pesto

744 points

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My Taste

We Set the Dark on Fire (We Set the Dark on Fire, #1)

pesto commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

AuthorKristenArgyres

Favorite Book Conventions/Events

With all the terrible scams and drama that happened this year with new book events that oversold and underperformed, I’d love to know what book events and conventions you enjoy.

I’ve heard of events like YALL Fest and the London Book Fair in the UK, but I’m going to my first Big Ohio Book Con in June 2026.

I’d love to hear about your experiences with any other fun book events.

pesto commented on a post from the Pagebound Club forum

saliha

Has anyone ever paid for book recommendations?

If you don't know: there is a website (or I'm sure there are more than one but I'm referring to a specific one) with supposed experts and you can pay them to recommend you books (or send you physical copies of the recommended books). I have a hard time explaining what I actually like in books. It's just not easy to put into words. I like literary fiction, I don't like romance - but there are exceptions. I don't know 😔 I never met someone with a similar taste which is crazy to me because I do read popular books. But it feels wrong to pay someone when there are so many free tools to help with book recommendations.. I was just wondering: Has anyone tried that website or something similar? How was the experience? Were the books good or is it a waste of money?

pesto TBR'd a book

We Are All So Good at Smiling

Amber McBride

They Both Die at the End meets The Bell Jar in this haunting, beautiful young adult novel-in-verse about clinical depression and healing from trauma, from National Book Award Finalist Amber McBride. Whimsy is back in the hospital for treatment of clinical depression. When she meets a boy named Faerry, she recognizes they both have magic in the marrow of their bones. And when Faerry and his family move to the same street, the two start to realize that their lifelines may have twined and untwined many times before. They are both terrified of the forest at the end of Marsh Creek Lane. The Forest whispers to Whimsy. The Forest might hold the answers to the part of Faerry he feels is missing. They discover the Forest holds monsters, fairy tales, and pain that they have both been running from for 11 years.

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The Leaving Room

Amber McBride

Gospel is the Keeper of the Leaving Room—a place all young people must phase through when they die. The young are never ready to leave; they need a moment to remember and a Keeper to help their wispy souls along.Gospel assumes that there are countless other Leaving Rooms because many children pass, but she suspects they are not like her Leaving Room which is small (like a walk in closet)with shelves full of tiny jars that hold the memories of those who have gone.When a random door opens and a Keeper named Melody arrives, their souls become entangled. Gospel seriousness melts and Melody’s fear of connection fades, but still—are Keepers allowed to fall in love? Now they must find a way out of the Leaving Room and be unafraid of their love. They must claw their way back to their bodies because there is so much more life to explore—together.

pesto finished reading and left a rating...

pesto

Nov 30, 2025

5.0

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pesto finished reading and wrote a review...

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pesto

Nov 25, 2025

5.0

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

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Post from the Monstrous forum

pesto

Thoughts from 11%

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Monstrous

Jessica Lewis

Forced to spend her summer in her aunt's strange small town, a teen girl discovers dark secrets hidden in the woods. From the author of Bad Witch Burning comes another pulse-pounding novel perfect for fans of Supernatural and Lovecraft Country. Don't go outside past dark. Come straight home after church. And above all—never, ever, go into Red Wood. These are the rules Latavia’s aunt tells her as soon as she arrives in Sanctum, Alabama for the summer. Weird, but Latavia isn’t here to solve any scary small town mysteries; she’s here for six weeks and six weeks only, and then she’s off to college and won’t look back. Still, Sanctum has its perks—mainly, the cute girl who works at the local ice cream shop. But Latavia can’t ignore how strange her aunt’s tiny town is. The residents are suspicious of her and at times hostile, and it’s clear she’s some kind of outsider. That’s proven when Latavia is dragged out of her house in the dead of night, into the forbidden Red Wood, and presented as a human sacrifice to an ancient monster. Latavia won’t be eaten without a fight. She’ll do whatever she has to do to survive—even if that includes making a deal with the monster, endangering her crush and family, and even risk turning into a monster herself.

pesto finished reading and wrote a review...

pesto

Nov 22, 2025

5.0

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jonny garza villa owes me money for all the therapy I didn't know I needed until reading their books

pesto TBR'd a book

Hallie’s Rules for a Recovering Romantic

Jessica Lewis

Perfect for fans of Erin Baldwin and Elise Bryant, this sapphic rom-com—a companion novel to Nav’s Foolproof Guide to Falling in Love—stars a girl determined to reinvent herself, in life and in love.Hallie loves romance, but it doesn’t seem to love her back. Her six-time broken heart can attest to that.So when Hallie has the chance to attend a prestigious academic summer camp, she sees an opportunity not just to better herself, but to reinvent herself. Into a new Hallie who will succeed where the old one failed—in school, friends, and especially love.First, a fresh start—which means no romance, all summer. If Hallie’s fortitude is immediately tested by Julia, her gorgeous camp roommate with an uncrackable icy shell, then all the better! Reinvention is never easy!Yet as Hallie and Julia get closer, Hallie’s heart is in more danger than ever. With the prospect of real love on the line, can Hallie trust that New Hallie won’t make the mistakes that she did? Or is Julia looking for someone else—the unfiltered, unaltered, real Hallie? Wish You Weren’t Here meets I Think I Love You in this sweet, summer rom-com, where plans go wonderfully astray, the best rules are broken ones, and love might actually be just around the corner.

pesto finished reading and wrote a review...

pesto

Nov 11, 2025

5.0

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

I was really excited to read a romance with an acespec main character, especially one who still has some exploring to do where labels come in. I didn't realize this was a spinoff to another book until I finished it, and now I can't wait to read the rest!

pesto TBR'd a book

The Future Is Disabled: Prophecies, Love Notes and Mourning Songs

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha follows up their incredible book Care Work with The Future Is Disabled. Piepzna-Samarasinha writes about the last two years of surviving COVID-19 as a disabled femme of color in an ableist world that isn’t interested in protecting disabled folks. They also discuss mutual aid and disabled joy in the face of isolation and discrimination. The pandemic has been incredibly difficult for disabled people who have been asked to “take one for the team” by wider society. Piepzna-Samarasinha writes encouragement to disabled folks, relishing in our community’s creativity in our fight for survival. They also mourn those lost in the pandemic and the care crisis so many of us still face.

pesto TBR'd a book

Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

In this collection of essays, Lambda Literary Award-winning writer and longtime activist and performance artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explores the politics and realities of disability justice, a movement that centers the lives and leadership of sick and disabled queer, trans, Black, and brown people, with knowledge and gifts for all. Care Work is a mapping of access as radical love, a celebration of the work that sick and disabled queer/people of color are doing to find each other and to build power and community, and a tool kit for everyone who wants to build radically resilient, sustainable communities of liberation where no one is left behind. Powerful and passionate, Care Work is a crucial and necessary call to arms.

pesto TBR'd a book

Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-first Century

Alice Wong

One in five people in the United States lives with a disability. Some disabilities are visible, others less apparent—but all are underrepresented in media and popular culture. Now, just in time for the thirtieth anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, activist Alice Wong brings together this urgent, galvanizing collection of contemporary essays by disabled people. From Harriet McBryde Johnson’s account of her debate with Peter Singer over her own personhood to original pieces by authors like Keah Brown and Haben Girma; from blog posts, manifestos, and eulogies to Congressional testimonies, and beyond: this anthology gives a glimpse into the rich complexity of the disabled experience, highlighting the passions, talents, and everyday lives of this community. It invites readers to question their own understandings. It celebrates and documents disability culture in the now. It looks to the future and the past with hope and love.

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This Is Body Grief: Making Peace with the Loss That Comes with Living in a Body

Jayne Mattingly

A path to making peace with your ever-changing bodyHave you ever felt uncomfortable in your own body? Perhaps you’re navigating the unwanted rhythms of aging, an unexpected illness or disability, society’s impossible and forever-changing beauty standards, or the feeling that your body has “betrayed” you in some way. If this is you, you are not alone. This experience has a Body Grief. In This Is Body Grief, Jayne Mattingly offers a healing path through Body Grief so you can feel at home in the skin you’re in. Having navigated Body Grief as both an eating disorder recovery coach and as a newly chronically ill and disabled person and advocate, Mattingly walks readers through the range of complex emotions that encompasses this experience with intimate understanding and compassion, starting with dismissal, shock, and anger. Ultimately, she shows your body has never been, is not, and will never be against you. Self-love begins when you learn to trust and work in tandem with your body as it is in this very moment.Although the journey through Body Grief may not be linear, This Is Body Grief shows it's possible to feel at peace with the skin you’re in.

pesto TBR'd a book

12w

If You Could See the Sun

Ann Liang

Alice Sun has always felt invisible at her elite Beijing international boarding school, where she’s the only scholarship student among China’s most rich and influential teens. But then she starts uncontrollably turning invisible—actually invisible. When her parents drop the news that they can no longer afford her tuition, even with the scholarship, Alice hatches a plan to monetize her strange new power—she’ll discover the scandalous secrets her classmates want to know, for a price. But as the tasks escalate from petty scandals to actual crimes, Alice must decide if it’s worth losing her conscience—or even her life. In this genre-bending YA debut, a Chinese American girl monetizes her strange new invisibility powers by discovering and selling her wealthy classmates’ most scandalous secrets.

pesto TBR'd a book

12w

Mexican Gothic

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemí’s dreams with visions of blood and doom. Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness. And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.

pesto TBR'd a book

12w

Gods of Jade and Shadow

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Mayan god of death sends a young woman on a harrowing, life-changing journey in this one-of-a-kind fairy tale inspired by Mexican folklore. The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own. Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather’s room. She opens it—and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother. Failure will mean Casiopea’s demise, but success could make her dreams come true. In the company of the strangely alluring god and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatán to the bright lights of Mexico City—and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld. Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525620754

pesto commented on a post

14w

kellam_reads

should I read?

I may or may not have spoiled the ending of this book while looking at the trigger warnings and now am unsure if I wanna read anymore. Not because I think I'll be triggered by anything, but because I hate spoilers... I think I'll still enjoy the book, but I don't have the motivation for it anymore since I know how it ends. (I am also gaslighting myself and telling myself that I don't actually know the ending and that google is wrong, so it should be easy to convince me) Also let me know if this is where this post should go or if I should move it.

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14w

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Read at least 1 book in the Fall 2025 Readalong.

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