#The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

[meltotheany]

Goodreads | Amazon US | B&N | Blackwell’s | Bookshop ♡ this audiobook is free with my amazon membership this is maybe the best short story collection i have ever read to date. i was blown away by how many back to back five stars i was giving, and how each story felt so real and each story was so deeply felt by me. to me, this really is a collection about identity and connection and how we embrace, enhance, and find those things in so many life experiences. from church and sex, to motherhood and sisterhood, to our queerness and our connections, to how we were raised and our relationship to our families currently, to just every facet of life. i just loved this wholeheartedly and completely and i recommend so very much. (also, i really loved the short story fuckboy museum in the peach pit anthology by this author! and it made me want to read everything by them!) ━━♡ Eula ★★★★ “But maybe you should question the people who taught you this version of God. Because it’s not doing you any favors.” oh i really loved this, and such a great and strong start to this anthology. this short story follows two women in their 40s celebrating the y2k new year. they are both teachers, and both have shared a lot of their lives with each other, and this focuses on glimpses of the past ten years, where they have also been lovers, with very different thoughts on what a happy life should look like. tw/cw: mentions of infidelity ━━♡ Not-Daniel ★★★ this is a very short story that is showing a hook up between two people who are taking care of their mothers in a hospice center. this felt very real and very harrowing and there is really no words for a situation as cruel as this, but i also didn’t love reading it. tw/cw: hospice setting, cancer mentions, grief, anxiety, depression, mention of maybe infidelity ━━♡ Dear Sister ★★★★★ i really loved this. this is a letter being written by a sister to a sister she has never met before. it is in the midst of planning their fathers funeral, and she is detailing the events to this sister that she never knew. this was just the perfect balance of sad and heartwarming, and it just felt so very real to me. tw/cw: loss of a parent (stroke), mention of loss of a grandparent (heart attack), alzheimer mention, mention of abortion, grief, abandonment, brief mention of infidelity, unwanted touch, funeral setting ━━♡ Peach Cobbler ★★★★★ “…maybe I could make a cobbler that pleased God. And maybe that would please my mother.” a very powerful short story about a young girl growing up watching her mother have an affair with their pastor. and her learning to recreate the perfect peach cobbler, that her mother makes every monday, in the hopes that maybe her mother would see her and love her. i know i sound like a broken record, but truly all of these stories just feel so real and the sadness and hurt and loneliness are just so easily felt in so few pages. i also feel like i could truly taste the tartness, the sweetness, and the softness of this story on every page. tw/cw: infidelity, child abuse, abandonment, neglect, mention of sick aunt/sister, loss of a aunt/sister. ━━♡ Snowfall ★★★★★ two women, shoveling the snow from their northern home, being nostalgic for their southern upbringing. this has big themes surrounding the feelings of giving away the past you loved for a healthy future that allows you to live the life you deserve to live. i just like really loved this one wholeheartedly and so very completely. tw/cw: brief mention of infidelity in past, implied homophobia, homophobia in past from parent, abandonment ━━♡ How to Make Love to a Physicist ★★★★★ this story starts out at a conference, where we follow two people who meet for the first time and stay up talking late into the night. and then we get to see their journey after the conference is over. this is a really beautiful depiction of a relationship growing, and how other relationships in life can impact that (very ...

[libraryleopard]

new deesha philyaw!!!

[daricommons]

She didn’t know whether Mama remembered her. But it was enough to know that Mama wanted her to believe she did.

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

[lucyfrostblade]

🪢 A headcanon about their family, 📓 A headcanon about their hobbies, 👗 A headcanon about their clothes, 🔪 A headcanon relating to fighting/violence (for both ivy and lucy please i love your takes)

headcanon ask game !!

Lucy:

🪢 A headcanon about their family

one of lucy's parents (i say she has two moms but that's unrelated to the current headcanon) was born in the mountains of chaos and moved to elmville with her own parents when she was an older teen, around 16 or 17. the official reasoning was that it was safer to raise a family in elmville and a desire to live a life less rooted in survival and more in living, but the real reason but that lucy's grandparents had gotten some vague communications from ruvina that some time in the coming decades that a frostblade would be needed in elmville.

📓 A headcanon about their hobbies

credit to @vortahoney for starting this conversation with the other day !! lucy reads sad girl books, be it weird sad girl or hot sad girl. an absolutely remarkable thing by hank green, severence by ling ma, our wives under the sea by julia armfield, my heart is a chainsaw by stephen graham jones, olga dies dreaming by xochitl gonzalez, gods of want by k-ming chang, bad cree by jessica johns, the secret lives of church ladies by deesha philyaw.

i think i said to spence that i don't think she would read horror or the weirder books yesterday but i have changed my mind. she doesn't read the goreriest stuff or even truly weird stuff, but she doesn't shy away from it either.

👗 A headcanon about their clothes

lucy dresses like it's winter every single day. every since she became a frost gensasi, it's been hard for her to stay warm. it doesn't exactly bother her, it's comfortable, but she misses it, you know? so she's always wearing sweaters even on the hottest summer day, trying to chase the warmth she remembers from early childhood.

🔪 A headcanon relating to fighting/violence (for both ivy and lucy please i love your takes)

she's depicted in the official art as having a morning star and i am a little bit obsessed with that. it implies either a strength that isn't necessarily evident in her character design, or that she's just carrying around a weapon that she can't really use. i lean more towards the former, and that she has a tendency to be more involved in combat than any of the other rat grinders are completely comfortable with. she'll always try and keep combat from breaking out but once it does she can wack people with her morning star and then cast healing word as a bonus action. it's fine guys, she promises. of course if someone gets badly hurt she'll focus on that but let my girl hit people in between. especially post-resurrection it's one of the only ways she feels comfortable expressing anger.

Ivy:

🪢 A headcanon about their family

ivy moved to elmville shortly before freshman year with her mom. her parents divorced during the last year of middle school. it was messy, and they absolutely had the worst fights right in front of ivy for most of her childhood. in the end, ivy was made to chose between staying in fallinel with her dad or moving to elmville with her mom, and she chose the latter. she sees her dad a couple times a year now, but her mom isn't much more present despite the fact that they live under the same roof.

📓 A headcanon about their hobbies & 👗 A headcanon about their clothes

archery itself could be considered a hobby, i don't know if you have any experience with it. personally i am pretty shit at it but i am getting back into it anyway. back to ivy though, i imagine it started out as a hobby before it became who she was. summers spent shooting at targets instead of playing with the other kids, and after school time was spent more on practice than her homework.

i imagine that once she starts aguefort she's similarly intense about it but picks up an actual hobby or two now that she has time in school to be intense about it. something tactile, maybe knitting or crochet? i lean knitting for ivy bc it's simpler and more practical but she could still use it to make crop tops and tank tops. i think she'd have fun with it. and she makes oisin count her rounds for her. it's hard, okay?

🔪 A headcanon relating to fighting/violence

ivy's an archer which creates a certain distance from the violence she enacts. the first thing she kills is a deer while on a hunting trip with her parents. for a while it's just game, then when she starts aguefort it's rats and monsters. even in battle against other people (against lucy) it's easy enough for her to keep her distance from the reality of violence against another person. she didn't touch lucy when they killed her, just stood by the treeline and aimed. the distance doesn't help with the guilt, doesn't stop the nightmares.

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

[bookloure]

Books finished in May| May has been a good month, but I'm also ripe for another social media break! When I took a month break last March, I decided I will do it periodically—quarterly, in fact. So I'll be gone again for a bit in June, from the third week (because I still have a book to review) up to the second week of July. Sana afford ko mag sabbatical chz.

Now let's talk about books—the highlight is I discovered that I loooove body horror because of a random eARC I got. The cheka part is that I gave my first 1star of the year. Anyway, here are the 10 books I finished this month, ranked:

4.5⭐

📱 Kindred by Octavia E. Butler - It has been forever since I stayed up late because I can't put a book down. This totally did it. Of course I felt shit the next day, but damn it's so worth it!

4⭐

📖 It's A Mens World by Bebang Siy - It's a collection of the author's personal stories chronicling her girlhood in Manila. Funny, relatable and quite charming, but also dark in places.

📱 Welcome To Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration, edited by Ryan Marie Ketterer - Before this book I already had an inkling that I like body horror—Grease by Junji Ito and Earthlings by Sayaka Murata are two of my favorites, but this book gave me different flavors of body horror and I enjoyed sampling every story. Of course, I like some stories more than the others, but as a collection I honestly will give this 5 stars. It reminded me of Deesha Philyaw's "The Secret Lives of Church Ladies" in the sense that it feels very much like a cohesive collection. Top tier!

📖 Tao Sa Prowa: Mga Tala, Mga Taon by Allan Popa - Another stunning collection. It's a series of seemingly random vignettes on different aspects and phases of life, that is, until I came to the titular piece—then it morphed into a rounded collection. And the theme is revealed. I would say it's similar to Saglit: Mga Ala-ala't Muni by Rofel Brion, but (10x) better.

📱 Frieren: Beyond the Journey's End Volumes 7&8 by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe - I adore this series so much!!! It's starts in the end and shows the reader how we carry the people we meet to the future even though our time together is over. I tear up a lot reading this manga lol.

📖 Asintada: Mga Tula by Lilia Quindoza Santiago - Simple. Pero pag tinamaan ka bubukol for sure.

3⭐

📱 Giraffe and a Half by Shel Silverstein - Minsan trip ko lang bumasa ng children's book. Solid naman ito hehe.

📱 Sheets by Brenna Thummler - Loved the art style, the story, not so much.

1.5⭐

📱 🎧 Bel Canto by Ann Patchett - So disappointed with this because it's a highly anticipated read. I guess I'll just put my Goodreads review here: The writing is gorgeous because it's Ann Patchett, but I did not connect with this for some reason, so I was already planning to give it 3 stars... but then I found out what Peruvian historical event this book takes inspiration from and it just left a bad taste in my mouth the erasure and co-opting of POC stories and histories. I wouldn't have learned about the Lima Hostage Crisis if not for other Goodreads reviews. You'd hope that the telling of these stories would help shed light, but the author swept the Peruvians under the rug instead. In their own story. Very British Museum behavior.

And that's a wrap! 🌯 I already cried to LOTR: The Return of the King, so June is already going so well lol.

[mccoppinscrapyard]

Books Read/Listened To in 2023

* = owned

The Hellion’s Waltz by Olivia Waite (audiobook) : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In My Own Moccasins by Helen Knott- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Girls that Never Die by Safia Elhillo- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by Ashley Herring Blake- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Who Put This Song On? by Morgan Parker (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Almost American Girl by Robin Ha- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Love & Other Disasters by Anita Kelly * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez (audiobook)- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

And Yet by Kate Baer - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Ana María and the Fox by Liana de la Rosa * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Black Roses by Harold Green III- ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Patience and Esther by S.W. Searle- ⭐️⭐️⭐️

She Gets the Girl by Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

In the Neighborhood of True by Susan Kaplan Carlton (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wicked Beauty by Katee Robert (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

That Could Be Enough by Alyssa Cole * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Maus by Art Spiegelman * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? by Crystal Smith Paul * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Belle of the Ball by Mari Costa * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jewdrowski (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Sasha Masha by Agnes Borinsky * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Cheer Up! Love & Pompoms by Crystal Frazier * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Home Field Advantage by Dahlia Adler (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Love Charade by Allie McDermid * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Yazidi! by Aurelien DuCoudray and Mini Ludvin - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Bride Test by Helen Hoang (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Hello Stranger by Katherine Center * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Private Charter by N. R. Walker (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Island Wisdom by Annie Daly & Kainoa Daines - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies: A Lyric Essay by Julian Aguon (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bi: The Hidden Culture, History, and Science of Bisexuality by Julia Shaw - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Fire from the Sky by Moa Backe Astot (eARC) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Going Bicoastal by Dahlia Adler (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Fall Into You by Georgina Kiersten - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

An Island Princess Starts a Scandal by Adriana Herrera * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Sing Anyway by Anita Kelly - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

The Times I Knew I Was Gay by Eleanor Crewes * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Jazz Owls by Margarita Engle * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

She Was Made for Me by Jen Morris - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

You, Again by Kate Goldbeck * - DID NOT FINISH

The Tiny Journalist by Naomi Shihab Nye - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Payback’s a Witch by Lana Harper - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Gender is Really Strange by Teddy G. Goetz (eARC) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Well Matched by Jen DeLuca (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Love Flushed by Evie Mitchell - ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Skip! by Sarah Burgess (eARC)- ⭐️⭐️.5

The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Home is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli (audiobook) - ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw * - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Her Night With the Duke by Diana Quincy (audiobook) - currently reading

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata- currently reading

You’re a Mean One, Matthew Prince by Timothy Janovsky - currently reading

[pennyserenade]

i think its safe to say that i consume more movies and books than the average person (lol) and this year i’m trying to make an effort to make my watchlist and reading list much more diverse than years past. as you are all probably aware, this month is black history month and i thought i’d share some movies and books i love/plan to read this month and this year in case any of you are looking for recommendations!

for movies i plan to watch:

carmen jones (1954) starring dorothy dandridge, harry belafonte 

no way out (1950) starring sidney poitier

nothing but a man (1964) starring ivan dixon, abbey lincoln

anna lucasta (1958) starring eartha kitt

cane river (1982) starring tommye myrick, richard romain

losing ground (1982) starring seret scott

paris blues (1961) starring sidney poitier, diahann carrol

if beale street could talk (2018) starring kiki layne, stephan james

a raisin in the sun (1961) starring sidney poitier, ruby dee, claudia mcneil, diana sands

movies i recommend:

spider-man: into the spider verse (2018) starring shameik moore

a patch of blue (1965) starring sidney poitier 

do the right thing (1989) starring spike lee, giancarlo esposito, ossie davis, ruby dee

the defiant ones (1958) starring sidney poitier 

sorry to bother you (2018) starring lakeith stanfield, tessa thompson

nope (2022) starring keke palmer, daniel kaluuya 

the books intend to read:

kindred by octavia e. butler

parable of the sower by octavia e. butler

beloved by toni morrison 

incidents in the life of a slave girl: written by herself (non-fiction) by harriet jacobs*

narrative of the life of fredick douglas: an american slave (non-fiction) by frederick douglass*

girl, woman, other by bernardine evaristo

books i want to read/have seen other people recommend

maame by jessica george

post-traumatic by chantal v. johnson

jackal by erine e. adams

the fifth season n.k. jemisin 

caste: the origins of our discontents (non-fiction) by isabel wilkerson 

they were her property (non-fiction) by stephanie jones roger

all about love: new visions (non-fiction) by bell hooks 

the secret lives of church ladies by deesha philyaw

seven days in june by tia williams

honey & spice by bolu babalola

luster by raven leilani 

*i’m reading these for one of my school courses but i still think they are definitely worth noting 

[litcomp3]

Secret Lives of Church Ladies getting a TV adaptation!

~ S. Lundy

[africanamericanlit22]

When I first read Deesha Philyaw’s “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies”, I figured that the text would unpack the secretion and stereotypes of Black church women. However, after reading “The Instructions for Married Christian Husbands”, I genuinely received a sense of empowerment and liberation as she thoroughly explained her requirements for lust. The narrator isn’t ashamed to admit that she’s turned on by the “forbidden” access to married men. We also mentioned in class that the narrator witnessed her mother committing similar acts as she states, “I grew up watching my mother eating the crumbs and leftovers from another woman’s table” (148-149). She seems very confident in her sexuality and of who she is as a woman, which reminded me of Jazmine Sullivan’s “BPW.” Similar to Sullivan, the narrator feels liberated through sex, but it could be related to the possible lack of self-love. Both women feel as though they can thoroughly express themselves through their power of sex and they don’t feel the need to establish a long-lasting relationship with a man who isn’t worthy of anything but personal satisfaction.

“And how you never ever had it like this (oh)

And it’s a privilege to you hit (oh)

So act accordingly

Even though we ain’t official

You know I ain’t no regular girl”

-Velvet Tapp

[daricommons]

I’m not going to raise mine to go through life expecting it to be sweet, when for her, it ain’t going to be. The sooner she learns to accept what is and what ain’t, the better. She get a taste of that sweetness, she’s going to want it so bad, she’ll grow up and settle for crumbs of it.”

[userscully]

top 5 books please!! if that's too hard, you can narrow it down to ur top 5 books of 2022 :))) this is purely selfish btw I'm on the hunt for book recs

love me some book recs!! i read 50+ books this year so here's my top ones for 2022 in no particular order (a bit more than 5):

em by kim thúy (historical fiction, beautiful and quick to read, written in fragments that slowly come together)

the secret lives of church ladies by deesha philyaw (another quick read cause my attention span this year was nonexistent, a lovely short story collection)

lost & found by kathryn schulz (very thoughtful and profound memoir, listened to this on audio)

the poet x by elizabeth acevedo (ya book written in verse)

china unbound by joanna chiu (nonfiction, not a light read by any means but super insightful if u have any interest in history, journalism and/or political science)

fun home: a family tragicomic by alison bechdel (memoir in graphic form, just amazing stuff from the author/illustrator behind the bechdel test!)

the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald (finally read this one for uni and the writing style blew me away)

brown girl dreaming by jacqueline woodson (another book in verse, this one falls under children's lit but it's pretty ageless)

and for some silly and/or trashy romance (which i read a lot of this year) i enjoyed when a scot ties the knot by tessa dare and the love hypothesis by ali hazelwood once i completely ignored that a certain star wars romance was the inspiration for it

ASK ME MY “TOP 5″ ANYTHING…

[smalltownfae]

Book recs asks!

3, 5, 15, 24, 48, 61, 118, 129, 133, 134, 135

Is that too many? You can just pick the ones you like if it is.

It's alright. I love answering these so thank you for sending the ask :D Sorry in advance for the very long post though.

3. a stand-alone that you wish was part of a series

If anything, I always hope for more standalones. I read very few series until the end. The books and characters need to be really good to get me that invested. I can't think of any standalone that I would like to be a series so I am grasping at straws here and I am going to say Black Water Sister. I could do with more shaman shenanigans and seeing the mc with her girlfriend. But, tbh, I prefer it as a standalone. I am terrible at this... That's what happens when you have a preference for standalones anyway.

5. something in fiction that reads like poetry

Patricia A. McKillip is known for this. Her books can be quite lyrical. They tend to be short and have a fairy tale and dreamlike feel to them. Not all of her books feel the same and some are more confusing than others, but I would recommend starting with The Forgotten Beasts of Eld or The Changeling Sea, that are more straight forward. I also love Winter Rose, but that one reads like a confusing dream.

“I did not want to think about people. I wanted the trees, the scents and colors, the shifting shadows of the wood, which spoke a language I understood. I wished I could simply disappear in it, live like a bird or a fox through the winter, and leave the things I had glimpsed to resolve themselves without me.” (Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip)

15. a book rec you really enjoyed

Usually when my online friends recommend books to me they are right because they know my tastes the best.

There's Howl's Moving Castle recommended by @monpetitrenard, Momo by @whatevsbla, the manga Pandora Hearts both by @whatevsbla and @song-of-amethyst. Black Water Sister was also recommended to me. Persepolis was recommended by an irl friend too. I might be forgetting some. I should take notes of who recommends me what...

24. a book on your nightstand

That is always the book I am currently reading and my kobo. Right now I have The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and I am also reading For Real by Alexis Hall on ebook.

48. your favourite sci-fi novel

Dawn by Octavia E. Butler. Every book I read by her so far, except for Fledgling. Butler doesn't use weird scifi lingo. She keeps her stories very personal with a human focus instead of a scientific or technological one and I really like that. I never thought I would love a book with aliens and set aboard of a spaceship but here we are. Only Butler could do it.

Other scifi books I really like are The Left Hand of Darkness and Flowers for Algernon. I also used to love The Illustrated Man but I need to reread it before considering it a favourite still.

Klara and the Sun is also a favourite, but that is more literary fiction and Frankenstein is more of a gothic book, but I still need to mention those.

61. your favourite horror novel

My favourite horror subgenre in literature is gothic horror. I feel like I might like psychological horror but I need to explore that more. Horror (and psychological thrillers) is my favourite genre when it comes to movies, but somehow it doesn't work so well when it comes to books.

That said my favourite horror novel, if we don't count Frankenstein and The Picture of Dorian Gray, is We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

I got some horror book recommendations I still need to sink my teeth into and that is a genre I plan to explore more soon. This year I read The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell and I am interested in checking more of her books.

118. your favourite short story collection

Hands down The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw. I really like every story in it, which is rare to happen in short story collections. This is a book about women and their relationships with each other and religion. These are women leading lives that the church would disaprove of and it mostly involves their sexual desires.

‘There’s an old saying: mothers raise their daughters and love their sons.’

The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor is also a great one to check if you enjoy the above since it's also about the lives and strugles of black women (in this case women living in a poor neighborhood and how society fails them). Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata, Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue and Shiver by Junji Ito are also good, but not even close to that level. Also, Poirot Investigates is so much fun and a nice place to start with Agatha Christie.

129. a book with beautiful prose

My favourite writing style is something that feels just right. It doesn't look like the author is trying too hard like flowery writing nor does does it look like the author isn't trying at all. It's something in between those extremes. Because of that my favourite kind of prose is the one presented in the Realm of the Elderlings series by Robin Hobb and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Also, the feelings I get while reading those books are unmatched. It really does something to my heart and that is very rare.

133. a book that you came across randomly and fell in love with

Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier. I eyed it everytime I went to the supermarket when I was a kid, but I only ended up reading it much later in life (in my 20s) when I found it in the library. As a kid I just liked the cover, the title and the fact that it was inspired by a fairy tale, but I am glad I haven't read it then because that rape scene would be a shock. Nowadays, everything I pick up is calculated and I do not read anything just because the cover or title seems interesting anymore. I have a big list full of recommendations by other people or books I heard others talk about and sounded interesting. I find more success that way to be honest.

134. unreccomend any book you like!

Oh where should I start? This question can be taken both ways so I guess I will start with the shorter answer for the interpretation of a book I like, but I wouldn't recommend to people (or at least not most people). Those are Earthlings and As Meat Loves Salt.

With that out of the way, let's go to the salty interpretation.

Do not believe people that say The Name of the Wind is just like Farseer by Robin Hobb. Honestly, this is far from the worst book I have ever read now. I read so much worse, unfortunately, but I still hate that it is so popular while other books I love are not.

PS: I made myself angry while writing these so I apologize for letting my emotions show, but I am not taking anything back because these matters do make me really angry.

Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea is the worst thing I had the displeasure to attempt to read. It is incredibly awful and I have no idea how it ever got published. I couldn't even finish it and I stated my reasons here. At least it made me see that when I thought I had read bad books I hadn't seen nothing yet.

Fledgling by Octavia E. Butler. Look, I love her too, but this book ain't it.

Stop calling Circe and the Bloody Chamber feminist books because they are not. They are so not. No book that has women being awful to all other women because of a man is feminist and I would like everyone to stop saying it is. Also, a book isn't feminist just because you have a special girl you care for while screwing everyone else. Please, stop. Thank you.

The Last Wish makes me really impressed by how much people love it and don't notice that only female characters get screwed over while a rapist has the pity of the protagonist. It really makes me go hmmmm (and by hmmm I mean that sexism is very much ingrained in your brain and you should examine that. You can still like the book, but it would be nice to have you acknowledge that it is there, you know?)

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. Yeah, it's a kids' book, but it's a shit kids' book that should be put in the trash and stop being considered a classic because it has close to nothing of value to offer. More about it here.

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. If anyone likes this book they better not even open their mouths to talk about the trash I enjoy. This is pure edgy teenage boy fantasy and you know it. I can see why some people might find it fun, but these are the people that say a character is flat for being kind in a cozy fantasy. Have you looked at Jorg? He is flat but in the opposite way in the sense that he is just evil because evil is dark and edgy and isn't that nice? It isn't.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. It's a good thing that people stopped pretending this play is good since J.K. got "cancelled". I kept hearing the excuse of "oh you just don't like it because it's a play, but those are supposed to be different". Oh, it's different? I am in shock! That a play is different from a novel. No, what happens is I read actual good plays like The Importance of Being Earnest and Waiting for Godot. This argument was always the most ridiculous one.

135. recommend any book you like!

Everyone should at least try Realm of the Elderlings by Robin Hobb. That obsession is how this blog got created to begin with. I had a tumblr blog before but I came back because I had nowhere where I could scream about these books and even if this was an empty void at the time full of old posts and innactive accounts at least I could be annoying here. It's fine to start the series with either "Assassin's Apprentice" or "Ship of Magic".

Also, I am going to recommend some underrated stuff (or at least it seems like it is from what I have seen).

Short stories: Recitatif by Toni Morrison, The Nose by Nikolai Gogol

Poetry: Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith

Novels: Sistersong by Lucy Holland, The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell, The Language of Roses by Heather Rose Jones, Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh, The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa, The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Manga: Our Dreams at Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani, Solanin by Asano Inio, Pet Shop of Horrors by Matsuri Akino

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3 & 8 for the book ask!

🤩🤩 hiiiiii!! thank you darling!!

3. what we’re your top 5 books of the year?

amari and the great game by bb alston, legends & lattes by travis baldree, the dragon’s bride by katee robert (don’t look at me andjdjkckckfk), office hours by katrina jackson, and the secret lives of church ladies by deesha philyaw

8. did you meet any reading goals this year? which ones?

yes! i wanted to read 75 books this year, so far i’m at 111! i did. also wanted to read one nonfiction and one shakespeare play a month .... failed both of those 😅

[brooklynbornhaitian]

Books Read in 2024

Black Cake Charmaine Wilkerson

One True Loves Taylor Jenkins Reid

Thicker than Water Kerry Washington

Twisted Games Book 1 Ana Huang

Twisted Games Book 2 Ana Huang

It Ends With Us Colleen Hoover

The Secret Lives of Church Ladies Deesha Philyaw

Verity Colleen Hoover

Twisted Games Book 3 Ana Huang

After I Do Taylor Jenkins Reid

Ayiti Roxanne Gay

Twisted Games Book 4 Ana Huang

Black Girls Must Be Magic Jayne Allen

Riding In Cars With Boys Beverly (movie based on the book)

Dear Haiti, Love Alaine Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite

Breath, Eyes, Memory Edwidge Danticat

Daisy Jones and The Six Taylor Jenkins Reid

Somebody's Daughter Ashley Ford

Black Girls Must Have It All Jayne Allen

Black Girls Must Be Magic Jayne Allen

Before I Let Go Kennedy Ryan