Ugh such a pet peeve when authors do things like this: "It was then that a memory sprang forcefully to the front of his mind: something the boy had said once about his grandfather, in passing, that Carl had brushed aside. [Next chapter/section/topic involving the same character but that doesn't relate to that statement.]" Like just TELL ME!! In no natural world does someone in an intense moment remember something super relevant and then before the thought is fully formed go "okay, anyway, let's cut that thought off at the knees and just move on along 🤪" I quickly skimmed forward a few pages and since it doesn't appear the next sections involve this memory playing out in any way I'm big mad.

Are we romanticizing the quiet guy who brings a whole guitar to summer camp again? When I went to camp we made fun of those guys.

The description of Barbara’s mural is making me think some things

This John Paul guy is red flags all around, keeping my eye on him

"It came from the Greek god Pan: the god of the woods. He liked to trick people, to confuse and disorient them until they lost their bearings, and their minds. To panic, said T.J., was to make an enemy of the forest. To stay calm was to be its friend."

THEY SAID THE TITLE!! Lol, seriously though, nice to see them mention one of my favorite mythology tidbits and interesting to note that that's what the title is derived from. I wonder if that little fact will be a through line in the rest of the book?

How do people organize their holds? Until lateish last year I was living in a city (Cardiff) for a while with an amazing library just a 15 min walk from my house. I would go once every two weeks to pick up a hold or two along with a few books from the stacks and never had an issue.

Now that my current city (Oxford) charges for library holds on physical books, I've been juggling (spare) physical holds with digital holds from 5 online libs (Cardiff, Oxford, my hometown, my boyfriend's hometown, and the Queer Liberation Library). Every few days I'll just get a notification from Libby that a book I barely remember placing on hold is available.

How do people in similar circumstances organize their holds? Looking for some inspo

I've been paying more and more attention to magic systems and taking notes on what I like/what I hope to see in a magic system and am also fascinated my delivery(how complex or simple a system is and how the author conveys it). I would love to know what your favorite magic system is and why it worked for you.

For me, one of my most recent reads that I can't get out of my head is Red City by Marie Lu. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's my favorite, but it reminded me that the magic systems I appreciate the most are those that are grounded in tangible, physical realities that have consequences. The alchemy performed in Red City requires shaving bits of your soul for every alchemical action, and it's a painful experience for the alchemists, but they force themselves to acclimate to the pain to reap the benefits of the magic. Your soul can heal itself in the beginning, but the more you perform alchemy, the more long lasting the damage to your soul is, and all alchemists understand that dying young is pretty much guaranteed. This magic system perpetually made me SO FCKN nervous, but goodness gracious does it affect the stakes, the characters' state of mind, and the overall urgency of the plot. Very fascinating magic system in my opinion.

I know there are always a ton of posts about e-readers, and I may be totally overthinking this but... I have almost exclusively purchased refurbished/second hand tech for a few years now. My phone is ancient, my laptop and headphones are all refurbished tech etc. So I really want an e-reader and am considering the Kobo. But does anyone know how frequently the refurbished options become available?? I've been waiting for a while but nothing is coming up, and I feel hesitant about ebay sellers because all I've seen so far are sellers who clearly regularly sell brand new in box tech, which doesn't feel second hand to me... it feels like buying new from an extra middleman.

So I got some money from watching my dad's dog recently and I don't know if I should be trying so hard to avoid just buying the Kobo, or like, how much longer should I wait for their refurbished options to show up?? (I wanted one for my birthday so we've had notifications on for over a month now) Maybe I am just being impatient but my other problem too is if I am being too picky about ebay sellers or not LOL am I being overly ridiculous on that or idk. I just don't know if saving $20 is worth it if it's supposedly brand new in box or if I should just buy it new. Or if I am being too morally rigid on being hesitant to buy new. Someone help!!!

It's the time of the week to show of your big beautiful brains! Whether it's a quick piece of trivia, a tidbit you learned about yourself, or a deep dive on a niche topic - we wanna hear it!

My rabbit hole this week started with a metaphor I couldn't understand, which led me to a 1917 Russian literary theory, Art as Technique by Skhlovsky linked here on the importance of defamiliarization in literature which then led me to modern cognitive neuroscience research to check against the claims (in crazy news, they mostly backed his theory up) and landed in a 2,000 word essay I titled What If It's Genius and I'm Just Stupid? A Eulogy for the Reviews I Never Wrote. (If you have ever wondered why I started posting this weekly series I feel like this explains a lot of it I love hearing about people's rabbit holes and where it ends up haha)

My tidbit: I learned that I love tandem reading so much, I'm starting to have a hard time just eyeball reading books or just reading audiobooks.

How about you? What did you learn this week?