Relatable! 😂

Also, I wondered why I‘d never seen the episode of The Twilight Zone that Takei is in. I guess this is why—it was barred from syndication!

This is a beautifully told story of a horrible time in American history—and more importantly, the trauma that George Takei and his family experience in the internment camps, and how George uses that experience in his adult life. The ending made me cry, as I miss my dad too. I did think the framing devices with George giving talks were awkward, especially since there were two and they weren‘t used in a symmetrical way.

My mom‘s name is Nancy 😄

At one (of many) points when I laughed at this book, my husband said “uh-oh, you‘ve just read something either really funny or really relatable.” I read him the panel where Lucy runs out of a restaurant crying, having learned that they are not serving lunch. He proceeded to tell the story of the time we failed to get vegan donuts while I was pregnant, and I cried the whole way home. Needless to say, I found this book very relatable and well done!

My kid was having fun in the play area, so I took some time to wander the graphic novel section. I picked up a couple of books that I‘d been wanting to read and one I‘d never heard of. #libraryhaul

I discovered Mhara Starling during my brief foray into TikTok. She‘s a delightful resource on Wales and witchcraft, especially since I‘ve always been interested in the mythology and folklore of Wales. This book is more of the same—more detail in some places than in her social media. I especially liked the deeper explanations of Welsh folklore. However, it badly—desperately—needed an editor. I am extremely disappointed in the publisher, Llewellyn.

May was a great reading month and I finally did get a #bookspinbingo!

The whole “narrowly focused on the emotional lives of a few protagonists, plot is irrelevant” thing worked for me in Wilder Girls as YA horror and in Burn Our Bodies Down as YA horror in which the emotions actually cause the plot. It doesn‘t work so well in this duology, which has four theoretically adult (but emotionally very young) protagonists and opens a LOT of interesting magic-system and world-politics plot loops… and closes very few of them

This was just as lovely as the previous two books. This series is so heartwarming, despite the fact that this book started with thousands of deaths! I loved that the Exodan society‘s way of disposing of their dead was human composting! Magrat was curious about this book (or maybe just about the ice cream I was eating as I finished it). My #bookspin for May @TheAromaofBooks

I didn‘t enjoy this as much as The Lost Coast or The Heartbreak Bakery for a variety of reasons (no real magic, the ending felt incomplete, a couple small instances of my pet peeve) but it was still wonderful. There‘s a murder mystery, a queer romance, a grand old theater, an abusive director, a Greek tragedy that isn‘t real but sure feels like it could be. Capetta‘s writing and the characters consistently suck me in.

I can‘t blame you, Phoebe! I would want to be kidnapped by goblins, too.

Phoebe is definitely her own character. But sometimes, if you replace Phoebe with an anthropomorphic fox and Dakota with an anthropomorphic sheep, this could absolutely be an Ozy & Millie strip.

This volume was even more delightful than the first; I relate easily to Phoebe‘s parents! I laughed out loud several times and had to share a few strips with my husband. Surprisingly, my five-year-old doesn‘t seem to be interested.

I don‘t know whether Dana Simpson is making specific callbacks to Ozy & Millie (I seem to recall Millie eating Sugar Kabooms) or if it‘s just that her style, especially for this similar-aged-and-imaginative character, is the same, but either way I‘m here for it! Also see: Dakota saying “guh” 😂

Finally reading the Phoebe and her Unicorn comics. I just thought I‘d be enjoying some fun, silly comics—I didn‘t expect an introduction from the greatest of unicorn novelists himself! 😍

I found this to be a somewhat slow but beautiful book, with a fascinating character at its center. Circe is less badass than I had expected her to be… but maybe that‘s just because I could read her thoughts and knew how she felt about her actions. All of the characters in this book feel very real, even the great gods and heroes. That doesn‘t mean they‘re good, nice, or human—but they are real.

I really liked the idea of a historical romance between a Black spy masquerading as a slave and a white spy masquerading as a Confederate soldier. Alyssa Cole‘s writing is good. It‘s just too much lust and not enough spycraft for me. This is a type of romance that just doesn‘t work for me: I want the characters to gradually get to know each other and have their interest increase, not fall in immediate lust and act like they hate each other.

“It is a common saying that women are delicate creatures, flowers, eggs, anything that may be crushed in a moment‘s carelessness. If I had ever believed it, I no longer did.”

Featuring a peony from my garden 😁

This final installment started a little slow, but that made sense and anyway the trilogy definitely avoided the second-book slump, so I can forgive it 😆 I really enjoyed the massive expansion of the magical world, with El jetting all over the world and meeting lots of new wizards… and terrifying them. I had a suspicion pretty early on of the big reveal, and was partially correct, which is always satisfying.

#doublespin for May @TheAromaofBooks

Oops, I meant to post this a while ago! My April #bookspinbingo board. No bingo of course but I MIGHT be able to manage one in May?! 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻

“In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears…”

A very promising beginning, though I doubt this is going in the direction my imagination went 😂 #pemberlittens #hashtagbrigade

Here is my #bookspin list for May! I‘m pretty sure it‘s the same list as in April but I made a new graphic 😂

Good way to start a rainy Sunday! (Okay, so it‘s noon…)

ORION

I love how Novik keeps up a rollicking pace and manages to make me care so deeply about these characters while also feeding me a huge amount of information about the world and keeping them very realistic teenagers. Amazingly realistic considering El is a budding supervillain and Orion is pretty much a superhero!

WTF, does Llewellyn just not hire copy editors?

I enjoyed reading this one with the #pemberlittens #hashtagbrigade! Not sure I would have liked it nearly as much otherwise 😂 Agnes is a sweet, relatably awkward character, but the whole book is full of awful people and dropped threads. I‘m glad she gets her happy ending!

This book is a lot of fun! I wish I‘d been able to read it more slowly since it did feel repetitive, but it‘s hard not to love the irrepressible Mame. Warning: there‘s a lot of racism in this book. It‘s mostly played for laughs, which seems odd, but it‘s clear that the explicitly racist characters are uneducated or unsympathetic. There is also a lot of Mame using her wealth for good.

No surprise, I loved this! El is a great narrator due to her inner conflicts and the amusing dichotomy of her ability to read rich subtext into anything about the school while entirely missing more interpersonal stuff. The setting is a great deal of bloody, exciting fun. Though I really don‘t know how anyone learns anything at this school! Glad I was able to get the sequel right away.

My April #bookspin @TheAromaofBooks

It‘s been previously established that Patrick can draw down about $8,000 a year in interest from his inheritance. I think he‘s being a little modest 😂

Edit: On reading a bit more of this chapter, I think it‘s 1944, but that still comes to well over $100k!

Look how old this #interlibraryloan book is 😍

And yes… I sniffed it and it smells just as good as you‘d expect!

OMG, that ending! I never saw that coming!

Also, I have never hoped so hard for a love triangle to be resolved with polyamory 😂

I can‘t deal with this stupid mistaken identity thing any longer. Are any of the characters other than Ayesha, Khalid, and Clara more than cartoons? 🙄

Mmm, yes, I do dream of larger women in lingerie… oh wait, that‘s not what Sheila meant. #bisexual 💙💜💖

Time for some #pemberlittens reading!

I‘ve now read four books by Mary Robinette Kowal: I adored two, and found the other two interesting in concept, well-written but lacking. The ones I loved are standalones 🤷🏻‍♀️ This was a romance set in an interesting Regency England with magic. I wasn‘t compelled by any of the characters and found Jane‘s sister especially annoying, plus the central drama hit too close to home and gave me anxiety. The romance, though, is quite satisfying.

Here is my #bookspin list for April! @TheAromaofBooks

3/31: Edited to remove Mary Robinette Kowal and move others up the list accordingly.

The beginning of this book had me really excited. I could see all the twists and the things that the characters would discover. And then… they pretty much all happened by halfway through, and then the rest of the book is pretty straightforward. The characters seem to be mostly right about everything, so I kept bracing for twists that didn‘t come. My #bookspin for March @TheAromaofBooks

Now this is what I was looking for in a polyamory book! Very relatable, interesting, and informative.

I do wish I‘d read this in paper instead of ebook. There are sections in a different font that was very pale and difficult to read on my Kindle, plus the vocabulary words didn‘t always link back and forth—it would have been easier to flip pages.

My latest #littlefreelibrary find! This has been on my list for ages!

A delightful fantasy romance! I really enjoyed the Edwardian Britain setting and the magical world Marske built alongside the ordinary one. It definitely had shades of Harry Potter while being its own thing. The characters are all wonderful—the Morrissey sisters, of course, were my favorites. The romance was developed well while showing the very different people Edwin and Robin are. And oh, boy, does Marske have a way with a Chekhov‘s gun!

I‘m just not having the greatest time with @MoonWitch94‘s #AuldLangSpine list! Northanger Abbey is on it so maybe I‘ll reread that next—I certainly know I‘ll enjoy it 😁

Did this feel queer-bait-y to anyone else? With Abigail staring at Eleanor‘s bosom and the constant refrain that Dorothy was her “dearest consort”… but from the reviews I could find it doesn‘t go in a sapphic direction.

This book is a beautiful, heartbreaking take on the selkie legend—though in some ways not as heartbreaking as the originals. I pitied Misskaella, the witch who brings up all the seal-wives for the men, but couldn‘t fully agree with the way she takes her revenge; how could she not see the seals as deserving their own choices? I liked the variety of POVs but was disappointed in the end that the “sea hearts” they gather and eat were unexplained.

What a marvelous book! I‘m only sorry it took so long for me to get around to reading it. It has everything I want in an apocalyptic novel: storylines before, during, and long after the event; making do with the things left behind by the old civilization while rebuilding in tiny communities; even traveling entertainers! It‘s all brought together by Mandel‘s beautifully drawn characters and compelling prose. I just wish there were more.

I tried reading this faster than a chapter a day in hopes it would grab onto my interest, but it didn‘t. The only times I cared was when there were direct P&P parallels, and I can get those from the #PemberLittens posts! I‘m reading too many books right now to stick with one that isn‘t great.

As I expected, there‘s a lot in this book. It is a memoir, both broad and deep, of Beaton‘s attempts to pay off her student loans by working at oil sites in western Canada. She tackles the sexist environment that comes with such a huge ratio of men to women (content warnings for the whole spectrum of misogyny, up to and including rape). Her artwork is beautiful. It‘s also fun to see bits of her developing online comics career!

Heck yeah, Katie! 🩸😂

I‘ve had high tea at the Empress! 😁

I feel like I read a lot of books in February but my #bookspinbingo board doesn‘t seem to reflect that! Seasparrow was a #chunkster so maybe that‘s why. I got to my #doublespin but not my #bookspin; the latter has just come in from interlibrary loan. No bingo, but I‘m not really expecting to get any this year.