What Moves the Dead - T. Kingfisher

This was just a well written, eerie read that I could barely put it down. Essentially, the book is a retelling of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, but I felt like it was so so much more than that. Just before reading this I listened to the audio book of the original story, and it definitely felt like it was lacking in so much substance. I get that it's an older short story, but much like T. Kingfisher, I felt myself wishing there was more to it than just "Guy visits creepy house, people die," and this did exactly that. Easton was such a great narrator, having ka as the main character gave the reader more of a soldier's insight into what was going on, and getting the flashes of the horrors Easton experienced in the war really added to the gory factor of the story itself. Also, just having a nonbinary character in a horror story set in the 1890's is such a rare occurrence, but having them be the main character? It felt revolutionary. It added so much in regards to gender roles, which Miss Potter's character did as well. This was also way way funnier than I expected. Easton's sarcasm was so hilarious, I found myself openly laughing more than once. If there was anything I would change, I would have wanted the book to be longer, but I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/5f5d2e7e-6283-4398-9f9d-298adeb30b38/content_warnings

The Girl from the Sea - Molly Knox Ostertag

4.75 🌟

This was an adorable graphic novel that had me smiling and tearing up the entire way through. The story follows Morgan, a young, closeted lesbian who is saved from drowning by a selkie, and the two of them grow closer throughout the book. 

The art was beautiful, the colours vibrant and bright, and the character design was so unique and adorable. 

The story itself was also amazing, it wove together Morgan's struggle with coming out in a small town and Keltie's struggle to save her home. 

It was honestly one of the cutest sapphic comics I've read and I cannot recommend it enough. 

Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating - Adiba Jaigirdar

3,5

I thought this was a very nice, cute romance that gave me a good insight into bengali culture, which I really liked. 

The bare bones of the story is Hani and Ishu deciding to fake-date to each achieve their own goals, but as the story progresses you get to explore their relationships with their culture and their families, as well as watching them discover their feelings for each other. 

The writing wasn't exactly my favourite, it felt a bit repetitive at times (I can't count how many times someone surprised someone else my answering a message immediately as if they had been waiting for it), but it was still a very enjoyable experience. The biphobia was a bit more triggering for me than I was expecting, being a pansexual person who has had a lot of doubts about their sexuality, so just keep that in mind before you read. 

Solitaire - Alice Oseman

3.75 stars

Tori has been a favourite character of mine since the first time I read Heartstopper, and this love was reinforced by the Heartstopper TV series. Solitaire sees Tori as the main character of the story, and dives deeper into her character and the depression she's dealing with.

It's definitely a darker story than Heartstopper, and is more in tone with volume four of Heartstopper. But something about this book didn't quite click with me. Tori somehow felt like a completely different character, which I suppose was sort of the point of the book; we see her as who she actually is rather than how Charlie sees her in Heartstopper. I did feel a bit confused at times about what was going on, but that is probably just me being unused to an unreliable narrator.

Overall the book was pretty good, the characters were realistic in a way that none of them really fit into the stereotypes that were placed on them, but it also read very much like a teen novel. I do think this would make an excellent movie or mini series, so I hope Netflix gets on that ASAP. https://aliceoseman.com/extras/conten...

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson

This book felt very disturbing and trippy, but in such an excellent way. One of Shirley Jackson's most notable works, We Have Always Lived in the Castle follows Mary Katherine "Merricat" Blackwood and her sister, Constance Blackwood, as they try to live a normal life following the mysterious murder of their family. The entire village hates them and sees them as murderers, and seeing the way they treat the sisters through the eyes of Merricat, who reads as a young child, is very interesting.  The story was beautifully written, I was barely able to put it down once I started it. The way Shirley Jackson writes is so descriptive and haunting, the entire time I read this I felt this sense of dread in the back of my head.  I felt the plot twist was both fairly predictable and not, but that might be because I read this while flying from Croatia to Iceland on very little sleep.  I would highly recommend this book for someone who wants to get more into classics, especially horror classics, as the language is fairly easy and the story is easy to follow as well. Do look up trigger warnings though, as usual. 

Hide - Kiersten White

I've always loved media featuring deadly games, so I knew immediately that I would like this book. It follows Mack, a young homeless woman with a tragic past, and thirteen other people as they enter a hide and go seek competition in an abandoned amusement park. Of course the game turns deadly, and supernatural, and everything goes to hell. The writing was good, not revolutionary but well written, the plot was gripping and intriguing. My only issue at first was remembering who everyone was, I ended up writing it on a post-it and sticking it inside the cover, which really helped. I could totally see this book being adapted into a movie or TV show, and despite being an absolute scaredy cat I would force myself to watch it. I also didn't know that this book was queer, so that was definitely a pleasant surprise, as well as it having disability rep. Of course heavy body horror trigger warnings, but if you're looking for a book that feels like the Hunger Games but in an amusement park, then I would definitely recommend picking this one up. 

The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin

Holy. Shit. This is an excellent piece of fiction, and it has rocked me to the core (pun intended). The story follows three people: Damaya, a girl with great gifts that the world hates her for; Syenite, a powerful student who wants nothing more than to prove her worth; and Essun, a mother looking for revenge. Knowing nothing about this book is the best way to go into it. I only knew that it had good representation and was well written, so I suggested it for my book club, and boy was it amazing. It is masterfully written, the story ties together in such a gorgeous way, and even though it's confusing at first, the payoff at the end is more than worth pushing through this confusion. Immediately after finishing it I had to go back and read the prologue, and it was so satisfying. This review is all over the place, but just read this book okay?? Oh and check trigger warnings, for the love of god.

Hold Still - Nina LaCour

I had a lump in my throat throughout most of this book, as I always do when reading Nina LaCour. Her writing is so gorgeous. It's simple and easy to read, but god it hits hard. Her debut, Hold Still, follows 17 year old Caitlin as she tries to come to terms with her best friend's suicide, and move on with her life. The story takes place over a year of Caitlin's life, interspersed with journal entries from her friend's journal. It is a beautiful story about loss and friendship, growing up and grief.  I remember reading We Are Okay in 2017 and just crying my eyes out. It was one of the books that got me back into reading, and even though I have only read two of her books (well, three now), I have had a soft spot for Nina LaCour since then. She writes such powerful stories in such an accessible way, and I always feel so connected to her characters.  As someone who has lost someone to suicide very unexpectedly and someone who struggles with depression, starting this book was hard. It felt too close, too real, but I'm so glad I kept reading. Going through Caitlin's journey with her felt so therapeutic, and despite making me tear up it made me feel so warm and happy.  I highly recommend this book, and honestly all of LaCour's writing (I can confirm that at least three of her books are amazing), but of course check trigger warnings before reading, especially for Hold Still and We Are Okay.  https://booktriggerwarnings.com/index.php?title=Hold_Still_by_Nina_LaCour

Vampires Never Get Old - Natalie C. Parker and Zoraida Córdova

This is one of the few short story collections I have ever read, and I enjoyed it thoroughly throughout. The collection covers different aspects of the myth of the vampire, told both through short stories and short essays by the editors, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker. The essays were hilarious but also good addons to the stories, and give you better insight into the history of the vampire. The stories themselves are excellently written, and the characters in them often break the vampire stereotype, with one of the vampires being in a wheelchair and one of the vampire slayers being a fat girl. The view they gave of the vampire myths were refreshing, and I loved how good the representation in the stories was. I highly recommend this collection whether you're a fan of vampires or not, as it is highly entertaining and also wonderfully educational. Average Rating: 3.75 Seven Nights For Dying: 3 stars The Boys from Blood River: 3.75 Senior Year Sucks: 4 The Boy and the Bell: 3 A Guidebook for the Newly Sired Desi Vampire: 4.75 In Kind: 4.5 Vampires Never Say Die: 3 Bestiary: 2.75 Mirrors, Windows and Selfies: 3.5 The House of Black Sapphires: 4 First Kill: 4.5

Manga Classics: Anne of Green Gables - Stacy King, L. M. Montgomery, Kuma Chang and Crystal S. Chan

Thank you to NetGalley and Manga Classics for providing me with a free eARC of this book Anne of Green Gables has had a place in my heart since I first watched Anne With an E on Netflix, and I absolutely fell in love with the story and characters. The first book in the eight book series by L. M. Montgomery follows Anne Shirley, a young orphan girl taken in by siblings Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. The book follows Anne as she grows from a wild, imaginative girl with a ferocious temper to an intelligent and kind young woman, all under the care of Matthew and Marilla. It’s a beautiful and heartwarming coming of age story. It sometimes reads as a parental guide, like most childrens books at the time did, but if you overlook the obvious etiquette lessons you see a soft, slow, and gorgeous story of Anne finding her place in the world. Now, this is a revamp of the original story, as it takes the 1908 novel and turns it into a modern-styled manga. Now of course this manga is a bit shorter than the original, and because of that it does cut away some of the original story, but the main story is still there, and I feel the things the storyboarder decided to exclude did not have a major effect on the story overall, and that they actually chose the things to cut quite well. The only problem with the cutting of certain storylines is that some chapters become exceptionally short, only lasting one or two pages, which did give me a sense of whiplash at some points, but overall it did not have a negative effect on the story. Some of the characters did not really fit well into the manga style, mostly Matthew Cuthbert. In the novel he is portrayed as fairly stoic and quiet, but with the exaggerated expressions of the manga art style, this feels a bit off. However, the manga style suited Anne’s character so well. I was blown away with how perfectly she fit as she is such an animated character. It was also very nice to be able to see the thoughts of some of the main characters, as it made them feel more real and likeable than if we had just gotten their straight dialogue; this especially applies to Marilla, as she comes off as very cold and unfeeling for the first half of the novel, but seeing her thought process really helped bring her to life and show the reader how much she loves Anne. Lastly, I absolutely love the accessibility that the manga classics series brings to dyslexic readers and readers who struggle to read classics normally. The meat of the story is still there, and even though you lose the descriptive writing, the gorgeous art and animated characters make up for it splendidly. I could see myself recommending this series to people who want to see what all the fuss is about with some popular classics but don’t want to deal with the sometimes difficult language. Overall I highly recommend this book, and pretty much any adaptation of Anne of Green Gables, and I really hope they decide to adapt the rest of the series into manga as well.

Witch 13 - Patrick Delaney

eARC provided by Oblivion Publishing and NetGalley Reading this was… an experience, to be sure.  Right before Christmas, small-town sheriff Sterling Marsh finds herself facing one last night on the job before she resigns. She hopes for a quiet night, but what starts with a confrontation with a disgruntled wife of a coworker (who Sterling slept with) quickly spirals into wicked madness, and a story full of lies and gore and cartoonish witches. Yes you heard that right. The main villain of the story is a witch dressed in all black with a tall, pointy hat on her head.  Now, the premise sounded very interesting to me. The gimmicky villain sounded interesting, and the cover looked appropriately creepy. I was hoping they would turn the witch gimmick into something truly terrifying, and to be fair, they did. My favourite parts of the story involved the witch getting down to her horrifying business of trying to destroy everything and everyone around her, and the prologue truly had my skin crawling.  But oh. My. God. I could not force myself to care about any of the characters. Sterling was made up to be this super badass queer woman of colour, but as soon as we meet her we find out she had an affair with her married coworker (who is her subordinate), and she spends the rest of the book pining for him. It is briefly mentioned that she had a girlfriend in the past, but I felt like the LGBTQ+ tag that this book has was a bit misleading. Of course her being queer didn’t need to be a central part of the story, but I was hoping for a bit more than her pining for her married coworker. I also felt the story dragged on for quite a lot longer than it necessarily needed to. It could have benefitted from being a novella, or at least a hundred pages shorter. And honestly, I was close to throwing my kindle out the window for the first 85% of the book. I decided to push through however, and I was actually quite surprised by the twist in the end, even though it felt quite sudden.  Now, would I recommend this book? No, probably not. Like I said, I felt the characters were unlikeable without the author necessarily wanting them to be (we won’t talk about Chase), and I felt the story was very dull for most of the book. The writing style also wasn’t for me, there were a lot of adjectives and a lot of weird descriptions, such as blood thumping like a geyser. I can confirm that geysers do not thump.  Anyway, big thanks to Orion Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with this eArc in exchange for my honest review. 

Sweet and Bitter Magic - Adrienne Tooley

I liked this book. The writing style and the pacing were good and easy to read, the plot and characters were very interesting. But I didn't love it. Something about it just didn't quite pull me in like I hoped, maybe it was the pacing and the lack of worldbuilding. I feel like this book would have benefitted a lot from being longer or being a part of a series. The magic system was really cool, I love magic with a consequence, but I do wish the story itself had been a bit more magical, and maybe the romance be a bit more romantic. I did feel they fell for each other quite easily, but I would not be against reading more about them. Wren wasn't always my favourite character either, she was a bit whiny in my opinion. Spoiler Alert I did love how the curse wore off slowly as Tamsin fell for Wren, how descriptive the writing was and how well it used the five senses as we saw Tamsin start to feel everything around her again.

The Raven Boys - Maggie Stiefvater

"Blue tried not to look at Gansey's boat shoes. She felt better about him as a person if she pretended he wasn't wearing them." - This book holds my heart so fiercely in it's hands, and I love every bit of it. Coming back to the start of this series, my love for it is reawakened in full force. I fell in love with all the characters, the scenery, the writing, all over again. The slow pacing surprised me a bit, in my memory it felt like such a fast pace, but I savored every minute of it. The eerie yet beautiful atmosphere of the writing really pulls you into the book and makes you feel like you're really there, in Henrietta, exploring and experiencing everything right alongside the Gangsey. I also can't really pick a favourite character or couple, I just love everyone so so much. I honestly want to start rereading The Dream Thieves immediately, but alas it will have to wait.

Is this book objectively perfect? No, probably not. Do I think it's absolutely perfect? Yes. Fuck yes. I love this book so much it's almost hard to put into words. I practically inhaled it. The autism representation in here is amazing, and I'm really hoping that the author keeps that up in the other books. The writing and story fully made my heart flutter, I loved ever second of it

I'm not really sure how I feel about this book. It was a very fast read, which is my usual for a comic, and the art style was beautiful. I absolutely hated Laura Dean, her character was very well established, but that's about all of my feelings towards this book. I didn't really feel super connected to any of the characters, except maybe Vi, the cute girl Freddy keeps running into. I would still recommend this comic however, I feel it said some important stuff and could be a very good read for a lot of people.

V. E. Schwab described this book like getting wrapped in a warm, gay blanket, and going into this book it was exactly what I needed. It was warm, it was comforting, it was jarring, it was uncomfortable, it was like lying on a cloud or dancing with rainbows. It was so vibrant. The shift from the scenes in the city to the scenes in Marsyas felt like switching from black and white to a world of technicolour. The character creation was beautiful, and watching them blossom over the course of the book felt like I was watching something wonderful happening before my very eyes. I don’t feel like I can give this book a more solid review. It was perfect. It was a feeling more than a thought. I loved every moment of it.

Another decidedly OK book for this year. The plot was decent, I'll give it that, and some of the characters were pretty interesting. The Novum was cool, with the whole DNA Matching, but I just didn't feel particularly invested in any of the characters and their stories. In the beginning I found Christopher's chapters to be the most entertaining, but during the end I was looking forward to Nick's chapters more than anything. I kind of felt like this book was just five books all mashed together, since they didn't really overlap at all, and some of them felt way too different from the other ones. If you made me read one of Jade's chapters and then one of Christopher's and told me they were from the same book, I would think you were lying. I'm not sure if this is because I'm not used to reading adult thrillers, but I had to make an index of the characters and their main plot points so I wouldn't get too confused. Over all I think I just didn't really mesh with the writing style, so it was pretty average for me. Also like, all the trigger warnings for this book, jesus.