“Marco doesn‘t believe in optimism.” - Jake

The most reluctant of the Animorphs has a really rough time - my favourite part was when he convinced the others that the best plan was morphing into lobsters to escape pursuit and jumping into a lobster tank at a supermarket (they got sold and almost ended up as dinner).

Marco can‘t catch a break (except for that one nice moment with his dad at the end). The stakes continue to rise! Great instalment.

This leaned a little too heavily on angsty miscommunication for me - I wanted the resolution to come MUCH sooner than it did… (and for it to feel a bit more substantial)

The strength of this book was in its lively bunch of secondary characters - but overall the story dragged out longer than it needed to.

I‘m not at all sure how you‘d go about describing a book like Moonbound - it‘s many things, blended quite beautifully together - best enjoyed, I think, if you just go with it. It‘s weird and meandering, it features gorgeous turns of phrase and deals with life, the universe and everything.

I‘m so close but I have to go to bed 😭

Do I put my phone in flight mode and hope it doesn‘t disappear? 🙃 I‘m on set up and first desk in the morning so it‘ll be well into the afternoon before it‘s audiobook time…

It‘s giving that book shop in Belle‘s provincial era 😍

Did I rationalise a trip to the bookstore today because it was near the “resilience” workshop I had to attend? Yes, yes I did (I used the same logic while buying 🌮 for lunch) and it was the best thing about having to attended said workshop (which to be fair wasn‘t as tedious as I expected)

Playing around with displays again (I mean sure, I could have shelved non fiction but this was loads more fun)

My last book chat of the year (because I‘ll be on annual leave for the actual last one of the year).

4 books a month, February through to October has taken up a significant amount of my reading time, and it has at times been a struggle.

Kind of excited to not have to check if the library has holdings of a book before I start reading something for the next couple of months! Hello random kindle titles I‘ve been putting off!

I‘m glad this wasn‘t the first Janice Hallett book I read because it‘s really on the strength of her other books that I finished. I had faith that everything would pull together in a compelling way but I didn‘t love that this book comprises solely of audio transcripts… I feel this held it back somewhat even though with Smithy‘s background - it makes sense. So I loved it and hated it at the same time.

My other goals for the day were to go to Uniqlo and try on the heat tech long sleeve t-shirts… since I‘m ✈️ into colder weather soon & don‘t have much in the way of winter/fall weather clothing (I‘m very much a she‘ll be right kind of dresser 😜 & most of the time I am right). Anyway these ones have a scoop neck and layer well with my dresses… and now I‘m at the laundromat! Doing all the washing!

My main goal for this lovely sunny Saturday was to celebrate Love Your Bookstore Day by finding two penguin books to buy so that I could get a Personal Penguin. I was perusing the shelves, by publisher logo, with such a serious expression that a bookseller asked me if I was ok? 🤣 I don‘t usually notice who publishers the books I read but today‘s lesson was that it‘s generally not Penguin 😅 but I found two to take home eventually!

Big day of bookmail today!

I get everything delivered to my grandparents and watching my Nana read the quotes on the box with a look like 🤔🤨 was both awkward and hilarious.

Pushing back on the *can‘t have fun on a week night because I have work in the morning* crowd by attending a concert on a Tuesday night. I‘ve been looking forward to this for ages!

Ahh folktales, they go from kinda sweet to kinda dark in the blink of an eye - and I love that about them!

Gorgeous illustrations as you‘d expect from Jon Klassen and a story that I‘ll definitely be thinking about for awhile. May we all be blessed with an Ottila as a friend and not foe.

Great authors note at the end about how he came across the folk tale originally and how folk tales change over time.

“Then she took the bone pieces and threw them into the flames. She poured her tea into the tea cup and drank it as she watched the pieces burn to ash.”

This was an absorbing and atmospheric read - steeped in Welsh mythology and Arthurian legend, the story of a lost and lonely girl who wants answers to her past and is finally close to those answers, although they are not at all what she was expecting. If this was a duology, I‘d say this was a perfect opener but it appears to be a stand-alone and as such, has too many loose ends to be a truely satisfying read.

“It was Margaret Dunhaven‘s opinion that a marriage that constrained her to drink stale tea could not be described as ‘convenient‘ in any meaningful sense of the world.”

Great opening line. I could quite happily have read a full length novel rather than just this little gothic fantasy novella - because parts of the plot were definitely galloped through to get to the conclusion… it was quite fun tho - and happily read with my evening meal.

Adding some confetti to my Friday night!

Would we call this cozy horror? Mara has always felt slightly apart from her family and without a solid plan for the future has just been drifting along… but then her cable show famous cousin gets her a job on his haunted house show… and things start to click into place - until the lines between fake haunting and real haunting blur. I did pick the twist, but I really enjoyed the flow on effect of it - something a little bit different!

Second book in and Mercy has had to rescue her love interests from being kidnapped AGAIN? (To be fair not all of them were kidnapped in the last book - but as the saying goes - if I had a nickel for every time an alpha werewolf got kidnapped and then rescued by Mercy Thompson… I‘d have two (three?) nickels).

Having a great time with this series reread so far.

I do love a book that‘s been in print for so long that it‘s cycled through a lot of different covers…

I didn‘t think the concept for this one was as strong or interesting as Alperton Angels BUT I was still glued to the pages and was successfully lead up and down several garden paths, without ever really being suspicious in the right direction… which doesn‘t happen to me all that often - another well crafted story from Janice Hallett.

Published in 1918 this was an interesting peek into the early 20th century - into the lives of 3 women and how they intersect with the titular solider - a well to do, country gentlemen who was called to serve in WW1.

Equally fascinating was the introduction by Michelle Dean and the glimpse into the authors life and experiences.

This series is going to become an all time favourite because it really does have it all - action, banter, long buried secrets on the verge of resurfacing, a glorious found family of people trying very hard to do their best after the world hasn‘t been very kind.

This book starts off with Rune and Co trying to work out how to get Max out of his (unwanted) marriage contract to the Hanged Man & things escalate from there.

Buddy read with @julesG

Ultimately a very uneven collection of stories - when they are good, they are very good but otherwise it was a bit of a slog 😔 THAT COVER THO!!

But since I‘ve discovered some new to me authors - I think it was time well spent. I‘m quite looking forward to reading more from Darcie Little Badger and Tade Thompson.

🫢🫢🫢

The age ranges (and therefore the relationship age gaps) in this series are WILD…

I was having a great time last night/earlier this morning until I realised I was on the Monday MORNING shift and not the AFTERNOON shift as expected…

Photo/Meme from the IG of littlebookishfairy

I have never seen an episode of Sailor Moon… and therefore am somewhat new to the magical girl genre - I loved it! They had me at magical girl union.

Some big and tough topics dealt with in a light and very relatable way - short & sweet!

Book chat day! Realised part way through describing Dreadful that my chosen books this month are all - kinda hard to explain 🤭 luckily it was mostly regular attendees and they are used to my chaotic attempts at convincing them to read books I‘ve read!

I love the worlds that P. Djèli Clark creates & this one was no exception. A dark fantasy with plenty of humour, our MC is an assassin of the dead cat tail assassin guild, & her night - which begins with the accepting of a contract to “shiv” someone during carnival, is about to go extremely sideways.

I hope we get to meet Eveen again, I‘d love to see her discover more about her past & to rebuild her destroyed book collection of heroic tales.

What a madcap tale! It feels like it has a cast of thousands and we all tumbled through the story together in a bit of blur - as a misunderstanding by the Governor balloons into a potential international incident as various government branches try to save face by inventing intelligence, which quickly spirals out of control… all this set against the looming independence of Nwkwami from British rule.

Went to Melbourne Museum today to visit Victoria the T-Rex and oh! how splendid she is! Childhood dinosaur fascination absolutely reactivated! Also saw the accompanying film in IMAX 3D, narrated by Sam Neill.

Victoria is one of the most complete T-Rex fossils in the world with 199 bones discovered (of a known 380 t-rex bones) and was rediscovered in South Dakota in 2013.

Told over the course of a single day, we follow Winona on her day, medical appointments, grocery trips, school pick up, preparing for a dinner party of her husband‘s friends. Told via stream of consciousness, tension builds as the picture of her home life crystallises - all leading to a single moment, a tipping point that will define her future.

CW : coercive control of spouse, escalating family violence

Zero cups of tea…. She should join her union!

I don‘t usually flick through The Australian Women‘s Weekly but this headline was too funny.

Our unnamed protagonist finds herself with visions of the dead and missing after eating dirt after the death of her mother. After being shunned by her community for the dirt eating visions, she starts being approached by women with missing loved ones desperate for answers.

This was a really interesting magical realism mystery that explores the dark tragedies of everyday lives.

I found this series initially via Netgally, my request for an arc for this latest instalment didn‘t get a response 🙃 so I was happy when I saw it available on Libby. I love the characters, we are 4 books in at this point - some interpersonal storylines went backwards, the mystery was interesting even if the resolution lacked the wow factor. I enjoyed reading it but I find certain aspects of the modern cozy genre quite frustrating.

Sometimes I question my life choices when I read cozy mysteries

I read the first couple of Mercy Thompson books all the way back in 2009 - and randomly seeing a review for the newest book the other day made me wonder about it - and Libby came through with the audiobook! So it was meant to be! I remembered almost nothing and had an absolute blast reacquainting myself with it all! With any luck - I‘ll stick with it this time round.

Oooh - I was digging around in StoryGraphs settings and I found there is an option to display reading streaks… HELLO! I‘ve been a bit lax this year about reading every day but this could be just the thing!

Anyway, I‘m sharnibee on StoryGraph, add me if you feel so inclined!

Book 1 came in! And tbh, I thought my dinner would take a little longer to come out…

This veggie burger (from a fish & chip shop) exceeded my expectations (I‘m extremely picky about veggie burgers maybe even slightly impossible about them 😇) would order again!

*nervous laughter*

WTF 👀

I was initially dubious about this being tagged extreme horror - but we definitely got there.

Recommend reading the trigger warnings. The descriptions are visceral.

I love urban fantasy and I really don‘t read enough of it anymore… I loved reading this but at the same time am quite devastated to know that I‘m going to have to wait for years and years while the rest of it is written.

This had such delightful interactions - a found family in its early days, really great action, some gut wrenching moments (the part where Rune relives his assault in particular) but also lots of humour and banter.

Onwards!

This story mostly follows Tavin Bankside‘s journey to accepting and learning about his empathic abilities under the guidance of the enigmatic hermit who lives in the woods. While also helping his Lieutenant heal from her physical wounds and emotional scars in order for them both to reach their full potential.

The epilogue made me tear up a little, not going to lie.

I‘m looking forward to reading more from this world.

This book was on the new book display at the library and it called my name AND I did hesitate when I saw that Goodreads lists it as book 7.5 but google insisted that it was a good entry point into the series and as the first book was out on loan… so my choice was either to wait or take my chances with this one!

More than anything else, this is a story about self discovery and learning what matters to them and what they are willing to risk to get it. It‘s gorgeously written but the pace is very, very slow. I loved how layered and flawed the characters were (especially the women). I loved the ending, although the last hour had me feeling so nervous about what was going to happen because *no one expects the Spanish Inquisition*.

… but I‘ve finished a book and need to mark it as READ 🫨

I feel like he could have maybe put a *little* more effort into creating a pseudonym…

Pretty much exactly the weird little vampire slice of life book I was expecting from the cover…

😍

🧀 📚 🍪

This caught my eye when I was shelving graphic novels on the weekend… Off to a good start so far!