I was smiling when he cradled my face in his hands and kissed me.

Melissa Albert, from The Bad Ones

When you left, I was lost. But I think I’m finding my way back now. Will we meet again? Some days I think yes, others, no. You’ll never read this, will you? I’ve said it three times now, it must be true. I don’t know how to end this. How do I end this? Maybe I just stop.

the hazel wood and the night country by melissa albert

NEW YOUNG ADULT RELEASES! (FEBRUARY 20TH, 2024)

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HAVE I MISSED ANY NEW YOUNG ADULT RELEASES? HAVE YOU ADDED ANY OF THESE BOOKS TO YOUR TBR? LET ME KNOW!

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NEW STANDALONES/FIRST IN A SERIES:

Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli

A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizal

The Diablo's Curse by Gabe Cole Novoa

The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert

Conditions of A Heart by Bethany Mangle

We Got the Beat by Jenna Miller

The Someday Daughter by Ellen O'Clover

My Throat An Open Grave by Tori Bovalino

NEW SEQUELS:

For the Stolen Fates (In the City of Time #2) by Gwendolyn Clare

Disciples of Chaos (Seven Faceless Saints #2) by M.K. Lobb

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Happy reading!

Okay, know what? Here are some non-horror recs just for you!

The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin (First book is The Fifth Season. Adult Fantasy, in which this apocalypse is just another in a long line of apocalypses. This one wrecked me.)

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (YA/Adult Fantasy. Along with the rest of the Wayward Children series, this book follows young adults who have returned to our world after having spent time in others. Contains stellar queer and trans rep [including an ace character!].)

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert (YA Fantasy. A blend of fairytale/folktale and urban fantasy that takes a HECK of a journey and explores some fascinating themes. This one especially screams your name, as far as I can tell.)

Books read in September + October 2023

The Bad Ones by Melissa Albert

Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree

The Beauty by Jane Hirshfield

Saturnalia by Stephanie Feldman

Deleting parasocial brainrot

This is the beginning of week 3 of no fomo. I have learnt a lot of important things during this second week of not allowing myself to go on social medias. For once, I decided to try not going on Tumblr as well, blocking it on my computer at the very least. That didn’t last very long because Tumblr really does bring me joy and my time scrolling remains limited anyway. But I did end up limiting my posts about my no fomo experience to once a week because there’s only so much to write about it on the daily besides “didn’t go on social medias. Got bored. Did something else instead.”

I finished the book The Hazel Wood. Learnt it has a sequel and am definitely not interested in that but the actual fairy tales Melissa Albert wrote in Tales from the Hinterland look interesting so I’ll check it out at the library next time. The Hazel Wood started inconsistently, then the real mystery kicked in and it got fast paced until the characters arrived at the actual Hazel Wood. Then I found it boring and skimmed the rest of the book. I didn’t care enough about the main characters to care about the revelations about their lives nor their downfalls, but I think the author would be great at writing actual mysteries/thrillers because that part was really engaging. She also writes great, chilling short stories in the fairy tales she shared in The Hazel Wood, which is why I’m interested in reading Tales from the Hinterland. But this is gonna be for another library trip cause I borrowed Roshani Chokshi’s The Last Tale of the Flower Bride this time. Very much still in a gothic/fairy tales mood.

I played a LOT of Stardew Valley too. I started playing at the beginning of the week and I’m currently almost at the end of winter of year 1, reached level 70 in the mines (I’m a wimp when it comes to fighting so I'm impressed with myself I got this far). I got one cow and two chickens and a horse, and I keep my garden relatively small because I make most of my money from foraging and fishing anyway (also because I prefer wandering around rather than spending a lot of time on the farm most days). Clearly my no fomo is not about cutting screen time because this ain’t it but I’m enjoying myself and that is the main goal of it all.

I’ve come to realize this week that I’ve been wrong about something for a long time and it slapped me in the face quite violently. I used to think that parasocial relationships are formed with people we are a fan of as opposed to people we watch because we’re bored and have no real connection with. But truth is, the moment someone talks to us (or at us) is when a parasocial relationship is formed. Doesn’t matter if we agree with them or not, the moment we respond to them in our head is the moment that connection is formed. Hell, if you’re reading this still, we’re in a parasocial relationship. And I’ve come to discover this week that those parasocial relationships have replaced my need for other kind of connections for most of my adult life (since social media became a thing really). They never replaced my need for romantic relationships, but I’ve always had iffy connections with friends. Not to the point of in person neglect, but the moment there is distance and online is the only way to interact, that neglect makes itself painfully apparent. I always thought it might have been because I don’t feel the need for friendship as strongly since I do feel very comfortable with solitude in general and enjoy spending time with myself. But the truth is I got all the things I would get from friendships online, from people I don’t know and will never know me. Gossips, entertainment, advice, deep dives into topics of interest, I found it all online or, most often, it found me (thanks algorithm). And this week, that realization came with the most human feeling: I miss my friends. I miss talking with them, listening to them, having people in my life who knows me, whom I personally know too. People I can hug and can hug me back, people who laugh at my jokes as I laugh at theirs. True reciprocity. It’s a lot of touching grass together.

Relearning how to interact with my friends and open up to them will take some time, but my friendships are actually important to me and I’m willing to put in the work to invite them back in and create new connections as well. It’s not that making friends or maintaining friendships is hard as an adult, it’s that it’s hard to let go of parasocial relationships to make space for those friendships. Especially when the apps where we find those parasocial relationships are just at our fingertips and created to lure us back in at the earliest moment.

I won’t say that social medias cannot create real life friendships with people, because truth is a lot of people meet their best friends and romantic relationships online (hey, I met my wife here after all). But the key word here is reciprocity. Making friends sometimes is just about letting go of the people who will never reply to us in any meaningful way. They can’t even see us behind their own screens anyway.

– Melissa Albert, Our Crooked Hearts

Her influence grew from a breath to a rebellious wind, sweeping caution away. Girls wore their skirts shorter, threaded hoops through their ears. They painted their mouths corpse-white or bright as blood and let their bangs skim their eyes like Grace Slick's. There was a glass-sharp edge to every argument, a chaotic sense of good-bad possibilities blooming Everyone seemed to be dumping her boyfriend.

The Night Country #OutOfContext

ok guys I'm committed I'm writing a hazel woods fan fiction I will build this fandom with my own two hands If I have to

We didn’t wonder where the magic came from, or why it worked. We never asked ourselves, Is this ours to take? We were three damp ducklings, green as leaves, believing with all our crooked hearts that we were the ones writing this story. Even as a dead woman’s book paved the road beneath our feet.

our crooked hearts by melissa albert

JOMP Book Photo Challenge || November 8 || Set In Fall:      The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

Currently reading.

Definitely recommend to people who love dark fairytales that don’t have happy endings.

Title: The Hazel Wood

Author: Melissa Albert

Series or standalone: series

Publication year: 2018

Genres: fiction, fantasy, mystery, magical realism

Blurb: 17-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice’s life on the road, always a step ahead of the uncanny bad luck biting at their heels...but when Alice’s grandmother, the reclusive author of a cult-classic book of pitch-dark fairytales, dies alone on her estate, the Hazel Wood, Alice learns how bad her luck can really get. Her mother is stolen away by a figure who claims to come from the Hinterland, the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother’s stories are set. Alice’s only lead is the message her mother left behind: Stay away from the Hazel Wood. Alice has long steered clear of her grandmother’s cultish fans...but now, she has no choice but to ally with classmate Ellery Finch, a Hinterland superfan who may have his own reasons for wanting to help her. To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother’s tales began...and where she might find out how her own story went so wrong.