“i think there’s something about being a young woman that feels very murderous. that’s what i was trying to get with a song like ‘dream girl evil.’ it can be dangerous for people to think you’re incredibly nice. when you get, ‘you’re an angel,’ that seems like such a high place to fall from. when i see messy or violent or terribly behaved women, especially young women, there’s a liberation. to not have to try and survive by being good.”

— florence welch on her song “dream girl evil”

Anyone else make the switch from GoodReads to StoryGraph?

I never used GR for the social component - strictly used it for (lazily) tracking my reading. Now that I’m getting more into reading, I decided to make the switch to StoryGraph and already I like it so much more. More options for tracking — I like that you can categorize books as “did not finish” — and it’s a much, much cleaner app experience.

Anywho! If you’re on SG and wanna find me, I’m audiopepper.

Really enjoyed A Psalm for the Wild-Built it was the perfectly sized solar punk novella I needed to unwind. I need more hopeful stories in my life, the pace of it was a balm and as a certified tea person, once a small tea buisness owner I found the concept of a traveling monk providing tea service utterly delightful.

I really miss lazy Saturday mornings at the farmers market offering samples of tea and talking about blends and herbs with folks

✨One of my reading goals for 2024 is reading more of my backlist TBR titles. So, here are a few of the books I hope to get to in February! ✨

P.S. I have already DNF’ed Gothikana 🫢

Rip unnamed gay #2 you would've loved tumblr

I also read Church of Marvels by Leslie Parry, which is a historical fiction with one of the most heart breaking trans stories I’ve ever read and Parry somehow also made it a happy ending? This book made me stare at a wall for five real life minutes. It was one of the most well done multi-pov/multi-plot-becomes-one-plot books I’ve ever read. The vibes were incredible, the characters were incredible, and I really don’t know how it doesn’t have more of a following. Idk much about New York, but Parry’s descriptions of 1890s Coney Island and New York made it the absolutely perfect place to set this story.

On days where RL clubs me with a sledgehammer, I reach for poetry. Oftentimes, there’s an uncanny correlation between my emotional state and whatever poem I randomly pick from whatever anthology I’m currently reading. Take today:

I’m sad for different reasons, but - Misha!! Thanks for smacking me in the face with this. Right in the feels…

I am inordinately delighted by all the hatchlings of eggs that Temeraire has managed to talk to being, just. FIRMLY opinionated slskdjfh

(Reading Tongues of Serpents; the first hatchling hatched all of 60 seconds ago in my audiobook and I have no idea how this will play out in even just the next few paragraphs. But. For the moment? Yes. Delighted 😂)

“they pushed their faces toward me. / their poems toward me. / they leapt & thrashed, they were stars, / stars, stars. / i woke up weeping. do you understand? / i thought i could only fall asleep / doing that.”

— chen chen, “spring summer autumn winter,” your emergency contact has experienced an emergency

Quite proud of this one

Bill's scars canonically correct

"God gives us the ugliness so we don’t take the beautiful things in life for granted."

~Colleen Hoover, Ugly Love

reading tpm and it’s heartbreaking to see little anakin helping a tusken raider. he rescued the raider and sat with them through the night until the their people came and found them. his heart was so big and so kind. it’s heartbreaking to see how he ends up murdering a tribe of them in anger. i would have loved to see who anakin would have been if palpatine never twisted him

Not to be an edgy "TikTok is ruining people's brains" tumblrina but it's actually wild to see the "I only read YA" crowd out in the real world

Like they're not just some psyop for Big Publisher they're real and their opinions are real

How was your reading in October? 📚🍂

Posting my October wrap up because I love this aesthetic. I read 25 books in October—17 of which were my physical books (most were audiobooks). I had some DNFs and some new favourites. I’ll be posting the rest of the reviews I need to catch up on this week (probably today!) in my stories, and they will be saved in my highlights like always!

[ID: photo of a bookstack on a full bookshelf with a tea mug beside the books.]