displacedcactus

I live in Edmonds, WA with my spouse and our corgi. When not reading, I love to craft, dance, and try new food and drinks.

5330 points

0% overlap

My Taste

Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell

Reading...

Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science

A Year of Garden Bees & Bugs: 52 Stories of Intriguing Insects

displacedcactus made progress on...

Odyssey: The Greek Myths Reimagined

Stephen Fry

43%

displacedcactus commented on OhMyDio's review of You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

OhMyDio

Jan 16, 2026

4.0

Enjoyment: 3.0Quality: 4.0Characters: 4.0Plot: 3.0

I am not a romance girly, I prefer fade to black, and generally I dislike messy for the sake of messy. I picked this up anyway because I like Emezi as an author, and boyhowdy I wanted that special event badge! I'm giving this 4 stars because I think from a craft perspective it's well done, and if you like messy romance I think this is a good selection. But it wasn't for me! It's kind of like how you try a food you know you don't like from time to time to make sure you still don't like it. I still don't like romance as a specific genre, but that's not this books fault.

I definitely was engaged through out the story; Emezi's craft is solid. Their characters, mostly, felt alive and realistic, as did the plot and various problems/conflicts that arose. It was of course a little predictable, but romance as a genre isn't necessarily seeking to surprise you.

I appreciated: bi rep, modeling healthy consent conversations, exploration of grief and seeing and connecting to grief in others, chef rep and lovely descriptions of food, and a pretty steadily progressing plot. Aside from preferences I have a few quibbles, but they are spoilery and not all that important.

All in all, a solid pick if you're into romance, spice, and messy as hell MCs.

displacedcactus commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

Plankton

Edited

List appreciation - I designed some “unofficial” badges <3

Hi friends and happy Friday! One of the greatest features on PB, in my humble opinion, are all the cool niche lists that everyone is creating! I have saved so many and after some discussions in the club about how cool some badges for lists could be I decided to make a couple for fun!

Firstly, I made a Kingfisher badge for the Wonderful works of T. Kingfisher list by @endless_tbr_list as I’ve become a great fan of Kingfisher’s work and Kingfishers are just so pretty!

Then I made one for @The_bookishBug’s Marvellous Minibeasts lists! Check it out, insects are wonderful!

And thirdly, I made a badge for @notlizlemon’s nice to meet you, I’m Death list, as I’ve recently, gotten into discworld and Death personified is such a cool concept!

I just wanted to give some appreciation to all the list creators and hope it inspires more of you to create lists about any niche topics only you know about!🫶🏻

Here is the link where you can see all badges a bit more up close if you’d like!

Edit: It was brought to my attention that the links/embedded images are not accessible from the UK - so hopefully you can see them Here (I added them to a google doc) :)

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displacedcactus commented on displacedcactus's update

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Teo's Durumi

Elaine U. Cho

52%

displacedcactus made progress on...

Teo's Durumi

Elaine U. Cho

52%

displacedcactus is interested in reading...

13h

Carpet Diem: Tales from the World of Oriental Rugs

George Bradley

A colorful and enthralling tour through the beautiful, historic world of oriental carpets that is also an exquisite meditation on their powerful allure. One day, prize-winning poet George Bradley took notice of a carpet that had been beneath his feet for decades. Carefully studying its weave and pattern, he was startled by the artistry behind it—a fascination and curiosity that unexpectedly sent him on a thrilling adventure and introduced him to a little-known realm in which beauty, artistry, business, and history collide. Carpet Diem chronicles Bradley's captivating journey through a land of oriental carpets where he fell in love—not only with a collection of magnificent rugs but their histories—including the dealers, collectors, scroungers, restorers, and connoisseurs connected to them. As he brings together his own story with that of these artworks, he recalls the compelling history of Central Asia itself. Like Scheherazade, Bradley spins story after story about the rich beauty found on the floors of mansions across Europe and America, identifying what’s draped in the portraits of Titian and Vermeer, unearthing hidden treasures in the faraway caves of Persia and Afghanistan, and revealing secrets lying under piles in bespoke shops in the wealthy enclaves of Manhattan, the Hamptons, and Westport, Connecticut. Weaving the mesmerizing storytelling of The Arabian Nights with the fascinating pilgrimage of history that unfolds in The Silk Road and the dramatic compulsion to possess rare elegance that propels The Orchid Thief, Carpet Diem is an unusual and gorgeous memoir of understanding and relishing the warp and woof of the world. Carpet Diem features eleven full-color photographs throughout.

displacedcactus commented on a post

15h

OhMyDio

Thoughts from 65%

spoilers

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displacedcactus earned a badge

15h

Mardi Gras + Carnival 2026

displacedcactus TBR'd a book

15h

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America

Timothy Egan

On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno that jumped from treetop to ridge as it raged, destroying towns and timber in the blink of an eye. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men — college boys, day workers, immigrants from mining camps — to fight the fire. But no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them.Egan narrates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire with unstoppable dramatic force. Equally dramatic is the larger story he tells of outsized president Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of public land as our national treasure, owned by and preserved for every citizen. The robber barons fought Roosevelt and Pinchot’s rangers, but the Big Burn saved the forests even as it destroyed them: the heroism shown by the rangers turned public opinion permanently in their favor and became the creation myth that drove the Forest Service, with consequences still felt in the way our national lands are protected — or not — today.

displacedcactus TBR'd a book

15h

Opera Wars: Inside the World of Opera and the Battles for Its Future

Caitlin Vincent

Immerse yourself in the captivating and surprisingly contentious world of opera with this compelling unveiling of the art form’s bold characters and the fierce struggles that are redefining its future.“Opera breeds fanatics. There are opera groupies. Opera diehards. Opera obsessives. And I’m not one of them.” With these words, Caitlin Vincent—who admits to a lifelong love-hate relationship with opera—pulls us into a thrilling, high-stakes world that few ever see. It’s all here—both edge-of-the-seat drama and cultural clashes that often spill beyond the stage and get audiences and critics thoroughly riled up. Vincent, an award-winning librettist and trained vocalist, draws on her extensive experience and intimate interviews with twenty-nine opera insiders to unravel the complex tapestry of opera’s inner workings. From tension-filled rehearsal rooms to the grandeur of the stage, she exposes a world driven by fierce rivalries, economic pressures, and stubborn resistance to change. With humor and irreverence, she runs straight at opera’s thorniest issues—its struggles with racial and gender biases, the weight of tradition, and the agonized debate over whether to remain loyal to centuries-old composers. But this isn’t just a tale of bare-knuckled battles over political correctness. Vincent makes us feel the magic of a live performance, even if we’ve never seen one; she dissects the cutthroat process of becoming a professional opera singer; and she examines how competition shapes the art form. Whether you’re an opera devotee or a total newcomer, you’ll find Vincent’s irreverent wit and passion irresistible. Opera Wars is a must-read for anyone eager to glimpse the drama, beauty, and battles that have kept this art form alive for centuries and will undoubtedly bring to it badly needed change in the years ahead.

displacedcactus made progress on...

19h

Odyssey: The Greek Myths Reimagined

Stephen Fry

29%

displacedcactus commented on The_BookishBug's update

The_BookishBug made progress on...

19h

Beauty of the Beasts: Rethinking Nature's Least Loved Animals

Jo Wimpenny

10%

displacedcactus commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

21h

Seyria

What do you do when you don't know how to review a book?

I've recently finished Sunrise on The Reaping and I don't know how to rate it.

Have you ever had this happen before to you? What do you do when this happens?

Please send help. I don't really know how to put in words how I feel about it. But I don't want to not review it.

All I know is the rating I'll likely give it. But I don't think just rating it is enough, I need an actual review.

displacedcactus commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

22h

mimi_reads

Was I wrong about horror this whole time?

I’ve always thought I was way too squeamish for horror but have now read a couple of books (Mexican Goth and The Book Eaters) which are classified as horror, but I love. Are these not actually horror (are they a subtype of horror?) I’m the type of person who can’t even hear a description of a horror movie without being scared (maybe it’s different for books though?) I don’t know! I’m questioning everything!

As a side note, I’m really interested in reading The Library at Hellebore and wonder if anyone thinks I could handle it given the two mentioned above!

displacedcactus commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

theAbighoul

Do you read books with main characters younger than you?

As I'm entering my early to mid 30s, I find I have a hard time wanting to read books where the main characters are younger than me, especially if it's a romance novel. I just started a new book (What the River Knows by Isabel Ibanez) because it was recommended for fans of The Mummy movie but seeing it's tagged YA and that the fmc is 17 makes me not want to continue.

How do you all approach reading books with characters that are younger than you?

displacedcactus commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

Lovely-Medieval-Ken

Edited

A book you hate

Tell me about a book you hate, dig into it, write a whole essay on why you hate, I love hearing about this stuff lol, it's so fun to see people so passionate about a book they either really love or hate. Vent that hatred/frustrations with whatever book here lmao.

displacedcactus commented on a post

berbs

Thoughts from 42% (page 86)

This book is full of the prettiest, purplest prose I've read in a while, and not much else. I was hopeing that there'd be a bit more plot development, but they can't develop a plot if there wasn't one in the first place

displacedcactus made progress on...

Teo's Durumi

Elaine U. Cho

32%

displacedcactus made progress on...

Odyssey: The Greek Myths Reimagined

Stephen Fry

18%

displacedcactus commented on displacedcactus's update

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