Posts

Crooked Kingdom

Image
 by Leigh Bardugo This book, Crooked Kingdom, is everything that YA novels could be. It genuinely took me through just about every single emotion a person could feel. Happiness, excitement, grief, anxiety, and just about every other emotion in between. Bardugo’s writing just held me captive for so much of this book. There were many times I did not want to put this thing down. And I don’t know if it’s just me having read so many of her books this year that I just know, but I was kind of starting to see where she’d be taking the plot, but then she’d surprise me with something I hadn’t been anticipating. Every character in this ensemble cast got a proper arc. Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Wylan, Nina, and Matthias. They all grew so much over the course of this book and the last. At some point it really felt like these were people I knew, and saying goodbye to them was so bittersweet. I rarely grow to have that kind of attachment to characters, and I think it’s a testament to how well they’re al...
Post a Comment
Read more

arc review: Should I Say Something?

Image
Thank you to Grand Central Publishing for access to this ARC through Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.    If I were ever asked to describe this book in as few words as possible, I would jokingly say: “it’s like a gamer’s guide to min-maxing their social interactions.” There’s a huge focus on how our words can influence different things in our life, such as our job prospects, and our pay at this prospective job.  But this book contains so much more. Dr. Bohn’s voice comes through in writing very well. there are jokes and witty sentences, but it’s all centered around the psychology and the research she’s referencing.  And speaking of references and citations, I love that there are so many citations in this book. Nowadays, it can be difficult to differentiate appealing rhetorical and storytelling devices from actual research backed science. There are so many people who just say things with their whole chest, but like… where’s your proof? Dr. Bohns has based th...
Post a Comment
Read more

book review: Hemlock & Silver

Image
   by T. Kingfisher  I love it when the heroines are older!!! Thank you T. Kingfisher for giving us a jaded mid 30s woman who is still trying to figure things out in her career and in love and in life.  Anja is such a delightful character to follow around in this story. Having a mature female character that isn’t always leaping into trouble for no logical reason is so refreshing. And I appreciate her being a scientist as well! It really tickles my fancy when characters are centered around something and Anja is very much a character who is centered around logic. She’s always pondering what the most logical reasoning is for something or another, but it doesn't get to the point of absolute rigidity. There's a degree of flexibility to her that prevents the logic from getting in her own way. The plot line itself was quite fascinating, and it did hold my attention quite well. As mentioned before, I was listening to this book outside of doing chores and working out. Not to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

september reflections

Image
 I cannot believe it's already October. Like what do you mean we only have a few more months before the new year? So much has already happened this year, who knows what will happen in November and December? And I know that 2027 will be just as relentless, if not more.   Speaking of time, I've been significantly more conscious about how I am choosing to spend mine. My mentor at work is always saying, "Your time is valuable. Even more so now that you're a PA." This, combined with my recent reflections on my social media usage, has resulted in me looking at the clock very often. I think this is also in part due to my phone pick-up habit. I have since relocated an old alarm clock to my desk so I can simply look up. But this past week I had a realization while I was reading Crooked Kingdom .   Time seems to slow down when I am reading. It could just be that I am a relatively fast reader, my friends from grad school will tell you so, but I like to think that...
Post a Comment
Read more

arc review: Your Beloved Remains

Image
Has this ever happened to you? 🫵   "My narrators are too reliable!" 😤  Well look no further! With Your Beloved Remains , the narrators are unreliable to the MAX! Set in the Ozarks, this story follows our two main characters, Celia and Harriot, as they attempt to revive the legacy of a long dead author to save the college she founded. It’s creepy, eerie, haunting, uncanny, bizarre, insert any other synonym and it’ll be right at home! Unironically though, this was an absolute rollercoaster of a book in the best of ways. The main characters are very well constructed. Their actions are informed by their pasts, and it makes them such interesting subjects to follow.  The setting of the Ozark mountains creates the perfect atmosphere for this story to take place. At times, it almost feels like the mountains themselves are alive, goading Celia on as she scrambles to save Basin College. Highly recommend this for those who enjoy dark(er) academia settings, ghost stories and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

weekly wrap up: 09/27/2026

Image
I'm usually the type to read several books at a time. But recently I've been getting a bit overwhelmed at my very many options. To combat this funky feeling, I'm limiting myself to one book per format: one physical book, one ebook, and one audiobook. ☀☀☀ Possible spoilers ahead for Six of Crows! Crooked Kingdom  by Leigh Bardugo   I picked this up at the library several weeks ago now. I think my local library does 3 week check-outs, and I've renewed this book once so far just to give you more context. I really liked the first book, and Bardugo always does such a good job of writing her characters with depth. And when you have characters with depth, the story seems to just write itself. Suffice to say, my hopes are quite high for this one. I'm only a few chapters in, but I'm loving the set up of Wylan's character arc. He's feeling like an imposter among the Dregs, and in the job they're doing. And he's been Tailored to look like a completel...
Post a Comment
Read more

kind of starting this on a whim!

Image
but also kind of not really ☀☀☀  I've really been struggling with my relationship to social media recently. If I spend hours scrolling, I feel guilty. I get anxious about what I post and when I post it, wondering who and what will see me, even though I have most of my accounts on private. It's a truly awful feeling that I loathe, but could never really put a name to it. Until I watched this video by Afrodizjha. I highly encourage everyone to give it a watch. And subscribe to her channel because she makes some amazing videos about pop culture.  Anyway, my current usage of social media is much less now compared to what it was a few months ago. It started with turning all the notifications off. Then I deleted the apps from my phone. I still have the accounts so I sometimes scroll on my laptop, but now I've kind of circled back to the same amount of usage just not on my phone. The reason for this, I think, is that I still have some kind of reason to be on these platforms. ...
Post a Comment
Read more