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jess_the_reader

She/Her San Franciscan Proud bibliophilešŸ“ššŸ¤“, neurodivergent, introvert, reader of everything, lover of catsšŸˆā€ā¬›šŸˆ Believer that books are for everyone! ā¤ļøšŸ¦½šŸ³ļøā€šŸŒˆšŸ³ļøā€āš§ļøšŸ«±šŸ¾ā€šŸ«²šŸ»āœŒšŸ»šŸ“ā€ā˜ ļøšŸ‡µšŸ‡øšŸ—ŗļø

2311 points

0% overlap
Supporting* Women's Wrongs
Whispers in the Walls
Fairy Tale Retellings
Every Villain is a Hero
Botanical Horror
The Monstrous Feminine
Fictional(?) Dystopian Societies
Classic Literature from the United States
Gothic Literature
Forgive Us Our Trespasses: Religious Horror
Queer Horror
Black Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Speculative Fiction
My Taste
City of Saints and Madmen (Ambergris, #1)
Children of Time
Death Valley
Victorian Psycho
Slaughterhouse-Five
Reading...
Assassin's Apprentice
19%
The Hollow Kind
25%
Pink Slime
18%
Strange Beasts of China
29%
Our Wives Under the Sea
0%
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jess_the_reader commented...

2h

Look at you!! šŸ„³šŸ„³šŸ„³šŸ’ŖšŸ» another badge!

  • House of Margins
    Sep 12, 2026
    House of MarginsTlotlo Tsamaase
    3.0
    Enjoyment: 2.5Quality: 3.5Characters: 3.0Plot: 2.5
    🫠
    šŸ“±
    šŸŖž

    I’m still not sure if I can call this a haunted house story. Sure, there’s a weird house that does weird things to certain people but the book didn’t l communicate that as clearly as it should have. Some parts are so surreal, so chaotic that it’s impossible to grasp what’s actually happening.

    The long and short of this books plot is that a sister, Rawena, is trying to find her sister, Anaya, after she mysteriously disappeared with another woman during an exclusive writing retreat with a prestigious publishing company. It’s seems pretty straightforward right? I thought so too, and at first it was. The narrative is told from Rawena’s first person perspective, a podcast from one of the members of the retreat, news articles, and police interview transcripts.

    Now I love an epistolary like novel, getting bits and pieces of information from outside sources as will as intimate correspondences. But this got a bit metaphysical for me. Like Anaya’s phone that Rawena mysterious gets that somehow gets missing episodes of the podcast. It’s a little creepy sure but the content of those particular episodes were the ones that were so surreal and strange that I could make very little sense out of them. I do admit they were filled with both beautiful and disturbing imagery but I didn’t find them accessible to be able to associate them to the plot.

    Another thing I felt was difficult about the book was that there were so many political and social points that were focused on. Colonialism, racism, sexism, marginalization, tokenism, religion, cultural erasure, sexual assault, whitewashing just to name a few. These paired with the dream-like weirdness of the events happening to Anaya it just felt like I was overwhelmed.

    The book just felt a little messy to me in its execution, a victim maybe of taking on too much. I never felt like the author reached the balance between creativity and social commentary that she was looking for.

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    jess_the_reader finished a book

    3h

    House of Margins

    House of Margins

    Tlotlo Tsamaase

    SerialĀ the podcast meetsĀ The Other Black GirlĀ in a haunted house, as young African author disappears after being invited to an exclusive writing residency, and her sister is left only with a true crime podcast to help her uncover the truth about what really happened…Anaya Sebeya is missing. Before her disappearance, Anaya was a brilliant a rising star. Invited to a prestigious writing residency at Günter Huis, an eerie colonial mansion on the slopes of Devil’s Peak, Anaya was supposed to craft the next great African literary masterpiece—and so were four other young, emerging writers, all competing for the grand prize. But Anaya never made it home. When a sensationalized true crime podcast about Anaya emerges, claiming to reveal everything that happened at Günter Huis, her sister Ranewa is both skeptical and furious. But with each surreal episode, Ranewa begins to piece together a truth worse than she ever could have imagined… At Günter Huis, Anaya’s nightmares consume her. Time slips away from her. Günter Huis inflicts distorted visions and terrible supernatural visitations, pushing Anaya to tell a story no one dares. But exorcising the house’s endless cycle of evil requires a sacrifice that neither Anaya nor her fellows are ready to make. In House of Margins, award-winning Motswana author Tlotlo Tsamaase delivers a mesmerizing story of a young generation facing colonialism’s cultural legacy in Africa.

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    jess_the_reader commented...

    3h

    Congratulations!! šŸŽˆšŸ„³šŸ„³šŸ„³

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    jess_the_reader commented...

    3h

    Wohoo!!šŸ„³šŸ„³šŸ„³šŸ’…šŸ»

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    jess_the_reader commented...

    16h

    Second, third, fourth and fifth this sentiment.

  • The Human Chair
    Mar 06, 2026
    The Human ChairEdogawa Rampo
    2.0
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

    I was fucking around with Chatgpt and it said this was extreme body horror. I don't think it knows what that means. It's a short story about a creepy chairmaker that makes a chair he can hide in so women will sit on him.

    5
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    jess_the_reader commented...

    17h

  • The Ritual

    The Ritual

    Adam L.G. Nevill

    Thoughts from 18%
    4
    3
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    jess_the_reader commented...

    18h

    lol I sometimes think about it in the way that when I’m reading I’m so invested in the story but then I’ll notice the words and then it will hit me and I’ll think ā€œI’m reading words on a pageā€. And suddenly it’s my voice in my head instead of whatever character or narrator. And it does pull me out of the story for a second or two. (That’s a terrible description šŸ¤¦šŸ¼ā€ā™€ļø but I don’t know how else to explain it.)

    As for scenery I’ve never had trouble envisioning and keeping the writers description as long as it’s reasonably detailed, otherwise I’ll fill in the blanks on my own with something I feel like makes sense. But in terms of actual characters I almost always only see them as bodies with heads of hair and no faces, even if their faces are described. It’s super weird, don’t ask me why, I’ve done it since I was a kid. Maybe because faces are usually only described once?

  • How do you "see" books?

    I'm one of those people that "see" books like a movie in my head. I'm either in the perspective of the main character or like a camera shot of the whole scene. Sometimes I'm seeing the movie so well that when I become conscious of the books' words again it kind of throws me off - kind of like when you're watching something with captions. You get used to them and they blend in, and then you notice them again and they become impossible to ignore until you get used to them again.

    I was just wondering what you all "see". Is it like a movie? A picture book? Is it just the words? I feel like seeing just the words would make reading quite unenjoyable but that might just be me.

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    jess_the_reader TBR'd a book

    19h

    The Passenger

    The Passenger

    Lisa Lutz

    ā€œA dead-serious thriller (with a funny bone)ā€ ( The New York Times Book Review ), from the author of the New York Times bestselling Spellman Files series, comes the story of a woman who creates and sheds new identities as she crisscrosses the country to escape her past. Forty-eight hours after leaving her husband’s body at the base of the stairs, Tanya Dubois cashes in her credit cards, dyes her hair brown, demands a new name from a shadowy voice over the phone, and flees town. It’s not the first time. She meets Blue, a female bartender who recognizes the hunted look in a fugitive’s eyes and offers her a place to stay. With dwindling choices, Tanya-now-Amelia accepts. An uneasy―and dangerous―alliance is born. It’s almost impossible to live off the grid in the twenty-first century, but Amelia-now-Debra and Blue have the courage, the ingenuity, and the desperation, to try. Hopscotching from city to city, Debra especially is chased by a very dark secret. From heart-stopping escapes and devious deceptions, we are left to wonder…can she possibly outrun her past? The Passenger ’s white-knuckled plot and unforeseeable twists make one thing for certain: the ride will leave you breathless. ā€œWhen the answers finally come, they are juicy, complex, and unexpected. The satisfying conclusion will leave readers rethinking everything and immediately turning back to the first page to start again. Psychological suspense lovers will tear through this thrillerā€ ( Library Journal , starred review).

    0
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    jess_the_reader commented...

    19h

    My favorite looking badge for a quest is the LGBTQ+ SciFi & Fantasy, it’s just so pretty and colorful and aesthetically pleasing to me. Perfection šŸ¤ŒšŸ»šŸ’• My favorite actual quest though has to be Whispers In the Walls (I’m just a sucker for a haunted house) with Supporting Women’s Wrongs a very very close second. I guess I’m a fan of the darkness…

    WItW (so far) •The Haunting of Hill House •Rebecca •Diavola •The Elementals

    SWW (so far) •Mary: An Awakening of Terror •Exalted •A Good Person •My Husband

  • Favorite Quest for the Books?

    What quest have you enjoyed the most for the books you've read in it? The quest that you read the books for the books, not the badge, or not just the badge. What is/are your favorite book(s) from that quest? Which book(s) would you recommend to convince people to join the quest?

    My favorite quest is The Monstrous Feminine. Since I'm indecisive, I have four favorite books from the quest: • The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim • Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang • The Lamb by Lucy Rose • Bed Rot Baby by Wendy Dalrymple

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