I absolutely see why many people love Rebecca Ross' writing, however, I really don't think it's for me. I've tried so many of her books at this point and I really wanted to love this one because the atmosphere is undeniably beautiful. Rebecca Ross has a gorgeous writing style, and the island setting felt incredibly vivid. Unfortunately, I never felt like the story lived up to its premise.

The biggest issue for me was the pacing. It moves at such a slow, meandering pace that it felt like very little actually happened for large portions of the book. The mystery surrounding the missing girls should have created a sense of urgency, but instead it often took a backseat to long descriptions and repetitive conversations. I kept waiting for the plot to really take off, and it never quite did.

I also struggled to connect with the characters. Jack and Adaira's relationship didn't hold my attention, and I found several of the emotional moments relied more on poetic prose than genuine chemistry. Even with multiple points of view, I never felt particularly invested in anyone's journey.

The folklore and spirits were easily the most interesting part of the novel, but I wish they had played a larger role. There were glimpses of something darker and more magical, yet the story spent so much time lingering that the fantasy elements never felt as impactful as I'd hoped.

This wasn't a bad book by any means, it just wasn't the right fit for me.

The Stranger reads like a 100x more absurd version of Fredrik Backman's writing and as a fan of both crack fics and Backman, I liked that.

Perhaps the most beautiful and brutal thing a truly good book can do is convince you, if only for a few hundred pages, that you belong inside it. That you're not just an observer skimming the surface, but a part of its pulse and rhythm, woven into its world as surely as its characters. And then, just as suddenly, it ends. The illusion vanishes like a candle blown out, and you're left stranded in the quiet, heart aching, head echoing with its absence. That’s exactly how this book made me feel.

The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig is a masterclass in gothic fantasy and she continues to prove that no one does it quite like she does. It’s haunting, lyrical, and strikingly original. While it diverges in tone and scope from Gillig’s Shepherd King duology, her signature prose still sings through every sentence: lush, immersive, and emotionally charged. From the very first page, the atmosphere is thick with fog and myth, pulling you into a beautifully strange world where object-bound magic, eerie diviners, and prophetic dreams shape both fate and identity. It so easily gives you that magical feeling of losing yourself in a book, where reality fades away, and for a little while, you exist somewhere else entirely. The magic system is fascinating and fresh, and Gillig’s world-building excels in feeling wholly unique and not just another carbon copy of court politics and tired tropes, but something that hums with mystery and sacredness. None of it felt like something I’ve read before.

The pacing is near-perfect in my opinion, balancing dark lore, political intrigue, and emotional depth without ever losing momentum. Though a few lingering questions remain, they feel deliberate, setting up the second half of the duology with just the right amount of intrigue. The characters are vivid and layered, especially our heroine Sybil, whose journey through duty, rebellion, and self-discovery is equal parts heartbreaking and empowering. And then there’s the gargoyle. The gruff, the hilarious, the loyal to a fault, and the completely unforgettable gargoyle. What begins as comic relief becomes something far deeper, and by the end, he’s not just a side character, he’s an emotional core of the story.

Gillig’s work doesn’t just tell a story; it casts a spell on you. The Knight and the Moth made me laugh and ache with longing in that rare way only the best fantasy books can. It’s eerie and aching, whimsical and weighty. It’s a story about gods and omens, dreams, girlhood, and the cost of becoming.

Even with the inevitability of death, When Breath Becomes Air is less a philosophical reminder to "make" something with your life, and more the steady, unknownable, unavoidable reality that our time and our bodies are finite. It's easy to take in Kalanithi's purpose in this book: how do we make the life we have valuable, memorable, a remaining legacy that lives beyond us.

As a well-renowned physician, a man who made himself into something, who reached so far for his dreams, so close in his grasp right before his diagnosis, I could feel the resounding dread, the grief for the life Kalanithi imagined gone, destroyed, and decomposing before he even began. Kalanithi's trials of trying to fight for the remaining moments of his life by emphasizing on the things and people that will be left behind; his career, his wife, his child. Yet, surrounding the capitalistic and regurgitated inspirational rhetoric about legacy and the "value" of ourselves, our bodies, our time, is the self-imposed importance and ableism of a man who refused to acknowledge that he was dying and that time and money and legacy are fictional.

The human condition is weird. Whether we believe in god(s), science, a combination, or an undetermined third thing, the loss of life, the grief of knowing, feeling, seeing our end is something many of us will experience. Yet, to stare death in the face while denouncing disabled folks, people without access to higher education, healthcare, said qualities that "make life worth living", is quite a feat with your remaining breath. Wasteful, I think. Our time is limited and it's frankly fucking scary, but our holy or evolutionary purpose is not this grandiose version of nihilism either. We are not here to contribute something, or be something solely because we are "important" but because we are human and that encompasses all versions of humanity.

As someone who has been feeling the weight of death anxiety, of beginning to grieve this life I've loved before it's over, just knowing it will one day be over, is a joyful burden I'm unsure how to name or express beyond that however we may rot or reincarnate or rest in the end, may our actions, ours heart, and our love be our legacy instead.