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itsybitsygingie

29 ✨ She/Her ✨ Bisexual I'm primarily a reader of fantasy and sci-fi with occasional dalliances into manga and non-fiction. My more in-detail reviews are currently on StoryGraph.

444 points

0% overlap
Achillean Across Genres
Supporting* Women's Wrongs
LGBTQ+ Sci-Fi & Fantasy
My Taste
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This
The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All, Vol. 1 (The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn't a Guy at All, #1)
Know My Name: A Memoir
The Rain Heron
The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1)
Reading...
I Fell in Love With Hope
4%
Mother River
12%
The Castle of Otranto
50%
Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
41%

itsybitsygingie made progress on...

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I Fell in Love With Hope

I Fell in Love With Hope

Lancali Lancali

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itsybitsygingie made progress on...

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The Devils

The Devils

Joe Abercrombie

16%
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itsybitsygingie made progress on...

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The Devils

The Devils

Joe Abercrombie

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itsybitsygingie is interested in reading...

11h
Variations on a Dream: A Novel

Variations on a Dream: A Novel

Angelique LaLonde

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itsybitsygingie entered a giveaway...

17h

Penguin Publishing Group giveaway

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

Katherine May

An intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down. Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered. A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas. Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.

print10 copiesUS only

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The Devils

The Devils

Joe Abercrombie

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itsybitsygingie wrote a review...

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  • Pachinko
    itsybitsygingie
    Feb 03, 2026
    4.0
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:
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    🕊️

    This is one of those reads that really makes you go “what In the world did I just read?”. The first and second section of this book were absolutely phenomenal. They were lyrical, filled with the human aspects of war and colonialism, and excellent storytelling. I found myself deeply invested in the characters. I was rooting for their success, and grieved their tragedies. Then the 3rd section came along and I found myself struggling to figure out where this book had flown off the racetrack. The first 2/3rds of section three were wild in content and bizarre in pacing. I commonly found myself asking “how did I get here, and do I really want to continue?”. There were snippets of characters that I frankly couldn’t make myself care about, and storylines that left me confused as to why they were there. It’s such a shame, because the quality of the writing remained so high. The plotting was just… lacking. Luckily, the ending was almost enough to save it.

    The first 2/3rds of this book save it for me. Overall, this was a good book, with minor issues. I’m giving this book a 5/6 on my personal enjoyment scale and a 4/5 for writing quality. This brings us to a 4 star rating on my rating chart.

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    Pachinko

    Pachinko

    Min Jin Lee

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    itsybitsygingie commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

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  • Finding new books

    How do you guys find new books to read?? I don’t really trust tiktok or social media because the ones that go viral aren’t for me. Sometimes I scroll on Libby for available books just to try something new. I will also always find new books to read when I go to the bookstore or the library, since I like to wander. Now that I’m on PB, it’s so easy to discover and research new books and I love it!!

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  • itsybitsygingie TBR'd a book

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    Greek Lessons

    Greek Lessons

    Han Kang

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