Reading Update

With four months left in the year, it felt like the perfect time for a reading update that no one asked for. And yet, here we all are, with exactly that. Because I want to brag a little bit about all the goals I'm actually crushing. Knowing full well that this could be what triggers an absolute stall in my reading. Watch September be my worst reading month because I drew attention to it all. Still, we're already here; I'm already writing, and I've pulled the information. Which means I've logged on to StoryGraph, and they pulled all the information for me. At this point, onward!

Do you see that? 3 BINGOs, three of them! I honestly thought that wasn't going to happen. For a minute there, a month or maybe two, I didn't hit any of the BINGO squares. Then slowly I was hitting one at a time here and there. The Medieval square was the last one, and that book sort of fell into my lap thanks to the library. I'm sort of letting a few others just sort of happen. There are a few books on my TBR that have a Space Station and are set in the 1980s. I just haven't been in the mood for sci-fi, and somehow I've managed to pick up one set in the 80s. Childhood favorite should be easy. I have all my old Goosebumps books. So there might be a few more BINGO squares in my future! All of that is a long-winded way of saying I smashed that goal, and might manage to exceed it as well. With four months still in 2026, surely I can manage one more BINGO. 

I have also managed to read 10 books that I physically own. I've actually exceeded this one as well by a couple of books. This summer I focused on my physical TBR and let my Kindle and local library have a break. On top of reading this goal, I also DNFed a few to some Free Little Libraries. So this is a goal I might keep going into 2027. It's a nice challenge to make sure I'm doing more than collecting. I'm actually reading them too.

Now on to the goals I haven't finished yet. I'm up 9 Silent Book Club events. I need to expand a little into a few other local ones, not just my own. That might be a winter adventure to get us out of the house. Which means be a 2027 goal problem. As for the other two goals. I'm actually ahead on them both, one of which always seems to surprise me because I've been reading pretty small books this year. Though I do have one big monster of a book that's been calling my name. Again, the winter adventures come to mind for that book. Curled up by the fire on the air mattress. But I digress.

As for my book goal, I've reached 61 books of 75! So there is a real good chance I'll not only hit that goal, but exceed it. Even with a slow reading month, that has to happen at some point. I've been so lucky this year to only have small slumps. Still, fourteen books in four months seems very doable. That's only like three and a half books. Even if I hit a slump, I have enough manga and graphic novels to keep to that goal!

It's my page count goal that shocks me every single time I see it. Of the 14,000 pages I wanted to read this year (a number I pulled from a hat... well, a coffee mug, but I digress), I have read a little over 10,000 pages. Ten friggin' thousand pages of books that barely pass three hundred pages. That means I'm ahead, AHEAD, by a little over eleven hundred pages. I feel like I'm never ahead on this goal. Just the opposite, really; I feel like I'm always just a little behind on this one. Just a few one more book, just a couple more, always on an infinite loop of 'I'm so close'. Except for this year; this year I managed to get ahead, and hopefully I stay ahead. It would be very cool if I could reach this goal. Just one year to reach it. 

So now that I've droned on and on about my goals. How's everyone else been doing this year with their reading? 

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

 

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we haven't yet read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released, but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous folks at Breaking the Spine.

Beauty doesn’t fade. It feeds.

Dorothy Wagner has spent her whole life wanting nothing more than to be seen. But after failing to make her mark (any mark, really) as an influencer, she takes a job at a company focused on cutting-edge deepfake technology. And there, in secret, is where she creates her salvation.

Isabella. An impossibly gorgeous girl who takes social media by storm. Dorothy's code is brilliant, and Isabella seems real. So real that she garners millions of followers. Brands beg to partner with her. Everyone wants to meet her IRL. The adoration—and the cash—flows in. Dorothy is finally happy. She's getting all the attention she ever wanted—isn't she?

Then the cracks begin to show. Dorothy can barely stay ahead of the partnership requests, and love letters and the rabid fans filling her DMs trying to track Isabella down. All this time working in secret with all this pressure is getting to Dorothy—she can’t tell where she ends, and her creation begins. And when someone gets a little too close to her secret, a violent confrontation sends Dorothy on the run, forcing her to confront what she’s willing to sacrifice to keep her secrets.

A modern reimagining of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, Alma Katsu’s Incarnate is an illuminating, haunting tale of algorithmic worship and beauty that can kill.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

 

When Caroline Foster arrives at the Whitechapel Full Moon Society in search of her missing brother, she finds a dilapidated façade belying an interior as opulent as any exclusive gentlemen’s club. In exchange for room and board, Caroline is hired as the Full Moon’s maid, where she is given three orders: don’t ask personal questions, stay out of the iron-barred room on the second floor, and remain in her bedroom from sunup to sundown on the full moon.

But when it is revealed that the previous maid was murdered—an early victim of Jack the Ripper—and her brother has left behind no answers, only more questions, Caroline begins to suspect her hosts might be hiding something. As more bodies turn up with a connection to the Society, Caroline fears she may have unwittingly stumbled into a bedtime story, the kind with monsters and curses, family secrets and ancient lore.

Tantalizing and pulsing, Elizabeth DeLozier’s sophomore novel gives an exciting alternative look into the infamous Jack the Ripper story with a major, supernatural twist.

HAPPY READING!!

Mini Reviews

 

I've always had such a hard time with British history, especially where royalty is involved. So when one of my favorite British comedians wrote about the 'ridiculous history of England's Kings and Queens, ' I was all in. Add to that the fact that David Mitchell read the audiobook. I cannot describe how quickly I smashed the hold button, or how quickly I downloaded it when it was turned. This was the laugh-out-loud kind of fun. No punches were held. The wit was dry and perfect, and I loved literally every second of it. This was probably the only time I didn't fall asleep during the history of the War of the Roses. Which I think I understood this time around. Pretty sure. I also really liked how Mitchell ended this book. It was the perfect quote to sum up the whole book. Easily one of my favorite reads of this year! 

Plus a .75 of another star. I stumbled across this through Spotify, of all things, while pulling up one of my podcasts. Since one of the libraries I have a card for had it, I figured, why not? All I have to say is, woof. Just woof! I listened to the audiobook, and it was intense, strange, and hard to pause. Each patient, each chapter, was different. Only one of these stories was a little much for me, and I found myself zoning out and not really listening. Mostly because I couldn't care less about him, his story, and with Jack, he should a slower, more painful end. I'm definitely going to listen to more of this series. It's just one I'm not going to marathon. Because I need something a little less intense for a bit. Did I mention...WOOF! 

What in the Lord of the Flies was this? This was an odd mix of just plain bad luck, and what in the hell am I reading? It's one of those books where, while I was reading it, I wasn't paying attention to whether or not I liked it. It was more about just trying to figure out who was going to survive. Because I swear the book said something about survivors. Then I was reading it because how much worse could it get? Then I was finished, and I just sort of had to sit with it. Several days have passed; I'm still not sure what I just read. I want to say a child that young surely couldn't, wouldn't be capable of such things. Surely someone wouldn't walk in circles and not hear the cars just yards away alerting them to the woods. And yet...and yet. 

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

 

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes, the cover initially catches our eye, drawing us to take a closer look at a book. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday, I'll post some of my favorite book covers. Coming soon!

From our earliest myths to our most advanced scientific theories, humanity has grappled with the nature of dying, and what, if anything, comes after. The Book of the Dead confronts our terrible mortality with unflinching honesty and breathtaking imagination, taking us on a journey from the dusty plains of the Australian Outback where wives mysteriously vanish, to the fog-shrouded interstates of a man’s regret, to the deep, dark tombs of Martian queens, and to the somber shores of a world where the dead refuse to stay buried.

HAPPY READING!!

Mini Reviews

 

Okay, so I haven't read this original since high school. Which means I couldn't honestly compare this story to that one. I really did enjoy what James Tynion IV did with his version of the story. From what I gather, this is a prequel to the original story. Of the man Jack Griffin was and exactly how he became the Invisible Man. I think forgetting the original story was the best way to go into this because I was able to thoroughly enjoy Tynion's sociopathic turn on Griffin's background. It gives a bit of a deeper look at the character than I'm going to take into the original and re-read it! 

Full disclosure, I picked this up because of the title, and then took it home because of the synopsis. We always hear stories of the person summoned to stop the terrible thing in another world. At one point, they are in the normal world: a scream, a fall, and another world as the only person who can save them. I loved the idea of someone else falling into the world and having to find their way. Of that person having to sort out their life in a world that they not only don't understand, but don't belong. And this was so much to read. It's a low-risk, high-reward book with a fun plot that has me wondering what's going on. I want to say we can't trust the Prime Minister, but the Prince is annoying and I kind of want him to be the bad guy. Or for someone to slap him. Either way, I've already put volume two on hold!

This was fun! The kind of book that makes you giggle as you read. It is full of puns, jokes, and an actually decent look at how weird Medieval England was. How hard it was to live day-to-day and how you had no choice in most things. But this book was all about how you could make the best of what little you had. All while poking fun at a bygone era! The artwork was fun and definitely poked fun at the era as well. I loved that it was told by the bard. Probably the only person of the time allowed to have the kind of opinion he had. Still, it was to see them twist one era into the current one! I do have a question, though. What was with all the snails?

HAPPY READING!!

Let the Woods Keep Our Bodies - Review

Author: E.M. Roy

Genre: Horror

Format: Paperback 

Pages: 196

As a whole, I liked this book and its characters. In fact, at the start of this book, I was all in and fully engaged in what was going on. I wanted to know what Tate had in her little X-files notebook, about the town, and about how Leo fit into it all. My full attention was on this book. I even really liked that we were getting the story told from two different timelines. Sort of, as Leo was remembering everything that happened. I even started to have my own suspicions about what happened, even some thoughts on what supernatural stuff could be happening.

However, after a bit, I started to get distracted as I read. I still wanted to know what was happening, but as soon as the Boston detective came in, I started to lose interest. The story takes place in Maine. So why was a detective from Massachusetts getting involved? Why not the Maine State Police or the FBI since there was a missing child? In fact, a lot of missing children. 

Then for a second I got invested again, because what if Leo did it? She was acting strange and seeing things. What if in some sort of weird haze she actually had one it. But then there were weird pieces like the story about the boy she beat up. Why was he convinced her parents had killed his aunt and uncle?

So I was back to a lot of questions, and as soon as the plot was moving, BOOM, flashback, and the story took five paces back again. 

By the time I finished it, I was pretty over everything. I still don't know what the door was. I don't know why Tate had the weird vision in the woods. The reason for it felt thin. I got why the town itself had a weird vibe about Leo, but I just didn't feel satisfied with the ending wrap-up of all the supernatural stuff. Like now the town is healed, and people can leave again. Was that why Leo has weird rage issues? Did I miss the whole point of this book by zoning out while reading?

Either way, parts of this hit for me, and parts didn't. I honestly think that was one of those 'this book wasn't for me' type things. Because there were some great parts of this story and these characters. It just sort of unraveled in a lot of places for my liking. 

HAPPY READING!!

Edmonds SBC

 

A huge thank you to everyone who came out last night! I was surprised to see so many new faces!! Not to mention a much bigger than I expected with the end of summer right around the corner. To everyone who couldn't make it, I hope to see you next month!

We'll be back at Leftcraft on September 16th at 7pm!

HAPPY READING!!

Waiting on Wednesday

Can't-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we're excited about that we haven't yet read. Generally, they are books that have yet to be released, but don't have to be. It is based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by the fabulous folks at Breaking the Spine.

Every year, campground manager Kate sends out a pamphlet titled “How to Survive Your Camping Experience.” In it is a list of rules to help campers have an enjoyable experience and hopefully survive any encounters with the campground’s…other…inhabitants.

With the land turning ancient, it is no longer just the campers who are in danger. Kate is the key and every inhuman entity is out for her blood. All the lesser creatures are making attempts on her life, but Kate isn’t willing to let her land go without a fight. If these creatures are going to hunt her, then she’ll hunt them in turn and eradicate everything from her land that cannot coexist with humanity. With the help of both her inhuman and human allies, it looks like Kate might actually have a chance at controlling the campground. But ancient land attracts ancient things, and the town has a bad history with ancient creatures.

A new entity has come to the campground, bearing an old grudge against one of the inhabitants. Its malevolent designs will put the entire land at risk—unless Kate can stop it.

HAPPY READING!!

New Release Tuesday

 

They’re baaaaaaaaaack!

As any savvy horror fan the monster never truly dies. The team that brought you the bestselling dark fiction anthology Never Whistle at Night has risen, hungry, from the grave to summon more dark delicacies for your delectation. In these twenty-one brand-new, groundbreaking, gruesome stories—authored by both established and newly unearthed Indigenous talent—the contributors are fully embracing both supernatural horrors and the everyday horror of living under colonialist rule.  

Featuring stories of unspeakable yet satisfying terror, from twisted psychological tales to gore-filled monster hunts, this new selection of sinister stories will sate your darkest appetites and leave you slavering for more. Never Whistle at Night, Part Back for Blood is a further celebration of Indigenous survival and the enduring tradition of transforming adversity into art.

HAPPY READING!!

Cover Runway Sunday

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but we all know we do it. Sometimes, the cover initially catches our eye, drawing us to take a closer look at a book. It's the first thing we see, our first impression. Every Sunday, I'll post some of my favorite book covers. Coming soon! 

Every year, campground manager Kate sends out a pamphlet titled “How to Survive Your Camping Experience.” In it is a list of rules to help campers have an enjoyable experience and hopefully survive any encounters with the campground’s… other… inhabitants.

There is only one obstacle left standing between Kate and her goal to make the campground safe for everyone. The beast, an entity that has stalked her family relentlessly for generations upon generations. But while Kate searches for answers as to its origins - and how to stop it - she must also contend with the unusually aggressive frost, figure out how to fulfill her promise to the thing in the dark, and make sense of Beau's plans for her. As Kate's story draws to an epic conclusion, she will have to confront her past and right her family's wrongs if she wants to save her land from the dominion of the beast.

HAPPY READING!!