#completed read

[slightlybiasedbookreviews]

Books read in January 2025

The Compass Rose Ursula K le Guin 📖

How Long 'Til Black Future Month N.K. Jemisin 🎵 read by various narrators

Oathbringer Brandon Sanderson 🎵 read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading

Rhythm of War Brandon Sanderson 🎵 read by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading

Continuing to work through the Stormlight Archive in order to catch up to friends. (As of writing this I am finished the series) I also spent some time reading a couple of short story collections from two of my favourite authors. The Compass Rose was delightfully weird!

[maxjwritess]

book review (mostly spoiler free):

the starless sea by erin morganstern 🐝🔑🗡️

~~~

“There are so many pieces to a person. So many small stories and so few opportunities to read them. ‘I would like to look at you’ seems such an awkward request.”

Okay, I’ve never done a book review here on tumblr so im gonna start with the basics here: I LOVED THIS BOOK! First five star read of 2025. It took me a little over a week to read and I read a physical copy I borrowed from the library 📖

Synopsis: Zachary Ezra Rawlins, a graduate student in Vermont, finds a book with no author in his campus library which, among brief descriptions of a fantastical mystic library, contains a real story from his childhood. Understandably, Zachary investigates, and finds himself tied in the fate of the starless sea, a magical library/world of books, cats, bees, and honey. A lot of honey. With the help of Mirabel the pink haired painter and Dorian the charming storyteller, Zachary discovers the history of the starless sea and realizes he might be the one to save it, too.

~~~

One of my favorite things about this book is how well it establishes its themes and thesis. There are a lot of moving parts and lessons that i got from reading this book and each and every one of them hit me in the perfect, most vulnerably spots. You might miss opportunities, but the story is always waiting for you. You might be afraid of the ending but an ending is the beginning of something new. You are the stories you write in your head, you are the stories you read and you hear, you are the stories you live in the real world, WE ARE ALL STORIES! Precisely what someone who has just graduated college (and is feeling very very aimless about having graduated college) needs to read

Also the romance. Oh my godddd the romance. I didn’t even know about the romance going in! It was such a pleasant surprise!!!! Zachary and Dorian are so special to me. As are time and fate. As are Simon and Eleanor. As are the moon and the innkeeper. Just so many beautiful romances in this novel that all compliment and reflect on one another. Romance is one of my favorite genres to read and this book uses the genre in such vibrant and beautiful bursts throughout a story that is already especially charming. I mean, a magical library underground? Secret book societies? So, so, so many cats? How much more romantic can you get! The strength of character really helps these romances flourish. They all feel so real, especially Zachary and Dorian. Oh my god, Zachary and Dorian…..

Speaking of character, I think there are absolutely no wasted or throw away characters in this book. Everyone and everything comes back to the story, nothing is left hanging astray for the reader to ask “what about [x]?” And it feels right for a book that emphasizes the inherent beauty of every human life (or even the lives of objects, of elements, of places and times) and all of the stories they have to tell.

Third person present tense was interesting. But I think it’s pulled off very well. It’s just removed enough to feel like im reading a history book or an account of something, but still close enough to make the characters and their emotions feel very real (and very relatable). I cried more than once, so it’s doing something right. God, i mean the line “(all cats are guardians in their own right)” made me BAWL, and this books discussion on what it means for something to end? So many tears

My only issues (and i wouldnt even call them issues) with this book came from personal preference with fantasy. I don’t read a lot of modern fantasy because I prefer worlds that are completely removed from our reality. This book references a lot of media from the real world which initially threw me off, but for the sake of the main character (game design major needs to know pop culture) and the importance of shared stories in general to the themes and thesis of the book, i did end up warming up to it. Even enjoying it, especially with the book references (Dorian being “very Oscar Wilde” made me giggle). Also, a lot of this book does take place in the secondary magical world, so it really didn’t bother me much at all.

Anyway, I could go on about this book for much longer. Maybe I’ll make specific posts about characters or scenes or themes that i like, but this was a 1am ramble just to get something On The Blog. Like i said, first five star read of 2025 and I’m so so happy i found it. It was a special read, very important for me right now. I sort of feel like finding it was a twist of fate in my own story :]

~~~

Here are my specific ratings:

Story 5/5

Characters 5/5

Setting 50000/5

Prose 5/5

Genre 50000000000/5

RATING: 5/5

Would I recommend to a friend? YES

~~~

Five out of five wolves: 🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺

[foolsocracy]

this is actually so funny. imagining garth quipping and contributing to the conversation in his head cause he forgot the rest of the teen titans can't pick up on his telepathy

[keferon]

Don’t mind me I just like to see him go bananas about cartoonish Autobot rules

Maaan…..if Prowl was in tfp he would spontaneously combust at least once a day

[carmelas]

[inkskinned]

idaho is already moving to repeal same-sex marriage. they say it's an overreach of the governmental power, and that the law should be determined by "state's rights".

trump is expected to sign an executive order banning trans women in women's sports. in the article i've linked there, he notes that the "biggest hand" (most applause) he gets is when he attacks trans women. isn't that interesting.

i know my own father voted for him. my own father, radicalized by podcasts and bad youtube, voted for this; felt smug about it. he genuinely believes the dems want to "put christians in camps." as if the dems could ever get off their silken asscheeks and actually do anything. i wish they had strong enough messaging to be misattributed like this.

my girlfriend and i worked the polls on election day, counting ballots. my father was eating noisily beside us. "see? you're freaked out about nothing." after all, i live in massachusetts: beautiful, expensive, no-working-transportation MA. the only state to go all-blue.

"if it's state's rights, you'll be fine," he said. i'd been sworn at a few days before this. a year ago almost to the day, i got hit in the head with an empty beer bottle. he said i was being dramatic. after all, first-adopter "the gay state" Massachusetts would rather explode than get rid of same-sex marriage. so what should i care, after all.

this man is a deacon. i guess he expects me not to get out of the car in any red state. i guess he thinks my relationship dissolves across certain borders. he doesn't see why it's concerning that i can't leave, because why would i want to. who wants to go to idaho? who cares about the real, living, breathing people in idaho.

(but then again: who cares about the real, living, breathing humans on deportation planes. they're not us. after all, my father came here legally. i am an american citizen because of birthright citizenship. i am even debating this because he immigrated.)

i texted my mom about it. i feel sick. no matter how much activism and research and outreach i do: it's always shocking to see a room full of people who hate you so much that they take legal action against you. on my small ex-work-laptop, i watch the shaking hands of people in idaho begging their representatives to reconsider. the fear in their voice is palpable. no person should have their relationship threatened this way. the motion still passes, 46-24.

it's all just happening so fast. i feel i am pushing my hands through glass pieces, watching the cuts before i feel them.

people often reference "first they came for..." when stuff like this happens, and while that's fair - there's a very quiet part of me that always says they're already at your door, you complete idiot. the same force that governs trans women's bodies will also be used against cis women. the censorship about supposed "DEI terms" will also be used to stifle science in general.

it won't just be idaho.

[fonulyn]

since I've seen it talked about in several places recently:

if you are going to do a whump- or kink- or ANY-tober or other similar challenges please please please don't post them as one fic with 31 chapters unless it actually is one coherent fic. if they're 31 completely separate fics or ficlets then please just make a collection for them or just post them as separate fics. it doesn't matter if they're only 100 words or if you think they're too small or insignificant to post alone, they're not.

and why this?

because if you post all 31 of them in one fic the tagging is absolutely useless. if I look for things to read on ao3 I'm gonna look at the tags, and if the tags include something that's a dealbreaker for me, i won't even click on the fic. I might not even SEE the fic because I've filtered out the nope-tag! so I'm gonna lose out on reading 30 perfectly nice fics because of one fic that my nope-tag applied to.

ao3 is about archiving. it's about clear tagging and being informative. there is nothing informative about it if the tags in the fic apply to random chapters while others have nothing to do with it. it makes so much more sense to have each work as an individual fic with its own individual tags and warnings, so readers can make informed choices.

of course, you do you. I can't police what other people decide to do. but personally, I find it incredibly frustrating to weed through 31 chapters to find the ones I actually want to read. so I don't. I automatically scroll past all works posted like that. and I know some others do, too.

there is absolutely no shame in posting short things on ao3. there is no minimum word count. no one is going to look at you funny if you post a small ficlet on its own, I promise. it's just going to make some readers very happy when they can actually find the things they want to read.

so, please. at least consider the upsides of posting each work as their own fic.

signed, one very frustrated fandom grandma.

[geezmarty]

you put up with what you think you deserve, and the things you want you resent

[ronanlynchbf]

tshirt that says NO LIVE ORGANISM CAN CONTINUE FOR LONG TO EXIST SANELY UNDER CONDITIONS OF ABSOLUTE REALITY

[slightlybiasedbookreviews]

Books read in September

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution R.F. Kuang 🎵 read by Chris Lew Kum and Billie Fulford-Brown I loved this book so much that the second I finished listening to it from the library I went and bought a paperback copy. Magic schools and anti-colonialism, what's not to love? Everyone should read this book.

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor 🎵 read by Mara Wilson A tragic meditation on revenge. I love that they were able to give us her backstory in detail while still allowing the Faceless Old Woman to remain mysterious.

How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse K. Eason 🎵 read by Nicole Poole An interesting twist on classic fairy tales. It is the fifth multiversal fairy tale novel I've read this year, and the only one purposefully chosen for that unintentional theme.

Lords and Ladies Terry Pratchett 📖 I always enjoy a Discworld Witches book. Probably would be funnier if I was better versed in Shakespeare. Also a multiversal fairy tale novel.

Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World Henry Grabar 🎵 read by Rob Shapiro Let's get rid of free parking and street parking!

[bixels]

It's crazy how Dungeon Meshi's manga can feel more cinematic and emotional than the anime to me, even when they're practically the same. Compared to the anime, this moment is such a heartbreaking gut-drop. The way Kui uses negative space and flat compositions to create a sense of horrific stillness is so key.

The way the text (Senshi's monologue) is sequestered to an empty corner of a panel or huddled away from the edge of its text box is not only a great way of showing Senshi's headspace (fearful, isolated, dissociating), but creates a visual representation of pause, as if you hold your breathe after each line. The first panel puts us directly in Senshi's perspective too (compared to in the anime, which puts us as an outside observer over Senshi's shoulder). The detail of the door and bricks so effectively implies that he stared at it for so long, waiting and hoping, that its image is burned in his memory. The wood grain, the brick arch, the number of rivets. The lack of dialogue in the second panel shows a moment of realization too –– "he's dead" (also a great example of the Kuleshov effect). And it's that pause that creates a beat and sets a great rhythm to his headspace, like a music rest: "He never came back." (oh god.) "I'm all alone." Finally, the third panel's negative space, cropping Senshi, shows how truly alone he feels. Without his family, the world ceases to exists. Under shock, he traps himself in a 1-foot radius, too scared to even perceive a world outside its boundaries; a world that can hurt him, kill him, make him disappear with it. There is only his body, the stone beneath his feet and against his back, his thoughts, and that awful bowl of soup.

Even though they're a series of flat images, there's an implicit reading of silence in Senshi's realization and horror. Kui influences your experience to slow down and take your time.

Compare this to the anime, which fills every shot with dialogue. The pacing is fast; we never get to sit in silence like we do with the manga. The horizontal frame allowed the boarders to add Senshi, turning the composition into an over-the-shoulder shot, which takes us out of Senshi's POV. They also added a zoom-out in shot one, which adds unnecessary energy to a very somber scene. The tightening on Senshi as a close-up reaction shot also dulls the moment. In the original panel, Senshi stares ahead at the empty space to his left as a shadow surrounds his mind. It not only shows how Senshi's senses are dulling and his world is shrinking (setting up panel three), but shows how terrified Senshi is of what's in front of him, how the air itself becomes pitch black and opaque, how Senshi is surrendering himself to fear. The pacing is understandable and necessary; this episode packed a lot of story content together. It's just a shame because it really (imo) deflated one of the most nauseating moments in Dungeon Meshi.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

(Accidentally mis-clicked enter on my last ask. Here's the full "ask")

What he says...

VS What I read...

("us" as in him and WWX, not the spider just to be clear)

They should make an adaptation called 'The Unfiltered', where Lan Wangji says exactly what's on his mind.

[dkettchen]

cursed construction core hi vis bra that came to me in a dream

In the dream I saw it in the window display of a hardware/DIY/trade shop, implying it was meant to be a practical garment designed for actual female constructions workers in a Female Armour level missed-the-brief attempt at gender inclusion

The practical support from the visible underwire combined with the hi vis implying it’s not meant to be worn as an undergarment, I just-

I blame my binge-reading ND Stevenson’s gender comics talking abt masculinity and femininity incl the one abt Victoria’s Secret lingerie yesterday for this monstrosity x’D

[somnimagus]

out of the frying pan and into the fire and into another frying pan that's also on fire

[id in alt text]

[inkskinned]

you know, you know. no gods, no masters, no kings on pedestals. everyone is fallible. death of the author. you know! you are balanced about your intake of media - you allow the wiggle room, the grace, the gratitude, the skepticism. nobody above criticism.

but still. a weird gut-punch feeling, something akin to betrayal. you read the article. surprise! an author you love is actually: a serial fucking predator.

well, shit. what now. no, you knew he was a person (all people are), but now you're wondering - what have i overlooked by accident? what messages have i internalized that are strange and cruel? and also, like, what the fuck?

his actions lay a thick glaze on top of everything. like each place is now ruined, opaque in a new way. but okay, fine, you've done this before. you knew better, right? you've been betrayed by many a cherished childhood author.

still, this stickiness. fuck. can you pick up that book again. will you read it to your children. you've recommended it to others - will you ever do that again? and of course, of course, no parasocial relationships. you were theoretically above this kind of sentiment. but the artist informs the art, right.

so it's not something as clear-cut as feeling he owed you, specifically (a stranger) better behavior - just that you kind of, in a distant and odd way... sort of trusted him to do better. it's not like a real trust or something speakable, just the faint hope that the product (good books) was a thin representation of the soul. now it feels like the product (good? books?) was a mask. in some small or insignificant way, your previous support of this person lent them power. your money and your time and your laughter.

and the thing is - you have this terrible, echoing sensation. how many times will this happen? over and over. you find out that the singer you love is actually a predator. you learn over drinks that your favorite high school english teacher is in jail for what he did to her. you listen to the news idly and suddenly discover that a woman you used to idolize has been abusing her kids for an actual eon.

what can you touch without the static melting off. you can't even really complain about it too much (you were supposed to know better, and besides, you don't want the same re-split "it's not your fault, love what you love" basic advice), but now it's here. somehow, it feels like - you let him into your life.

it's not that things need to be pure or an artist has to be like, endlessly perfect, mindful. demure. it's more just this terrible truth that has been replayed through your veins so often it feels criminally vain. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. did you want any one person to be worth that power?

it's just that he wrote books where he seemed to understand that. he seemed to know about hierarchies and unfair systems and bigotry and privilege. you thought they were books about what it means to struggle. you thought they were about having power and still using it for good rather than for control. he spooned you a narrative of being a good guy, a kind soul. you fucking bought what that fucking monster sold.

maybe that's why they were fantasies, after all.

[keferon]

It took me a while to read chapter 70 of Mistakes on mistakes until because I can't just. Youknow. read it. I have to be a total maniac and sketch everything I like as I read, so this whole chapter took me an absurd amount of time ahahaha