#i cannot go more than six months without the brainrot setting in

[aureliasfate]

I’M BACK IN THE FUCKING BUILDING (watching criminal minds and reading hotchniss fanfics)

[sendme-2hell]

Ranking the books I read in April

aka just ranting about the books I read in april pls ignore me

1. The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson 

I cannot believe this book wasn’t nominated for a Hugo! I like the Hugo list (of the books I’ve read) but cmon. This book is like if you combined the social commentary in The City We Became and the queerness of Harrow the Ninth. Seriously this book had everything I wanted: parallel universes, great character development, social commentary, woc sapphic slow burn, satisfying ending. Also I feel like the title is paying homage to W. E. Dubois which is cool. “Between me and the other world, there is ever an unasked question: How does it feel to be a problem?” Like there is just this very cool idea of talking about other worlds as in literally other universes but also different worlds due to social and racial hierarchies. 

2. Plain Bad Heroines - Emily m. Danforth 

Horror, Hollywood, boarding school, everyone is gay, the narrator talks directly to the reader and it is hilarious, copious footnotes, have I mentioned how many sapphics there are? It’s hard to keep track. Plus polyamory. I just really loved this book and I felt it all came together in a way that was worth it. 

3. Steel Crow Saga - Paul Krueger 

This godamn book. I loved this book so much. I was so ready to yell about it on tumblr and tell people to read it. But apparently the author is someone who has harassed a lot of women so...uh...yeah. Nevermind I guess.

 I do want to say it is the most accurate depicition of a Sherlock Holmes superfan that I have ever seen in media. 

4. The Tiger’s Daughter - K. Arsenault Rivera

What if we went on a long trip on horseback and we were both lesbian warriors...jk unless…

Yeah so I loved this book so much. A lot of it is about navigating familial responsibility, fighting literal and metaphorical demons, fighting the patriarchy, fighting your anger, fighting tigers, etc...and yet I kept thinking to myself “this is the most romantic book I have ever read” and honestly I am gonna stick by that. It also has the “you think me a monster so I will become one” trope which is great. It is set in an Asian-based fantasy world and I did read a goodreads review that said it was as accurate to the countries it draws inspiration from as Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse is to the Russian and Scandinavian cultures it takes from. So that’s not great. 

5. Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo

Speaking of! A few months ago I tried to read Shadow and Bone in preparation for the tv show and I could not finish it. The writing was...bad. Anyway I really liked Six of Crows and even though, yeah it’s tropey (I’m looking at you, Helnik backstory), there’s a reason those tropes work. Plus you cannot go wrong with a heist. About halfway through I did realize that there are six mcs and three couples so its kinda just like a giant triple date, which really changed how I read the whole story.

I’m very glad I did read it before seeing the tv show because I was able to be appropriately excited for the Crows and catch the Wylan reference and everything, but I also got to see the Alina stuff without having to read about it. 

6. Crooked  Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo 

I think I somehow liked this even more than Six of Crows, but for narrative simplicity I’ll put it after. I really like it when you put people in an impossible situation and see how they figure it out. Especially if they get out in a clever and reasonably possible way that ties together many different plot threads and has a few good fake-outs. This did all of that, and also developed every character in a way I found satisfying (except [redacted] *cry emoji*). 

Kaz pulls a Baru Cormorant with some money stuff and now I wonder if they would be friends. 

I read this after watching the show which was good because I knew who Zoya and Genya were but bad because there is a point where Nina is like “here is how shadow and bone ends.” She’s just talking to Mattias and casually spoiling everything for me. So there goes my dreams of living spoiler free until the end of the show. 

7. The Miseducation of Cameron Post - Emily m Danforth

My expectations for this book were....very different than it turned out, and I’m glad for it. After reading Plain Bad Heroines I shouldn’t have been surprised at how well written it is. I really appreciated how nuanced it is. It doesn’t spell out its ideas or themes and therefore lets you really sit with them. I would rank it higher but I don’t really enjoy reading about high school. 

8. Foundryside - Robert Jackson Bennett

I love a good found family, especially if at the beginning of the book they are on opposing sides. Enemies to friends = best trope! Also it’s sapphic that’s always good. But the best part of this book was the worldbuilding which was so cool. 

9. Malice - Heather Walter

Remember what I was saying about “you think me a monster so I will become one”? This book is the definition of that trope. Women becoming unhinged after being treated like shit, we love to see it! Especially if it’s gay. I do have to say, authors who write duologies where the first book ends on a cliffhanger, I see what you’re doing but yes, I will be preordering the next book. 

10. Fugitive Telemetry - Martha Wells

I don’t have much to say because Murderbot is so consistently excellent.  uh why is it so cathartic when xenophobes disrespect Murderbot and it’s humans step in and shut that shit down. Gets me every single time. 

11. Queen of Coins and Whispers - Helen Corcoran 

This book was like half romance half politics and unfortunately I did not find the politics that interesting or well written. But the romance was A+. It reminded me of Priory of the Orange Tree a LOT. Though significantly less dragons and I’m taking many points off for that. 

12. The First Sister - Linden A. Lewis

I wanted to like this book a little more than I did. There was just maybe too much body horror for me. Interesting characters and world though. There was  a location named Cytherea that they mentioned a lot and it was very distracting. I guess I still have tlt brainrot. 

13. Shorefall - Robert Jackson Bennett 

I think this book was well plotted out but it didn’t quite have my attention like Foundryside did. Also yet another book where a woman’s girlfriend ends up in her head. This time no one had to die so that’s nice. TM and SD take notes! 

14. The Deathless Girls - Kiran Milwood Hargrave 

Ok I LOVED the Mercies by KMH so I was a little disappointed in this Dracula retelling. It got interesting in the last 50 pages, but unfortunately that is not enough for me.

proud of myself for not reading a single straight book this April