Mid-Year Book Freakout 2023
thanks for tagging me @aroaessidhe !
1. Best book you’ve read so far this year
FINALLYYY read A Memory Called Empire. What can I say. Another win for the space lesbians with a guy in their head genre.
The Apple Tree Throne by Premee Mohamed—I really like this author’s short stories so it’s no surprise I liked this novella. Bittersweet and cozy, with an intricate writing style and a very cool alternate history Edwardian setting.
Also Piranesi!
2. Best sequel you’ve read so far this year
Not technically a sequel, but Lost In The Moment And Found — I always look forward to new Wayward Children books!
3. New release you haven’t read yet
I haven’t gotten around to reading Translation State! Also not super new, but The Spear Cuts Through Water.
4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year
Mammoths at the Gates, the next book in the Singing Hills Cycle!
5. Biggest disappointment
Couldn’t get into Sea of Tranquility :( Station Eleven was such good sci fi and I just found this one unimaginative
6. Biggest surprise
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder! I haven’t been reading much litfic and i was surprised how quickly I got into this one. Insane writing style
7. Favorite new author (debut or new to you)
Isabel J Kim’s short stories are really good! They’re here on tumblr, I am too scared to @ them
8. Newest fictional crush/newest favorite character
qifrey. sorry. also twelve azalea you will aways be famous
9. Book that made you cry
The Apple Tree Throne—the protagonist’s situation being a bit too relatable, the kindness of his friends, the suckerpunch of an ending :,)
10. Book that made you happy
Also Witch Hat Atelier!!! I still haven’t read the most recent volume, but I’ve been slowly picking my way through them (Japanese practice) and the ones I’ve read this year continue to be a joy :)
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen was also so beautiful and heartfelt. I guess what I got out of this is I should read more graphic novels and comics!
tagging @nycorix if you feel like it and anyone else if they’d like to!!
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2023 reads
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth
YA gothic horror
Victorian fantasy where mediums can commune with spirits - if they’re registered and controlled
a trans boy attempts become a Speaker as a boy, but is found out, threatened with an arranged marriage, and sent to a finishing school to ‘cure’ girls from veil sickness (hysteria)
he quickly realises girls are disappearing and their ghosts start begging him for help, and he tries to investigate and expose the horrors of the place, and survive
autistic trans boy MC, trans girl love interest
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2023 reads
No Boy Summer
YA contemporary
a girl and her sister who usually only bond over being boy-obsessed make a no-boy-pact over summer, while working in her aunt’s coffee shop in LA
but she meets a cute girl and starts sneaking around to date her, because it’s not technically breaking the rules..
while also making a new close friend group, and building a closer relationship with her sister
fat bi MC, butch LI
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2023 reads / storygraph
Dawn Raid
middle grade historical about a 13yo Samoan girl living in Porirua in 1976, as she learns about the hīkoi (Māori land march) the year before, the dawn raids happening mostly further north, and about civil rights around the world
as well as normal kid stuff like doing the milk run to save up and buy some cool shoes, and dealing with her chaotic younger brothers
she gets more passionate about learning & speaking up about these things, especially when her own family is dawn raided when they’re visiting relatives in Auckland, and her brother is arrested while protesting with the Polynesian Panthers
told in diary entries
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2023 reads / storygraph
Sheiné łénde
prequel to Elatsoe, following her grandmother as a teen in the 1970s
after a devastating flood and loss of family members & their traditional home, she works with her mother & their ghost dogs, tracking down missing people
when a local boy goes missing - and her mother, when trying to find him - strange fairy rings (not the usual, reliable ones used for transport) might be to blame, and she and her friends, brother, and lone (unreliable) grandfather have to try find them
friendship, family, ecology, no romance, ghost bugs :)
(title pronounciation: Sheh-ee-neh lehneh)
arc from netgalley, out 16 April 2024!
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2023 reads / storygraph
All That Consumes Us
YA dark academia
about a writer struggling in her first semester at uni when she finds a girl who was in the secretive and prestigious academic society dead in the library, and is offered the newly empty place
she gladly accepts the spot (and free tuition), but is haunted by dreams of the dead girl, and her stories seem to be going strange and dark places
explores the cost of artistic ambition
bi MC, sapphic, lots of queer characters
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