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Brain Camp review

I missed reading, but also I was having trouble finding a book. I kept dropping them, bit found something with Faith Hick’s name on it that I hadn’t read yet and, well, I was a comic person for a very long time so might as well! The story follows two misfits who are sent to a summer camp. Jenna is the outcast in a family of very smart people while Lucas is a delinquent. They are both invited to…

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Boy, Snow, Bird review

Finally, I went into the book having read the blurb so I knew what I was getting into! Unfortunately, the blurb seems to have been written for a different book than the one I read. Maybe the author didn’t get any say in it? Who knows. This is essentially three different books. In the first, we follow a woman named Boy as she escapes her abusive father and makes a new life for herself in Flax…

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Rest is Resistance review

Today is another lesson in I need to actually read the description. Actually, in this case I need to read the full title because this did not end up being what I expected. Rest is Resistance reads like someone’s stream of consciousness thoughts connecting naps to black liberation. The writing is very repetitive and felt like it could have been edited down into an essay that was more impactful…

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Wintering review

Every time I think I’m improving, I seem to fall back. Which isn’t that bad when you have a read that feels a lot like the author is currently going through the exact same thing. The book is an autobiographical look at the author’s own journey as she finds herself getting sick and learning to scale back and enter a “wintering” phase of her life. It’s written in a stream of consciousness kind of…

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Minique review

You know, I had forgotten why I avoided some genres. I thought that my aversion to Canadian literature was from just having to analyze it at schoool throughout the years, but as it turns out that wasn’t the only reason. The book follows Minique, a young girl growing up in Montreal in the 1600s. She and her friends move through life day by day as Minique grows to dislike the current system where…

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New year, new blog!

A bit of a late start, but welcome 2024! This would typically be the time I set new intentions and goals for the new year, but this year we are going to do something a little different. For me, this is the year of rest. I have finally gotten diagnosed with Long Covid after dealing with the condition since June of 2022 and there is no real cure besides resting myself back to health, both mentally…

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None of This is True review

In a change of pace, this is a book that my dad lent me! We don’t typically read the same kinds of book, so I wasn’t sure, but also I’ve been doing a lot of reading things I’m not familiar with or that I wouldn’t normally picked up, so thought it was worth at least giving it a shot! We follow two women: Alix and Josie. They were both born on the same day in the same hospital, but who grew up to…

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Book Eaters review

This is a book I would have expected me to put on the holds list from ages ago. I have been staring at this cover for months, trying to remember what it was about and refusing to look up the synopsis because it felt like cheating. And I’m not mad about going into it as blind as I did! We follow Devon, a young Book Eater woman. Through her past, we see that Book Eaters are a dying breed of…

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Top 5 reads of 2023

Another year and a lot of really interesting reads! Picking up random books from the library really has led me to reading a lot of things I might have never picked up and also to some new favourites. Of everything I read this year, here are the top 5 favourites that I still think about in no particular order! I Feed her to The Beast and the Beast is Me review These titles are getting really…

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Other Birds review

I love getting these books that I’ve had on hold for ages. I have no memory of what made me put the book on hold, no idea what I’m walking into, only that the wait list was over 20 people and it’s taken months for it to finally get to me. Did I look at the summary to see what I was getting into? Of course not! The story follows the inhabitants of the Dellawisp, an apartment complex on the…

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I Feed her to The Beast and the Beast is Me review

These titles are getting really long. I think we need to start just allowing authors to reuse titles from a while ago, or let titles enter the public domain or something. Just a thought I’ve been having a lot lately as I see titles get longer and longer. Anyway. This book follows Laure, a young ballerina entering the world of professional ballet from her ballet academy in Paris, and the only…

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St. Valentine, St. Abigail, St. Brigid review

My health has been pretty all over the place as has my ability to stay focused on a book without some complications. I stumbled across a short story from Tor (Always a good time) that my brain could finally handle! We follow Theresa, a young girl who was given away by her birth mother in exchange for something from a woman who can make your needs happen and who speaks to the bees. She grows up…

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The Hike review

I almost didn’t get to read this one, even though I’ve had it on hold for ages. Brain has been having a lot of issues lately and the health has not been fantastic, but I got it read right before the library had to take it back. Fantastic for me! The book follows Ben, a man who wants to go for a walk while on a business trip and that walk leads him into a whole alternate world of torment and…

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How to Make Good Things Happen review

I don’t know why I keep doing this to myself. Well, I do. I keep having medical professionals recommend I read these things about positive thinking and I don’t think I’m taking away the things they want from these books. This is a scattered and nice version of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. The ultimate take away is that you should accept things as they are and be happy about it. There’s a…

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NPR’s Podcast Start Up Guide review

In case you didn’t hear, I started a podcast! And in honour of that and also in honour of doing the research after I actually jump into the project, I figures it was a good time to start looking at all the things I should really be doing to make it the best thing I can possibly make. The book is filled with some great insights and ways to make your podcast a higher quality, from how to record…

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I started a Podcast

I made a joke on Instagram a while ago. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj-71zyhDUK And I’ve actually done it! I’m reading my books a chapter at a time, starting with Return to Wonderland. On alternating weeks, I’ll also have a behind the scenes episode talking about things like what got cut from the stories, elements that never quite made it in because of the way the stories unfolded, and…

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Just Like Home review

There’s something about this randomly picking up books from the library app that I really love, because I don’t think I would have ever gone to this section of a book store or looking through a library. It’s much easier to add random books to your holds and just read them when they become available after forgetting everything about why you added them in the first place. The book follows Vera,…