A cute story about the power of books. In the wake of his grandfather's death, homebody Rintaro will soon have to leave their beloved used bookstore behind to live with a distant aunt. But then a tabby cat shows up requesting his help to rescue some books, whisking him off on a series of adventures that help him open back up to the world. A fun read for book-lovers.

What a cute Hanukkah romance! Rachel is a good Jewish girl who is also secretly a famous Christmas romance novelist with a chronic illness. But now her publisher wants her to write a Hanukkah romance and her former camp crush / rival just happens to be hosting a huge Hanukkah ball in NYC. Misunderstandings, banter, and a push-pull romance of epic proportions ensues. Jacob and Rachel are both annoyingly dense at times, but the cuteness wins out.

Not sure if any of my fellow littens are fans of this cool new magazine by and for readers, but I have an article all about designing bookshelves and letting loose your creativity in the latest issue 006!

https://www.ohreader.com/

1. The Cat Who Saved Books, Fools in Love, and Cinnamon and Gunpowder

2. Amor Actually edited by Adriana Hererra

3. Just watched Jingle Jangle for the first time this week and its a new holiday favorite!

#WeekendReads

Finally Friday!

"First things first, Grandpa's gone."

#FirstLineFriday @ShyBookOwl

An absolutely adorable reality TV-style rom-com with big Red, White and Royal Blue vibes (banter + clueless men falling in love and not realizing the other one loves them back). Represents and addresses a whole host of mental illnesses including OCD, anxiety disorders, and depression and does it well. Only small negative is Dev is described as Indian but that rep feels very surface level. Overall so so good, though. Highly recommend this one!

I always love seeing what my fellow TBR bibliologists are reading in this weekly roundup over on Instagram 😍

Have most of my items for the #Bestof2021 swap hosted by @candority together. Just waiting for one last thing or two before sending it out to @staci.reads !

Another great YA novel from the author of Elatsoe about a Lipan Apache girl in Texas and a Cotton Mouth spirit animal in the mirror world searching for some way to save his toad friend whose species is going extinct. The two storyline take a minute to come together and really get going but once they do it's really fun! And like Elatsoe, this story features an ace protagonist though that's only mentioned very much in passing.

The books I read in November. Had hoped to get through a few more but ah well. My favorites were Iron Widow, Cloud Cuckoo Land, The Reading List, and Convenience Store Woman.

Really enjoying this arc of a cute, tropey romance anthology and really glad my pup is back to 100% after eating a bag of macadamia nuts yesterday and getting some scary symptoms from macadamia nut toxicity

I came into this off of Convenience Store Woman and boy oh boy is this different. It does follow a similarly offbeat protagonist who defies societal norms but the similarities end there. Natsuki is an abused child who believes she's an alien from the planet Popinpobopia and longs to be brainwashed into fitting in as an Earthling. Trigger warnings for everything under the sun but specifically sexual qssualt, incest, child abuse, and cannabilism.

New book from one of my favorite authors coming next year! Excuse me while I pre-order right now.

stone-soup.ghost.io/archive/exclusive-preview-just-like-home/

Haven't done a weekly reading progress report in a while. Finished some really great reads and excited to dig into some good new ones and my first holiday read of the year this coming week!

A few of the holiday reads I have my eye on this year. I'm especially excited for Amor Actually, a short story collection coming out Dec. 4th.

Definitely did not know what I was getting into with this one! I read Convenience Store Woman and loved it, which sounds like it is the same way quite a few people come into this one only to find themselves surprised 😅 Definitely planning to get going because I'm intrigued so far but whew does this deal with some intense (and dark) topics.

1. Cinnamon and Gunpowder, Earthling, and This Land is Their Land

2. The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

3. I've got quite a few on my TBR already so I did some Googling and found two new-to-me titles: Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot and Flight by Sherman Alexie

#WeekendReads

A fun, satirical sci-fi novel about a bot with feelings determined to write a screen play to prove that bots aren't dangerous in a world where most humans hate bots. I really enjoyed the sense of humor in this and a lot of the ideas about the future (not that I would want most if any of them to come to pass), but the book definitely ran on too long in places-- especially since the writing is so stylistic.

What an epic antihero story! In a futuristic world inspired by historical China, a girl seeks vengeance for her mudered sister in a highly gendered and sexist society overrun by kaiju, where girls are sacrificed in order to win battles. There are elements of Pacific Rim and other kaiju movies, but this story is entirely its own. I am soft for an angry, unforgiving female protagonist. And a love triangle that turns into a poly triad.

My Thanksgiving read

Today was a good day for baking and audiobook listening

A real epic of a book spanning centuries and continents as it weaves together 3 stories connected by a fictious lost Greek manuscript (based on a real lost Greek manuscript). This book pulls you in so thoroughly and manages to juggle so many distinct stories and characters. It's a real love letter to fiction.

My one complaint is that the radicalized character is very much coded as Autistic, which felt pretty icky. But he did get a redemption arc.

A dystopia novella about a woman researching the hygiene habits of a neighboring commune called Amatka, where words and language are an integral part of maintaining societal structure and misuse of it is therefore considered a subversive act. Slowly over the course of the story we begin to peel back the layers and understand a bit of whats going on. Really eerie and compelling.

TW for suicide

Listing to a Zoom talk with Olivia Dade through my local indie today alongside @sebrittainclark . I loved Spoiler Alert so I really need to get my butt in gear on reading this one now! Also Olivia Dade is such a delight, definitely recommend her books and her talks.

1. Set my Heart to Five, Cloud Cuckoo Land, Lore Olympus, and Amatka

2. Sweet potato casserole

3. The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

#WeekendReads

Just got my #NewYearWhoDis list from @TheSpineView, and I think these 4 are the ones I'm most excited about! About to make some shelves on Libby and Scribd so I can start figuring out which books I have access to and want to read first. Also excited for a fun bonus rec from @monalyisha for Here For It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America which I'm also going to add to my #NYWD22 shelves!

Trying to read but how to focus when my baby is being this adorable? 😍

This is fine. This is normal. Totally not freaking out about being tweeted at by an author I adore.

I put together a round up of great middle grade fairy tale retellings over on Book Riot:

bookriot.com/middle-grade-fairy-tale-retellings/

Bedtime reading and bedtime snuggles 😍

A cute and action-packed middle-grade graphic novel about a girl raised by the guardians of a spirit tree protecting the souls of dead birds. When the souls begin to dissappear without being reborn, Zulu leaves the only home she's ever know to journey through the mortal realm on a quest to discover what or who is interfering with the cycle of rebirth. Fun and full of heart and adventure.

For all my fellow comic / graphic novel readers out there:

bookriot.com/ya-comics-from-2021/

New books!

Sunday evening with a great new book

A really interesting YA novel in verse about a teenager in Ciudad Juarez being visited by her thirty year old self in an attempt to alter her past and the depression that almost took her life. Young Anamaría is anxious all the time about all the girls disappearing and the pressure she puts on herself to excel, but her adult self has a message for her: learn to love yourself. Short and poignant story about mental health.

1. Cloud Cuckoo Land and Lore Olympus

2. Thirty Talks Weird Love

3. Surviving Savannah and The Dictionary of Lost Words

#WeekendReads

"She found me. She knocked on the side of the stall in the Multicinemas restroom where I sat staring at the strawberry stain in my underwear."

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

A sweet m/m Christmas novella about two partners who are very much in love and go a bit overboard with their gifts. Very low drama and a loving relationship with characters who work through their problems when they come up.

Did I set an alarm to wake up early for one of my favorite Litsy events of the year despite having a migraine? Yes, yes I did. And since the sign up is already more than half full I'm very glad I did! Thanks for organizing this awesome event @monalyisha ! Can't wait to see what I get this year.

#NewYearWhoDis

1. Two local bookstores have opened near me recently and I'm really excited to visit both bit haven't had a chance yet!

2. I'll go in with maybe one or two titles in mind and then usually go a bit wild. Other times I'll just browse and see what book strikes me.

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

A novella about a woman working at a convenience store in her thirties up against strong societal expectations that she get a "real" job or get married. Some of the cultural aspects are clearly Japanese but others are definitely relatable in the idea that sticking out too much and not conforming can lead to judgement. The main character also seems very clearly coded as Autistic. It's a poignant story that's a bit strange and a bit wonderful.

Been a real day so this is where we're at 👍

My first audiobook walk with my girl since she went to training bootcamp and it is such a relief to feel like I can take her on walks again. And we got to walk among these gorgeous fall trees!

Despite the very provocative title, this book is really a memoir. As the granddaughter of Children of God founder David Berg, Faith was raised in the cult from birth, mostly on a farm in Macau. She certainly lived a very interesting life & if you're fascinated by cults (as I am) it will probably be an interesting read, but if you know anything about the Children of God you'll understand why the title references a "sex cult."

TWs in comment below.

1. Matrix, Lore Olympus, and Sex Cult Nun

2. Goodreads, Litsy, and Book Riot's reading tracker

3. A Psalm for the Wild-Built

#WeekendReads

So obsessed with this cover and concept: fairy tales gender swapped with an algorithm designed to chance pronouns and certain other gender specific words (son, daughter, mother, father, etc.). The illustrations from Karrie Fransman are absolutely stunning, too. Love when I come across incredible books like this when researching for Book Riot articles.

This was one of my favorite swaps last year and brought me so much joy to put together. @candority is gauging interest right now so head on over and comment if you think you might want to participate #Bestof2021

I loved some of the ideas at play here (very The Year of the Witching meets Handmaid's Tale) but the execution just didn't match up. Which is especially a shame since I've loved most of what I've read by Claire LeGrand. But the story just dragged and dragged on in the Neo-Puritan cult with Amity trying to figure out her magic powers and the story didn't really get interesting until the last 20%. A shame, but maybe others will feel differently.

A heartwarming story about the power of books and two lonely people who find an unexpected friendship at the library despite the substantial difference in their age. This was a really sweet story exploring loneliness, grief, compassion, and the power of books to bring people solace. And I'm always a sucker for a young / old friendship.

TW: death, depression, and suicide