meljiuIsReading..

˙⋆✮ 23 | any ˙⋆✮ "If I look back, I am lost." ─ Daenerys Stormborn, A Game of Thrones

731 points

0% overlap

My Taste

The Raven Scholar (The Eternal Path, #1)

The Tea Dragon Tapestry (Tea Dragon, #3)

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)

Reading...

meljiuIsReading.. is interested in reading...

Sorcery and Small Magics (The Wildersongs Trilogy, #1)

Maiga Doocy

Desperate to undo the curse binding them to each other, an impulsive sorcerer and his curmudgeonly rival venture deep into a magical forest in search of a counterspell—only to discover that magic might not be the only thing pulling them together. Leovander Loveage is a master of small magics. He can summon butterflies with a song, or turn someone’s hair pink by snapping his fingers. Such minor charms don’t earn him much admiration from other sorcerers (or his father), but anything more elaborate always blows up in his face. Which is why Leo vowed years ago to never again write powerful magic. That is, until a mix-up involving a forbidden spell binds Leo to obey the commands of his longtime nemesis, Sebastian Grimm. Grimm is Leo’s complete opposite—respected, exceptionally talented, and an absolutely insufferable curmudgeon. The only thing they agree on is that getting caught using forbidden magic would mean the end of their careers. They need a counterspell, and fast. But Grimm casts spells, he doesn’t undo them, and Leo doesn’t mess with powerful magic. Chasing rumors of a powerful sorcerer with a knack for undoing curses, Leo and Grimm enter the Unquiet Wood, a forest infested with murderous monsters and dangerous outlaws alike. To dissolve the curse, they’ll have to uncover the true depths of Leo’s magic, set aside their long-standing rivalry, and—much to their horror—work together. Even as an odd spark of attraction flares between them.

meljiuIsReading.. started reading...

If We Were Villains

M.L. Rio

Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago. As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.

meljiuIsReading.. wrote a review...

meljiuIsReading..

May 15, 2026

3.5

Enjoyment: 3.5Quality: 3.0Characters: 3.0Plot: 3.0

❄️

☃️

💐

Winter is becoming one of my favorite seasons/settings for a fantasy book. The details about snow sitting on top spruce trees, icy rivers and winds, and the intricate formations of snowflakes. This book is one of the more immersive ones.

Despite that, I find myself disappointed at how the story played out. It had a strong start, very emotional and dark which I thought would be the consistent atmosphere throughout the book but alas, the characters started to irk me a little. I didn't really like how the characters reacted to conflict.

I also didn't like how the Fox was introduced but had no significance to the story other than to advance a relationship between the characters and how little it affected one of them. I thought it would have more impact to the story, considering how much it was mentioned, and also it was on the book cover!

This is not to say I didn't enjoy the story. The inconsistencies and how the characters went about some things just broke me out of the immersion.

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17h

Fairy Tale Retellings

Bronze: Finished 5 Main Quest books.

meljiuIsReading.. finished a book

17h

The Snow Child

Eowyn Ivey

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart - he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone - but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place, things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

meljiuIsReading.. earned a badge

17h

Fairy Tale Retellings

Bronze: Finished 5 Main Quest books.

meljiuIsReading.. made progress on...

20h

The Snow Child

Eowyn Ivey

48%

meljiuIsReading.. made progress on...

The Snow Child

Eowyn Ivey

22%

meljiuIsReading.. made progress on...

The Snow Child

Eowyn Ivey

14%

meljiuIsReading.. wrote a review...

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)

meljiuIsReading..

May 11, 2026

4.5

Enjoyment: 4.5Quality: 4.5Characters: 4.5Plot: 4.0

🐺

👑

⚔️

I took my time reading this book because the sheer amount of pages it had was daunting, but have I been disappointed by it at any point? Never.

Like the first book, I am not sure how to encapsulate my love for this series. The characters, the politics, the magic, the worldbuilding.. wow.

The thing that still lingers in my mind is the parallels between Sansa, listing out names to pray for, and Arya, listing out names of people she wants dead. Though, I did kind of spaced out during the ship battles in the Battle of Blackwater.

Either way, I truly enjoyed reading and will be continuing this series!

meljiuIsReading.. finished a book

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)

George R.R. Martin

A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. Two great leaders—Lord Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon—who hold sway over an age of enforced peace are dead, victims of royal treachery. Now, from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war. It is a tale in which brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel...and the coldest hearts. For when kings clash, the whole land trembles. Here is the second volume in George R.R. Martin magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Game of Thrones and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R.R. Martin stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

meljiuIsReading.. made progress on...

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)

George R.R. Martin

80%

meljiuIsReading.. is interested in reading...

Lost Lambs

Madeline Cash

Rippling with humor, warmth, and style, Lost Lambs is a new vision of the charms and pitfalls of family dysfunction. The Flynn family is coming undone. Catherine and Bud's open marriage has reached its breaking point as their daughters spiral in their own chaotic Abigail, the eldest, is dating a man in his twenties nicknamed War Crime Wes; Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist; the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone—or something—is monitoring the town’s citizens. Casting a shadow across their lives, and their small coastal town, is Paul Alabaster, a billionaire shipping magnate. Rumors of corruption circulate, but no one dares dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with a mysterious shipping container sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy—one that may just bring them closer together. Irreverent and addictive, pinging between the voices of the Flynn family and those of the panorama of characters around them, Madeline Cash’s Lost Lambs is a debut novel of quick-witted observation and surprising tenderness. With Lost Lambs, Cash has crafted a family saga for the twenty-first century, all held together with crazy glue.

meljiuIsReading.. is interested in reading...

A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)

Becky Chambers

ASIN B08H831J18 moved to the more recent edition Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend. Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers' series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

meljiuIsReading.. is interested in reading...

Livonia Chow Mein

Abigail Savitch-Lew

In the vein of Happiness Falls and Family Lore, a gripping story of family history and political upheaval centered around a Chinese family-owned restaurant in Brownsville, Brooklyn and its impact on the neighborhood’s Jewish and Black residents over the course of a century. In 1978, two tenements on Livonia Avenue in Brownsville burn to the ground, killing one resident and displacing dozens of others. It remains unclear who set the buildings ablaze, but the survivors are convinced the culprit is Mr. Wong. Who exactly is Mr. Wong, and what allegedly drove him to this extraordinary act of violence, is the question that consumes this novel as it plunges into four generations of Wong family history. First is Koon Lai, an immigrant who runs a Chinese restaurant on Livonia Avenue; second, his son Richard, a man desperate for his own chance at the American Dream; and third, Jason, a poet who seeks his escape in the bohemian counterculture of the 1970s, but finds himself an unwitting participant in Brooklyn’s gentrification. In the 21st century, Jason’s daughter Sadie returns to Brownsville as a journalist, determined to unravel the mystery of what happened decades earlier on the night the buildings blazed. Joining together the present and the past is the community organizer Lina Rodriguez Armstrong, who was also displaced by that fire and who has spent the intervening years fighting for the rights of Brownsville’s residents and organizing a Livonia Avenue community land trust. A stunning debut from a new talent, Livonia Chow Mein contemplates how the American pursuit of freedom relies on a collective amnesia and challenges us to consider what it would take for us to truly live in harmony.

meljiuIsReading.. TBR'd a book

Apocalypse Cow

O.R. Sorrel

Mel loves Sasha and dreams of a day that Sasha might reciprocate her feelings (even though she's straight) - so the fact that it's thirty degrees outside in January and hasn't rained for a year simply passes her by. Mel is just about coping with being the only 'out' lesbian in school and all the sniping that Janis and Ella aim her way, as well as her dreary Saturday job with the stupidly posh Dorian... But when domestic animals suddenly lethally turn on the human race, and Mel finds herself stuck in a mansion with Dorian and Ella, her love-life suddenly turns on its head in the most extraordinary way.A screamingly funny LGTBQ+ love story from a brilliant new talent.

meljiuIsReading.. made progress on...

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)

George R.R. Martin

72%

meljiuIsReading.. left a rating...

meljiuIsReading..

Apr 29, 2026

3.5

Enjoyment: 4.0Quality: 3.5Characters: 3.5Plot: 4.0

🐘

👪

🤲

This has been my first Malay book in a very long while and I'm glad to say that it has surprised me in a good way.

It is a very relatable and heart-wrenching story about found family (which I am personally a sucker for), and I really like how hadiths were incorporated without it feeling too preachy. I am also satisfied with how sensitive topics were explored.

The pacing was a little too fast for my liking but it's not horrible, which also means I wish it was a little longer. But, the characters made up for it. They were believable and I have personally met people who behave similarly as them!

It truly exceeded my expectations.

meljiuIsReading.. finished a book

Rumah Tak Mesti Bahagia

Arif Zulkifli

Abi Umi ni tak pernah faham Ain! Semua pilihan Abi dan Umi, tak pernah Ain bantah walau sekali. Namun setiap kali Ain suarakan keinginannya, semuanya ditentang. Sehingga ada rahsia yang Ain pendam daripada pengetahuan Abi dan Umi. Tak pernah diceritakan kepada sesiapa sebab merasakan dirinya jijik dan berdosa. Apatah lagi, Abi dan Umi orang terhormat. "Jangan menangis. Malu kat orang yang tengok Ain." Jika mereka tidak pernah mendengar, mampukah mereka faham? Keadaan berubah apabila Ain berada di Laman Harmoni sebagai penjaga orang-orang tua. Pertemuan dengan Pak Yazid, yang bersikap misteri, perongos, dan cerewet, membuatkan Ain ingin mengenalinya. Rupa-rupanya, mereka berkongsi duka yang hampir sama; Ain takut dibenci, Pak Yazid takut ditinggalkan. Andai rumah bukan lagi tempat pulang, mampukah mereka berjumpa ruang damai itu?

meljiuIsReading.. made progress on...

Rumah Tak Mesti Bahagia

Arif Zulkifli

53%

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