Shoutout to people who read their own audiobooks. I love hearing someone tell their own stories. I spent most of this book wanting to give little Mara a hug, and teen Mara too, even when she was being a brat. I will be constantly grateful about Maras willingness to talk about her ocd because now when I have students (I work with little guys) with ocd I can point at Matilda when it‘s on and say ‘that actress has ocd too‘

Ignore what it says there I had to open the book a second time on my Libby app so that it didn‘t say 0% read. I opened this book, listened to it in its entirety and cried ugly tears at the last several chapters and the credits. I now want to go buy an actual physical copy of this book also (which I might if I ever finish striking). I cannot wrangle my thoughts into any reasonable order so just understand I loved it.

A very enjoyable romp through Paris, especially for the author lol. The audiobook said it was 7hrs of audio but at 1.5 speed that‘s how long it took me 🤷🏼‍♀️ make that math make sense lol.

Finished!! I cannot recommend listening to this book enough. It was fantastic, just the right amount of horror and all the toxic romanticism I was told to expect.

This book was pretty cute, very fanfic vibes so if you‘re into that bonus for you. If you really enjoy the regency era this book may not be for you. The incredibly inclusive vibes of the book do not mesh well with the regency era setting and it shows. Despite that I found it a more or less enjoyable read. If there was an option between pick and so-so I‘d rate it there but as there isn‘t I‘ll rate it pick.

Finished! That was a truly fantastic read, didn‘t want to put it down. A twisting turning thrilling story about parents, daughters, and the lengths they‘ll go to for family.

What a truly fun book of canid centred wintery short stories! A truly lovely pallet cleanser after all the biographies I‘ve been reading. Also a fantastic pairing with our sudden deep freeze this weekend (dropped from around 0C to -40C in like 24 hours. It‘s bad out here (and worse we‘re supposed to jump back up to -10 in another 24, all my bones hurt))

A beautifully drawn graphic novel and a wonderful volume one. The best kind of introduction to a brand new story, I can‘t wait for more of them to come out.

I cannot imagine what would possess two people to pull their 6&7 year old kids out of school entirely, to sail the wrong way around the world through storms and danger chasing an idea of a ghost of a man, but Sues parents did just that. Her story is, in turns, interesting, terrifying, and heartwarming. A girl determined to escape a life where no one cares through sheer determination, and does just that, managing to find her own life along the way.

I‘m on a big biography kick right now, clearly. This was a really interesting read. I‘m really enjoying being able to hear things put in the words of the people who were the most effected. It was a bit distressing to hear how thoroughly the tv industry failed the Dugger kids, long past when they could reasonably be called kids, and in new and wild ways from how it fails most child actors.

This book was So Much Fun! I‘m so excited to tear through the rest of them once I get them from the library! Truly just a fun romp in a town full of witches and several ‘he had it coming‘ moments that were just delightful.

Read this book in 4 days (just under 5 hours total shout-out to Libby for telling me exactly how long o read for lol). At the end of this book I‘m finding myself mostly just genuinely glad that she finally got a chance to tell her side of the story after her family told their sides when she was legally unable to defend herself. My heart goes out to her, it‘s been a hard road and I hope she‘s able to heal and enjoy her life without all eyes on her.

This book was pretty good! Decidedly Not a romance which the description and title and reviews had led me to believe it was. More of a cozy(ish) horror. Horror with slightly less tension and all the gore contained to like, the last two/three chapters. A nice light (ish) read!

A funny, calming guide to not freaking out when things go wrong! Written specifically for kids/teens/teens so it‘s an easier read. Complete with pictures, funny acronyms (including FART and BuRP), and quizzes! Who doesn‘t love a quiz?

An incredibly interesting read, based on true events though with fictional characters, and one that truly felt like someone telling their story. Reading it very much felt true in that way where maybe these exact people weren‘t real but everything that happened to them almost certainly happened to someone. I highly recommend it, though if you‘re prone to tears I recommend keeping tissue nearby.

Truly a wild ride from start to finish. I genuinely loved this book, sorrow filled though it was. It‘s ends with a bittersweet sort of hope that felt more real than how I‘d hoped it would turn out, but in a way that means I can pretend like the end I wanted will still happen for them, just a little later. It‘s a good reminder in any case, change is slow but it‘s still change. The world can yet by put to rights, or close to as we can get.

I mostly enjoyed this book but the way it jumped from past to present (sometimes within the same sentence) was occasionally hard to track. Overall though a very interesting story about two women, their families, and the way their lives have twined around each other.

Yet another fantastic adaption of the podcast! The graphics are truly scratching my ‘gods I should relisten to that‘ itch. I‘m so excited for the next book to absolutely slaughter me.

Guess who stayed up way too late finishing a book when I‘d told myself ‘I‘ll just read one or two chapters before going to sleep‘ (it was me). This book made me cry several times, happy tears and sad ones. A truly heartwarming story about the community to be found in small libraries. 💙📚💚

If anyone needs a grief book I highly recommend this one. It‘s a beautiful story about two people, a library, a reading list, and all the ways grief shapes us.

Y‘all I can‘t even begin to say how much I love this latest in a series of books that all feel like coming home despite the variety of worlds they occupy

Charlie turns twelve, a hidden mirror is found, animals are vanish, strange and uncertain alliances are forged, and those who were lost are now found. All a very standard term at Bloors academy. Another thrilling book in one of my favourite magical school series 💚💜💙

AKA Billy‘s no good very bad terrible month. Poor mite‘s had it bad for a long time but this is a bit much even for him. Luckily Charlie and the gang are getting better at this whole saving people thing (although Charlie (with all his rushing in) does still make rather large mistakes on occasion. He is, after all, only 12). As always, magic and mayhem go hand in hand at Bloor‘s academy as true friendship must battle against those who crave power.

On a side note as I read this series, I love a creative way to draw a family tree (or a map, but alas, no maps in Children of the Red King)

Charlie Bone off to stick his neb in dangerous places to save other children once again. The circle of friends gets tighter and tighter as the lines between friend and foe are clearly drawn and amidst it all poor Billy is still left with no one to defend him from the Bloors and their machinations. Not just yet.

Henry Yewbeam! The boy is too curious and not nearly sensible enough for his own good, her and Charlie get on like a forest fire 😆 Ever wanted to meet your ancestors but when they were the same age as you? If they‘re foolish enough to find a time twister and stare straight into it you just might get to. Dopey boys and the wonderful terrible adventures they get themselves into.

While waiting for my Kel books to arrive I‘ve decided to reread another old favourite of mine, Charlie Bone (the red kings children). I do love these books so much Charlie is a lovely (although often foolish and quite headstrong) boy who upon realizing he possesses gifts the Yewbeams never expected him to gets swept up in a whirlwind of adventures all while learning about a past he never knew his family had.

Dragons and duckmoles and badgers oh my! A grand adventure through the divine realms, a war of grand (you could even say divine) proportions, promises broken, and secrets revealed! A wonderful conclusion to this lovely series! I can‘t wait to get to Kel‘s books! (I just have to wait for them to arrive)

My favourite of all of Daine‘s books (although the last is a close second) a truly fantastic book where we explore Tortal‘s southern neighbour for the first time and Daine looses her temper in just the most massive way posible (with a little help from a meddling old woman)

We get to meet the pack! And a whole host of other friends (furred, feathered, two legger, and immortal) as well as a cast of foes, but isn‘t that always the case. Likewise, Daine starts the long (though not as long for her as many others) slog of growing up.

Daines turn! I love her so much y‘all, kel will always hold court as my favourite but before there was Kel there was Daine and there‘s a special place in my heart for this lovely wild girl who is (understandably) So So scared of herself and what she can do. Lucky for her she‘s about to find the best friends (family) a young girl could ask for.

Now a full and (mostly) accepted knight and shaman of the Bazhir Alanna goes off seeking adventure and forgetting that adventures equal stories and stories equal fame. She travels to the roof of the world, seeks glory for her king, has dalliances with dragons, and learn yet more techniques with both fist and blade. All of which will help her with what waits for her when she finally makes it home to the castle.

Although the slowest of Alannas four books it is still one of my favourites (if we can excuse the white saviourness of it which being the very early 90s when it was published makes plenty of sense) I love the tribes and their magic and the lil teen shamans and the way Alanna both loves the desert and chafes under the expectations of the Bazhir

So many of Alannas most important things appear in this book! Her cat, her ember, her sword. Both her great loves and the first war she sees and the first time she really starts to use her gift for something good. A fantastic start to her adulthood and end to her youth happen here 💙💚💜

I‘ve loved these books for my whole life and upon my latest reread the internalized sexism didn‘t bother me nearly as much as when I was in my late teens. I love this series so much because it‘s such a lovely way to introduce you to all the key players in tortall as children 💙💚💜

I love Rick and these books are very good but they‘re also just, so long. There‘s a specific kind of irony in these books about a bunch of adhd/dyslexic kids being so long that my adhd/dyslexia adjacent brain makes it hard to read them 😆 I do enjoy them still but it takes longer to read them then it should take me because big book 🤷🏼‍♀️
I stand by my previous assessment that this series could have been split in half and made into two series.

Two down three to go! This series is so much longer than the original 😆 it almost should have been ten books (aka my adhd/dyslexia adjacent brain has a much harder time with this size of book)
I do love them all so though, little Hazel and Frank, the kindest child Mars/Aries has ever had, and of course the hero himself Percy Jackson. I‘ve missed this lot these last couple years. I‘m really enjoying spending time with them again.

Oh no! This one ended so sad and worrisome. I want to read the next one rn :( unfortunately I have used up my book budget for the month. I love this series though it‘s so lovely and fun to read.

As someone who works with ‘challenging‘ kids? I highly endorse the message of simply pretending you cannot hear people who are being assholes about your students (I love this man I think)

It‘s Jurassic park if Jurassic park was a zoo and not a theme park which really, if you think about it for thirty seconds, really should have been run as a zoo and not a theme park. Much less deadly if it‘s a zoo and not a theme park. Anyway I adored this one and am so excited to see where it goes. Also! Each chapter has a page of info from actual Dino scientists between it which is very exciting for me personally. 🦖💜🦕

My local bookshop recommended this one to me and I just adore it. The little girl is so cute and the monster doctor teacher is wholly relatable to someone who also looks after other peoples children and just wants them to be safe and whole. It‘s a very sweet beginning and I‘m excited to be able to read more of it 🖤🖤🖤

I do love these book, trying to reread the whole series because one of my dnd groups is doing a summer shot of a pjo based campaign. I‘m quite excited about it honestly. Anyway these books are, as always character based action stories that I just adore. I particularly adore the focus on the differences between the Greek and Roman aspects in this series.

It genuinely is as good as people say it is yall. Took me an age to actually read it but that has nothing to do with the book and everything to do with not having enough time in the day. Despite how fantastic it was it is a rather rough read in terms of content so fair warning on that one.

I‘ve absolutely read this before, though I don‘t recall when, but it was a lovely read regardless. An ocean side exploration of a families shared and yet distinct history and the complications that come with that.

As always Seanan McGuire delights and thrills with her latest incryptid novel. Alice is just as wonderful a lead character as I‘d hoped she‘d be, and made better (in my opinion), with all the flaws she contains.

“Sometimes the right thing and the best thing and the good thing and the thing you want are four different things, and you have to try to figure out which one of them will do the least amount of damage.” -Enid Healy

Hey Jonathan? Pretty sure I know why Alice is so fucked up my man.
(I do so love all the various branches of this family but oh Lordy do they ever screw each other up, love them, but they‘re a mess)

Y‘all this book is genuinely scary, it‘s middle grade horror but like? Idk if I know many middle grade kids I‘d hand it to. Then again most of Kenneth books are are like that really, of the ones I‘ve read.
Anyway if you‘re looking for a scare read this book, it‘s very cool, and the protagonist clearly has ocd although they don‘t name it that in the book. However if you‘re scared of wasps already this is maybe not the book for you

Y‘all, read the warning on this one (it‘s in the book) before you read but also? I love Seanan‘s writing so much and Antsy‘s book is no exception I love this series so much and I love this book and this girl and this story so much y‘all.