The ‘Un-put-down-able’ books I’ve read recently.

Lately, I have not been giving myself time to read. ‘Slump’ isn’t exactly the right word – there are still books that I want to read, and I have been making fairly steady process on those books. It is simply a matter of what time I have – my life has been busy, and I have other things to do, most of which I feel are more ‘productive’ than reading. At these times, for me, it can often feel like a waste of time to do anything other than what I need to do, so anytime I sit down to read a book, I feel like I should be doing work instead.

That being said, there are some books that you just can’t put down. Regardless of how much work you have, you just need to get back to reading that book, and finishing it as fast as you can. I’ve had several of those experiences in the past few months, and today I wanted to share with you the books that I couldn’t stop reading, despite my busy schedule.

You Don’t Have a Shot, by Racquel Marie

If you’ve been on my blog for more than two posts, you have probably heard something about how I hate reading romance books. I just think that there are far too many of them, and I don’t enjoy reading them in general. And yet, there are just some romance books that I can’t stay away from.

The main pull of You Don’t Have a Shot was primarily the banter. This was a romcom at its finest – there were so many parts that I just couldn’t help but laugh at, and the book itself was just such a joy to read. Not only was the banter top-notch, though, but the slow burn romance was probably the best that I have ever read. The reason I found this book un-put-down-able was truly because I couldn’t wait to see when the two characters would get together – it all felt so close, but just out of reach.

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Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World was a shock for me. I’d read the first book in the duology several years ago and it didn’t really resonate with me – Ari’s personality didn’t really come through, and the book felt very emotionless. I wasn’t expecting to like this one any more, but picked it up on a whim when I didn’t want to read anything else.

The reason I really liked this book more, and I couldn’t put it down, was because of the friend group. In the first book, the only two characters are Ari and Dante, and I found that to be a little boring because they were just always together, and there was no one else. This book, however, saw Ari opening up to some of his friends and slowly forming this group of people who he could trust and confide in. Each of these characters and their own unique personalities made me want to see what they were going to do next.

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Imogen, Obviously, by Becky Albertalli

I’ve read a few of Becky Albertalli’s books before, but haven’t enjoyed any of them nearly as much as I liked Imogen, Obviously. I picked this one up after finding it in my house mysteriously (aka my mom randomly got it from the library), and I literally did not put it down until I was finished.

I liked this book in ways similar to the other two – the characters and their friend group was amazing. I also loved the text conversations happening in this book – I’m not sure why, but I really like reading texts within books. Similar to You Don’t Have a Shot, this was a slow burn which kept me rooting for the characters the whole book.

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Icebreaker, by A.L. Grazadei

I have wanted to read Icebreaker ever since I heard about it in 2021, before it was published. I’ll pick up nearly any book about sports, and especially a queer one. This one is a bit of an outlier on this book, mainly because I actually didn’t enjoy it as much as I was expecting to, and yet I still sped through it and couldn’t put it down.

The main reason I didn’t enjoy Icebreaker as much as I was expecting is that it felt like it moved too fast and so I didn’t get to see the romance develop as much as I would have liked to. Moreover, once the characters got together there still wasn’t many scenes involving them actually being in a relationship, something that was confusing given that it was a romance book. Regardless, all the side characters (especially Mickey’s sisters!!) were amazing and I loved the integration of sports, especially college sports, into the book!!

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Love Letters For Joy, by Melissa See

Another one that materialized in my house one day, I was not expecting to get much from this one. The MC is asexual, which I’m always glad to see, but it was primarily a romance, so once again I wasn’t sure what I was going to get from it.

Love Letters For Joy, however, manages to perfectly blend important discussions about love and identity, a slow burn romance, and amazing friends (plus some not so great ones). I loved the disabled, queer representation in this book, and I also loved Nathaniel’s relationship with his siblings. Plus, the email exchanges were super fun to read!

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Last Violent Call, by Chloe Gong

The one non-contemporary book on this list, Last Violent Call was such a joy to pick up. You’ll have to read Chloe Gong’s other books before you get to this one – it centers around characters from These Violent Delights, while focusing on issues happening in Foul Lady Fortune – but these two novellas were really fun to read in the wait before Foul Heart Huntsman comes out.

Chloe Gong has this amazing ability to make such fantastic, engaging plot lines, while continuing to allow her characters to shine brightly. It seems like most fantasy books I read are centered around the plots, and while Gong’s books are no different, her characters still shine so strong. That’s why reading these novellas, whose plots I felt weren’t as powerful as those of her other books, was still so fun – I got to see all the old characters I had missed from TVD.

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What books have you read recently that you haven’t been able to put down? Have you read any of these books? Let me know in the comments!

Zodiac Book Tag

I figured it was time to get back to doing some tags, so I scrolled down to the very bottom of my drafted posts to find the tag from the longest amount of time ago that I hadn’t done, and this is what I came up with!

Personally, I’ve never really believed in zodiac signs – I’m a pisces, and I’m a terrible swimmer (I’ve been told that I think about this far too literally). But how could everyone from one month’s worth of time have the same personality and traits? Still, they’re interesting ideas to think about, and I’m super excited to get into this tag, so let’s go!

I was tagged for this over two years ago (whoops) by Ritz @Living, Loving, Reading. There’s a book tag and a music tag, and I’m going to do just the book tag because I don’t listen to much music.

Rules:

• Link back to the creator, i.e, Swift Walker @Just Dreamland
• Link back to the person who tagged you!
• Answer all the prompts.
• If you use the original graphics, credit the creator (i.e., Swift Walker)
• Tag at least 5 bloggers and provide links to their blogs.
• Name your Zodiac sign!!!!
• Don’t forget to add #ItsAZodiacThing tag.
• You can either do the zodiac book tag /the zodiac music tag or both them. Graphics for separate tags should be given at the end.
• Enjoy doing the post

Aries: a wild and compelling book – from start to finish. Every page intoxicated your mind and heart with incredible imagery

I’m not sure if this is exactly what the prompt had in mind, but the imagery in The Beast Player was fantastic – I really got an amazing idea of what the world was like, and what was happening at the time. It was a more character based book, and it was a little slower than most, but that just let you appreciate the imagery more.

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Taurus: A heart wrenching story of a forbidden love that could tear the family apart

Wow, I wasn’t actually expecting to choose this book at any point in this tag, and yet it just fit really well. The Song of Us came out pretty recently, and it’s a middle grade book in verse that follows two girls who start dating, but they end up breaking up because of one bad incident, and spend the rest of the book trying to get back to each other. It was surprisingly sad for a middle grade book. It’s also a retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice.

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Gemini: A book that is cheeky, quippy and witty

I read this book about a year and a half after it was a big deal among those on goodreads, but I was very happy I picked it up, and now I understand the hype. This book was just truly funny, and fun to read. The banter and talk between Meddy and her aunts was outrageously entertaining.

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Cancer: A bittersweet book that spoke to your sensitive heart

Friday I’m in Love is a little bit of a weird answer, because ultimately this book is about joy, and celebration, but the underside of this book focuses on money worries, as well as medical scares, which made me think of this book as more ‘bittersweet’.

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Leo: A book with drama, love, fancy wear and hope

Self Made Boys, by Anna Marie McLemore. This is a retelling of The Great Gatsby, so already you have the fancy wear and love down easily, but this book also has a good amount of hope, unlike its original. This was a pretty fun retelling, especially the ending, which deviated from the original. I will say, though, that most of the rest of the book was a little too similar to The Great Gatsby – it just felt like I was reading TGG for most of it.

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Virgo: a tender story about self love, self discovery, perseverance, friendship, romance, and family

I literally just read this book, and it fits the prompt perfectly. The first book in this duology, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, had self discovery, romance and family, but this one just checks all the boxes. In Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World, they begin opening up to a few more people, and by the end they have a fantastic friend group that I just love reading about.

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Libra: A book that has a remarkably frank look on life. One of the realest books you’ve ever read

I don’t really read frank books I guess? I read books to escape my world, not think more about it.

Scorpio: A book with a good plot twist. A book that is psychologically thrilling and emotionally chilling. Haunted you from the first page to the last

I’m shocked that Ace of Spades was the first book that came to mind here, because I read it well over a year ago, but this book was truly shocking in its plot twists, as well as frightening and a real wake up call. Reading this book was terrifying, but it certainly fits the prompts of ‘good plot twist’ and ‘psychologically thrilling.’

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Sagittarius: An adventurous, summery read

Why not go with the book that I just read? I devoured Imogen, Obviously, in under a day, and it was a fantastic read. I always think of contemporary books as ‘summer’ reads, so this one felt perfect for the warm weather. It’s not much of an adventure, unless you count questioning your sexuality as an adventure, which it is, so this book still fits perfectly.

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Capricorn: A book that has everything to do with friendship

How could I choose anything other than Loveless for this one? Loveless has been one of my favorite books ever since I read it for the first time, and the friendships in it are one of my favorite things ever. The best display of friendship in this book is that long monologue that Rooney says to Georgia near the end, about how she’ll always be her friend and they’ll grow old together, etc. It’s just perfect. Here’s a link to my goodreads review, where I put the entire monologue.

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Aquarius: A quirky and unique book

If I had to describe The Foxhole Court in one way, ‘unique’ would probably work well. I avoided this book for years because of the incredibly mixed reviews, but given that it was a sports book, I decided to pick it up, thinking that I would probably like it because I enjoy sports books. I was definitely wrong. This book largely felt very uncomfortable and toxic, and I was not a fan. Still, it was one of the more unique books I’ve read – the author invented a whole sport, after all – so it works for my pick here.

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Pisces: A book that bewitched and enchanted you with its lyrical words, and transmuted your imaginative brain.

Maybe not exactly what the prompt had in mind, but I personally love Taylor Jenkins Reid’s writing. I think that she just conveys scenes and drama so well, and it really makes me love her books because it keeps me very invested. I chose Carrie Soto is Back because it’s the TJR book that I read most recently, and it’s easily my favorite TJR book as well. Her writing really lends itself to the contents of this book, because it’s about tennis, and the action scenes are written really well.

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I went back and forth on whether to tag people or not – I wanted to revitalize the tag since it’s been so long since anyone did it, but I eventually decided against this because I have been out of the blogging world for so long that I’m not sure who’s doing tags, or how active any of the people I follow are. But if you’re interested in this tag, please go ahead and do it! It was really fun and I’d highly encourage you to try!

The Mid-Year Freakout Tag

What better way to take a quick moment back from my ongoing blogging hiatus to talk about how my year’s going so far! I’ve seen the Mid Year Freakout Tag multiple times throughout my time as a blogger, but never got around to trying it myself until now. I know I haven’t been very active on my blog lately, but I have been reading a fair amount. Let’s see what I’ve thought about the books I’ve read so far this year!

Best book you’ve read so far this year

Clearly I’ve been enjoying several of the books I’ve read – my only post so far this year was the best books I’d read this year. And yet, none of those books is my choice – instead, I’m going with Carrie Soto is Back, by Taylor Jenkins Reid, which I finished just a few days ago. This is a book about a tennis player and I always love sports books (I wrote a post on that a few years ago!!!), but I especially loved the character development in this one.

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Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far This Year

And now is when my terrible memory fails me, because I cannot remember the plots of any of the sequels I’ve read this year. I’m going to go with The Beast Warrior, sequel to The Beast Player, because I really enjoyed TBP, and I think that TBW was very similar to that enjoyment, since it was kind of a (much later) continuation of the same plot line.

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New release you haven’t read yet, but want to

I’ve thought You Don’t Have A Shot, by Raquel Marie, sounds awesome since I first heard of it. Marie’s first book, Ophelia After All, is one of my favorites, and YDHAS is about sports!!!

Edit: I’ve read it since writing this blog post (but not before publishing it). It is amazing. Racquel Marie is amazing. My review.

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Most anticipated release for the second half of the year

There’s only one book I can think of when I think ‘anticipated release,’ and that one doesn’t come out until next year. But I am just so, so excited for Dear Wendy, by Ann Zhao, a book about two aroace college students who run rival relationship advice blogs, but become best friends in real life without knowing the other is behind the screen.

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Edit: I just read May @Forever and Everly’s list of anticipated releases and now I have a lot more anticipated releases.

Biggest disappointment

I read Skin of the Sea after the book sat on my shelf for over a year, and really enjoyed it. So you’ll have to imagine my disappointment when I read its sequel, Soul of the Deep, and it was…fine. I was slow to get through it because I didn’t want to pick it up since I didn’t enjoy it, and it just made me not want to read at times, which was really disappointing.

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Biggest Surprise

Since I already used Carrie Soto is Back for one of my answers, I’m going to go with Foul Lady Fortune. I certainly enjoyed Chloe Gong’s other books, the These Violent Delights series, but FLF was just on another level. I loved the characters, I loved the story, I just loved everything about it, and it surpassed my expectations completely.

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Favorite new author

I had read books by Taylor Jenkins Reid before I picked up Carrie Soto Is Back, but I think that CSIB really confirmed my love for TJR’s books. She has this writing style that is just really easy for me to read, but that really keeps me hooked the entire book. She has a way of writing characters and conveying stories and emotions in a way that makes me fall absolutely in love with her books.

Newest fictional crush

N/A, obviously.

Newest favorite character

I’m going to go with Elin, from The Beast Player and its sequel, for this one. I loved TBP because of its characters and its world, and Elin is one of my favorites. She is so curious, and determined, and driven to do what she thinks is right. She spends a lot of time contemplating if what she is doing is the right thing to do, and the morals of these things, and she always makes her decisions with lots of thought put into them. She’s a much slower, more considerate character than many others that you read about, who just jump into action without considering the consequences.

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Book that made you cry

I… don’t cry when reading books. I just don’t. Sometimes they make me tear up a little, but I honestly cannot think of which books made me do that, because sometimes it’s the most random books that otherwise would not make me feel anything.

Book that made you happy

Ummm…Carrie Soto is Back is the only correct response I can give here. This book is just about the love for a sport, and its character development as it follows Carrie through one last year in tennis, as she rediscovers her enjoyment of the game, was just beautiful. It made me so happy to witness Carrie’s growth and the friends she made along the way.

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What books do you need to read before the end of the year?

I’ve turned into much more of a mood reader these days. I don’t want to force myself to read any specific book, and I’ll just pick up what I think looks good in the moment. So I’m sure there’s books that I want to read, but I’ve been terrible with adding things to my TBR, and I don’t feel like going searching for the books at the moment, so here’s my answer. If YOU have any suggestions for books I should read before the end of the year, please let me know! (and recommend them to me on goodreads so I actually mark them as tbr).

Have you read any of these books? What are some of your favorite books of the year? Do you have any recommendations for books I should read in the second half of this year?

Books I’ve Absolutely Loved So Far This Year

Recently, I was reading a book, and it was that type of book that makes me feel like I can’t put it down, not because I needed to know what happens next, but because I just loved the world and the story and wanted to be surrounded by that. And my next thought after this was that I wanted to share it with other people, thus introducing my first post of 2023: books that I’ve loved so much that I just want to talk about them.

The reason I created this blog in the first place was to establish a place that I could talk about books and share my love for them with other people who feel the same way. And although I haven’t been doing much of that lately (in fact, it’s been just over a year since I stopped posting consistently), I really just wanted to make a straightforward post about books that I love in the hopes that I can talk about them with you. Let’s get to it.

A Thousand Steps into Night, by Traci Chee

There’s fantasy books, and then there’s fantasy books. I don’t know what it is about a good old epic fantasy, but I just love a solid adventure filled with a lovable cast of characters and a fantastic journey. In A Thousand Steps into Night, the main character Miuko gets cursed to slowly turn into a demon and must venture to get rid of this curse with the aid o a magpie spirit, all while having a treacherous demon prince hot on her tail. Miuko’s character development through the story is fantastic as she begins to realize that everything she knows about her world may not be completely accurate, and her slow acceptance to who she is. The characters who she meets on the way, too, all have wonderful personalities, and the plot is riveting – especially since it has a side of time travel (not just a ‘side’. Time travel plays a big part, which makes it all the more confusing and fun).

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Foul Lady Fortune, by Chloe Gong

I wasn’t actually expecting to enjoy Foul Lady Fortune very much, which makes it all the more exciting that I did. When I read These Violent Delights and its sequel, I found them to be good books, but I was certainly not the hype machine that everyone seemed to have turned into upon the publication of TVD. I thought that I would enjoy FLF around the same amount, and yet something about it just spoke to me so much more. When someone asked me why I liked it so much once I finished, I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it until a few days later, when I realized that it was, without a doubt, the characters who I loved so much. Several of the characters were definitely in TVD, but seeing them shine as main characters or characters who were more central to the plot was fantastic. Their dynamics and their actions were all perfect, and they were just so much fun to read. (PS: Alisa is aroace!!!)

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The Beast Player, by Nahoko Uehashi

The Beast Player is one of those books that has sat on my shelf for ages, and I only picked it up when I was in a lull of reading and didn’t have any books from the library or anything like that. I was not expecting to enjoy it nearly as much as I did, and yet as I got farther into it, I found myself pulled into the story, following the characters so closely that I couldn’t put it down. The Beast Player examines the intricate relationship between human and animal through the story of the main character, Elin, and her bond with a mythical beast named Leelan. Like the other two books on this list, this is a very character driven story – there’s not much action, but it instead follows Elin’s life from the age of 10 through her early twenties. The relationship between Elin and Leelan was written fabulously and the thoughts and ideas that Elin grappled with were marvelously communicated. I would absolutely recommend this to anyone looking to read a character driven book that explores a lot of deep ideas, set in a wonderfully written fantasy world.

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As I was writing out this post, I noticed something odd. When I read, I generally prefer plot driven books. I like the fast paced stories that keep me gripped onto every word. And yet the things that drew me to each of these three books were the characters. A Thousand Steps into Night and Foul Lady Fortune certainly had their fair share of action and plot, but it was still the characters that I loved most about those stories. Character driven books are very much a hit or miss for me – either they’re too boring, or, apparently, they become my new favorite book. This being said, does anyone have any character driven books that they love and would recommend to me?

Thanks for stopping by to read this random post! Have you read any of these books? Do you have any recommendations for me? Let me know in the comments!

Loveless: A Review and Discussion on ‘The One Aroace Experience’

Hey everyone! So, one of my favorite books came out in the United States finally, a few weeks ago, and so in honor of this I wanted to formally write a review of this book on my blog, but not only that, I want to do a little discussion on this book as well. Let’s get into it!

Loveless | Alice Oseman

Published March 1, 2022

432 Pages | Hardcover

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Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush – but as a fanfic-obsessed romantic she’s sure she’ll find her person one day.

As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a whole new town far from home, Georgia’s ready to find romance, and with her outgoing roommate on her side and a place in the Shakespeare Society, her ‘teenage dream’ is in sight.

But when her romance plan wreaks havoc amongst her friends, Georgia ends up in her own comedy of errors, and she starts to question why love seems so easy for other people but not for her. With new terms thrown at her – asexual, aromantic – Georgia is more uncertain about her feelings than ever.

Is she destined to remain loveless? Or has she been looking for the wrong thing all along?

Summary from goodreads

Loveless is a book that means a whole lot to me, and rereading it just made me love it all over again. I got the questioning, the self-doubt, the awesome friendships all over again, and it just reminded me how much I love this book. This is a story of messy teens (first year university students, actually), questioning, and friendship. A whole lot of friendship.

I wanted to zoom in on that word ‘messy’ because I think that is truly the best way to describe these characters, and especially Georgia. There are fights in this book. Georgia does some really awful things, and sometimes her friends do awful things. There are times when you might be worried about the turnout of something, or even frustrated with how Georgia handles things. That’s okay.

Georgia is one of the most relatable characters to me that I have read. I definitely am not a fan of all the same things as she is (I’ve basically never read a fanfic in my life?) but the way she feels about her sexuality and about her friends is just so similar to me. I also want to call out the fact that Loveless highlights self doubt and the feelings that might come with being aroace, at least for some people (obviously, there are so many different aroace experiences). After Georgia first realizes that she may be aroace, and first starts to think about it, she’s just upset and down on herself. We are raised in a world where romance is so highly praised, it’s just everywhere and so often the ‘final goal’ in life. And that can be really hard as an aroace person. Knowing that you’re never going to experience this ‘magical experience’ that everyone else has. Knowing that your friends are going to fall in love and put you second for the rest of your life because everyone just says that romance. Is. Better. To see a character in a book who thinks the same way, and to see a book that actually talks about that? Amazing. I think that often, it can be hard for authors to write books where characters of marginalized identities are down on themselves because of their marginalized identity, since there’s that pressure to show happy people of that identity. Authors don’t want to write a book where a main character just hates their identity because it’s like it reflects that any people of that identity are not happy, when obviously we know that’s not true since everyone has different experiences. But it’s still important to show these things, like being down due to your identity, so that people in the real world who might be experiencing the same things know that they’re not alone in feeling that and often the book can help you get through or at least accept that feeling more.

I also wanted to discuss something I’ve seen pop up in a lot of reviews: the ‘one aroace experience’ idea. First of all, just as a disclaimer, everyone is entitled to their own opinion obviously. By writing this, I am not trying to insult or undermine what anyone who believes this is saying, but simply offering my own opinion on the topic.
Many reviews make the argument that Loveless gives a singular aroace experience and makes it seem like everyone who is aroace follows this experience. And yes, it is true that Loveless does give a single (of many different) aroace experience, due to the fact that it follows one person going through her own experience, and probably also largely reflects what the author themself went through. However, I do not believe that this book should have the responsibility of showing so many different aroace experiences. It’s one person, it’s one experience. There are so many books out there about gay teens, and so many of them have so many different experiences, but almost all only represent one singular of the many experiences. And I really think the difference between those books and Loveless is that there are so few aroace books out there that people just believe this book should embody all aroace experiences, and for those who don’t know much about the aroace community, they may believe that it DOES embody all aroace experiences. But we cannot expect to relate to every single character of our same identity that we read, and I am sorry if Loveless was not a book that you could relate to as much as you might have hoped you could have, but I still do not believe that it is a problem that it shows a singular aroace experience. It can definitely be disappointing to find a character of such a little-talked about identity and not feel like you can connect to them – for me, Agatha in Ophelia After All is a great example of this – but yeah, aroace people do have quite a few different experiences, and unfortunately a singular book cannot cover all these experiences.

I have no idea if any of what I just said made any sense, and I wrote like half of it directly after I’d finished the book, right before I was about to go to bed, but this was something that I’d been thinking about for a while and I really wanted to address it in my post.

Have you read Loveless? What were your thoughts on it? Do you agree with what I said?

Interview with Rosiee Thor, author of Fire Becomes Her

Hey everyone! Today I’m here with an author who’ve I’d had visit my blog before – Rosiee Thor! The last time that Rosiee visited here, it was my very first author interview and we discussed their debut novel, Tarnished are the Stars. You can find that interview here. But Rosiee recently had another book published – their sophomore novel Fire Becomes Her came out on February 1, and today we’re here to discuss this new book! Let’s check out what Fire Becomes Her is about, first.

Fire Becomes Her | Rosiee Thor

Published February 1, 2022

368 pages | Hardcover

Goodreads

Flare is power.

With only a drop of flare, one can light the night sky with fireworks . . . or burn a building to the ground — and seventeen-year-old Ingrid Ellis wants her fair share.

Ingrid doesn’t have a family fortune, monetary or magical, but at least she has a plan: Rise to the top on the arm of Linden Holt, heir to a hefty political legacy and the largest fortune of flare in all of Candesce. Her only obstacle is Linden’s father who refuses to acknowledge her.

So when Senator Holt announces his run for president, Ingrid uses the situation to her advantage. She strikes a deal to spy on the senator’s opposition in exchange for his approval and the status she so desperately craves. But the longer Ingrid wears two masks, the more she questions where her true allegiances lie.

Will she stand with the Holts, or will she forge her own path?

Summary from Goodreads

So first of all, just tell us a little about yourself!

Hello! I’m Rosiee, author of queer science fiction and fantasy novels. I have two published novels: Fire Becomes Her and Tarnished are the Stars. I’m also an avid gardener and mediocre gamer!

Fire Becomes Her is your sophomore novel, and it’s a fantasy, unlike your debut science fiction, Tarnished Are the Stars. What was different about writing a fantasy book this time, and why did you choose to do so?

It might be a little odd to say this but… not much was different. Science Fiction and Fantasy are really just two sides of the same coin. The difference is really just what you call it–technology or magic? So as far as genre, I still had a lot of the same considerations to make about how the magic/tech worked and how much of that was going to get explained. At the end of the day, it was more of a marketing decision than a clear distinction of genre, since they both contain elements of science and magic.

I think one of the biggest things in Fire Becomes Her was the extremely unique worldbuilding, as well as a government system that was a huge part of the book. The book centers around the use of magic called Flare. How did you come up with the idea of Flare and all its uses throughout the book?

Figuring out the magic system for this book was absolutely central to the world building. Basically, Flare is fire magic that you can drink, but it’s also so much more than that.

I wanted to play around with magic, but I wanted that magic to play a deep and inexorable role in the world. No one lives in that world without being impacted by magic in one way or another. I decided to tie it to multiple areas of society to make sure it was fully entrenched, so it’s the social equivalent of alcohol, the economic equivalent of oil, and the aesthetic equivalent of fire. This allowed me to play around with magic in every aspect of their society–wealth, status, politics, vibe…etc.

In FBH, you highlighted several different identities on the aromantic and asexual spectrums, and two of these characters also ended up in a queerplatonic relationship. Can you tell readers a little bit about these identities, and what it means for you to write them?

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to write about a character discovering her aromantic identity and what it means to her, but I didn’t really know what that was going to look like until I started writing. Ingrid’s a lot like me and her experiences with relationships and the discomfort she feels in romantic situations is drawn directly from my life. When I first started writing stories, I didn’t think characters like her would be well received by publishing at all, so to have my editor give me the go-ahead to write the story the way I wanted to was such a freeing experience. I got to follow my own emotional logic instead of trying to piece it together based on how I assumed others might feel. I always knew I wanted Ingrid to make a big decision about her relationship to romance, but the idea to center a queer platonic partnership in the story didn’t occur to me until I was a bit further into the draft. Originally, I had planned to write a sequel which would allow more time and space for that relationship to form, but when my publisher only bought one book, I realized I didn’t want to leave it out in hopes I’d get the opportunity to write the sequel. I didn’t want to leave that up to chance and not get to write this relationship, so I reconfigured the story and gave certain characters more page-time to make sure they got the story I intended.

The first time I interviewed you, I asked how you grew through writing Tarnished Are the Stars and I want to ask you the same question again. Do you think you grew more through writing Tarnished or FBH?

I definitely grew a lot while writing Fire Becomes Her. As a writer, certainly, but also as a person. I always find things out about myself through writing that I don’t really anticipate. With Tarnished, I learned a lot about my own identity on the ace and aro spectrums, but with Fire Becomes Her I was surprised to find some of my own feelings about gender, pronouns, and perception echoed in one of the other characters in the book, Alex. I knew I was a lot like Ingrid and her journey would mirror parts of my own, but I did not expect to see myself in him and his non-binary experience. It forced me to think a lot about myself and my relationship to gender in ways that deepened my understanding of my own identity. 

How would you describe FBH in one sentence, to someone who hasn’t read it yet?

An ambitious girl must choose between her head and her heart during an election where magic buys votes.

What do you think would happen in an interaction between the main characters of Tarnished are the Stars, and Fire Becomes Her? Do you think your characters would get along?

I don’t think Ingrid would get along very well with any of the main characters of Tarnished, to be honest. She’s a little too prickly in a very specific way for them. She and Eliza might do okay, but I think Eliza would see right through her and Ingrid wouldn’t love that. I do think Charlotte and Nathaniel would get along swimmingly, and Louise and Anna would be like two angry peas in a pod.

And lastly, unrelated to your writing, but what are some books that you’ve enjoyed reading in the past few months?

The last year or so has brought some amazing books to my shelves. A few favorites are In The Ravenous Dark by A.M. Strickland, The Mermaid The Witch and The Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, and The Reckless Kind by Carly Heath.

Ha you read Fire Becomes Her, or heard of the author? What did you think of the interview? Are you interested in picking up this book?

February Wrap Up

I really wanted to write an intro to this post that did NOT talk about how fast time has gone, but I then spent a good five minutes (it was more like half a minute, but it felt like five) thinking of what I could start this post by saying, and having not thought of anything, you get this. I successfully avoided talking about the speed of time! Kind of!

• Ophie’s Ghosts by Justina Ireland. I picked this one up on a whim, and it was a quick middle grade read. It’s interesting to read a middle grade that’s set in the earlier 1900s and I like how the author incorporated that in there. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley. This book was very good for the first 100 and last 100 pages. It kept me reading and I really enjoyed the awareness that it spread. I did feel like the middle dragged considerably, however. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Thornhill by Pam Smy. This book was half told in drawings, half in diary entries, and it was a fascinating concept, but I did not end up enjoying it much. It was a dark story, and it had an inconclusive and sad ending. ⭐⭐

• Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. This was such a nice story, with found family and also lots of violins. I am definitely nowhere near as good at violin as two of the main characters of this story (nor do I wish to be) but it was still cool to see all the violin terms and techniques. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• White Smoke by Tiffany Jackson. Shockingly enough, this was my first book by Tiffany Jackson??? It was also horror, which I don’t read much, but I found this to be a really gripping and enjoyable book. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. This book was a memoir in graphic novel form, and it was really interesting to see Maia’s journey to figuring out eir sexuality and gender. [no rating]

• Fire Becomes Her by Rosiee Thor. FBH was my most anticipated release of 2022, and I have to say, it was not what I expected. There were a lot of politics and just talking, but I did really enjoy the worldbuilding and!!! the!!! aroace spec!!! rep!!! ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• A Season of Daring Greatly by Ellen Emerson White. Woman playing professional baseball. Do I need to say anything else? This book was great for anyone who loves baseball, it’s a fiction story about a girl who becomes the first woman in professional baseball. You do have to love baseball to read it though, because there’s a lot of baseball game scenes. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• Love and Other Natural Disasters by Misa Sugiura. At the time that I read this, it was just what I needed, a nice realistic fiction that I just enjoyed all the way through. This one also has the fake dating trope which has been coming out more and more and is always so fun. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• The Keeper of the Night by Kylie Lee Baker. This was a super unique story and was really fun to read. I loved a lot of the characters as well as the story itself, but I do think that the pacing was off at the ending and that the ending overall could have been better. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• A Darker Shade of Magic by VE Schwab. Given the popularity of this book, I cannot believe that I haven’t picked it up until now. That being said, I found it to be an awesome world and an altogether enjoyable book. ⭐⭐⭐⭐
• These Feathered Flames by Alexandra Overy. Magical politics was most of this book. Still, I felt like it picked up a lot near the end and really interested me; I just wish there were more plots before then. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

• Bookish Brews interviewed Rosiee Thor (author of Fire Becomes Her) about queerplatonic relationships in books and it was so awesome to read about qprs!
• Maddie @Inking and Thinking shared some new releases by Black authors that you should look out for and it’s such an extensive list that you’re sure to find some new books to add to your TBR!
• May @Forever and Everly created the 666 Reading Challenge and I’m excited to see how she does throughout the year!
• Naemi @A Book Owl’s Corner shared what popular books would be like if she were the protagonist of them, and it was absolutely hilarious
• Rachel @A Bookworm’s Paradise gave us a look into why bookworms lead dangerous lives and it’s such a relatable post; we are in mortal danger at every moment.
• Maria @The Character Study wrote a response to my own ‘Pressure to Write Book Reviews’ post with one of her own and it was really fascinating to read someone else’s opinions on this topic!
• The Human Book Club gained a new team and I’m so excited to read more advice with these very talented bloggers!
• The Quiet Pond interviewed Lillie Lainoff in advance of her debut, One for All and it was such a great interview!

I posted four times this month and I’m very happy about this! And I mention it at least once more in this post because I’m going to keep talking about it! I have a good posting schedule! Anyways, these were all really fun posts and I hope that you enjoyed them too!

The Best Books of 2021 Tag

The Book Blogging Pressure to Review Books

The Evermore Book Tag

4 Awesome, Underhyped Authors

February Goals:

• Keep up with my posting! ✅
• Drink. Water.

I was able to keep up with my posting schedule, in which I posted once each week, every Sunday, and I’m really happy about this because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to keep going with this due to school!

• Keep up with posting schedule (yes I will just keep writing this goal)
• Organize my goodreads shelves
• Do a little blog editing

I started to do a few things with blog editing and goodreads shelves and I hope to continue doing so when I have time!

If I’m being honest, nothing much really happened in February. We had a week long break from school, and my family went on a vacation to a farm, where we got to meet some animals, which was a very nice break from school.
Valentine’s Day also happens in February, and there’s a bunch of ways to sort of show your appreciation for your friends (and I suppose romantic partners if you have them) at my school on Valentine’s Day. The biggest way is that there’s a way to send carnations to people, so I ended up with a bunch of carnations, and it’s really just a fun day to see all the carnations and trade treats with people and just have fun!
The other thing that happens in February is aromantic awareness week! Aro awareness week starts the Sunday after Valentine’s Day (I think) and I’m a little sad that I didn’t get any posts out about aro rep or anything of the sort during this week, but I did just want to let everyone know about this! If you’ve seen any great posts about aro rep or anything of the sort, please let me know in the comments because I would love to read them, and you can also look back at my own post that I published last pride month about why aroace spec rep is so important in books!
Oh yeah the other thing that happened this month was that I DNFed a book haha. Not a super huge achievement, but I find it very hard to leave books half read, even if I’m not enjoying them, so the fact that I was able to step away from this book that was boring me was good for me. Now I will just live with the knowledge that I am probably missing an extremely interesting plot in the last half of the book.

What did you read this month? Were there any posts that you enjoyed? What are some of your goals for March?

4 Awesome, Underhyped Authors

Hey everyone! Today I wanted to write a really simple post, but one that I’m also very excited for. There are a lot of authors out there whose books get insanely hyped up, whose new releases are anticipated by what seems like everyone, and those books are awesome, and absolutely rightfully hyped and anticipated. But there’s also several authors whose books I have loved, but who I really don’t see read around the blogosphere or on goodreads. So, today I wanted to bring some awareness to these authors and their books, since they’re totally awesome and you should definitely read them!

As it turns out, you probably actually have heard of most, if not all, of these authors, simply because I love their books and hype them on my blog a lot. But I still wanted to take the time to write an entire post dedicated to them, because they deserve it and I wanted my time to sing their praises again.
Also, I will only be including authors who have published at least two books (and I have read at least two books by these authors, as well) given that debut novels sometimes are not as hyped as other books just because people don’t know of the author as well. So, these are authors who’ve gone through a debut novel and then another book and I still want to talk about them.

Buttons lead to goodreads pages for each book.

Rosiee Thor

Rosiee Thor’s second book, Fire Becomes Her, just came out on February first. I did see some hype for this book, but definitely not as much as I would have hoped. Rosiee’s first book, Tarnished are the Stars, was published in 2019 and it is a really unique science fiction book. Meanwhile, Fire Becomes Her is a fantasy with amazing worldbuilding. I think that the worldbuilding in Rosiee’s books is really what shines through, with a unique world forming the setting of Tarnished as well. Rosiee’s books also highlight aroace characters and characters on the aroace spectrum, which is always a win for me, and Tarnished are the Stars is actually very important to me because that was the book where I first learned of the terms aromantic and asexual. Not only are their books great, but Rosiee Thor themself is a really great person, who has an awesome personality and is definitely the nicest author who I, myself, have talked to. I wrote a book review of Tarnished are the Stars a very long time ago, and also interviewed Rosiee Thor about it, and you can check out the review here and the interview here, but please keep in mind that this was my very first book review on my blog 🙂 (by which I mean, it might be bad). And look out for another interview with Rosiee coming very soon!

Tarnished are the stars

Fire Becomes Her

Darcie Little Badger

Darcie Little Badger is a Lipan Apache author with two published books, both of which are magical realism. Darcie’s first book, Elatsoe, was published in 2020, and her second book, A Snake Falls to Earth came the next year in 2021. Both her books center around Lipan Apache main characters, and draw on Lipan Apache legends and stories. Darcie’s writing style is awesome as well! Another thing that was great about Elatsoe and A Snake Falls to Earth is that they’re not super fast books, but in a great way. There’s not a whole lot of action, but they both feel like they’re more an exploration of the world, and of the characters, especially A Snake Falls to Earth. Definitely do not go into these books expecting a fast paced adventure, but just let yourself get pulled along with the story and the characters!
Plus, and I always have to bring this up, the main characters in both Darcie’s books are asexual, as is she, and it’s some great casual ace rep – it’s mentioned on page both times, but it’s never made a big deal of; it’s just there!

Elatsoe

A Snake Falls to Earth

Margaret Owen

Margaret Owen may be my favorite fantasy author, which is saying quite a bit. The first thing you have to notice when you read her books is just the worldbuilding. Her Merciful Crow duology as well as her newest book, Little Thieves are both set in fantasy worlds, and they’re honestly just like any other high fantasy worlds, but there’s something about the way that they’re written that’s just so great. And Margaret Owen’s books are just pure high fantasy which is absolutely something that I need every once in a while. There’s a lot of different types of fantasy books and worlds, and so many of them are great, but there’s just something about high fantasy that makes it so awesome to come back to once in a while.
The characters in Margaret’s books are also amazing, and they always end up coming together in the best way. Plus, her plots are sure to keep you hooked with their really unique stories that still manage to follow the high fantasy sort of plot structure feel! If you’re looking for a good fantasy, I would definitely recommend these books, and I will keep on recommending them until you read them (and maybe after, as well).

The Merciful Crow

The faithless hawk

Little Thieves

Justina Ireland

Justina Ireland is an author that I actually have not talked about as much on my blog, and I have no idea why! I’ve very rarely seen her book Dread Nation anywhere in the bookish community and this is a true oversight on all of your parts and I demand you fix it immediately. Dread Nation is a super unique book, set in an alternate timeline where zombies arose from the battlefields in America’s Civil War. I have honestly never read a book like this, and it may sound weird, but I promise you, it’s NOT. Both Dread Nation and it’s sequel kept me super hooked. The books also addressed some of the racial tensions of the time, and both of the main characters are black and queer (aroace rep!!!). dread Nation is NOT the only book that Justina Ireland has written, it’s simply my favorite of hers. She’s written quite a few books, but the only one that I have read other than this duology is her middle grade, Ophie’s Ghosts. I don’t delve into middle grade too much anymore because I’m not at that age range and it can affect my ability to enjoy a book, so while I definitely didn’t enjoy Ophie’s Ghosts as much as I did Dread Nation, it was still very enjoyable for a middle grade book, which really cements my love for Justina Ireland as an author!

Dread Nation

Deathless Divide

Ophie’s Ghosts

Have you read anything by these authors? What are some authors you think are underhyped?

The Best Books of 2021 Book Tag

It’s early February, I’m finally (kinda) getting used to writing ‘2022’ in the date lines of my school papers and…let’s look back at my favorite books of 2021 through a tag!

I was tagged for this one by Madeline @The Bookish Mutant, and I know that it’s February already, so we’re over a month removed from 2021, but the fact that I managed to get this tag out a month after I was tagged is pretty impressive. I call this a win, considering that the last few tags I’ve done were all from months and months in the past.

The Rules

• Link back to the original creator, Hundreds and Thousands Of Books
• Thank the blogger who tagged you
• Share your favorite books of the year! And have a great new year 🙂

The Start (Jan – March)

I had to choose two books for this one, because two of my favorite books EVER were ones that I read sometime between January and March of 2021. Felix Ever After and Loveless both are so amazing and I highly recommend them to everyone, though if you’ve followed me for at least a few posts of mine, you probably already know this.

The Middle (Apr – June)

I read a lot of books in April through June, but not that many of them really stood out to me? But I did go on a realistic fiction reading binge, and Perfect On Paper was one that I just absolutely LOVED. The way that it dealt with biphobia while also just being fabulously written and such a good story was awesome.

The Middle but with Better Weather (Jul – Sep)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. This book is hilarious. But I feel like how much I talk about how funny this one is, I often overshadow how awesome this one is in general, too. There’s just so much to love about Not My Problem, from the amazing found family to the fascinating concept, you all NEED to read this one.

The End (Oct – Dec)

October and November were VERY meh months for reading, however in December I read quite a few that I enjoyed (ignoring the fact that two of those were rereads…). Little Thieves by Margaret Owen was the first book that I read which I got for Christmas, and it was awesome! (do I need to shout at you guys to go read Owen’s books? I know I do it a lot).

Its already mid February, so I don’t think I’m going to tag anyone for this, but if you do want to do it, of course please go ahead!

Have you read any of these books? What were some of your favorite books of the year?

Little Thieves by Margaret Owen: Book Review

Hey all! Seeing as this is a book blog, I figured I should probably actually write a book review. You know, because that seems like a pretty important part of a book blog. And I haven’t actually done this in a while (when was the last time? July???) Whoops. Anyways, I got Little Thieves for Christmas and really enjoyed it, so I thought that this may as well be my first book review in a while!

Little Thieves | Margaret Owen

Published October 19, 2021

500 pages | Hardcover

Trigger warnings: Child abandonment, sexual harassment, poisoning (if you’re unsure if there’s a trigger, you might want to check someone else’s trigger warnings because I’m bad at this)

goodreads

Vanja Schmidt looks after herself. Abandoned by her mother at age 4, she was adopted as the goddaughter of Death and Fortune, who raised her for some time until they left her to become Princess Gisele’s dutiful servant. But when Vanja’s godmothers reappear and demand she train under one of them as a price for their care, she knows that she needs to get out. So Vanja steals Princess Gisele’s place and begins a life as a princess, all while thieving from nobles and stocking up for a way to get out of this country and away from her godmothers’ grasps for good.

Vanja has almost reached the money she needs for freedom when she robs the wrong people and is cursed by a god to turn into jewels one by one unless she can figure out and complete the god’s riddled answer for how to break the curse. Not only that, but she’s stuck with the god’s daughter as a guardian and a junior detective on her tail who is eager to figure out who’s been stealing money. And she has two weeks before she turns into gems for good.

All summaries are my own unless otherwise stated. Parts of the summary may be borrowed from goodreads.

Wow. I knew I was in for a treat with this book after loving Margaret Owen’s first series, The Merciful Crow, but I just had no idea how much! Little Thieves is based off of the tale The Goose Girl, which I know very little about, but it did not at all stop me from enjoying this book.

The world and the plot were both beautifully done in this story, as always, but what I think really stood out to me was the characters. At the beginning of the book, Vanja is utterly by herself, posing as Princess Gisele and navigating the world as a noble while simultaneously stealing from the rich who she parties with. She’s clever and trusts no one. But as the story goes on, we meet more and more people and slowly she has a whole little group to work with and begin to trust.

I think that my favorite character was probably Ragne. Ragne is the daughter of the god who cursed Vanja, and she’s sent to watch over Vanja as she attempts to solve her curse. Ragne is definitely a bit of comic relief, because she’s a shape shifter who has NOT spent a lot of time in a human body or talking to humans, but she’s also the first person who Vanja really spends time with and trusts, and that was nice to see how she and Vanja started to get along.

Okay, the plot of this book is great, and I don’t really know where to start because there was just so much of it! There were a few times when I was halfway through or a little farther than halfway, and I would wonder ‘okay how is this not the climax’ but it kept going! And don’t worry, it made logical sense that it continued, and it was still very enjoyable. Still, I couldn’t wait to find out what happens next, and a lot of the characters were really clever or had different sides so it was very difficult to figure out what might happen or where the story was going! Plus, there were a lot of exterior forces at play, for example Vanja’s godmothers who she did NOT want interfering with what she was doing, so it felt like a twist could happen at any time.

I do feel like the world could have been explored a little better. It’s clearly set in a fantasy world, but we’re given a lot of names and not a lot of explanation for those names. Vanja wants to escape from the place where she is (city? country? see how little I know), and she keeps mentioning places she might want to go, but I don’t know anything about those places and it was a little frustrating. Even within the story and where she was at the moment, things were still a little foggy.

This is the kind of book that 100% needs a map, and I actually went back to check if it had one, because it really seemed like it should, but it doesn’t, unfortunately.

Still, even though the worldbuilding was a bit underdeveloped, and I’m kind of disappointed in that aspect because it seemed like an awesome world, I just knew nothing about it aside from names of places, I’m not going to take off any stars or anything because of that. For me, worldbuilding is always a bit of a bonus rather than a necessity. Obviously I need something, a book can’t be set in a totally undescribed setting and world, but as long as I know exactly where the main character is at any given time (for example: castle, marketplace, etc), I’m okay.

PS can we take a moment to appreciate the amazing artwork in this book? This book is separated into chapters, it’s also separated into different parts (part one, part two, part three) but it’s ALSO separated into different ‘stories’ which are different from the ‘parts’ in a way that I cannot discern. Still, at the beginning of each story (there are seven of them throughout the book), there is a page that depicts a scene, and the art is absolutely lovely.

Want to read a few other reviews of Little Thieves? Check some out over at Pages Unbound and Becky’s Book Blog!

Have you read Little Thieves or The Merciful Crow? Do you know the story of the Goose Girl? What did you think of my review?