I find Silvia Moreno-Garcia‘s prose stiff and unemotional, and I struggled with that more in this book than Mexican Gothic… probably because the latter had so many things I love in it, and this didn‘t particularly! Maite isn‘t a terribly compelling protagonist, though I did feel for her. The story was interesting and kept me reading. The ending wasn‘t surprising; all the men are useless jerks or worse. (I guess Elvis is OK.)

This is a strange book! I really liked the world built—when people feel a strong guilt, an animal appears that is connected to them. If the animal dies, the person does too, and the animal also seems to bring a magical ability. Zinzi has a Sloth and the ability to find lost objects. She‘s hired to find a missing teen girl. The story gets very violent and I felt it was lacking emotional depth.

@TheAromaofBooks This was my #doublespin for June

Oh man, what the heck, Helen. Have you no taste? ? #PemberLittens

Here‘s a great article about Anne Brontë and this book! https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/1/22/21070888/anne-bronte-200th-birthday-tenant...

This is what I could find in my house in the way of fairy tale retellings for our #LMPBC group. @ozma.of.oz @wordslinger42 @KristiAhlers The only one I haven‘t read is A Spindle Splintered. I‘m also open to buying something different!

I don‘t love this series—I‘m not a big manga reader and I feel like I‘m missing any subtle emotional aspects—but I keep going back to it because the characters are cute and the art is beautiful. I adore how much detail the creator puts into everything, especially the clothing.

I love seeing embroidery so well depicted!

I‘m kind of jealous of Pariya. I wish all I had to do was sit around and embroider 😆

This book made me SO ANXIOUS. Sahar is in love with her best friend, Nasrin. Nasrin is getting married. Sahar decides she should stop the wedding by becoming a man so she can marry Nasrin, because in Iran, homosexuality is legal but transsexuality is supported by the government. Sahar is not trans and Nasrin is SO not worth it. Gah. All the secondary characters are wonderful, especially Parveen. The writing style didn‘t really connect with me.

Boring, and the main character seems too completely useless to have survived the demon apocalypse. Another #bookspin off the TBR @TheAromaofBooks

This was so fun! Alpha Steele is an enjoyably over-the-top villain, though I found his drama difficult to reconcile with the heroes‘ assertion that he really believes what he‘s saying. It would have been better to read this closer to when I read the original series, since I had a rough time remembering many of the characters. And thanks to @TheAromaofBooks for letting me know about it, since the story in the first graphic novel seemed incomplete!

What a marvelous book! Complex and dark and deep. In New York in 1899, a golem and a jinni find themselves—and each other—among their immigrant communities. I loved all of the characters, and how all of the many threads came together. The ending is sad, but in a satisfying way.

I love that Winter, who is canonically so beautiful that people basically just do what she wants, has this glorious Afro.

This is a fun collection! I really appreciated that it had stories from all over the Asian world—even as far west as Iraq and Turkey. There is a variety of styles (both art and writing) and of tale types. Some were familiar, either because they are similar to the Western tales I know better or because I‘d read them before, and many were unfamiliar. I did feel like it petered out at the end, getting quite dark and finishing inconclusively.

I might have gone a little overboard with my #libraryhaul today 😅 but the librarian who checked me out was really enthusiastic about Mooncakes and we had a fun chat!

I love Kate Ashwin so much 😂

I decided to just go ahead and finish this. I enjoyed it a lot! I didn‘t know all that much about Jane Austen‘s life and Lucy Worsley goes into a very satisfying amount of detail. It was fascinating to learn about how and where Jane lived, and so much about her family and friends. The bit near the end about immortality gave me chills. ❤️ #PemberLittens

Book of Night is a duology! 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

This is a cute book! It‘s not going to make it onto a list of my favorites but I enjoyed it. Shoshanna is very relatable as a fellow tiny bright-colors-wearing book lover. All the characters are really fun and the teen romance is a small delight. Also, it works surprisingly well as a Jewish romance at Christmas time (it helps that they work in a mall).

I made out like a bandit at the #littlefreelibrary!

Happy Pride, #PemberLittens! 😂

I finally got myself one of these bathtub trays. Feeling very fancy. However, I suspect my husband will enjoy it more than I do. The tub is so deep that I can‘t actually rest the book on the tray while reading 😂 but he‘s taller so he may be able to.

Here‘s my #bookspin #bookspinbingo list for June! @TheAromaofBooks

This is fun so far! And I find Shoshanna, who is Jewish, fits inside a children‘s play castle, and has a crush on a book nerd with biceps, quite relatable (even if I am bisexual). This line is especially great since my husband‘s name is Daniel 😁

I, too, had a father who supported me. I think about him every day. 😭

#PemberLittens

I feel like I should give this more of a chance since it‘s for book club, but I can just tell I‘m not going to enjoy it. The characters don‘t compel me and I feel like it‘s already told me everything that‘s going to happen, so I don‘t even want to check the ending. There‘s nothing wrong with this book at all—it‘s just not my thing.

This wasn‘t my favorite of the series, but I enjoyed returning to the Old Kingdom. Since this is a prequel, I felt it lost a lot of tension, since it was pretty clear to me who would die and who would live. I also felt the romance was a bit too rapid to take seriously. However, I enjoyed the ride.

I went to the grocery store for one object and the library for one hold. The grocery store didn‘t have what I needed, so it‘s totally OK that I actually got three books, right? #libraryhaul

Fun that this book describes this belief of spirits and the dead being unable to cross running water, while another book I‘m reading at the same time (Terciel & Elinor) uses it literally in the magic system—dead spirits and creatures cannot cross running water and, in fact, it can bring them further into death.

Sunday morning.

I LOVED this basically up until the climax when it did a triple-hit on my biggest pet peeve 😬 I knew what the object was that Charlie removed, so did she need to be so mysterious about it?

Ahem. Charlie was a fantastic POV character. I love her inner conflict and her scammer skills. The magic system and world were absolutely fascinating and wonderful. Vince was a hottie. And I thought this was a standalone but I may riot without a sequel!

My Book of Night preorder tote bag came! 🎉 And I am absolutely loving the book, to no one‘s surprise.

Good life.

I kept waffling on whether to give up or keep going, and eventually decided that if it wasn‘t a definitely finish then it should be a bail. I find most of the characters unpleasant and the story dreary.

“It may seem to us that there is more to life than cross-stitch…”

Unfortunately! Am I right, #LitsyCrafters? 😂

#PemberLittens

Such a fun little story! It suffers from the switch from epistolary to narrative at the end, but the nastiness of Lady Susan and her friend Alicia is highly entertaining, as is the way the women lead all the men about by the nose. I wish for all the couples in the end to have the happiness in life that they deserve! 😆 #PemberLittens

I‘m surprised Lucy had to learn from historical reenactors that swaddling is comforting and helps a baby sleep—not parents! My son was born the year after this book was published and swaddling was certainly strongly recommended without any indication that it is old-fashioned, just time-honored.

I‘m also intrigued by the idea of sending the kid out for 24/7 childcare during the toddler years 😆 #PemberLittens

I‘m surprised by some of the slangy, modern-sounding language in this book! Reginald‘s account is “lame,” Sir James is “not up to par,” and Mrs. Vernon uses “infer” to mean “imply.” I wouldn‘t expect Lady Susan, or even Jane, to know much about golf, so I suppose the phrase “up to par” must have been in ordinary language already. #PemberLittens

Sing it, sister! 🙌🏻

This seems like such a modern feminist attitude that if a contemporary writer were putting these words in a 19th-century woman‘s mouth, I might roll my eyes. #PemberLittens

Ah… such a fitting ending.

Look at that! A two-bingo month! What an accomplishment! I‘d like to thank the academy, and @TheAromaofBooks , and uh… the fact that I had two DNFs on the same line 😂

Here is my #bookspinbingo list for May! @TheAromaofBooks

I have a lot of “assigned reading” this month so I hope some of it ends up my #bookspin or #doublespin 😅

Gosh I love the art in this first part.

For some reason Litsy thinks this is the same book as Season of Mists. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Despite my best attempts to lean in to the drama, when I found myself randomly reopening social media instead of reading this book, I realized I was bored.

The idea of bringing together all these characters from literature is fun but it really doesn‘t work for me here (especially since it also includes many real figures, which very rarely works for me in books). Plus, none of the characters held my interest at all.

The excessively dramatic writing has me a bit skeptical, but it‘s SO over-the-top that it has to be on purpose (the school is CALLED RoseBlood?!), so I‘m trying to lean in to the drama. It is more fun this way!

Not sure what to say about this book. It was interesting, but didn‘t pull me in. The ending was reasonably satisfying (in a “no clear answers” kind of way). It relied heavily on a pet peeve of mine, POV characters knowing/realizing something but that information being deliberately kept from the reader until later.

SO. GOOD.

This was (almost) everything I hoped for in a Rory Power adult fantasy. Deep and dark and twisty, with rich, creative worldbuilding and fathomless characters. Just a touch of body horror. She uses tropes I love from fantasy and mythology and twists them in new and intriguing ways. Can‘t wait for the sequel!

(The almost: not queer enough.)

This book is a really cute graphic story of two women who fall in love as teens in the ‘60s, are separated by their families, and eventually find each other again. It has some pretty sad moments but a happy ending. Unfortunately, it felt rushed to me all the way through, with on-the-nose dialogue that hastened the story along.

This book is soooooo cute!

Overly dramatic. I‘m bored. If I‘d loved the other book I read by Ruth Ware, I‘d give it more of a chance, but I didn‘t.

@TheAromaofBooks My April #doublespin! I‘m getting caught up!