karigan
27 • she/her • I work to afford my reading habit 🧚🏻🦄🏰🐉🧜🏻♀️🪱
48815 points
Post from the The Book of Fallen Leaves forum
karigan commented on a post
Whoa whoa whoa whooaaaaa "A political hobbyist debating the latest headline protest is 'no closer to engaging in politics than watching Sports Center is to playing football.'" WHOAAAA yes yes yes. I love this take. When I first got into organizing, I spent SO much time reading the news, terrible comments sections, and carousels that just made me spiral - and then bad-news-slime all over my friends. It impacted my ability to do my job and enjoy down time. Over the last year, I've really been trying to shift my outlook and feel it's made a huge difference. I love being able to name this now.
2karigan commented on marissa's review of Ninth House
Ninth House was a bit of a mixed experience for me. I’ll be honest, I spent a good chunk of the book feeling confused, like I was playing catch-up with the world-building and all the secret society details and I can't be sure I understand yet. There’s a lot packed into the story, and at times I wasn’t sure if I was missing something or if things just weren’t explained yet. That said, in the moments it did click for me, I really loved it.
The atmosphere is fantastic. It's dark, moody, and exactly what you’d want from a secret-societies-at-Yale type of story. Bardugo’s writing style also has something about it that really works so well for the tone, and I liked how she wove in both the supernatural elements and the heavier, real-world themes. The mystery aspect kept me hooked, even if I didn’t always feel totally grounded in what was happening.
So, overall, parts of it left me scratching my head, but the moments that worked for me really worked. It’s one of those books that’s rewarding if you’re willing to sit with the confusion for a while.
1karigan wrote a review...
Never really knew where this was going and still not quite sure I kept up with all the plot points. I don’t think I’d continue with the series if it weren’t for the quest.
0karigan finished a book
Ninth House
Leigh Bardugo
0karigan commented on a post
I am…so confused. I think I thought this was more of a realistic book but it seems not?? I feel like I need to reread this last chapter because North got pregnant HOW??? (this is not a spoiler we know shes pregnant in like chapter 1)
6karigan commented on karigan's update
karigan commented on a post from the Founder Announcements forum
Hi all! New app version (1.1.93) is now available on both iOS and Android. This includes mostly quality of life updates, some small feature enhancements, and bug fixes - web was also updated! Here's a quick rundown of what changed:
Search Improvements: When you search on the app, you can navigate back to your search results. On web, searching in "Browse Lists" and "Browse Quests" also saves your search results.
Search by Emoji: This beloved feature is now available on the app! You can find a link in Search. This got a design upgrade on web as well - you can now search specifically for books, lists, or quests by Emoji and see the total results for each category.
Updated Emojis: The emoji list was updated on app to include newer emojis
Additional badge slots for Royalty: Royalty can now display up to 12 badges on their profiles (warning: if the app is not updated yet and you display more than 6, the badges will run off the screen!) EDIT: was made aware the badges will run off the screen when viewing someone else's profile. They will look correct when viewing your own. I'm sorry, silly bug from me! Will put up an "emergency" update in next few days.
New ways to add a book: In a shocking turn of events, we are able to offer the Add Missing Book via Goodreads Link feature again. You now have 3 options when adding a new book to the Pagebound database: Goodreads link, ISBN/ASIN manual form, non-ISBN manual form
Block List in Settings: under Account & Settings, you can see all the users you've blocked and manage your block list.
Update Reading Progress remembers your update method: that's a mouthful, but basically if you update your reading progress using %, you'll be defaulted to % the next time you log progress (or pages or minutes, whatever tracking method you choose)
Confirmation popup when clicking I'm Finished: In the progress update modal, there's a confirmation step before finishing the book when you click I'm Finished (for everyone who was accidentally clicking that and messing up their reads!)
What's next on the roadmap? We're working on making editing your reading data more accessible and intuitive (think: updating your start/finish date when you click the "Reading" and "Finished" statuses, editing format and length in the reading status modal) After that, we have major projects related to Quests (Quest dashboards 👀) and a huge Library revamp (I'm calling this "Library V2")
Thank you everyone for keeping this community thriving! We'll be back in a few weeks with the next update.
Happy reading, Jennifer + Lucy
195karigan commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
I sometimes catch myself using similar words or phrases in my reviews or comments. If PB were to have a feature that could show you which words you repeated the most in a month, I would probably be embarrassed at how many “absolutely”s and “action-packed volume”s I’d end up with 😅 So I was super curious to know what other folks love to say on here! What words/phrases do you think you use often?
144karigan commented on OhMyDio's update
OhMyDio started reading...
The Gracekeepers
Kirsty Logan
2karigan commented on crybabybea's update
crybabybea started reading...
Alone With You in the Ether
Olivie Blake
6karigan commented on karigan's review of Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World: A History
More nonfiction like this please!
Ten Tomatoes that Changed the World is a fantastic niche history book about one of my favorite things: tomatoes! Alexander does a great job bringing excitement to a rather mundane topic by adding tons of theatrics to his writing. I can see how for some that would be annoying, but I thoroughly enjoyed it in both physical and audio formats.
Despite loving this book, I do think there were a few issues with it. The first and most glaring is the blatant lack of information coming from outside of the US and Europe. For a book that claims to be about the world, it's simply not. I think what's most egregious about this is the lack of acknowledgement for the South and Latin American contributions to tomato history. These regions are barely mentioned in chapter one and then never again. Quite the choice from the author.
The second issue is the lack of direction. The first and last few chapters are great as they are completely tomato based! But the middle chapters take a wild tangent into tomato adjacent foods (pizza, pasta, ketchup). While they were interesting to read, I ultimately did not pick this book up to learn about these topics, nor did the blurb give really any indication that the book would take this direction.
All that being said, I did enjoy the book quite a bit and would recommend it to others interested in learning more about the science, history, economics, and sociology of tomatoes.
Thank you @notbillnye for bringing this book to PB and @marissa for another lovely buddy read 🫶
8karigan is interested in reading...
Fishbone Cinderella
Elizabeth Lim
0karigan wrote a review...
Spellfire is a lovely little novel about a budding relationship, following Bryn; a witch who is trying to find her way in life. She makes a last-minute, unexpected trip to her old school, where her high school crush, Amelia, has recently become the Headmistress. The story follows Bryn as she discovers more about who she is and learns to better navigate relationships as an adult.
I was instantly captivated by Bryn’s struggles and the magic woven throughout the text. She is a relatable main character, making it easy to understand her motivations even when you knew they would have negative consequences. My favorite thing about this book is the way the LGBTQ+ community is represented. Bryn is incredibly unsure about many things in her life, but her sexuality is never one of them. It’s one of the things she has complete confidence in and where she really shines. I appreciate that this book not only expects acceptance, but demands it too.
I also really enjoyed every character. Each was unique and brought something different to the story, making everyone feel necessary. Unfortunately, the place where this book struggles most is its depth. We are told many times that characters are experiencing a monumental/deep moment, but we never actually witness them take place. As a result, the romance felt stuck at surface level attraction. I know nothing about the love interest, but was expected to believe that this relationship was end game.
Overall, I am glad I read the book and met these characters, but I wish we could have gotten more from character interactions. I am excited to see Willow’s future work, especially if it fits the same cozy vibe!
Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
0karigan commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum
I just noticed that The Wild Before's author is listed as Torday Piers instead of Piers Torday on this site. I don't see a contact form anywhere.
8karigan commented on nezuu's update
nezuu started reading...
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson
5