its characters experience challenges and narrative threats (also, the Golden Enclaves is an INCREDIBLY satisfying ending for a series. talk about sticking the landing. waow. also also, has a pragmatic manipulative ice queen playing a major role. i have a type and it's clever people who can more accurately be called 'a huge bitch'.)

Gonna throw Sas Milledge's "Mamo" in here, because the art is incredible and the story is sweet.

Manga I read:

Full Metal Alchemist - I finished this early in the year (it was my push to finish my challenge last year) early this year - I hadn't ever read it, it was a treat to see what all the fuss was about. It's genuinely such a good series, with complex moral/ethical questions and good suspense and humor.

Dungeon Meshi - Read this on slow days in the office and also while I had covid! It's a cooking manga - a party of adventurers needs to rescue one of their dead party members, and the only way to stay strong enough in the dungeon (and, they're broke, so the only way they can afford to delve) is to start cooking and eating what they see! The story is like, fine. The recipes and the focus on fictional beast cooking is the real treat here. There's also a cat girl later, which always makes me happy.

xxxHolic Rei - I figured out how to set up a manga reader on a borrowed ipad and finally finished out the xxxHolic series with its semi-sequel, Rei. I loved Rei - I like reading CLAMP stories but one of their stock main characters usually get to turn from "harassed and shouty" to "cool and mysterious" during the like, last 3 volumes, and so some more time with Cool Watanuki - this makes me feel like a jerk surely there's a better way to phrase this; Watanuki missing the No Homo character trait - whatever, it was good to see him, and it was good to get some good retconning and pursuit of a happier ending. Also, beautiful. CLAMP is always beautiful.

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles - inter-reads with xxxHolic, but the library didn't have all of them, so my initial reading of Holic mised a lot of references. This is good though, because Tsubasa is Incredibly Referential to all of CLAMP's other series, which by now I have at least a passing familiarity with. I just started this one, I'll see if I keep it up. I do feel like I'm finally in a place to appreciate it!

Boys Run The Riot - High schoolers trying to invent their own fashion brand - it's half fashion and half queer coming of age for our transman main character, as he makes friends and figures out how he can live in the world (and make his fashionable mark in it).

Also some yaoi, you know.

Books I will talk shit about (is this a real category? what are you doing. Look I don't finish a lot of books I don't like so there's definitely more in my "DNR" list but these I pressed through):

The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires Strange and Stubborn Endurance Hands of the Emperor

[kikuism]

he mariam!!! 🤍🤍🤍 now that our darkest month of year in the northern hemisphere begins i start searching out bright things like a crow ✨✨ what are some things that have brought you joy recently?? like a book, a recipe, a song, anything at all 💖

hi jenna!! 🤍🌟🐚 i love this ask so so much!! here are some things that have been giving me a lot of joy recently:

the singer tamino

vampire au!!!!! my ocs in general 💕💕💕

you!!!! i've said it before but you give me such peace of mind and i just feel safe in your presence jenna 🤎☕

foreign films and shows, besides anime—i don't consider anime foreign anymore, it's as familiar to me as the back of my hand—i love consuming foreign media so much. and it's so wonderful to get a glimpse of different cultures. some i enjoyed a lot (squid game, and then we danced), some i enjoyed less (dark, young royals), but the overall experience has been so enriching! especially in this plague era, my wanderlust has been hitting way harder than usual. so it's just such so lovely to be able to consume media from places i normally wouldn't even have thought about, and i always end up learning something new and developing a new interest. i'm really grateful for translators, and to the people who make this content, for sharing it with everyone around the world, that someone sitting halfway across the world can experience the creations of others. it just hammers home the point how vast and varied this world is and there's so much rich culture just waiting to be explored. i really do feel so blessed that i can be a part of it.

skip to loafer. this is the first romcom/slice of life manga i've read and it's become soooo dear to me. i always gravitate toward heavier more mature seinen stories, so something like this was just way out of my ballpark and i really wasn't sure it was going to be for me. and it just melted my heart from how sweet and wholesome it is. i'm beyond ecstatic that we're getting an anime!!! i read a lot of manga this year but this one, for its sheer opposite vibes of what i usually read, really stands out.

my tiny group of online friends that makes my heart feel so warm—my day just feels that much brighter knowing that @cofidea and @lissar and @schech are out there existing and that they grace my dash with their presence 😌 you three are the only people i talk to with any regularity here so and i'm very grateful for that.

calico critters/sylvian families 😭😭😭😭 they bring me SO MUCH JOY. one day i will own a set!!!!!

the locked tomb series by tamsyn muir. i recently finished my reread of gideon the ninth (my first reread of anything ever.......), and i'm just blown away by how sharp, concise, snappy and professional the writing is. it makes every book i try to start afterward feel soooo average hgjsjfjf. now onto the behemoth that is harrow the ninth.....it's so challenging but i'm ready to tackle it again with notes this time so i can fully understand what's going on hgjdhfhf. i'm so excited for nona the ninth and alecto the ninth.....i want to recommend this series to everyone but i have not the faintest idea how to even start explaining what it's about, other than 'lesbian necromancers in space', which is all the information i had when i went into this series. so my advice is.....go in completely blind. it will be the ride of your life.

this really banging butter chicken recipe.....i hadn't made butter chicken in years so i was nervous to make it again, and i used a new recipe this time and i Loved it. i'll put the recipe here....this is a ginormous amount so feel free to scale down obviously jfhdhf

the song queendom by aurora. it's sooooo lovely and just instantly comforts me. aurora is such a magical soul and i'm really happy to have discovered her.

the youtube channel twoset violin 🎻🤎 they singlehandedly ignited my love for and genuine interest in classical music. as someone who is not a musician and has no musical knowledge at all, i'm in awe just watching them explain everything about violin in a way even i can appreciate. i love how their content is accessible for musicians and non musicians alike. and of course they're professional violin players, so it's a treat every time they play. i just really love when someone has specialized knowledge in something and they talk about it....i could listen for hours and that's one of the reasons i absolutely love their channel. it's so educational. i'm like a sponge drinking up all this new information. they deserve all the views and all the subscribers and i genuinely just wish them all the best, they're so brilliant and talented and hard working and hilarious.

this pin i got for my bag 💕

and that's all i can think of for now!!!