Bogdan truly has just raised the bar for how much I love my beloved side characters. I liked him well enough in the first book but wasn’t expecting anything to come of it and he’s turned into genuinely one of my favourite characters in the series and then just this line: “It is very easy to bully Bogdan: you just tell him you need his help.” 🥰😊

Full disclosure I knew I wasn’t really going to make it through this book without having a sob over something but it’s still caught me a bit off guard when it’s happened

what’s the most specific or absurd reason you’ve dnfed a book??

mine is that the author used “rizz” it was awful

so this is a not-so-subtle nod to my CR but also something i've been thinking about in general for a while, and noticing in some of the books i've been reading. i don't know why but i've noticed a certain trend in books i read in which the MC is meant to be an underdog and it's going to be a "started from the bottom" type story, and that is the fact that author's seem to be losing the entire point of an underdog story, which is that at some point the MC needs to actually start winning.

i understand that the point is that they start awful and eventually get better at whatever it is they're supposed to be doing, but there's a fine line between having them face adversity and just reading page after page of them being metaphorically (and sometimes literally) ground into the dirt. just bad thing after bad thing keeps happening to them (ergo - A Little Life effect) and not only do they not seem to be taking any wins, it has genuinely no effect on the story other than to add drama. it doesn't cause character development, it doesn't push the plot along, it doesn't even really tell us more about the world. most of the time this ends in the MC having an "i need to lock in" moment where they suddenly start improving.

honestly i just think this is lazy writing. we as the reader are supposed to connect with and root for the MC and if i'm reading chapter after chapter of them losing or being humiliated or falling behind the reading experience is no longer fun or interesting to me. it's boring and repetitive and frustrating because it feels like the story is making no progress. for instance, i am 52% of the way through my CR. i should not be HALFWAY through a >500 page book and the MC is still as scared and helpless as she was on page one.

i don't really have any sort of question here, though i would be interested to know if any of you have noticed the same thing (especially within fantasy books). really i just wanted to rant lol

Here goes nothing! I've wanted to read this all year and I'm finally diving in. I'm honestly kinda scared.

Anyone else bad at giving well loved books a high rating even if you didn't like it as much as you thought you would? I will talk about how much I disliked a book and then look back at my goodreads rating and realize I gave it like a 4. I'm so bad at this!

Rereading bc it’s Carmilla season in my heart even if it’s still like 80 in CA

Banned book week [Oct 5 - 11]

Year by year, the ALA collects list of top ten challenged books to spread the word about censorship in libraries and schools.

The top ten most challenged books in 2024 include:

1. All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

2. Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe

3. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

5. Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

6. Looking for Alaska by John Green

7. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

8. Crank by Ellen Hopkins

9. Sold by Patricia McCormick

10. Flamer by Mike Curato

You can also find 100 most challenged books of past decades in their website.

Fight censorship by donating to OIF and supporting libraries.

The ALA encourages to discover ways to get involved and use their free graphics to raise awareness about the harms of censorship.

You can learn about the history of the event, find free medias and donate by checking out their website.

Link: ALA

Second time I gave this book a read and missed the thrilling rush I feel when reading. Genuinely don’t get this feeling from any other book I read!

If you haven’t read Vicious yet please do yourself a favor and give it a chance! One of the best if not the best book I’ve ever read :)

Listening to this book as an audiobook was a great decision, the narrator is wonderful! I’m especially a fan of his sarcasm 😂😂

please let this book be good as it sounds