Where are my fellow fairy tale lovers at? I've got a quiz for you!

bookriot.com/fairy-tales-quiz/

A brilliant feminist biography of Anne Boleyn that upends everything you thought you knew about Henry VIII's 2nd wife and reexamines her depection as a seductress. In actuality, Anne was a devout reformer educated in Hapsburg and French courts filled with the Reformation movement. And while diagnosing historical figures can be touchy (Nolan claims Henry had sociopathy), I do agree that romanticizing a relationship that ends in murder is troubling.

Book mail!

If I had a nickle for every horror novel that turned cannibal I'd have several nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's still weird it's happened several times.

bookriot.com/cannibalistic-horror/

This fun cozy murder mystery follows three generations of women living together after the matriarch, Lana, is diagnosed with lung cancer. The formidable real-estate tycoon and her daughter Beth are constantly at odds, but when teenage Jack discovers a dead body during a kayak tour, they come together to pick apart what really happened. It took me a minute to warm up to Lana but eventually she won me over just as she does everyone else.

#WeekendReads

Sighs in "I was born in the 90s" ?‍?

Took my sweet nephew to the library today, and we found several fun new books to read, including this great book from Eric Carle about fish dads. He loves Eric Carle books and immediately recognized the artwork! @sebrittainclark

@sebrittainclark tells me all the books in my recent #libraryhaul have something in common, but I can't imagine what.

These wonderfully surreal interconnected short stories come together around an apartment that miraculously expands to have a terrace when a particular guest come to visit. I really enjoyed how the stories slowly developed the premise through characters and generations affected by this strange phenomenon. Hilary Leichter is just brilliant.

Ali Hazwood's books are like a really rich chocolate cake-- you know what you're going to get and it's delicious when you're in the right mood for it. Yes the enemies to lovers, oblivious heroine who doesn't realize the gruff, giant of a man is in love with her is all the same, but dang if I don't still enjoy it every time. And the theoretical vs experimental physicist drama was quite interesting.

I think seeing Six live this week might have reignited my preteen-era Tudor obsession. Oops.

#WeekendReads

#WeekendReads

Steer clear of the Goblin Market. It's a warning May didn't head and now, nearly two decades later her niece and much younger sister are repeating her mistakes. But what exactly happened in the market to force May and her sister from Yorkshire? And what awaits the younger generation now that they are venturing into the market themselves. A wonderfully dark fairy tale.

Bookshops and Bonedust took the top spot for August, but The Mountain the Sea beat it out to move forward in the #2023ReadingBracket @chasjjlee

#WeekendReads

Book mail! Arc written by a friend of a friend.

I loved this clever reimagining of Sleeping Beauty where a changeling has taken the place of the princess and the real child, who was whisked away by faeries, must now keep her from causing any harm. One of the most inventive retellings I've ever read, though the ending felt maybe a little neat for my taste given the rest of the story.

My #WeekendReads

"In the early days, the wall of thorns had been distressingly obvious."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

I loved this prequel to Legends & Lattes even more than the original! After an injury prevents her from continuing on with her adventuring, Viv finds herself surprisingly invested in a local bookshop that's struggling to make ends meet. This one is faster paced than L&L but just as cozy and cute!

#NetgalleyBingo : LGBTQIA+ Main Character

A boy tells the story of how he came to betray his master to the Roman Legion who captured him in this fun historical middle grade novel. Samir is a storyteller, a "seller of dreams" who trades his highly exaggerated wares as part of a caravan along the Silk Road. The boy he rescues from being stoned by monks is not impressed with his lack of honesty and piety. But, as with all people and stories, the truth is a bit more complicated than that.

Another gorgeous WWI era historical fiction novel about books from Pip Williams, this time following a bindery girl who longs to read books at Oxford, not just bind them. I really appreciated the insight into the divide between Town and Gown in Oxford and the look at refugees and attitudes toward war in England before, during, and after WWI. A really excellent historical fiction novel.

#NetgalleyBingo : Author You've Read Before

My #weekendreads. An ebook and two audiobooks.

#weekendreads

I enjoy reading translated books but this one fell short for me. The premise of a psychiatric facility in early 1900s Argentina decapitating patients to see what they say in the moments between decapitation and death was really interesting to me but it just didn't explore it in a way I found at all satisfying.

A weird and intriguing speculative short story collection full of strange toilet creatures, ghosts, and cursed lamps. I really loves it overall-- just my kind of short stories. That said, a couple of the stories didn't really fit in with the collection and one was wildly abelist/ talking about blindness in a really derogatory way. TW for suicide, rape, incest, child abuse, and others

Life is wild so I'm reading a really wide variety of books that I'm picking up and putting down right now. What about you? #WeekendReads

Got around to this one much sooner than I would have otherwise thanks to #NetgalleyBingo . A hockey player wanting to keep her temper under control after lashing out against a cruel teammate befriends a drama kid only for both of them to find more than they bargained for. Cute but I think it could've continued on for onger tbh. Felt like it ended too soon but maybe that's just because i was enjoying it.

Netgalley Bingo: Comic or Graphic Novel

I adore Nimona, and if you do too, you'll love these other comics and graphic novels with a similar vibe.

bookriot.com/graphic-novels-like-nimona/

Want some queer royal romance recs to fill all your prince / princess needs? I've got you!

https://bookriot.com/queer-royal-romances/

Underrated comics for the win!

bookriot.com/most-underrated-comics-according-to-goodreads

Got some good looking books on my Netgalley shelf right now. Perfect timing to try to do some #NetgalleyBingo

Netgalley Bingo: post a Netgalley shelfie

In the near future, a chef applies for a position in an elite, guarded community atop a mountain after a worldwide smog outbreak causes wide-spread crop destruction and famine. Here, animals and food available nowhere else are carefully curated in underground labs. But what secrets are her employer and his daughter hiding? And how do they lead to the community's eventual destruction? #NetgalleyBingo @Larkken

Netgalley Bingo: Publishing in 2024

@Larkken just shared this fun Netgalley bingo board for August! My life is wild at the moment but I think it'd still be fun to see how many I can do! I managed to get through several arcs during #JuneofARC so I figure it's worth a try. Reading the tagged book right now #NetGalleyBingo

A teen dealing with the extreme pressure of high school, swim team, and adolescence recounts her experiences leading up to her transformation into a mermaid. It's a gorgeous literary coming of age novel with a slight speculative feel even though there's no actual, confirmed fantasy to the story. Anyone who struggled with high pressure high school experiences will relate to Ren whether or not you went to her extremes.

I love gifting books and puzzling out the perfect book for the perfect person! I don't have one specific book I love to gift because I always try to tailor it to what I think that person will enjoy. But I did once gift a book to my brother in law who isn't a big reader. He was grumbling but when he realized it was a book about ridiculous bird names he finally understood why I'd gotten it for him 😂

#SundayFunday @ozma.of.oz

My #weekendreads for this weekend. What are you reading?

My top read of July was The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler #TopReads2023 #2023ReadingBracket @chasjjlee

A lifelong temp worker runs through a series of stranger and stranger jobs including as a replacement pirate and a serial killer's assistant. But being a temp is more than just a job-- it's a lifelong pursuit of finding permanency, something that might outlast even humanity itself. A wonderfully weird story.

This middle grade historical fiction novel follows a young girl living in Hiroshima during WWII. Loosely based on her mother's own experiences during the war, Burkinshaw provides fascinating insight into what life was like in Japan during WWII as well as the horrors that even those that survived the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima faced.

This spicy sapphic historical romance follows a Caribbean heiress and a business savvy duchess who must decide if they're willing to risk everything for a chance to be together. It's a fun read full of scenic Paris settings, art, friendship, and found families.

I generally prefer my horror to be faster paced so it took me a while to get through this Sapphic YA haunted house story, but I did enjoy the journey. Jade is spending 4 weeks with her estranged father in Vietnam at the colonial house he's renovating but strange things are happening. To convince her father the house is haunted, Jade teams up the niece of her father's real-estate partner to fake hauntings until the real thing becomes undeniable.

This cute picture book about a carnivorous plant plays on expectations. It's full of simple, cute illustrations, and while I started to think it was getting a bit tedious in its repetition, it won be back over with the ending.

I'm Weird Babrie! How about you?

bookriot.com/which-barbie-are-you-based-on-your-book-picks/

Coffee shop reading

Some YA horror and historical sapphic romance this weekend #WeekendReads

Nothing fun about 2 days of migraine in a row, but I did at least get to break out a new book I've been wanting to read and socialize my new little guy (Casper) for the first time

Mammoths are brought back from extinction-- but after humans have already hunted elephants to the point that they only exist in captivity, will wild mammoths really be able to survive, much less thrive? I really enjoyed Nayler's new books which focuses on mammoths and poachers instead of octopuses and fishing. It's shorter and not as mysterious, but just as good.