Top Ten Petty Reasons I’ve DNF’d a Book

Yes, this is not a drill. I am actually posting a TTT! The last time I actually participated in this was way back in January of 2023. But I saw this topic and, me with my petty, kneejerk dnf’s, loved the thought of it. So, as always, Top Ten Tuesdays are hosted by ThatArtsyReaderGirl.

So, today’s topic is: Petty Reasons You’ve DNF’d a Book (Or reduced its rating. You don’t even have to say what the book was if you don’t want to!) And with how I can be petty like no ones business when it comes to DNFing books… This should be fun.

I would like to note that, after actually looking through my DNF’d shelf on Goodreads that the extreme majority of book were DNF’d because of bad romances, rape-y undertones, creepy boyfriends/girlfriends. Knowing how knee-jerk I can be to anything that doesn’t feel 100% right in romance, I am not surprised. However, none of those books are on this list, because I do not feel that wanting things to be 100% consensual in romances is petty, but, rather, the bare minimum that I demand.

The story starts in the future, well past the time of the main events, from the sound of it, with a storyteller telling us the story of Kindred and the events in this book. And the storyteller has sections throughout the book (at least one I found by flipping through the pages) and one at the very end.

This is used as a framing device – one which I hate. So, yeah, it was DNF’d before I hit the double digits.

I didn’t like the head-hopping, but also very nit-picky and petty: I do not like going from dinner with the victim to their funeral. There is no discovering the dead body or any of the stuff that I am so used to happening to drag the sleuth/s into the case. This is just dinner one page, funeral the next and…meh.

I am a very soft heart when it comes to animals. I hate the way so many fantasy books (and games, but that’s another subject) has animals as mook fights.

This book has the main character rescue a puppy, only for the little girl who’s family apparently owns the dog to, in all seriousness, announce that they are going to eat the dog.

I don’t know if they do or not. I didn’t make it that far. This will always be a case of Schrodinger’s dog in my mind. (The puppy is both eaten and not, all at the same time!)

Sometimes when you decide to mostly borrow books from your library instead of spending hard earned cash on them, it means you are left waiting years before they get the book.

Or, you have to listen to it as an audio book when that is, literally, your least favorite form of ‘reading’ because that is the only format they have the book in. And sometimes that means that the audio book that you just finished – which was a major struggle – and the one you just picked up has the same narrator.

And you cannot subject yourself to that voice without remembering the worst things about the last book you listened to.

I’m going to be honest with you: I went through a phase in my life that foul language was sort of a death knell for any form of entertainment. (Hard to believe now, I know.)

Anyway, I don’t remember anything about this book other than what my Goodreads ‘review’ says, stating that the cursing in the book caused me to drop it. That being said, I really have the feeling that something else was at play, too, but I don’t know and even though I think I still own the book, I don’t intend on finding out.

The writing style of this book is set up so that it appears one of the girls is the author of the book and is currently writing it. Filled with asides from the other girls as you are reading. Asides that totally detract from the story and disturb the flow.

Which was, apparently enough for me at the time to drop the book, though to be honest, I forgot I even attempted to read it.

This book is an interesting case of DNF’ing as I didn’t stop reading it because of anything to do with this book.

Rather, what happened was I was loving the book so much that I wanted to check out if the sequel followed the same characters – only to discover the sequel has a romance that features cheating cheaters who cheat. (Which is 1000% a no go for me.)

My petty reason for dropping this book is, at its core, because it opens with the main female character in bed with her husband after having an amazing round of sex, telling us about how great the sex was.

A little more depth to my pettiness is that I started reading what I thought would be an amazing, feminist historical sci-fi but what was actually a poorly disguised chick-lit.

This is a soulless version of The Last Airbender world.

It might have worked as an original fantasy (maybe with a different author) but this is not the world that so many people have come to know and love. Or the world that I have come to know and mostly tolerate.

Would like to state that my pettiness for this book knows no bounds. Seriously.

‘Marvel’ in name only to jump on a cash cow, meanwhile completely wrecking three characters for this story. (Loki, Thor and Frigga.)

But, really, the deal breaker was this author (whom I have grown to detest for many reasons) stating in an interview: When I really sort of let go of that and stopped doing research and reading other people’s version. […] when I sort of let go of other people’s ideas about him and looked at him as not a character that has existed in this franchise […] that was what really made all the difference.

Honestly, it’s not often I get to say this, but: reads like bad fan fiction. Fan fiction so bad that the author doesn’t even try – or care to try – to make sure the character they are writing about bears a resemblance to the franchise character.

This was actually…disturbingly fun to put together. (And I probably could have stretched this out to another 5-8 petty DNFs.) Anyway, it did remind me of several books I had forgotten – not the last one, though, as my pettiness towards it will never be forgotten.

The Struggle of (& Chilling Out Over) Reading Challenges

Hey, everyone! So, today you are getting a completely unplanned post – in fact, I only thought about this last night and refined the idea a bit earlier today.

If you follow me on Goodreads – and I think I mentioned it on this blog earlier this year, as well – you’ll know that I set my reading challenge number of books at 104. At the beginning of the year, I thought 8 books a month – or 2 a week – was perfectly doable.

I’m discovering now, that it’s not. (There are so many, many reasons for this, not the least of which is work and me actually wanting time for other hobbies.) So far, I’ve read 23 books, instead of the 29 that I should have. (And, in fact, have only made 8 books for the month of March.) That might not sound like a lot, but when I look at the numbers of what I managed to read…

10 of these books are comics or manga, one is a short story and two are novellas. I’ve found myself looking for more comics and short stories to read just to make my monthly minimum. And I don’t want to do that. If that’s what I want to read most, that’s fine. But I’m choosing comics, in truth, more to fill a quota than because that’s what I want to read.

Couple that with other issues I’ve been having of not choosing well lately for books (I’ve had way to many 2 stars or lower – and this is not even a new thing for me) and struggling to get into a new book with new world building and fresh characters – and I’m starting to experience something I never wanted to with reading: it’s starting to feel like a chore.

And not all reading is this way. I can blaze through a fanfiction, where I already know the world and the characters and are just seeing a new take on them, in no time. And I haven’t even gotten a chance to reread anything yet this year, even though I keep looking at my books and wanting to reread them – but I keep feeling that I have to read these other books first. (Like NetGalley approvals, which are not terrible, and the book recommendations that I actually paid for, which I am struggling with like you would not believe.)

Right now, I’ve read 5 books this month. I’m supposed to get 3 more read this month. I’m also 6 books behind my reading, so I’m actually needing to read 9 more books this month. (Ugh, before I even thought of that, it seemed impossible.) I have the next three books that I’m supposed to read lined up. (My last 2 outstanding from TBR and my April 1 from JustTheRightBook.) Each of them is 400 pages or a little over. To read all three of them by the end of April, I will have to read about 75 pages each day.

This seems … I feel this is impossible for me where I am currently at in my life. It’s just… I don’t really know what I was thinking trying to read 2 books a week – 1 roughly every 3.5 days. (With my average length of books this year, that’s like 100 pages a day. For me, that’s roughly 2 hours a day spent reading. When I’m already struggling so much with these books and even getting started on them and having to consider time I spend working plus any other hobbies I want to do.)

I just feel like I can’t do it and I have so bitten off more than I can chew.

So I think I’m just going to take a breath, take a step back.

I’m going to drop my Goodreads reading challenge to 6 books a month – but if I read more, that’s great. I will also check back in with myself in a couple months and adjust the challenge down again if needed. I just don’t want to feel like I have to push myself to read and that reading X number of pages is a quota that I have to hit. (I’m dealing with enough of that for work.) I likely will drop it down, but that is the closest number to how many books I have read on average each month, multiplied by 4. (By that I mean that setting my challenge at 72 books allows me to not have to read anything else this month, but it doesn’t put me like 2 months ahead – where I would be if I settled on 4 books a month like I was going to.

I’m going to quit trying to set a deadline on the book recommendations I have received. I had been trying to get through each of the recommendations before I received the next, but sometimes that just doesn’t work. (And, besides, I do know I will not be resubscribing to one of the two services when mine expires.)

I have 1 more NetGalley book that I have been approved for. But I’m planning on making that a July read as the publish date is in August and I try to get my reviews out the month before. I might also request more books, because I have had decent luck so far and I have not overloaded myself on these. (Surprisingly enough.)

I am also going to make some time for rereads, as I have several books that I really, really want to reread and most of them are parts/starts of a series.

So, I am going to spend the next 2.5 months just chilling out and relaxing about my reads. I am going to read what I want, when I want, and hopefully that will bring back my general enjoyment of reading and stop it from being such a struggle.

April TBR

Hey, everyone! I’m back and ready to share with you my excitement for books this month. But, first, I have to talk about something else: the April 8th solar eclipse. I am in the path of it. Not sure I’ll get totality, but I am planning on watching it. Or, at least attempting to, as we’re also getting some cloudy/stormy weather predicted for it. No one else that I know is interested in it, though, so I just had to share my excitement for it a little bit with you all. And, to be fair, my commiseration with you if you want to watch it but are not in its path. I do know what that is like.

Books I Want To Read In April

An emotional, slow-burn, grumpy/sunshine, queer mid-century romance for fans of Evvie Drake Starts Over, about grief and found family, between the new star shortstop stuck in a batting slump and the reporter assigned to (reluctantly) cover his first season—set in the same universe as We Could Be So Good.

The 1960 baseball season is shaping up to be the worst year of Eddie O’Leary’s life. He can’t manage to hit the ball, his new teammates hate him, he’s living out of a suitcase, and he’s homesick. When the team’s owner orders him to give a bunch of interviews to some snobby reporter, he’s ready to call it quits. He can barely manage to behave himself for the length of a game, let alone an entire season. But he’s already on thin ice, so he has no choice but to agree.

Mark Bailey is not a sports reporter. He writes for the arts page, and these days he’s barely even managing to do that much. He’s had a rough year and just wants to be left alone in his too-empty apartment, mourning a partner he’d never been able to be public about. The last thing he needs is to spend a season writing about New York’s obnoxious new shortstop in a stunt to get the struggling newspaper more readers.

Isolated together within the crush of an anonymous city, these two lonely souls orbit each other as they slowly give in to the inevitable gravity of their attraction. But Mark has vowed that he’ll never be someone’s secret ever again, and Eddie can’t be out as a professional athlete. It’s just them against the world, and they’ll both have to decide if that’s enough.

Notes: A huge thank you to netgalley for letting me read this book ahead of its release date! Sebastian is one of my favorite authors and my go-to author for queer historical romances. This one is a bit different for me, taking place as it is in the 1960’s, but I am excited for it nonetheless.

Hunted by those who want to study his gravity powers, Jes makes his way to the best place for a mixed-species fugitive to blend in: the pleasure moon. Here, everyone just wants to be lost in the party. It doesn’t take long for him to catch the attention of the crime boss who owns the resort-casino where he lands a circus job. When the boss gets wind of the bounty on Jes’ head, he makes an offer: do anything and everything asked of him, or face vivisection.

With no other options, Jes fulfills the requests: espionage, torture, demolition. But when the boss sets the circus up to take the fall for his about-to-get-busted narcotics operation, Jes and his friends decide to bring the mobster down together. And if Jes can also avoid going back to being the prize subject of a scientist who can’t wait to dissect him? Even better.

Notes: This is one of the books recommended to me by TBR and I am, I think, the most excited to read it of the trio.

A brand-new space fantasy novel from master world-builder Valerie Valdes! A refugee with a secret, a dangerous foe, and a road trip that could either save a planet or start a war.  Where peace is lost, may we find it. Five years ago, Kelana Gardavros lost everything in the war against the Pale empire. Now Kel Garda is just another refugee living on the edge of an isolated star system. No one knows she was once a member of an Order whose military arm was disbanded and scattered across the galaxy. And no one knows that if her enemies found her, they might destroy the entire world to get rid of her. Where peace is broken, may we mend it. Kel’s past intrudes in the form of a long-dormant Pale war machine, suddenly reactivated. If the massive automaton isn’t stopped, at best it will carve a swath of devastation that displaces thousands of people. At worst, it will kill every sentient creature on the planet. Where we go, may peace follow. When two strangers offer to deactivate the machine for a price, Kel and a young friend agree to serve as their guides. The journey through swamps infested with predators and bandits is bad enough, but can they survive more nefarious dangers along the way? And will Kel’s fear of revealing her secrets doom the very people she’s trying to protect? Where we fall, may peace rise.

Notes: Another, you guessed it, book rec from TBR. This one intrigues me greatly, because it was likened to Ninefox Gambit, which is one of my all time favorite books.

In this intricate debut fantasy introducing a queernormative Persian-inspired world, a nonbinary refugee practitioner of blood magic discovers a strange disease that causes political rifts in their new homeland. Persian-American author Naseem Jamnia has crafted a gripping narrative with a moving, nuanced exploration of immigration, gender, healing, and family.

Firuz-e Jafari is fortunate enough to have immigrated to the Free Democratic City-State of Qilwa, fleeing the slaughter of other traditional Sassanian blood magic practitioners in their homeland. Despite the status of refugees in their new home, Firuz has a good job at a free healing clinic in Qilwa, working with Kofi, a kindly new employer, and mentoring Afsoneh, a troubled orphan refugee with powerful magic.

But Firuz and Kofi have discovered a terrible new disease which leaves mysterious bruises on its victims. The illness is spreading quickly through Qilwa, and there are dangerous accusations of ineptly performed blood magic. In order to survive, Firuz must break a deadly cycle of prejudice, untangle sociopolitical constraints, and find a fresh start for their both their blood and found family.

Notes: Finally, the last of my TBR recs (and, yes, I would like to get them all read this month). This book sounds so unique an different, which makes me super excited to read it.

Now, finally, I was so excited to share with you my second book from Just the Right Book subscription – as it came in Saturday and I waited until today to open it as I was planning on reading it this month. Unfortunately, and very hilariously, they sent me Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang, a book I have already read. (Or, rather, DNF’d as it was so not for me.) So, I have started the exchange process, but who knows how long that will take and what book they will send me this time! Hopefully it is something I will read this month but… ?

Anyway, that’s … not a bang up start to my month. I guess I’ll see you all later this month to update you on my reading for the month.

(In a side note: I have finally figured out the changes made ages ago to wordpress and now I know how to add images properly and…they look soo pretty!)

March Wrap Up

Hey, everyone. I’m here to give March a send off. I hope the month went well for everyone, mine was pretty good, actually. lol For a change, anyway, huh? But, no, I can’t really complain this month – or, if I can, I don’t want to. The month was a little hectic, but nothing bad has happened and I have been feeling pretty good.

I really gave my bedroom a deep clean this month, because I wound up with a lot of unexpected time off from my housecleaning job – and there’s only so many hours a day that I can sit staring at a computer screen. (Shockingly enough. Though with my leg issues, it’s more the ‘sitting’ than the ‘staring at the computer screen’ part that I have to break from once in a while.)

This deep cleaning included – but was not limited to – a total clean of my bookshelves. I haven’t pulled any books off, yet, but I do have plans on trying to resell some of my old books, so the ones that are still on my shelf that I know I’ll never reread, will probably be given the boot eventually, too. On a side note, some of those shelves were filthy and I can’t even guess how long it’s been since I cleaned them. Probably a year or more. Don’t do that.

Some of the hectic bits of life have been work cancellations and unexpected requests. I do not handle this well. I like having my days planned from the start of the month so, sometimes this can leave me scrabbling to get everything done/figure out what to do. The good news this month is that my income was a little higher than I figured it would be, which, even if I have to work more, is a nice surprise.

Also, I was working on knitting a pair of socks with the nastiest yarn I’ve ever used and my cat got a hold of it, lost all my stitch markers and pulled my needle out of one side. That has shown me that I need to find a better place to keep my work in progress knitting projects – and has also made me not want to work with that yarn at all now because I’d have to restart that project. (I’ll probably just grab a different (better) yarn.)

The reading has been…ugh. Not that I’ve not read enough, but I have suffered several disappointments this month. So, let’s get to the:

Books Read In March

I finally managed to finish the Karneval manga series by Touya Mikanagi. I have to admit, I have been rather disappointed in these last few volumes and none of them were what I was hoping/expecting. I am, however, very pleased with myself for finally getting the entire series finished. (10-12 got ****, 13 was *** and 14 was **.)

In other books, I’ve also managed to finish yet another series that I have been disappointed in the final book of: Heat Wave by TJ Klune – book three in The Extraordinaries trilogy. Considering that my favorite books of his have been the first two I read – ones that were also solely romance with little/no plot – I think this is an author that I won’t be reading much of going forward. (It made **.) The Smoke that Thunders by Erhu Kome (****) was a netgalley read (thanks again!) that actually turned out well and it’s just the kind of none-western based fantasy that I have been looking for. Finally we have Starling House by Alix E. Harrow (*) which was both a terrible book for me and my first recommended book in my Just the Right Book subscription. (So, bang up job so far!)

Anyway, that’s my month and I’ll see you in April for my TBR that I am super excited for!

Just The Right Book Subscription Review: Part 2

Hey, everyone! This is my second review for the book subscription service ‘Just the Right Book’.

First, I’d like to talk about how quick they were getting the new book to me. I thought I had read it would take about two weeks. I received my first book ten days after I subscribed. Of course, in that intervening time period, I received four emails from them because they were having a ‘spring sale’ and kept wanting me to subscribe at this special discounted rate.

I did received, about two days after I subscribed, a nice little email from the company founder, kind of telling why she decided to start this subscription service.

So, the book they chose for me was Starling House by Alix E. Harrow. Never heard of it and, to be honest, I never would have even looked at it, because I tried The Once and Future Witches and the writing style wasn’t really for me, so I quickly dropped it.

After a quick flip through Starling House, I have very strong feelings that it won’t be for me, either. It’s got several things going for it that I generally dislike: it’s contemporary fantasy (set in the read world) and first person point of view.

Goodreads synopsis:

A grim and gothic new tale from author Alix E. Harrow about a small town haunted by secrets that can’t stay buried and the sinister house that sits at the crossroads of it all.

Eden, Kentucky, is just another dying, bad-luck town, known only for the legend of E. Starling, the reclusive nineteenth-century author and illustrator who wrote The Underland–and disappeared. Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house―and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling―go to rot.

Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never had: a home.

As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire choice to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.

If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.

I’m going to be honest, this is a book that I would never consider for myself. So I’m very interested to see how this works out.

March TBR

Hey, everyone! So, if you follow me, you’ll already know that I am a little over half through a fanfic that’s 700,000+ words. (It’s crazy. I’ve never read anywhere this long before, and have been known to get bored with ones that are around 150,00 words.) Add to that, the fact that I am also impatiently awaiting my first round of recommended books (justtherightbook and TBR both got me for birthday gifts to myself) I have decided to go light on my actual planned TBR this month. I know towards the end of the month, things would be subject to change, anyway, and I don’t want to feel like I failed totally this month!

The Smoke that Thunders by Erhu Kome
From a debut Nigerian a spectacular young adult fantasy rooted in West African mythology and brimming with adventure. All sixteen-year-old Naborhi dreams of is sailing the seas. Instead, she feels suffocated, her life already laid she’ll have her rite of passage and spend her life bound to her house, husband, and children. Then Naborhi begins having strange dreams and finds a mysterious animal that becomes instantly bonded to her. When she meets Atai, the son of an Oracle from a rival kingdom, she learns that she is being guided by the gods. She and Atai journey to find the boy Naborhi is dreaming of, but when that boy turns out to be a kidnapped prince, Naborhi realizes there is more than just her freedom at she must stop a war that has already been set in motion. Woven through with Urhobo and West African folklore and mythology, The Smoke That Thunders is a gripping young adult fantasy that heralds the arrival of a powerhouse debut author.

Reader, I Murdered Him by Betsy Cornwell
In this daring tale of female agency and revenge from a New York Times bestselling author, a girl becomes a teenage vigilante who roams Victorian England using her privilege and power to punish her friends’ abusive suitors and keep other young women safe.

Adele grew up in the shadows–first watching from backstage at her mother’s Parisian dance halls, then wandering around the gloomy, haunted rooms of her father’s manor. When she’s finally sent away to boarding school in London, she’s happy to enter the brightly lit world of society girls and their wealthy suitors.

Yet there are shadows there, too. Many of the men that try to charm Adele’s new friends do so with dark intentions. After a violent assault, she turns to a roguish young con woman for help. Together, they become vigilantes meting out justice. But can Adele save herself from the same fate as those she protects?

With a queer romance at its heart, this lush historical thriller offers readers an irresistible mix of vengeance and empowerment.

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville—derailing the War Between the States and changing America forever. In this new nation, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Reeducation Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.

But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.

I also do hope to get through the last of my Karneval manga this month, but now that I’m looking at the end of the series…I kind of don’t want to finish it. Anyway, we’ll see how well my plans hold up by the end of this month!

February Wrap Up

Hey, everyone! So, February is over and I am another year older. I’d love to say that I totally feel it, but I think that’s just everything else that’s been going on for me lately. This month has been…a solidly mixed bag: some good, some bad and some that makes me want to crawl back to bed.

Reading this month has been, unfortunately, mostly bad. I’ve only finished three books and that’s so much less than I was intending. A strong reason for that is that I’ve had an equal number of DNF’s, as well as one book that took m about three weeks to read just it. (Also, I am currently a bit less than a third of the way through a 750,000 word fanfic. So…don’t expect much forward momentum on books ’til I finish this.)

Books of the Month

Heartstopper volume 4 by Alice Oseman – ***
Enjoyable enough, but no where near the amount of fluff I’ve come to expect from this series – and I was desperately wanting fluff.

Gwen & Art Are Not In Love by Lex Croucher – ****
Although it was ver different than I was expecting – and the characters took some getting used to – I wound up liking it quite a lot.

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey – *
It started off good and got progressively worse every hundred pages or so. It’s also the book that killed reading for me for the month. So, yay.

DNF’s for the month are comprised of A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schawb, (thank you, Lila) Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao, (it’s like everything I disliked in Percy Jackson taken to eleven) and Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang (writing style I didn’t like, with a very gross, creepy guy).

I’ll see you all next month as I plan on getting a bit of a TBR out tomorrow!

‘Just the Right Book’ Subscription Service: Review Part 1

Hi, everyone! Back during my January wrap up, I think it was, I mentioned that February is my birthday month and I talked about a couple of book subscription/recommendation services that I was interested in trying. I decided to go ahead and give them both a go.

The one I’m going to talk about today is Just the Right Book subscription service – which can be found at justtherightbook.com. I decided to write a review now for it, right after I subscribed, and then do another one after my first book comes in, because I’ve not found any sources on the internet talking about if they like it, if they don’t, what to expect, ect. There’s just no information. So I thought that if I could help someone else make a decision on if this is a subscription for them, I’d post about it.

(The other one is BookRiot’s Tailored Book Recommendation service which is super easy to find more information on because it seems like everyone knows about it.)

What is Just the Right Book?

It’s a book subscription service where you pay for a 4, 6 or 12 month subscription (billed all at once or monthly) to be sent one hand-picked book a month. It was created by RJ Julia Booksellers, an independent brick and mortar bookstore in Madison, Connecticut. In an effort to kind of vet them and make sure they were not a scam, I did a quick google search of RJ Julia Bookstore and was given results for their business. It has 584 google reviews and gets 4.9 stars. It has the address, phone number, store hours, pictures of the building and a map how to get there.

What Does It Cost?

It’s a little pricey in my opinion. They have multiple tier levels: adult, teen and child subscriptions as well as baby picture book subscriptions. They also have choices for paperback only, hardback only and a mix of paperback/hardbacks. Naturally, the paperbacks are the cheapest tier and adult subscriptions are the most expensive. I chose the paperback/hardback tier for four months (kind of a trial to see if I like it enough) and each individual book will cost me $33.50. This price includes shipping. I’ve kind of had to work to justify this cost and I’m telling myself that if the books are well selected for me, the price will be worth it as I do reread books. They also offer an exchange where if you are dissatisfied with the book, the will replace it at no extra cost.

How Do I Join?

When you go to the website, there is a big, red ‘subscribe now’ button at the upper right side of the page click it and you are taken to a page where you can select how many subscriptions you want, and designate if it’s for you or a gift subscription. Then you get to select what kind of subscription you want and create an account and, finally, pay for your order.

What Happens Next?

Next is the fun stuff: you get to create a reading profile. This is where they ask all the questions to pick out just the right book for you. I’m honestly a little surprised at how… bare bones the reading profile options are. All you’re given is a three point system – 0 meaning I don’t like this genre/topic, 1 meaning ‘I’d read if a great book’ and 2 meaning I love this genre/topic. You can’t offer them any specific feedback and information – which shocks me. I mean, I wanted the chance to tell them that I only really want speculative fiction – specifically second world fantasy and multiple world sci-fi. And that I pretty much have to have good queer rep. But there’s no place to do this, so I’m very curious as to how well they are going to be able to pick books for me asking so few, basic questions.

What this has done, is made me reduce the score I gave some genre’s/topics. For example, I only read westerns that are queer and, preferably, weird west. There’s no option for me to say that. There’s no option that I like the occasional queer historical romance but I don’t really read straight historical romances. There’s no option to say that I really love second world fantasy, not urban fantasy.

I’m also disappointed that there is no place to say ‘these are some of my favorite books’ or to leave a link to Goodreads because, as someone that, as of today, has 2059 books on her shelf, I’d really prefer that none of these get sent me.

Then the only other questions they ask is your political leanings, your religious leanings and your birthday.

I am a rather picky reader, and I am a little concerned as to how little I feel like they asked me. I am also very curious to see if they can actually select the right book for me with this little amount of questions.

And Now?

We wait! Seriously, that’s all there is to it. My order status is active. My first book is supposed to ship in about two weeks, so about a month from now, I should have an update for you on how they did.

I plan on dropping at least a couple more reviews on this, so everyone can get a good picture of what this subscription is like.

February TBR

Hey, everyone! After saying I wasn’t going to be doing TBR’s unless there was an interest in them, my January reading looked vastly different from what I had planned. So I thought I go ahead and do a little TBR/looking ahead post for February and see if I like it.

So, this month is actually my birthday month. Now I don’t usually do much for my birthdays, but…I’ve kind of been looking at a couple of book recommendation websites that I have been thinking about subscribing to for my birthday this year. The first one is mytbr – tailored book recommendations from Book Riot. The second one is justtherightbook. I am wondering if anyone has used either of these and if they’ve had good luck. I’ve really been really curious and if I have the extra money, I might do it.

As for books, I’m intending to read this month:

Karneval by Touya Mikanagi Omnibus Volumes 10 & 11

When innocent country boy Nai sets foot into the sordid cutthroat realm of the city, he might as well have painted a target on his own back. Kidnappers, murderers and desperados abound, waiting to take advantage of a boy guileless enough to believe blood is merely “red water”. When he is framed for a murder, it is the bandit Gareki who bails him out. Being a shrewd and sharp-eyed thief, however, Gareki’s motives are less than pure. Nai is looking for a friend who has disappeared and left behind something particularly intriguing – an I.D bracelet from the organisation named “Circus”, the country’s supreme defense agency. While Gareki has his sights set firmly on the bracelet, “Circus” in turn, has shifted its eye onto the duo as well… *from volume 1

Notes: I’ve been rereading this series to catch up to the new stuff and after the doozy that volume 9 was last month, I am so excited to see where this story is headed now!

Heartstopper Vol. 4 by Alice Oseman

Boy meets boy. Boys become friends. Boys fall in love. The bestselling LGBTQ+ graphic novel about life, love, and everything that happens in between: this is the fourth volume of HEARTSTOPPER, for fans of The Art of Being Normal, Holly Bourne and Love, Simon.

Charlie didn’t think Nick could ever like him back, but now they’re officially boyfriends. Charlie’s beginning to feel ready to say those three little words: I love you.

Nick’s been feeling the same, but he’s got a lot on his mind – not least coming out to his dad, and the fact that Charlie might have an eating disorder.

As summer turns to autumn and a new school year begins, Charlie and Nick are about to learn a lot about what love means.

Heartstopper is about love, friendship, loyalty and mental illness. It encompasses all the small stories of Nick and Charlie’s lives that together make up something larger, which speaks to all of us.

This is the fourth volume of Heartstopper, which has now been optioned for television by See-Saw Films.

Notes: Because my library finally has this volume, I figure I might as well catch up.

City of Exile by Claudie Arseneault

Nothing is going according to plan for Diel Dathirii and his allies. Hellion has entrenched his power in House Dathirii, Hasryan is in Lord Allastam’s clutches, and with no one left to poison Master Avenazar, it’s only a matter of time before he seeks revenge.

While Nevian scrambles to put together his magical trap, Larryn reaches out to the only person he trusts to save Hasryan: Sora Sharpe. Their impulsive rescue will hurtle Isandor towards a final confrontation—one last opportunity to reclaim House Dathirii and face Master Avenazar. But in order to seize this chance, Diel Dathirii and his allies will need to answer one question: what price are they willing to pay to ensure the future of their loved ones within the City of Spires?

*City of Exile* is the fourth and final installment of the City of Spires series, a multi-layered political fantasy led by an all-queer cast. Fans of complex storylines criss-crossing one another, elves and magic, and strong friendships and found families will find everything they need within these pages.

Notes: Finally finishing this series – although there is a part of me that doesn’t want to as I love this series so much!

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab

It has been four months since a mysterious obsidian stone fell into Kell’s possession. Four months since his path crossed with Delilah Bard. Four months since Prince Rhy was wounded, and since the nefarious Dane twins of White London fell, and four months since the stone was cast with Holland’s dying body through the rift–back into Black London.

Now, restless after having given up his smuggling habit, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila, who disappeared from the docks as she always meant to do. As Red London finalizes preparations for the Element Games–an extravagant international competition of magic meant to entertain and keep healthy the ties between neighboring countries–a certain pirate ship draws closer, carrying old friends back into port.

And while Red London is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the Games, another London is coming back to life. After all, a shadow that was gone in the night will reappear in the morning. But the balance of magic is ever perilous, and for one city to flourish, another London must fall.

Notes: While I didn’t love the first one, I am interested enough in the world building to keep reading.

Moon Dust in my Hairnet by JR Creaden

Moon Dust in My Hairnet is a fresh, hopeful, and diverse sci-fi romp following an autistic lunar lunch lady as she juggles relationships and threatening corporate overlords, all while adjusting to life on Lunar Trust One.

20-year-old Lane was perfectly happy living in her big sister’s shadow. The great Faraday Tanner, who invented the gravdrive and inspired the movement to found the moon’s first independent colony, was the unequaled voice of the post-melt generation. That is, until an unimaginable tragedy cut Faraday’s legacy short.

Wracked with survivor’s guilt and desperate for her sister’s utopian dream to succeed, Lane embraces her job on the moon: lunch lady—which is more than her parents think she can handle. Her boyfriend’s supportive at least, when he’s not drooling over one of the new recruits. Lane tries to put the past behind her, committed to enjoying her kitchen work and dating her boyfriend and his new crushes. She even participates in planning Faraday’s memorial, forcing herself to grapple with monumental loss.

But when colony goods go missing and vital equipment gets tampered with, Lane can’t accept the events as mere pranks, banding together with new and old friends to save their home.

Notes: This is an odd case for me, as it’s my second ever Netgalley book. Anyway, I’m cautiously optimistic.

Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

Heartstopper meets A Knight’s Tale in this queer medieval rom-com YA debut about love, friendship, and being brave enough to change the course of history.

It’s been hundreds of years since King Arthur’s reign. His descendant, Arthur, a future Lord and general gadabout, has been betrothed to Gwendoline, the quick-witted, short-tempered princess of England, since birth. The only thing they can agree on is that they despise each other.

They’re forced to spend the summer together at Camelot in the run-up to their nuptials, and within 24 hours, Gwen has discovered Arthur kissing a boy, and Arthur has gone digging for Gwen’s childhood diary and found confessions about her crush on the kingdom’s only lady knight, Bridget Leclair.

Realizing they might make better allies than enemies, Gwen and Art make a reluctant pact to cover for each other, and as things heat up at the annual royal tournament, Gwen is swept off her feet by her knight, and Arthur takes an interest in Gwen’s royal brother. Lex Croucher’s Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is chock full of sword-fighting, found family, and romantic shenanigans destined to make readers fall in love.

Notes: I’ve been excited to read this book since I first heard about it, long before it was released.

Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey

Humanity has colonized the solar system—Mars, the Moon, the Asteroid Belt and beyond—but the stars are still out of our reach.

Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.

Notes: In spite of the fact that I quit the show after about five episodes, I am somewhat excited to try the book.

Wish me luck this month in getting lots of good books read! (As a side note, I think I also finally figured out how to add images again after wordpress changed everything a couple of years ago, so if it works, you’ve probably already seen the effects for my January wrap up, as this was scheduled about a week in advance!)

January Wrap Up

Hi, everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great month!

Mine has actually not been terrible. I’m feeling better with the whole issue that has bee plaguing me since July. So, that’s good. Unfortunately, the last three days, my back and leg have really been hurting. lol It’s like as soon as one thing improves, something else goes wrong. … Is this a sign of getting old? Because I gotta say, I am feeling it right now.

I’ve not been doing much this month because we were super cold for like a week and very cold for another week. We were down to below freezing for highs several days in a row. And now we feel like spring. Seriously, I was just outside before lunch, and I was in a short sleeved shirt and felt comfortable. Eh, what is seasons?

In other news, I am hard at work knitting my second ever pair of socks – and the first thing I’ve ever followed a knitting pattern for. Honestly, knitting is not as difficult as I thought it would be. But I do think I find it easier now that I have become good at crochet, because when I first tried knitting – before I had done any crocheting in the past fifteen years – it was hard. Now I know yarn better and how it behaves and it’s not as hard as I expected.

Movies, TV and Games have been rather…light this month. I’ve been rewatching Numb3rs for the nth time. Trying to actually finish season one of Percy Jackson (look, the show is super accurate to the books – but all it’s really doing is reminding me why I cannot stand Annabeth) and have almost watched the entire first season of Andromeda (nineties sci-fi were all drinking the same kool-aid). I had a couple of rage quit moments from Haven (yes, the game I bragged about so much last month) and, honestly, kind of think it sucks now. Otherwise, I have barely started Sherlock Holmes Chapter One and have created a cheat ‘perfect’ map for Sid Meier’s Civ 5 that is now super boring to play.

Books Read in January

City of Deceit by Claudie Arseneault – *****
I am so excited to finish this series (one more book!) and this one was amazing! I love the relationships that are being built and how relationship doesn’t mean ‘romance’.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab – **
Eh. I finally got around to retrying the book – but I don’t think I would have really missed out if I’d just left it as a DNF. Didn’t dislike it enough to not try the sequel, though. So that’s good.

The Factory Witches of Lowell by C.S. Malerich – **
I…have fifty things to say about this book and fifty different thoughts and opinions on it. Ultimately, it was something that I read.

Fire Becomes Her by Rosiee Thor – ****
I loved and adored Thor’s previous book – so I had to read this one. Honestly, it took a long time to become something I genuinely liked, but when it finally did, this book was kind of amazing.

Who We Are in Real Life by Victoria Koops – **
My first ever Netgalley book! Yay! Once again, thanks so much to everyone making it possible for me to pre-read this book! I wish I had liked it more: the D&D aspect was amazing, the irl, was too drama-rama for me.

Karneval Vol. 8 by Touya Mikanagi – *****
I love this series and am so excited to get to finish it!

Karneval Vol. 9 by Touya Mikanagi – *****
This was the first ‘new’ manga I got to read as the others in the series have been rereads. I loved the new information and it is so much fun!

All in all, I’m pretty happy with this month (though the less said about my 5 DNF books, the better. See you next month!