#year so far book asks

[fictionadventurer]

4 6 and 10 for the book asks? :D

4. Most anticipated book release of the second half of the year

The only new book release I can think of is that Rachel Kovaciny has a book coming out that's a retelling of "The Ugly Duckling" set in a Spanish-California-inspired fantasy realm. And that does sound like a cool concept.

6. Biggest surprise

So I started watching the Vanity Fair miniseries, and I thought it was a uniquely modern creative choice for them to have meta-scenes of the narrator talking to the audience, so I was surpised to find that all of that was directly from the book. In general, I was shocked by the rollicking Wodehouse-turned-up-to-a-thousand tone of the book--everything I'd heard about it made me expect a depressing slog. And then I was surprised by how much I cared about the characters, given how unrelenting the author was in criticizing them.

10. A book that made you happy

Born of Gilded Mountains by Amanda Dykes has this lovely atmosphere of a heightened fairy tale world, where everything that happens is technically possible, but can only happen this way in this story world. It did go too far--not everyone speaks in inspirational metaphors all the time, Amanda, and that treasure hunt was absurdly overcomplicated so by the end I was frustrated with the lost potential of the story--but in general, that atmosphere fit very well with the elements of Old Hollywood that made up parts of the plot, and it was a lovely reading experience.

[kyouka-supremacy]

(╥﹏╥)

[lesamis]

Hiya lyres! What books do you have on your tbr this year?

hi anon! as always, i have left christmas with a big stack of Assigned Reading Material From My Best Friend, And Others. this is the physical tbr pile:

a few other books i either received or am looking forward to this year:

the hurting kind, ada limón (this was a gift! i've nearly finished it, it's been my early morning read.)

minor detail, adania shibli (another gift from a friend - this was on my list last year but i couldn't get my hands on it. happy to get to it now)

when the angels left the old country, sacha lamb (this was also a gift but i am SO excited for this. i love fantasy takes on angels and i've heard nothing but good things about this)

the tomb of dragons, katherine addison (this will be released in march and i am on the edge of my seat for it. give me back my favourite bedraggled little elf detective. i need to see him struggle to accept love in even more increasingly dire situations)

[thedawningofthehour]

So Raph had already decided to do the stupid thing when Leo was in his coma, right? He was just waiting for Leo to wake up and be okay again. And you implied that Leo almost died. Would Raph have still done his stupid thing if Leo had just...never woken up? Or was paralyzed or something? What was his plan then?

That's a good question! I'm not entirely sure, honestly. Really, he didn't have any other plan besides "we ball" and hope it worked out. He knew he wouldn't be able to predict Draxum's actions or his family's reactions so he just did not consider anything lol. Boy had no contingencies, he was just doing his best.

I'd say there was never really a point where Raph considered staying or questioned what would make him stay. His mind was already made up: he was going to go protect his brother or die trying. And Leo never really factored into that because Raph really was not entertaining the possibility that Leo might not survive. I know that kind of conflicts with what he was talking about in the movie, I know that Raph always has their mortality and the fear for his little brothers in the back of his mind, but with everything that's happened in the past year and a half losing another brother is not something he can handle right now. A block just goes up and he can't even question whether Leo will make it or not. He's Leo. He'll be fine. He has to be, because if he isn't then where the hell does that leave them?

I think he probably would have left anyway. He might be in denial, might think that if he was with Draxum he could just pull a Schrodinger's turtle and tell himself that Leo was totally fine back home. After all, if he never sees his family again then there's really no harm in lying to himself. His brother is safe, and his dad and other brothers are fine. Because they have to be. Why would he be doing this if his family wasn't any safer for it?

[demadogs]

i always say i dont want a book to have a screen adaptation out of fear of them doing it dirty and then i think of the most perfect casting ever for the main character and im like FUCK now i wont sleep until i see this happen

[maingh0st]

3, 4, and 12 for the book asks <3

hiiii, thanks 🖤

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

answered here :)

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

yes!! robin wall kimmerer became one of my few auto-purchase authors this year. other authors that are not auto-buy but i'm still very interested in reading from include: katherine arden, heather fawcett, m.l. rio, tamsyn muir, alix e. harrow, and nghi vo

12. Any books that disappointed you?

unfortunately i'm more often disappointed by books than satisfied with them, so i won't list all the disappointments here, but the most unexpected one was a memory called empire by arkady martine. a book reviewer i generally trust recommended it, so i went in with higher expectations, and while it definitely wasn't bad, it kind of felt like one long prologue to me? i'm interested in finishing the duology just to see where it goes, and there are some really unique ideas in it, but i just didn't enjoy it as much as i'd hoped to

i also read uncultured by daniella mestyanek young, and while it feels sensitive to critique an autobiography of someone's very real, traumatic life story, it read like two separate books to me. the first half is about her upbringing in the children of god cult, while the second half is about her time in the military; she studies high-control groups and clearly tried to make that the through-line of the book, but it just didn't quite work for me—i think because the messaging got muddled (her answer to the cult that raised her is total institutional dismantlement and punishment for those who caused harm, but then she still seemed to feel a lot of loyalty to the military, despite identifying clear parallels between it and her upbringing? idk, i was left a little puzzled)

see the original post here

[shrews-studies]

Graduation exam tomorrow, guys if I survive this I'll be the most carefree person on earth for the next 2 years

[justlikeheavenfest]

passes for just like heaven are on sale now - lock in for as low as 50% or $49.99 down today… heaven’s a few clicks away!

[lesbiansanemi]

Was doing so good holding it together today but now that I’m laying down and trying to sleep I’m tearing up and I can feel that I’m about to burst into tears any second now

[deputyrook]

do you have a goodreads and/or storygraph profile? would love to see more of your favorite books ❤️

Oh this is such a sweet message! While I have a Goodreads, I don't update it that often. I have a lot of IRL friends on there, which makes me slightly reluctant to post about the silly romance/smut books I've been reading. But I also use my real name on there.

So I just got a Storygraph! (and was pleased to see you can import goodreads data) But to be honest, I don't read nearly as much as I should, as someone who both calls herself a writer and believes that the writers need to read in order to be good at writing.

To be fair, until fairly recently I was a lawyer who was working a lot and experiencing a significant amount of burnout. I read mostly quick/lighthearted reads this year to get back into the groove.

In terms of my favourites and recommendations: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami is my favourite book of all time. I also loved Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Hellbound Heart/Imajica/Books of Blood by Clive Barker (basically anything he writes though), House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski, and Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. Among many others, I'm not that hard to please tbh.

[ravensilversea]

For the end of the year book ask 👀✨️

1,4,25

Hello, Fae! Thanks for indulging me :3

Ask Game

1. How many books did you read this year?

62 so far! I have 7 more I'm loosely aiming to read before the end of the year, so I can claim my ornament for completing a reading challenge but uuuuhhhh... it's not going great XD

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

Mostly read already familiar authors or authors that I'm kinda neutral on. BUT I would absolutely read another Alix E Harrow book because Starling House was phenomenal, and the second book of Kara Jorgensen's The Reanimator Mysteries series is on my TBR as well

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

My book goal for next year'll probably be around 75 books, which is about 10% more than this year. And I'm attempting to restrain myself from adding a bunch of timed Storygraph reading challenges on top of that (I have 4 so far...)

[chaoticeddie]

y'all I knew my fellow student was a t**** supporter but like. she's a SUPPORTER supporter

[dorkicon]

bitching abt my job again

tags contain frank mentions of transphobia and homophobia

[zonotrichia-albicollis]

Giant personal vent time

This guy stole somewhere between 3 to 6 MILLION dollars from my grandmother by conning my great aunt into signing over her estate and medical & financial power of attorney to him literally on her death bed

I and my aunt have been working basically a whole second job the last 3 months trying to get together a legal case to go after this guy. And now my grandma wants to drop it. And no one else has standing so what the fuck can we do.

This man has absolutely done this to other ppl before, there is no doubt in my mind. I’ve seen his property records for just what’s publicly available in my county and it’s sketchy as hell. I am never going to get over this but there’s nothing I can do.

Gonna put like a million more thoughts in the tags because I’m losing my fucking mind.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

because im less breakable than you

[starrynight-edits]

yooooo, we missed you man! how are you??

Im doing pretty good lifes been all over the place but not too too bad! Just being boring going to work doing requests doing art sometimes ive been reading like alot! Im almost at my 2024 reading list goal of 50 novels so thats awesome! I also just finished reading through all of dungeon meshi too! Other than that im just glad to be back making edits n stuff for people again! This stuff is genuinely really fun to fill in my inbetween time and i love making stuff for you guys.

[dearmrsawyer]

Hi! I’ve seen you post about shadow and bone and I’m almost finished with the first season of the show and I love it. I was just wondering if you read the books and if you’d recommend them? I do love that I don’t know any of the source material so I can enjoy it for what it is but I’m also curious as to how close the show is to the books so far and how in depth the world building that sometimes gets left out of show adaptions goes

Hello!! ah i'm always very interested to hear from people who are discovering the show without having read the books yet! i feel like you're such a crucial part of the audience :)

I have indeed read the books, i read the six of crows books years before the show but i didn't read the SAB books until just before i watched the show, to 'study up' lol. i would recommend them! they are very firmly a classic YA series so they have typical elements of the genre for better or worse, but if you like YA as i do i imagine you will enjoy them. I think my favourite thing about them was actually the world building, but the story itself was also quite engaging. I won't say how close the adaptation is to the books so you can discover for yourself!

I'm not sure if you're also asking about the six of crows books as well, but i would WHOLEHEARTEDLY recommend them. They are.... unfathomably good, i could spend the rest of the day listing why. They're also very different from the SAB books so think they are worth giving a go regardless of how you end up finding the SAB books!