#shoutout our survival no judgement for those of us who don’t

[subtlesolitude-tailoredtaste]

😂📿🧿

“That’s why high school, or a crappy job, or any other restrictive circumstance can be dangerous: They make dreams too painful to bear. To avoid longing, we hunker down, wait, and resolve to just survive. Great art becomes a reminder of the art you want to be making, and of the gigantic world outside of your small, seemingly inescapable one. We hide from great things because they inspire us, and in this state, inspiration hurts.”

— One of the best articles I’ve ever read. Rookie Mag. By Spencer Tweedy. (via wildyork)

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

some Bangers above!! i'm hopping on all those trains (i have not read RUBY VEIL and AMBERLOUGH, but i trust ur judgement here).

i, too, went through All My Goodreads Ratings, all the way back to when i started using GR (in, uh. 2017). from most- to least-recent reads, here’s my favorite niche SFF:

BUTCHER OF THE FOREST by Premee Mohamed (2,238 ratings) haunting!! exactly a perfect little book for me!! this one’s newer so i’ll excuse the low number of ratings. for NOW. our protag has been pressed into rescuing a tyrant’s kids from an otherworldly forest—delightful horror of a fairy tale.

FLIGHT AND ANCHOR by Nicole Kornher-Stace (138 ratings—criminal?!?!) this is the perfect mix of heart crimes and hilarious and i had a great time, plus it’s a shortie (fits in the universe of FIREBREAK!). think box car children but in a hypercapitalism dystopic high-tech future with supersoldier children marketed as action figures.

NOTHING BUT THE RAIN by Naomi Salman (2,737 ratings) PTERODACTYL SCREECHING what a hilarious deeply fucked up weird book!! yes queen explain NOTHING, give me an ENTIRE NOVELLA of GASLIGHTING by the RAIN and [REDACTED], this has been living rent free in my head since I finished it (there is both animal and child death though, be advised)

WALKING PRACTICE by Dolki Min (2,335 ratings) MUMU, MY BELOVED, I'M STILL THINKING ABOUT YOU, what another gr8 deeply fucked up funny lonely tragic queer little book. this one’s about an alien who crash landed on earth trying to survive, and everyone’s gotta eat, right?? (also wow check the content warnings)

DRIFTWOOD by Marie Brennan (855 ratings—HOW?!?!) this is SUCH a melancholic apocalyptic fantasy with multiverse vibes by the same author of THE MEMOIRS OF LADY TRENT about where worlds go to die, gosh please go read this, it’s lyrical and lovely and heart wrenching

THE REFRIGERATOR MONOLOGUES by Catherynne M. Valente (3,966 ratings) shoutout to all the fridged women in comic books, i rated this one 4 stars (i love valente) but i'm surprised it hasn’t broken 4k ratings yet?? what is going on

ALL THOSE EXPLOSIONS WERE SOMEONE ELSE’S FAULT by James Alan Gardner (1,212 ratings). superheroes! ridiculous! funny!! i read this a long time ago, so i don’t remember many specifics except that i had a great time.

honorable mention to LEECH by Hiron Ennes, too—it’s at 8,285 ratings, which is more than 5k BUT less than 10k and it needs MORE READERS (winter chateau gothic horror Agency: The Book, featuring POV fuckery!, one of my All Time Faves!! i'll be rereading this in the fall)

What's your favorite niche SFF book? Something that doesn't have a fandom, but still matters a lot to you? (Lets say, less than 5000 ratings on GR?)