Damn, Daphne du Maurier can write.

I thought this painting was of a horse so I figured I‘d use it for my review picture. When I saw it I realized it was a stag. But I didn‘t have any better ideas 😂

I keep setting myself a limit on library books so I can find time to read books I already own. And then… #libraryhaul

Haymarket Press is offering ten ebooks on anti-racism and anti-fascism for free. https://www.haymarketbooks.org/blogs/517-ten-free-ebooks-for-getting-free

“When you order someone to give up, doesn‘t that only spur them to fight harder?”

I‘m surprisingly disappointed in this after how much I loved Elatsoe. I don‘t remember Darcie Little Badger‘s writing being so stilted previously. There was a lot of unnecessary detail (like, describing every movement of a different driver making adjustments to a car) and it seems like she missed the memo that “said” is a perfectly good dialogue verb. The story was interesting and surprising. The ending was frustrating because…

I started two buddy reads today. The first chapters of both involve a mother dying after a long illness while being faithfully nursed by her daughter. It‘s a good thing I saw my mom yesterday and she was well… 😬

#hashtagbrigade #hitchtoscreen

It seems a bit wrong to choose a reread as my favorite book of the month, but I didn‘t read any new books that rose to the level of consideration. And there‘s a reason I reread it!

Yes, there are two blank spaces where the next tier up should go. It‘s hard to make decisions 😅

#readingbracket2024

Here‘s my #bookspin list for November! @TheAromaofBooks

1. Always! I mean, I‘ll wear one of my witch hats (probably the new one with the strawberry pattern because I love it so). That will just make it a little more obvious.

2. Is it redundant to recommend The Haunting of Hill House and Dracula? They‘re both great!

I love Shirley Jackson so much.

But now I‘m out of spooky reads for October 😅 Luckily I still have the movies to watch!

I‘m glad I read this all the way through even though I wasn‘t that into it, because the ending was the best part. Very creative and unusual. I just never really connected to Maire, and I felt like the world should have either been a straightforward, conventional fantasy world or a lot more wild. I never got a sense of the “surprising yet inevitable” (until the epilogue, which I would have been mad without)—just surprising.

I had part 1 of a shingles vaccine yesterday and it has hit me harder than any vaccine since my first covid booster. At least I can soak away the ache and enjoy a spooky classic at the same time.

This was a fun and sweet book. Felt like a pretty young YA (for example, there‘s a romance but the feelings aren‘t overwhelming and they only kiss once), which isn‘t my favorite, and the world with the competition among seven girls to be queen felt almost like a parody of other YA novels. But the Treesinger culture is wonderful, and I enjoyed the book.

Lots of creepy stories. A few weren‘t very good (or at least weren‘t creepy). Most were good. A few were spectacular.

But it‘s a *lot* of stories. I‘m so glad to have finally finished it.

Life‘s too short.

Much to my disappointment, I‘m not enjoying this at all. I can see how it would be funny, but it‘s not working for me. Anyway, I wanted creepy, not funny.

I did not know this meaning of “levee”! #randomclassics

Starting Dracula for #hashtagbrigade during school dropoff!

We usually walk, but it‘s raining, and my husband usually does it, but he‘s sick. I arrived early enough to park which meant I was stuck while the line of cars went around. But I had just the right amount of time to read the first chapter!

I read a lot of great books in September, but Starling House still jumped out as my number one pick.

I forgot to mention this in my review, but anyone who loves the ecological/class and horror aspects of this book should listen to the podcast Old Gods of Appalachia. And if you like Old Gods, definitely read this book!

Wow! It‘s my Litsyversary! 8 years on this great app. Thank you, everyone, for making Litsy one of the absolute best places on the internet.

Here‘s my #bookspin list for October! @TheAromaofBooks

Deliciously creepy. I really felt like I was experiencing all the horrific things Easton experienced. Also quite funny in spots.

Love a book with a House that‘s alive. Love ferocious, all-encompassing sibling love. Love two broken people finding each other. Love a Hellcat.

Wow, what a hard-hitting, heartbreaking story. The amount of detail is incredible (it really ramped up the sense of dread leading to the actual attack) and the stories of all three girls are compelling. I was furious with the adults frequently, especially those who were part of the justice system. At times, Morgan and Alissa were painfully relatable, as someone who has also been a 12-year-old girl. So glad I read this.

I love the footnotes in this book. They started out funny and matter-of-fact, but they‘re getting creepier. And the fact that this outside entity fact-checking and providing context is providing *creepy* context just makes the whole thing more eerie.

Exciting, delightful, creepy and gross. I‘m so glad I read this at the start of spooky season!

Ahhhh so good! So twisty! I spent most of the second half of this book thinking “I can‘t believe this is only the second book in the trilogy.” I have no idea how they‘re going to wrap this up in the third book but I will be here for it.

I appreciated the addition of a pronunciation guide in this book, though I found it somewhat incomplete and a lot of the names are already in my head incorrectly from book 1.

Mrs. Gaskell broke my heart with this one! I was wondering why I liked this so much when Tess of the D‘Urbervilles just pissed me off. Both are trying to show the humanity in a “fallen” woman. I think Tess just gets really bleak while Ruth‘s life has good things in it (like Leonard), and the only characters who really condemn Ruth are generally unsympathetic.

Very enjoyable queer YA fantasy. The characters are complex and believable. The plot is fairly straightforward, but the stakes are both high and personal. I liked how the magic worked, but it irked me that they called it “alchemy” when it has nothing to do with historical alchemy. The magic system in the Rook and Rose series is a lot more like alchemy than this is.

No question that this is my #bookbracket2024 pick for August. I‘ll be surprised if it doesn‘t win the year.

Oh no, I never posted my #bookspin list and the numbers are up already! 😬 OK… now I can go look.

🤩

I had to include my water bottle in the photo because it matches the book 😂

I do love this book. I didn‘t remember the ending and I‘m not sure I appreciate it—but I won‘t spoil that here! Bradbury‘s characters and world are thinly but sharply drawn. The vision of a world in which books are illegal because everyone is afraid to think is dark and all too real. When I compare the TV-wall parlor with social media, I want to throw away my phone.

Oh, that‘s why this edition seems to be so much bigger than the tiny book I remember 😂

I suppose it‘s appropriate with such a meta, self-referential book that I can‘t think of how to review it without using its own topics. It‘s a heavy subject. It‘s a complex punch of a book. Brager looks into his own family history of escaping the Holocaust, trying to fill in gaps in both their personal history and world history. It has me thinking a lot about my own family‘s escape from Europe. Who didn‘t get out? I know nothing about them.

I appreciate that Brager manages to fit some relevant humor into a very, well, heavy book!

I could have sworn I‘d reviewed this book already. It‘s utterly gorgeous and I adored every line.

I enjoyed this book most of the way through, but was really irritated with the characters by the end.

We know that appreciation begets abundance. Why should it not be so for Mother Earth, who packs us a lunch every single day?

#booknlunch #hashtagbrigade

My stack of current reads 😆 I‘m getting going with #hashtagbrigade and #randomclassics. I‘m excited that this edition of Ruth has explanatory notes!

Here‘s my #bookspin list for August! I fear I may have committed to too many group reads and library books but we‘ll see 😬

July was an easy pick! #readingbracket2024

I‘m finding it difficult to review this book in any way more coherent than flailing.

So I guess I‘ll just do that. AHHHHH THIS BOOK IS SO GOOD YOU SHOULD READ IT

Such a beautiful book! 😍 I‘m so glad this is the edition my library had—the gorgeous printing and binding suit the prose so well.

This is a fascinating and thoroughly researched historical nonfiction book about the first published rape trial in the new US—a poor sewing girl, Lanah Sawyer, accused gentleman Henry Bedlow of raping her. His defense, of course, is that it was consensual. The book is surprisingly compelling; not that I didn‘t expect to enjoy it, but it isn‘t dry at all and there are several twists that I never saw coming. Recommended!

#libraryhaul… plus a movie… in addition to the three other books I have out, only one of which I‘ve started. I‘ve got to get reading 😬

This book is great so far, and this isn‘t really a complaint, but: what‘s with the ubiquity of the “dragons emerge from the shell and immediately bond to a human who is connected to that dragon for life, and we try to control it but that‘s not always successful”? Did Anne McCaffrey invent it, Naomi Novik follow her, and everyone else follow them, or is there some older source I‘m not aware of?