#that's the only reread on here altho i did a bunch this year!

[potatoleeksoup]

tagged by @harrietdufresnes to post my top 9 books of the year ⭐️ ty! had a really great reading year & it was hard to choose but these are some of my faves -- tagging @anamendieta @waulkingsongs @wonka2023 @amanitaphalloides @newsom and YOU!!!!!

[ladytauria]

2, 3, 5, 6 (and will you read it in the upcoming year), 10 ,14, 18, 20, 24 y 25!

thank you for asking!!! i had to grab books from last year bc this year was a bad reading year for me, but the questions were/are fun!

2. Did you reread anything? What?

i reread the last unicorn yesterday!!! bc i was feeling nostalgic. i made. a BUNCH more highlights in my kindle. (altho i read my physical copy lol.) there's just... so much good stuff in there, aah.

(oh ik u sent me an ask about this, idk if you saw it--ik tumblr is goofy--but its here! also, minor clarification: it doesn't have a *sequel* but there's a pair of novellas, released as one book, that are set in the same world!)

3. What were your top five books of the year?

i. didn't read very much this year at all. (er, published books! i did read a ton of fanfic). the beginning of this year was exTREMELY stressful, and in the latter half, all the books i started just. failed to grab me :/

that said!! i met my reading goal last year, so i will just include those!!

One of the books I did read this year was The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz, a v cute novella about a mechanic & an android. It's set a few centuries in the future, where robotics have advanced significantly. Intelligent AI were banned a long time ago, but those few whose bodies have not eroded / code hasn't corrupted are allowed to remain. The android in the fic runs a Tea Shop, which she inherited from her long-deceased lover <3 (The book is also sappic! I would love to read more of Katz's work.

Also, like I said, I reread The Last Unicorn, which I think would be on a top 5 in general for me, if I were ever to attempt to narrow that down xD. The prose in this book is beautiful; there are so many lovely lines. And the themes in the book--the play of mortality vs immortality, the structure of fairy tales & how the ppl in this setting are v much bound by them--are present from the very beginning, which was a fun thing to pick up on during my reread xD

All Systems Red by Martha Wells! I read a lot of sci-fi last year for some reason? Anyway, I adored this. Murderbot is a fascinating pov character & I love the choices Wells makes with it. My only gripe is that I could not immediately go out and buy the rest of the series.

Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger!!! this was. so cute. It's YA, I think? Yes, okay, Storygraph confirms this. The writing is lovely, and I adore the main character and the story! One thing you see a lot of--or, actually, I guess I should say I see a lot of--in YA is like. The rebellion against authority figures? Parents are often antagonists, and I understand why this is, but it was very refreshing that in this book Elatsoe's parental/adult figures were so present & involved & like. There was this mutual respect between them that I adored. Also, she can talk to ghosts? And solves her cousin's murder by doing so! And she has a ghost dog. What's not to love?? (Oh, and she's ace, which I think I remember her mentioning explicitly! Also, the way Native culture is threaded through the book is just. Lovely.)

Am. Am I already at 5. How did. How did I get to 5 already 🥺 *kicks foot* Okay. I. Would not be me. If I didn't mention Nona the Ninth. The only reason I didn't rec the Locked Tomb series to you is bc you mentioned not wanting sci-fi, and while there are a lot of fantasy elements, it is. Very sci-fi. Anyway. I admit that I was not enthused about going into this book. Nona was originally going to be a novella, released between Harrow & Alecto, and when I heard it was getting full novel status I was. Kind of not happy. But oh my god. It was so good. The first half, or maybe even 2/3rds, of the book is very slice-of-life, with Nona going to school & planning her birthday party (despite being only 6mo old). You can tell there is more Plot happening, but Nona is v much oblivious and also being kept out of it. And then the last half/3rd is Plot-Plot-Plot. And my god. That ENDING. Alecto can't get here soon enough, I'm. I need it. I need it. OH. Okay, no, I was right when I said half bc this book is the first split POV, in that every other chapter / every couple chapters is narrated by Jod. (The God Emperor, John Gaius) while he tells his story. It was fascinating, I thought I would hate those chapters, but he is. Such a compelling antagonist, omg. Also there were more memes uwu. First book I ever annotated along with as I was reading, too!! I---

Stopping. Cutting myself off. Sorry; these books make me gush.

5. What genre did you read the most of?

Normally the answer to this is fantasy, but! I think Sci-Fi won out <3

6. Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

Yes! Both last year and this year I meant to read some of my spooky-ish books for October and did not. Specifically! I meant to read:

Carmilla & Laura by S.D. Simper -> I have so many of Simper's books on my kindle, but this one is a standalone, which I've been prioritizing so I don't go buy more books w/o reading the ones I have. This is a re-telling, which I was going to read with / around the copy of the original that I have.

Plain Bad Heroines - Emily M. Danforth -> I believe this is told in a dual timeline? After three people are killed at a girls' boarding school, it closes its doors. Over a century later, a bestselling book is written about the girls and inspires a horror-film adaptation, filmed on-site. And I'm just going to use the last line of the goodreads blurb, bc it makes me want to read it now: But as Brookhants opens its gates once again, and our three modern heroines arrive on set to begin filming, past and present become grimly entangled—or perhaps just grimly exploited—and soon it’s impossible to tell where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins.

My Dearest Darkest by Kayla Cottingham -> One of the books I did start. I'm 9% in. It's a YA novel, also set at a boarding school. A group of girls accidentally summon an eldritch horror who promises to grant their every desire... for a price, which becomes steeper and steeper as time goes on.

The Lost Girls by Sonia Hartl -> Also YA! I got this one recently. A vampire turned by her boyfriend ends up falling for his latest victim, while plotting with his other exes to kill him.

There are a lot more I'm carrying into next year, but I am most disappointed in not getting to those!

Oh, and the Priory of the Orange Tree. (I'm. 20% through. This one is a Beast!!)

10. What was your favorite new release of the year?

I don't buy a lot of new releases for cost reasons---these days most of my books are purchased through ThriftBooks or eBook sales (I am subbed to a few sites which notify you of deals; my favorite of which is BookBub). However! I had Nona pre-ordered <3 So. Nona.

14. What books do you want to finish before the year is over?

any of them.

going into the new year with only 2 books read last/this year makes me very sad 🥺

18. How many books did you buy?

i plead the fifth

also i have no clue

20. What was your most anticipated release? Did it meet your expectations?

gotta go with Nona. i was a weird mix of both unenthused (bc this was supposed to be kind of a side novella) and enthused (bc i love this series and i wish i could do what Tamsyn Muir does) but it not only met but surpassed my expectations. Nona was... Nona's identity was a core mystery of the book; she was, more or less, a brand new character who never showed up in the previous two books, so i was. skeptical of going in, let alone to her pov.

but.

it was so good.

i. already gushed about it. i'm not. i'm not going to do it again.

24. Did you DNF anything? Why?

think i might be DNFing The Bookshop & the Barbarian. love the premise but i've noticed. a few issues in the text.

one i have def for sure DNF'd is Alma Katsu's The Deep. her books are horror + historical fiction. i finished The Hunger (which follows the Donner Party) but it was. very much a slog. i didn't like most of the characters, the horror was there but the reveal was lackluster to me. it got 3 stars tho bc it was very much a "this book isn't bad, just not for me" type of read? (there was an aspect i did like / even found kind of funny, but i--- hm. ig if you go in not knowing like, the names of the party members it would be a spoiler to say it, but otherwise i guess its... not a spoiler? idk??? i dunno, there was a subversion that i loved, but also i'm not super familiar with the specificities of the Donner Party so it may not have even been a subversion, if her telling was that accurate? i realize this is vague. apologies.)

The Deep is supposed to be abt the Titanic which. i love the Titanic, and i love ocean horror (it's a close second to arctic horror for me, and one day i want to find a book that scratches the same itch as The White Vault podcast does). but i realized early on that it wasn't a match for me, and i wish i had DNF'd The Hunger as well.

25. What reading goals do you have for next year?

my reading goals are the same every year---26 books. that's a book every other week! originally i used to set it to 52 but i've had too many bad reading years.

my secondary reading goal is to cut my TBR (of books i own) in half. i don't. i don't want to admit how many that is bc. just looking at the number on my kindle makes me feel bad.

[dillydedalus]

december reading + top10 of the year

books.

a feast for crows, my main man grrm (#4 asoiaf) tbh i think this one is underrated - i understand feeling a bit underwhelmed on a first read bc it’s so much slower than asos & half the major characters aren’t in it & you get a bunch of new ones instead, but the thematic depth here! brienne seeing the devastation of the riverlands, thinking about outlaws & broken men & vigilante justice, sansa & arya both embarking on their apprentice arc & losing their identity in the process, the political intrigue in dorne, & the fucking hilarious shitshow that is cersei’s kings landing.... love it. 4.5/5

herkunft, saša stanišić (audio, sadly abridged) really good memoir/reflection about belonging, origin (national, ethnic, linguistic, familial, emotional), family, and living in germany as a refugee.  it’s really smart, really heartfelt, really funny, and i’m sooo annoyed that my library only has the abridged version. oh yeah it won the german book prize shortly after peter ‘serbian war criminals’ #1 fanboy’ handke won the nobel prize, which was nice. 4/5

a brief history of seven killings, marlon james (uni) marlon james probably laughed his ass off at calling this 700-page book (very small print) a brief history. anyway, this is about the attempted assassination of bob marley in the 70s, the cultural and political context in jamaica at the time, and the fallout of that event. honestly, reading this on a tight schedule for uni was just wrong for this book bc i had to rush thru it & ended up skimming quite a bit. it’s an impressive achievement, but i can’t say i enjoyed it very much. 3/5

she would be king, wayétu moore a magical realist story about the foundation of liberia, told thru three characters - an indigenous woman, an ex-slave from the us, and a mixed-race jamaican - all of whom have magical abilities. i really wanted to like this, but while there are a lot of good ideas, structurally this is kind of a mess (the first part, which introduces the characters is way too long & not very interesting, the connection between the three is supposed to be super significant but it really doesn’t come across, one character gets way more page time than the others), the writing is occasionally p awkward, and there is an odd thing where the narrator (kinda a ghost, kinda the wind) intrudes literally only to call one of the characters her darling or whatever & it’s irritating af. 2.5/5

a dance with dragons, grrm (#5 asoiaf) tbh this is by far my least favourite of the series.... it’s just way too long, a bit of a slog (especially the tyrion chapters...) & there is not a single sansa chapter which is fucked up. a lot of the storylines are really good tho (jon, THEON, asha, jaime...). i ended up liking the parts i used to dislike a bit more this time around tho if i ever read it again i will probably do the combined affc+adwd read bc that sounds fun & interesting. 4/5

the sellout, paul beatty (uni) smart & pretty funny satire about the idea of a post-racial america, in which a black man in the LA region tries to segregate the local community. there’s a lot of cool stuff in here and i really liked the ambiguity & refusal to present any clear-cut answers, solutions, or closure. 3/5

tamburlaine must die, louise welsh fun little novella about the last days of kit marlow, which made for an entertaining 2 hours altho the ending is pretty weak imo & the language slips into entirely too modern occasionally. kinda disappointed because based on the blurb i’d assumed that tamburlaine actually, literally came to life out of marlow’s plays which. is not the case. but would have been super cool. 2/5

radiance, grace draven not to reveal how profoundly problematique i am: this is a book about a human noblewoman entering into an arranged political marriage with a dude from the off-brand dark-elves dynasty & it is. way too wholesome, there is little angst, ildiko & brishen get along very well from the start & like, where’s the fear, the tension, the delicious, delicious ANGST?? 2.5/5

water shall refuse them, lucie mcknight hardy atmospheric witchy folk horror set in a small village in wales during the '76 heat wave - narrator nif’s family comes to live in a cottage there to take some time off after the accidental drowning of nif’s younger sister - the mother is consumed by grief and guilt, the father is trying to hold everyone together, and nif is constructing a witchy creed out of bird eggs and bones and magical thinking to cope, comparing weird witchy practices with local outsider mally. i liked this & altho i saw the twist coming miles away, it still makes for a pretty disturbing ending, and the way the book evokes the dizzy blurry heat and nif’s state of mind - detached, angry, confused, compulsive - is really effective. 3.5/5

a knight of the seven kingdoms, george r.r. martin dunk! is! babey! (except for moments where he displays staggering BDE) anyway these are three novellas set about 100 years pre-asoiaf, about dunk/duncan the tall & his squire, egg/aegon, the OG secret targaryen. the stories are wholesome, funny, cute, have a lot of dunk being a true knight but not a real knight which is extra-sweet when you realise that he’s almost definitely true-but-not-real knight brienne’s (great?)grandpapa. 4.5/5

my cousin rachel, daphne du maurier philip ashley, our narrator, really is like ‘hmmm have i been misogynistic yet today?? better get on that’, he’s awful & so is his older cousin ambrose, who marries distant cousin rachel in florence & then gets ill and dies, making phil rather suspicious about rachel. did rachel poison ambrose? is she trying to seduce and/or poison philip? or are they both just paranoid assholes who hate women (they def. hate women)? this is some good psychological thriller type stuff, what we can construct out of philip’s distorted view of rachel is intriguing (and like, if she poisoned ambrose? #goodforher), the narrator is an ass but well-written, and the first/last lines.... chills. 3.5/5

top 10 of the year (no rereads!)

antigonick, anne carson

a canticle for leibowitz, walter m. miller

dedalus, chris mccabe

the complete maus, art spiegelman

the artificial silk girl, irmgard keun

o caledonia, elspeth barker

the sparrow, mary doria russell

sleep of the righteous, wolfgang hilbig

how to survive a plague, david france

rain wild chronicles, robin hobb

(the last three are kinda randomly picked from the high-4s based on my mood in the moment but they’re all really good so.)