graceful_mess

I love curling up with a good cup of tea and an even better book ☕️📖 Favourite genres: Fantasy🐉 Magical Realism🔮 Literary Fiction📚 ADHD mood reader ✨️ Melbourne, Australia 🇦🇺 Winter lover ❄️

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The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos, #1)

46%

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Thoughts from 2% (page 9)

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Roaming

Jillian Tamaki

Spring Break, 2009: Five days, three friends, and one big city. Roaming marks a triumphant return to the graphic novel and a deft foray into new adult fiction for Caldecott Medal authors Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki. Over the course of a much-anticipated trip to New York, an unexpected fling blossoms between casual acquaintances and throws a long-term friendship off-balance. Emotional tensions vibrate wildly against the resplendently illustrated backdrop of the city, capturing a spontaneous queer romance in all of its fledgling glory. Slick attention to the details of a bustling, intimidating metropolis are softened with a palette of muted pastels, as though seen through the eyes of first-time travelers. The awe, wonder, and occasional stumble along the way come to life with stunning accuracy. Roaming is the third collaboration from the critically acclaimed team behind Skim and Governor General’s Literary Award winner This One Summer . Moody, atmospheric, and teeming with life, the magic of this comics duo leaks through the pages with lush and exquisite pen work. The Tamakis’ singular, elegant vision of an urban paradise slowly revealing its imperfections to the tune of its visitors’ rhythms is a masterpiece―a future classic for generations to come.

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Project Hail Mary

Andy Weir

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Thoughts from 46% (page 250) - CW Suicide

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To Shape a Dragon's Breath (Nampeshiweisit, #1)

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Dragons AND Anti-colonialism?!?!

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The Priory of the Orange Tree (The Roots of Chaos, #1)

Samantha Shannon

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Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

Mikki Kendall

Today's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few. That feminists refuse to prioritize these issues has only exacerbated the age-old problem of both internecine discord and women who rebuff at carrying the title. Moreover, prominent white feminists broadly suffer from their own myopia with regard to how things like race, class, sexual orientation, and ability intersect with gender. How can we stand in solidarity as a movement, Kendall asks, when there is the distinct likelihood that some women are oppressing others?

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Intersectional feminist texts that explore the complexity of feminism, centering voices from communities that are often the most excluded.

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Project Hail Mary

Andy Weir

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?

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Greta & Valdin

Rebecca K. Reilly

An irresistible and bighearted international bestseller that follows a brother and sister as they navigate queerness, multiracial identity, and the dramas big and small of their entangled, unconventional family, all while flailing their way to love. It’s been a year since his ex-boyfriend dumped him and moved from Auckland to Buenos Aires, and Valdin is doing fine. He has a good flat with his sister Greta, a good career where his colleagues only occasionally remind him that he is the sole Māori person in the office, and a good friend who he only sleeps with when he’s sad. But when work sends him to Argentina and he’s thrown back in his former lover’s orbit, Valdin is forced to confront the feelings he’s been trying to ignore—and the future he wants. Greta is not letting her painfully unrequited crush (or her possibly pointless master’s thesis, or her pathetic academic salary...) get her down. She would love to focus on the charming fellow grad student she meets at a party and her friendships with a circle of similarly floundering twenty-somethings, but her chaotic family life won’t stop her mother is keeping secrets, her nephew is having a gay crisis, and her brother has suddenly flown to South America without a word. Sharp, hilarious, and with an undeniable emotional momentum that builds to an exuberant conclusion, Greta & Valdin careens us through the siblings’ misadventures and the messy dramas of their sprawling, eccentric Maaori-Russian-Catalonian family. An acclaimed bestseller in New Zealand, Greta & Valdin is fresh, joyful, and alive with the possibility of love in its many mystifying forms.

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Greta & Valdin

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Greta & Valdin

Rebecca K. Reilly

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Post from the To Shape a Dragon's Breath (Nampeshiweisit, #1) forum

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To Shape a Dragon's Breath (Nampeshiweisit, #1)

Moniquill Blackgoose

A young Indigenous woman enters a colonizer-run dragon academy—and quickly finds herself at odds with the “approved” way of doing things—in the first book of this brilliant new fantasy series. The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon. Unfortunately for Anequs, the Anglish conquerors of her land have different opinions. They have a very specific idea of how a dragon should be raised, and who should be doing the raising—and Anequs does not meet any of their requirements. Only with great reluctance do they allow Anequs to enroll in a proper Anglish dragon school on the mainland. If she cannot succeed there, her dragon will be killed. For a girl with no formal schooling, a non-Anglish upbringing, and a very different understanding of the history of her land, challenges abound—both socially and academically. But Anequs is smart, determined, and resolved to learn what she needs to help her dragon, even if it means teaching herself. The one thing she refuses to do, however, is become the meek Anglish miss that everyone expects. Anequs and her dragon may be coming of age, but they’re also coming to power, and that brings an important realization: the world needs changing—and they might just be the ones to do it.

graceful_mess commented on dorouu's review of To Shape a Dragon's Breath (Nampeshiweisit, #1)

dorouu

Jan 29, 2026

4.5

Enjoyment: 4.5Quality: 3.5Characters: 4.0Plot: 5.0

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A fantastically fresh taste on dragons that's not afraid to call white people colonizers.

Decolonial fantasy has been having its moment and I'm loving it. If it didn't enrage me half the time, I would be getting all grabby hands on all of the books.

A young native girl, Anequs, sees a dragon, takes home her egg, and bonds to the hatchling. (It's been so long since I've read a new book about baby dragons!) But all the native dragons and the relationships between dragons & the native people have been gone for two hundred years. The only good choice seems to be for her to attend a colonizer's academy where she can learn how to become a dragoneer.

The book is full of history and lore- I liked that there was a different story for how the native people first bonded with a dragon compared with the white people. These stories reflected how the two populations treated dragons and how their society treated those they deemed lesser as well. For example, in Anequs' language, dragons are called "nampeshiwe" and the people who bond with them are "napeshiweisit" the addition at the end "isit" means "of" or "belonging to something" so the bonded human is as much of the dragon as they are of the land. Anequs is Masquisit, because she is of Masquapaug just as Masquapaug belongs to her.

I enjoyed all the parts where Anequs was flabbergasted at Anglish society and how they considered themselves th more 'civilized' population. It was especially fun because she voiced all the thoughts many of us have and we got to see the reactions of those around her.

The characters were very well written. The kids jumped off the page. Anequs is strong, confident, and willing to speak her mind and say what she believes is right. Everytime she spoke back against, I cheered her on...while also worrying about her well-being and the well-being of those around her. At first I thought she was speaking more like an 18 year old but I think that early teen phase must partially be behind that fire in her voice. I also adored Liberty and Sander, though Theod had to grow on me a bit more.

I really liked this book and I'm gonna jump straight into the next one now. 🥰

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graceful_mess commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

deathprobably

Not trying to stir the pot but--

There's so many different implements you can do it properly with.

Now, I know this might be shocking to some of those in our audience, but I am not a fan of wooden cooking implements. I know they can really get things stirred well and proper, but gods forbid you have anything that could slightly dye it. Making tomato soup? RIP your favorite spoon. Just another reason to be anti-tomato.

Besides that! I can never trust that I got the spoon clean enough because putting them through the dishwasher can ruin them, and even then, it's technically a porous material! I need to be confident that something is extra clean. Like, yeah, the dishwasher is no autoclave like my mother would bemoan of it (she'd put one in the house if my dad would let her) but STILL.

I'm usually a silicone and plastics girlie, though I won't hesitate to just lift things with my fingers or the fork I'm gonna use to eat it with. The less dishes, the better in my not-so-humble opinion.

SO YEAH. That's my opinion and anyone who thinks differently can get FORKED! /s

What about y'all? What are your preferred ways to stir pots?

graceful_mess TBR'd a book

The Seven Year Slip

Ashley Poston

An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics. Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it. So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it. And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again. Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future. Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed. After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.

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