An adult fetch quest fairy tale centered around 1920s Mexico and Mayan mythology. I absolutely loved the imagery of the gods and the darkness of Xibalba, which is the Mayan death realm. Although I thought Casiopea and Hun-Kame could have been more fully fleshed out, I ultimately really enjoyed this fantasy.

Finished! 🎉

Having a little readathon day to see if I can finish The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. I have around 400 pages left. 🤞

Full of every predictable & tired fantasy trope. Slow as hell. So why did I enjoy it so much? 😂 (One note tho…I read this as part of a romance group. This book is NOT a romance. Def squarely in fantasy-land.)

This is the perfect novel for readers who enjoy sweet coziness, but with a little dark edge. Also, it's just the perfect novel in general. No notes. Violins, donuts, lots of descriptions of food, soul reaping...Loved every page.

My up-nexts. Also, it‘s apparently my Litsyversary today! 🎉

Happy California Library Day AND National Library Day! 😎📚 Where are my lunchtime readers? Tell me what you‘re reading today!

The library‘s display for National Poetry Month is so cute!

My copy of Thunder Song by Sasha LaPointe arrived today from Quiet Quail Books. Beautiful cover!

These are the first 12 What If? issues from 1977.

The most enjoyable issue for me was "What If Jane Foster Had Found the Hammer of Thor?" The worst was "What If the Marvel Bullpen Had Become the Fantastic Four?” The absolute weirdest was "What If the Spider Had Been Bitten by a Radioactive Human?" That one had me going "wut?"

I loved everything about this book: The setting, the frenemies, the suspense, the humor. I did not expect to be cackling like I was! And the last two chapters are perfect. In a recent author chat I attended, Shroff hinted there may be a sequel. Crossing my fingers for that!

Last night I went to an event featuring this author. I‘m so happy I have a signed copy of this book now! And I also purchased her memoir.

Reading this for the March fiction Feminist Book Club pick. Enjoying it so far.

Reason for reading: I‘ve been an Anne Rice fan since I was 17 (that‘s appx 500 years for anyone counting; just kidding…I‘m not a gorgeous or angsty immortal vampire being—or am I?).

The good: Lestat is the same old Brat Prince he ever was, so if you‘re into that…

The bad: 300 pgs too long, way too much talking.

Conclusion: I didn‘t hate this book but I did a mini groan every time I picked it up & I was so happy to be done with it.

Liked Vol 2 more than Vol 1. Getting to know the characters. We‘ve got some more familiar faces. I like loose cannon Moran. I do NOT like Cockney Sherlock. Will def read Vol 3. I want to know where this is going.

This was a fascinating examination of a part of history I didn‘t know much about: the girls and women who worked painting luminous watch dials with straight-up radium and the resulting court case against the US Radium Corporation. This book is very hard to read at times—radium poisoning is a horrifying way to die, and Moore doesn‘t shy away from giving us every detail. I would have liked more personal details about the women.

Barnes & Noble haul thanks to bday gift cards 📚🩷

When the first sentence of a new book has a typo. 🤦‍♀️

The ultimate reason I didn't like it is because I did not love the juxtaposition of spicy hot romance with a part of history filled with darkness and death. I think I prefer my romances to be a bit more "fun." I found it jarring to be part of the group of characters learning about John Brown's death (he is a very minor character in the book), then literally the next page our sexy protagonists are all over each other. Just not for me.

The first 25% was a quirky, fun mystery. But then it devolved into a too-long hot mess of a romance with too many characters.

The best bookstore is the kind with a dog. 🐶

My very first #botm 📚

"The Scion Societies" sections in the back of these old journals are so adorable. The officers of each scion are listed. My favorite is Belden Wigglesworth, archivist of The Speckled Band of Boston.

Reading the very first BSJ was a total delight. All the heavy hitters are repped—Edgar W Smith, Helene Yuhasova, Christopher Morley, Bliss Austin, Vincent Starrett, etc.

I think 9yo me would have read this a hundred times because I was dark AF as a kid. And that is what this book is--dark AF. And I don't think I'm at a particular point right now where I want dark kidlit. This book didn't completely work for me, although there are some things I liked.

I did like Grandmamma. She is a badass. I kind of want a retelling from her pov.

I literally cannot believe I slogged through this doorstop. Blergh.

I love a good history mystery. Polar explorers - two gigantic ships full no less - who disappear without a trace for almost 200 years? Yes, please.

I also love the random minutiae of arctic explorers in the 1840s - what clothing did they wear, what food did the ships store, what technological innovations did the ships have?

These minor cool things can‘t save this snoozefest.

I found this novel unsettling--it takes place in a US that is just hair's-breadth adjacent to our own. This is a dictatorship where books are banned, people are punished for questioning authority, and PAOs ("people of Asian origin") are constantly targeted. Worst of all, children of marginalized people are taken suddenly from their parents at the slightest infraction or whiff of disloyalty. These children are the "missing hearts" of the title.

Basically a breakneck action movie. Perfect distracting airplane reading.

It‘s Feminist Book Club book mail day! 💖📚

A fictionalized account of the life of the younger (by 11 months) brother of Vladimir Nabokov, a gay man who traveled through the high-art circles of 1920s and '30s Berlin and Paris. Unfortunately he did not survive the '40s, dying in a Nazi camp in 1945, two months before liberation. I love books about the supporting characters in historically important people's lives, and this one is excellent.

I bought this damaged book in a blind date with a book situation a few months ago and just now see that it is signed. 😳 I‘m not excited about reading it, so I really hope it‘s not terrible! 😂

Set in the same universe as Williams's The Dictionary of Lost Words, this is a story of a female bookbinder who longs to study at Oxford at the dawn of WWI. I enjoyed this novel more than The Dictionary of Lost Words. The setting is immersive, the plot is evenly paced, and the dialogue is good. I also learned so much about the process of bookbinding at the turn of the 20th century and took a deep internet rabbit hole dive on WWI. Excellent read.

Mr Harrigan's Phone: Texts from beyond the grave. 5 ⭐️
The Life of Chuck: Surreal novella split into 3 parts. The first part is perfect. The second part is pointless. The third part is good, but what is it doing here? 3 ⭐️
If It Bleeds: Holly Gibney. One of my fave King characters. I wish the bad guy here wasn't so like the one from The Outsider, but 🤷‍♀️. 4 ⭐️
Rat: Writer goes to isolated cabin to write novel. Disturbing times are had. 5 ⭐️

Very suddenly and violently all living creatures with a Y chromosome (except plants and some insects, but that's not too important) die...except for NYC escape artist Yorick and his pet monkey Ampersand. This sounds like a goofy and potentially cool set up for an adventure story. And it is. But it so much more. Also, this tome weighs 10 pounds. Which made bedtime reading interesting. 😂

Breakdowns of nine "negative" tropes characteristically pushed onto female characters in pop culture. Examples from mostly films and TV shows for each one are given. Sometimes the plots of these are broken down kind of exhaustively. (Prepare for every movie and TV show in which an "unlikeable" woman appears to be completely spoiled. LOL) But it was very conversational and interesting.

Breakdowns of nine "negative" tropes characteristically pushed onto female characters in pop culture. Examples from mostly films and TV shows for each one are given. Sometimes the plots of these are broken down kind of exhaustively. (Prepare for every movie and TV show in which an "unlikeable" woman appears to be completely spoiled. LOL) But it was very conversational and interesting.

With both Donna Tartt books I've read, I opened the first page and just sort of fell in. The writing is perfect and gorgeous while also completely effortless to read and so real-seeming. In the first five pages, the reader is told that a group of friends has murdered one of their own. The lead-up and aftermath are the rest of the book. A nail-biting slow burn.

I cried so hard my dog (dog! like Apollo! insert crying face emoji!) came to check on me.

I had some vicious orthodontia from ages 7-21, including various surgeries, so this incredible graphic memoir really resonated with me. (The scene where Raina is mashing her face into the couch cushions because it's the only thing that makes the pain better...literally me.) Loved it.

First off, ignore that "thriller" subtitle on the cover. Although the plot centers around a murder and some dangerous things happen to some of the characters, this is really more historical fiction. Extensively researched and impressive historical fiction. The murder case the novel is built around is a real cold case.

Most of the characters in the novel were real people. DiVello does an exceptional job of building a true-to-life riveting read.

I was lucky enough to be able to go to the grand opening of The Ripped Bodice Brooklyn! If anyone lives in the area, I highly recommend.

Finally got to visit the real Pooh and friends at the NYPL. 🍯

I actually did enjoy this book as a quick read I didn't have to focus too hard on.

Nell is a cartographer who finds a mysterious map after her father's death and...figures out what is up with the map. Basically. It's not mind-blowing stuff.

I already knew about trap towns on maps, even Agloe, NY specifically, and because of that, I found the plot incredibly predictable. But I had fun reading it & liked the NYPL setting so 🤷‍♀️

Hiram is a young enslaved man in Virginia, a son of the plantation owner. His special task is to babysit Maynard, his white brother, a fool of a grown man who consistently wreaks havoc throughout the town. Then one night an accident kills Maynard and reveals to Hiram that he has a magical power involving teleportation.

That is a really simple-sounding set-up for this very complicated novel. I won‘t forget it anytime soon.

This is pretty much what the subtitle says it is, although very tongue-in-cheek, the sarcasm flag flying high. The book is written in the second person, which I found clever and silly at the same time. The conceit is that the author has whisked the reader (a woman, presumably) back through time, and now she has to learn how to survive as a Victorian lady. Which is not pleasant. I had a good time with this kind of easy breezy history lesson.

No, Mel does not want to wear a blindfold for this photo shoot, thank you very much.

Bird Box gave me nightmares. Malorie...also gave me nightmares. I can think of very few scenarios scarier than needing to wear a blindfold 24/7 because if you happen to peek out at the world, you may or may not see a "creature" that will instantly give you a madness causing you to violently murder everyone around you, then yourself. (No thank you goodbye.)

My mini haul from The Booksmith and Borderlands in San Francisco today… I think Booksmith is my new fave SF bookstore (sorry, City Lights!).

My “love at first line” book from The Booksmith in San Francisco today. Any guesses?

Disappointing

This is exactly what the subtitle says it is...not any kind of exploration of gender identity, but simply easy breezy essays about women all over the world throughout history who have disguised themselves as men to do the things they want to do that women weren't/aren't allowed to do. (I have issues with Joan of Arc being included here, but I'll let that go.) The essays are short, and this was a perfect book for me to read in between heavier books