Very excited for this one! I picked it up at StokerCon and I've been saving it. Feeling blah and DNF'd my last book, so diving in. This art makes me want a tattoo!

This is why weeding a collection is so important. This bunny goes on a journey just to appropriate a Native identity. This was donated to my library after it was removed from a kindergarten library. 😱

A Sarah Gailey anything is always a blast, so shrieked a little when I picked this up off my ARC shelf at work. Three chapters in and I'm in love!

I was a creepy kid who loved these books to pieces. They're falling apart and I'm trying to convince myself I don't need anything but the memories anymore. #horror #creepyforlife

Electric Lit delivers poetry via email every Monday. This is an excerpt from Emma Torzs's poem, January.

Look at all the freebies I got from StokerCon! I can't wait to read these and put them in the hands of all the patrons at my library for the sake of Summer Scares! The middle image is a badass tote bag.

I also got to hear Grady Hendrix talk about "bigfoot dong", his words exactly. ?

This perfectly encapsulates the terror and joy that I imagine having kids feels like. It seems like this is the best, weirdest response to the tirelessly pursued question, can women really have it all? I often exclaimed, "Oh, shit!" at the end of chapters and couldn't read fast enough to satisfy the need to know what happened next. I love the cover detail!

I'm on a horror binge before I attend StokerCon and this is a nominee for a Stoker Award so I picked it up with a quickness. It balanced a nice emotional heft with some truly chilling scenes. What happens when your daughters grow up to be something unexpected, something you can't control?

Iglesias took a risk with this book but he absolutely nailed it. The story is told from 6 different POVs, but each character felt distinct and their stories came together so well. It's about borders and the horror that they engender. You might need to dl Google Translate, but it added so much to the book.

Just found out I get to go to StokerCon for work since it's being hosted in my city!!! It's a big nerdy horror convention and now I'm dedicating the month and a half til the con to reading the Stoker Awards nominees. ☠😱☠😱

This is almost my favorite Oyeyemi (White Is for Witching is one of my fav books of all time). I always put down her books not knowing exactly what happened and find myself connecting the dots in my mind for days. The first few chapters dragged a little but so perfectly set up the rest of the book, Im going to reread them.

It sounds so dramatic, but Shrill gave me faith in myself again. I just sobbed (with joy!) through the first episode of Hulu's adaptation. Hearing someone on screen deal with their body image and self worth issues is still so important.

Photo of Nero, who is chubby and proud.

This book has ruined anything I read next. Moss's prose is gorgeous and fresh and the themes of nativism and groupthink and toxic masculinity are, sadly, so timely. It's the story of an abusive man who drags his family into his obsession with the good ol' days, which somehow reminds me of this painting from one of my faves, Andrea Kowch.

Starting this on my second snow day. This time, I walked all the way to work in the frozen tundra to find out I didn't have to show up. This is Bert, whose fuzz is flapping from the heat vent blowing nonstop.

I filled 5 pages of my reading log with quotes from this book. It's the perfect blend of academic and personal about beauty, sexual assault, class, and race. I also found some great recommendations in the works she cited.

My favorite emails by far are from Electric Lit. Last night, I read K.C. Mead-Brewer's Daddy Thing and was up until 4 reading everything else I could find by them. It's a dark fairy tale about vampire bats and abusive relationships. Like Carmen Maria Machado meets Angela Carter.

https://electricliterature.com/the-girl-is-always-eaten-at-the-end-254baabdef8e

A solid graphic fantasy story with stellar art. Mila meets a ghost and is pulled into a quest to save the king of the sea. It's only bogged down by a squashed queer love story. Spoilers as to how below.

I'm going mostly challenge-less this year because I read too much based on my moods. I do want to read more from black women and I'm aiming for 20k pages. These are some of the books I'm most excited about this year!

These are my favorite books of the year. How Long Til Black Future Month was probably #1 because it reminded me that fiction can be fun and hopeful!

Finished my last book of the year (Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli was great!) so now I catch up on comics. This gray beast loves to lick the bag they come in and drools all over them.

I didn't know much about this going in, but I was so pleasantly surprised! It's like if Kelly Link did comics about women's fraught relationships. So much emotion is packed into each slightly fantastical world. Loved it!

Every one of these stories was fire. She really and truly speaks into being possible futures filled with hope for people of color, who have historically disappeared in most futuristic imaginings. She doesn't avoid serious issues, but each story opens a window to a fully formed world where POC are alive and maybe even thriving.

My new ARC matches the painting my friend made. So excited to read this.

I loved this book and I just found out she's publishing a book in May on sexual assault called 100 Times!! Demon pig and I are very excited.

One of my picks for the library book club just came in! I hope this means more people will read this lovely, weird book.

The Civic Theater donated a lot of their old books to my library and I found this gem going through them. #nightmaresfordays

I have way too many ARCs from work, but I couldn't say no to a new Peter Heller. Doesn't come out til March, so I have time.

Laymon is one of the best writers I've read and he delivers something fresh and necessary with Heavy. He covers ground too few straight men do by exploring what his body means to him and to society. It is shaped by trauma, but also by his mom's fierce and imperfect love. A brutally honest ode to and for the black community that everyone should read.

Vote! If your life doesn't depend on it, someone you love's does.

Witches in the wild woods are the ur-nasty women and this story added a nice twist to the narrative. I loved how the narrator's back story was further complicated as the story progressed. I'll be thinking about this for a bit.

The only thing that soothes the sadness of Halloween being over is Halloween clearance. Picked up this giant squishy toad buddy to read a book set in the spooooky woods with me. Cats are not pleased. #toadsoflitsy

Flashbacks to Catholic school dances. I love this series!

Have to take a break from reading today because I have such a book hangover! The story of a fat Latina witch taking on body positivity, hetero romantic norms and zombie friends? 1000x yes. And it had a happyish ending.

I took the Pumpkat for walk to clear my mind for the next book.

This is a no joke revenge story filled with female rage. Mahalia isn't just owner of the Jook Joint, provider of carnal pleasures, or a healer, she's an enforcer.
The art is great and Franklin is ace at worldbuilding. Hard to believe this is the same author as Bingo Love.

A mutation of toxoplasmosis makes menstruating women turn into actual wild cats and attack people. This is like a more glittery, cat-centered Bitch Planet. Perfect antidote to the fiery trash heap of toxic masculinity that is our government. Issue #1 hit stands yesterday.

I got a new friend for my bookshelf! #halloweenisalifestyle #weirdatlast

It's a poetry and cats kind of night.

All the stars! This is the apocalyptic, anti-capitalist, POC-led book everyone needs to read. The writing is beautiful but not overwrought. It felt like a creepier, faster-paced Zone One.

Just started this but Nero seems to enjoy it already.

Absolutely one of the best books of the year. I'm a horror nerd and the exploration of horror's ability to deliver powerful truths while also being misogynistic made my cold dark heart sing.

This is my excited face. I've been waiting for this book for almost a year and halfway through, I know it's her best yet. She's one of the people whose writing always etches itself into my bones. Also Shirley Jackson, Carmen Maria Machado, Kelly Link, Emily Carroll.

Art by Krzysztof Iwin

Does anyone know how to rate books on Libby? If not possible, where do they pull the ratings from?

Happy Women in Translation month! The tagged book is one of my favorite translated works and the other is next on my TBR. Both are surreal, unsettling short story collections and also feminist as fuck. #witmonth #weirdatlast

Harrow County has left a gaping hole in my heart so I've picked up another Cullen Bunn to fill it. People start snorting the ashes of the dead to experience the deceased's life. Demand is growing while supplies are dwindling. I'm hooked!

I have such a book hangover from There There. It's about stories, who gets to frame them, and whose stories matter. I had to hold this guy while I powered through the last 50 pgs. I'm going to buy it to reread it soon. (He's not being helpful here as I try to choose my next book.)

This story of those who survived Pablo Escobar's reign of terror and those who didn't sucked me in from the first page. The narrative is split between the child of a wealthy family and their maid living in poverty. Their contrasting POVs offer a nuanced look at the narco war. This lives up to all the hype. Out 7/31.

While going through catalogs for library acquisitions, I came across this title. Out in July.

For some people there is a gap, for some a chasm, between the way they dream themselves and the way they are seen by others. That gap might be the truest measure of one's loneliness.

Near the old marble staircase in my lovely library that I'm so lucky to work at.

If Kelly Link blurbs it, I'm gonna put my nose in it.