A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness & the rest of the All Souls Trilogy for the historian protagonist that explores a supernatural world riddled with old artifacts, powerful witches and immortal vampires, featuring time travel and a lot of romance. It’s also got a tv series which is fun, but as these things often do, gives no explanation or coherent plot like the books does. It’s been a while since I read this, and would love to reread it.
These Witches Don’t Burn by Isabel Sterling (full review) for the YA with fun, dramatic moments, a city of witches & their families, covens arguing and lots of lesbian/bi girls.
Uprooted by Naomi Novik (full review) for the fairytale vibes with wizard (more so than witches) who takes a girl from the village every ten years for mystical reasons, a fierce protagonist that never makes it boring as she creates hell for the wizard and great friendships. It’s more so on the fantasy side, but it has a lot of the village, dark forest and fairytale elements that I look for in the books I put on this list.
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman should be a book everyone has heard of, but among the angel, demon, antichrist and a coming apocalypse, there’s also the full title “The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch” and Agne’s many-great granddaughter Anathema (Practical Occultist and Professional Descendant) who really brings out the essence of this book; there’s a lot of chaos, including being hit by a car, but it all plays into this cosmic order in some way.
The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo (full review) for the breath-taking illustrations and short stories that is fairytale-inspired. It’s more fantasy than a lot others on this list, but at the same time truly delivers on its promise of “midnight tales and dangerous magic”.
Other Witchy Books on my TBR
A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik for its school of magically gifted where failure means certain death and you’re not allowed to leave. Also a grumpy loner of a protagonist who has a powerful dark magic that might be strong enough to beat the system, but not without its risks. The promise of dark avademia, magic and monsters, with a lot of bloodshed & slytherin vibes is truly alluring. BTW: since I wrote this post I’ve seen a lot of questions brought up around if this book has racist elements. Of course, I don’t feel qualified to discuss that further. The author has apologized for one of the things pointed out around using a racist stereotype of dreadlocks being dirty, but if it is as bad of a – well in best case it’s a mishap – as it seems, it truly is strange how it got through the editing process of such a famous author.
Enchantée by Gita Trelease for the Paris 1789 setting, smallpox, a witch going from petty theft to trying to rob Marie Antoinette to support her family.
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden for its Russian wilderness winter and arctic fairytale-inspired fantasy where the protagonist has special abilities like her mother, but her new stepmother forbids her from practicing and evil starts to seep in. Some focus on the conflict between christianity and older religions. A lot of trigger warnings!
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas for its gay trans boy that tries to prove himself as a brujo to his family by summoning a ghost, but then is stuck with the school’s former handsome bad-boy as he has unfinished business. If he’s not in love with this ghost by the end of it, I’m screeching.
Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron for the fantasy inspired by West African mythology with a non-magical protagonist born into a family of witchdoctors trying to defeat her powerful sister. Also the love interest is of course of the enemy family. It’s dark and has enough trigger warnings that I’ll give a reminder to search for them before reading it.
Books I disliked, but you might like
Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova for the ones who want a powerful latina bi protagonist who don’t want to be a witch (review). She is the most powerful bruja in a long time and also hates magic. Not to mention the responsibility put on her by her family. I didn’t finish the book because I thought the writing was lacking and nothing out of the ordinary, but she’s got an attitude that made me smile. It’s a story about a girl trying to save her family, but in a way that felt very ‘let’s go on an adventure’ and predictable.
When the Moon Was Ours by Anne-Marie McLemore for the trans mc, flowery young adult magical realism, also literary flowery with roses growing from skin (review). It’s another book I didn’t finish, but only because I’ve found out that I don’t match with the authors way of writing (after multiple attempts at other books), which I truly find sad as they use such interesting plots and cast of characters. I mean – the synopsis is so good! And it’s a romance between a Latina girl and Italian-Pakistani trans boy. It focuses on finding yourself, it’s vulnerable and the author is queer, latinx & nonbinary married to a trans man.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina vol. 1 by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa for the graphic novels lovers (review). I didn’t really like this at all as I felt the charm and interesting aspects to Sabrina the teenage witch was completely removed. Would much rather recommend the tv series, as it’s roughly the same story, but with more fun elements as well as dark ones. It’s definitely a teenage soap tv series, but an interesting one. I want to still read Season of the Witch by Sarah Rees Brennan, which is a Sabrian novel published last year, but I only have hopes for it because I like that author already. It might be that both of these things were published to create more interest around the tv series, which I find disappointing if they all tell the same story.
Honorary Mentions
Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl is the book series I look back on having read a long time ago, being like “it was good, but basic”, but if you’re looking for a quick read I wouldn’t be above rereading it.
Kiki’s Delivery Service, the ghibli movie, is something I wanted to watch for a long time, but finally did this summer. It’s so perfectly adorable & worth it!!
Literary Witches: A Celebration of Magical Women Writersby Taisia Kitaiskaia is a illustrated book on my TBR, more about the magic of literature than witches, but it’s supposed to draw connection between witches & visionary writers, which I’m just guessing means connection between treatment of visionary women (like writers) who tend towards feminism. If anything I want to own it for the gothic art. “Pick a shelf” has a really good review of this unusual book!
Sallot Leon is a thief, and a good one at that. But gender fluid Sal wants nothing more than to escape the drudgery of life as a highway robber and get closer to the upper-class—and the nobles who destroyed their home.
When Sal steals a flyer for an audition to become a member of The Left Hand—the Queen’s personal assassins, named after the rings she wears—Sal jumps at the chance to infiltrate the court and get revenge.
But the audition is a fight to the death filled with clever circus acrobats, lethal apothecaries, and vicious ex-soldiers. A childhood as a common criminal hardly prepared Sal for the trials. And as Sal succeeds in the competition, and wins the heart of Elise, an intriguing scribe at court, they start to dream of a new life and a different future, but one that Sal can have only if they survive.
My thoughts
Rating out of five: three stars (in doubt)
I very much feel like this is the queer & that way better version of Throne of Glass with its deadly auditions to become the Queen’s new assassin. What was a pleasant surprise was how the main character never was very vicious in their thought-process or tried to defend their actions, their reasoning behind taking lives were very business-like and unapologetic. It was a hard life, the would-be assassins knew partly what they were signing up for and people were going to have to die. The problem this brought with it was that Sallot wasn’t a very likeable main character, I always felt like I never got to see their whole reasoning or that it was just very shallow. They were smart enough to make it somewhat reasonable how they got out of deadly attacks, and without the smaller, cute and helpful moments with their servant Maud none of it would’ve worked towards the end. Otherwise the book is very built on cheesy, typical fantasy plotlines. The queer characters makes it better, especially Sallot using he, she and they pronouns based on how they present, but I would only recommend this book as a Throne of Glass alternative. The YA fantasy part of it was very obvious, in a not good way. I’ve since learned it was a debut, and I’m not very surprised as I felt it was half-finished.
The writing was very mediocre, especially I found myself struggling to care about the fight scenes and plotting scenes for traps, which I usually adore, because of the writing. There’s so much potential in the characters, the magic and them being masked, but it just doesn’t end up somewhere. Even though I’m really not a big Sarah J. Maas fan anymore, she does bring a certain fire to the motivations behind the characters, which was lacking here without anything to replace it with other than shallowness. If Sallot had been a true sociopath I would’ve nearly prefered that, as it would’ve brought an interesting element.
I read this book right after finishing “Ship of Smoke and Steel” by Sjango Wexler, which was extremely similar as far as the protagonist’s voice went. While that book was lacking in many of the same ways, except it handled the queer aspect a lot worse, that book built parts of a truly interesting world powered by magic. Here there were just no world-building except the knowledge that Sallot knew how their entire country had been destroyed and wanted revenge for it. It should not be a surprise when that’s not enough as a reader. But for anyone disliking this book for its protagonist being nothing special except gender-fluid; fuck off.
Witchy books I recommend and a couple I want to get to, along with a few popular ones I disliked. I’ve tried to keep the most fantasy-heavy books out of this list on purpose, and keep it more in the magical realism realm. Also, if you’ve got any recommendations – especially with queer witches – send them my way!
The Wicked Deepby Shea Ernshaw (full review) for a magical realism story about a small-town by the sea cursed by witches, the protagonist moving to the lighthouse on the island and uncovering the mysteries behind the magic.
Circe by Madeline Miller (full review) for the greek mythology fantasy set around a girl alienated because of her witchcraft and the great journey of self-discovery unlike much I’ve seen in other books. She’s truly going through the process of owning her powers and deciding what she wants in life while she’s in exile. Also greek gods & protecting yourself from pirates, of course.
The Strange & Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton (full review) for the peculiar magical realism travelling into the fairytale world while following stories of magic and destinies through generations of witches starting with a girl born with wings.
Witch Child & Sorceress by Celia Reesfor the child-friendly witchy book with a historical setting. Actually it was some of the first witchy books I really liked. It’s been a long time since I read them, so I’m not going to vouch for still considering them original enough now, but goodread friends seem to all agree with the child version of me that they’re good. I do think the first book is the best one, told through ‘lost’ journals.
The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney also for the kids, but more scary. It’s about this boy becoming an apprentice, which entails hunting after all kinds of supernatural creatures, including dark witches.As the series continues, we go from a boy getting into a cool, but dangerous job to starting to think about moral questions like ‘are all witches evil?’ as new characters are introduced. Still, this series really manages to incorporate just how terrifying some of the creatures are, becoming lost in the magic. Definitely anti-church in some ways that gives it more negative reviews than it should have. And while it has a lot of supernatural evil, it measures it up against the ‘human’ evil the apprentice & the mentor meet as well in their job. It gives you chills, but also makes you think – at least it did for me as a child.
Other witchy books on my TBR:
Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey for its bisexual love interest, magical witchy school and and promise of lots of blood, violence and other questionable things. The protagonist has zero magical skills, but tries to outweigh it by having good detective skills, a drinking problem and when all else fails – a witch sister to help (probably). It’s an urban fantasy/murder mystery standalone, and also contains several f/f relationships.
Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter for the protagonist being a secret witch tired of her patriarchal town’s bullshit, and helping a lesbian shapeshifter during a witchhunt. It’s a novella. I found it trough a list of anti-heroine book recommendations, so excited about finding out the reason for that.
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor for the fantasy set in Nigeria where the albino protagonist who recently moved from New York gets bullied, but through finding her magical gifts finds a friend-group and her people. Forming a coven, they start tracking child kidnappers.
Sea Witch by Sarah Henning for the small fishing town, mermaids, princes & a witch mourning a dead friend. It might be somewhat of a Ursula origin story.
Legendborn by Tracy Deonn for the King Arthur legends retold with a black girl as the main character. The death of her mother leads her to an early college program where she meets a witch. Well, it’s more of a fantasy so technically there’s this whole race of people called Legendborns that use magic, but they’re descendants of King Arthur & his knights – so in my head they’ll be witches. Also contains lots of queer kids, secret society politics and demons.
The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson for its rebellious feminist biracial main character who is marked as cursed from birth in a dystopian, puritanical society with major abuse of power. It’s a horror story of a fantasy, with promises of being gothic, dark and bloody, set in a secluded village with witches in the forbidden forest & lots of village politics. It’s also a debut novel from an author that seems truly cool.
Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw (same author as The Wicked Deep) for the haunted fairytale-like woods, a boy once lost in a snowstorm with no memories of how and a witch falling in love with him as she tries to uncover his secrets.
Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco for its sicilian twin witches – streghe – living among humans in the 1800s trying to avoid persecution, until one of them is murdered. A new release with a story of vengeance, sarcastic bad boy demon princes and dark magic.
Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft for a short story collection about witches that I’ve only seen praise about, with a diverse cast of characters. I want to read about all the queer witches.
Mooncakes by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu for the graphic novel about a Chinese-American teen witch who works at her queer grandmother’s bookshop selling spellbooks and investigating supernatural occurrences. Has a non-binary werewolf main character as well. I can’t wait to get my hands on this, I’m expecting a Kiki’s delivery service type of wholesome vibe, only more demons involved.
Books I disliked, but you might like
Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins for the teen drama at a witch & supernatural creatures reform school, complete with ancient secret societies and classmates being attacked. You get what you think you get, if in a very predictable package plot-wise and stereotypical characters (not in a bad way, but in a predictable one). It’s fun, the protagonist self-aware & fast-paced. Good for young teenagers looking for a light read.
Half bad by Sally Greenis included on this list only as an excuse to link to my old (like five year old) review ranting about how creepy the writing is. It’s a good example of a book being read and liked by people who doesn’t usually read about witches, just because it’s got enough cliches to be avoided by everyone else. There’s little magic, little back-story or any context clues, a lot of running around, a lot of whining about being half-black half-white* kind of witch making life difficult and a lot of angst and torture for some reason. It has an exciting ending. *Not to be confused with skin-color, the protagonist is white, and also describes the love interest what I considered creepily (and in rhymes), including noting her ‘honey’ skin. 16 year old me thought the racial undertones throughout the whole book was problematic, but I can’t remember enough to conclude anything and don’t want to put myself through reading it again.
The Price Guide to the Occult by Leslye Walton (full review), same author as Ava Lavender, for its witches living on an island where their magical abilities seem to fade with each generation. My problems came with not being able to know enough to buy into the setting of the island or connect with the cast of characters, I felt they lacked depth.
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel A. van der Kolk
Paper Girls vol. 1 – 6 by Brian K. Vaughan
The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller
Through the Woods by Emily Carroll
When I Arrived at the Castle by Emily Carroll
Added to TBR:
Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse (urban fantasy with anti-heroine)
Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (horror with mermaids, f/f)
Merchants of Doubt by Oreskes and Conway (science, climate change)
Enchantée by Gita Trelease (set in Paris 1789, historical, witches)
Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth, same as the author of “The Miseducation of Cameron Post” (horror, boarding all girls school, sapphic dark academia)
Toil & Trouble: 15 Tales of Women & Witchcraft (short stories, witches, queer characters)
Kingdom of Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco (young adult fantasy with witches)
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, same author as Mexican Gothic which I would like to read as well (horror with vampires, set in Mexico City)
Three things on my mind:
Maybe rewatching two seasons of Hannibal in two days are not what you should do when you’ve been sick (with a sinus infection, not corona, I’ve done two tests) the whole week and only just gotten good enough to walk out of the house for food, but it did feel worth it at the time. I’m going to have to reconnect with the outside world and actual people again now, so wish me luck there.
I have since starting writing this rejoined society and I wasn’t aware of how much I was missing (of course my friends but more specifically) older students and the motivation they bring by just existing and being passionate about their degree or certain physics fields. This semester I’ve found myself constantly questioning why I’m doing this and not just taking a year off, because the constant struggle between hospital visits, bad health and trying to complete my second year during a pandemic is tearing me down. I feel I’ve reached some kind of personal conclusion now, but I do think we need to remind each other than no matter what one person is going through right now they’re also going through a pandemic. It’s difficult to support one another when we’re not supposed to socialize outside of friendgroups, but I think it’s something we need to find creative solutions for fast.
Speaking of it; Corona has made a comeback here this week. I’m so deeply tired of it, as we all are of course. We’re again stuck in the middle of not knowing how bad this outbreak is right now before it’s been another ten days or so. Motivation is sinking among the student body, or at least my friends. I have a whole lot of hospital appointments for chronic illness this fall and I’m worried that they’re going to be postponed, but at the same time I’m passed the point of worry for much of this. I’ve lived in such a heightened state of awareness as a young person in the risk group that I don’t know how I’m going to react this time around if (at least partly) lockdown happens, but it will definitely be different, because it’s become our new normal to such a degree.
I’m having a bit of a hard time reading as I’m busy with studying (2nd year physics student) as well as ill at the moment (no worries, thankfully not corona, I’ve been tested twice). So it’s the perfect time to again read as many graphic novels that I could get my hands on!Here’s some of my other graphic novels reviews.
Through the Woods by Emily Carrol
As I begun reading I was sceptical because the illustrations were breath-taking from the start, giving all the dark fairytale vibes, but I didn’t know how much of a substance the plots would have. A few pages in it truly got much better, as the fairytale twists got mysterious, exciting and dark. It’s made up from several different “short stories”, some more red riding hood inspired and some that reminded me some of Coraline and some of the podcast The Magnus Archive. Reading this felt like playing a game where you know every decision is a bad one. I also immediately ordered the author’s other graphic novel «When I arrived at the castle»! 5/5 stars.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina vol. 1
Plus points for being dark, but that’s the only positive in my eyes. I was excited for this as I truly liked the new TV series made from Sabrina the teenage witch. But this graphic novel drains any personality Sabrina is known for out of the character. I get that setting up somewhat the same plot as the TV series does in multiple episodes is difficult in one volume, but it just isn’t done with any charm at all. I won’t be reading the rest of the series as I felt it has little potential. 2/5 stars.
Paper Girls vol. 1 & 2
First impression of volume 1 was that I liked the retro apocalyptic stranger things vibe featuring a teen girl squad. It didn’t really get further into the plot or explanation than unexplained aliens, but it was also a lot to set up. It’s about a group of girls out delivering newspapers when they get caught up in this mystery of disappearing people and frightening strangers hunting after them. 3/5 stars.
Volume 2 had a higher chance of keeping the suspense up without as much of the confusion, which made the time-travel, sci-fi aspects much more enjoyable as well as delving into an interesting cast. Not to forget how monster tardigrades was a thing I didn’t know I needed in my life before now. I yelped out loud from surprise and happiness – I can’t explain it either. It’s just a good mix of chaos & the unexpected. Like the looming, flying ships that came into the picture suddenly. The color scheme is also truly lovely.
If I would criticize something it’s the ‘feminism’ branding push that seems a bit ‘off’, not that I’ve looked further into reasons behind it. It’s a similar feeling that lingers as from the casual homophobia that makes an appearance in volume 1, as if that was something that just belongs with the retro vibes. It was called out by other characters, so I just mentally noted it down as strange for now and makes me second-guess the future dynamic of the friendgroup somewhat. 4/5 stars.
Heartstopper vol. 2 & 3 by Alice Oseman
Review of vol. 1! To sum up I really like the author’s writing in general and that it was a truly cute, important gay coming of age story. And I love the illustration style. And this is true for the second and third volume as well. My only critique is a somewhat big one; a lot doesn’t happen in each volume. It feels like the story told could’ve been cut down in some ways, but at the same time I realize it’s aimed at a younger audience for the most part and I’m so happy it just exists. 3/5 stars for both.
Just one post this time. I’m trying to manage my health & catching up to this semester’s workload … seeing as I’m 1/4 into the semester and was so behind bc of reasons outside my control, but I’m truly starting to catch up with my readings & weekly sheets of problems to work through.
Other books I’ve been reading:
One goal this year is to spend less money on books by using the library a lot more. I’ve figured out how to “order” books to my local one now and also which one’s they have semi-regularly in stock, so I just got the Heartstopper vol. 2 & 3 by Alice Oseman and I’m so excited, having just begun to read them.
Added to TBR:
This Is Where the World Ends by Amy Zhang (young adult): I truly can’t remember how this book got on my radar, it’s baffling, it just suddenly was on my TBR and I’ve lost all thoughts around why
The Strange Library by Haruki Murakami (magical realism): I’d never heard about this Murakami book before, seems promising.
The Legend of Korra Turf Wars Part One (graphic novel, lgbt f/f): from the creators of the Avatar Last Airbender spin-off about Korra, this continues where the animated tv series stops and hopefully will motivate me to actually finish the tv series.
Astrobiology: A Very Short Introduction by David C. Catling: I also am on physics/stem tiktok and someone recommended the oxford’s very short introduction series to people who want to get into something and Astrobiology is definitely one of those things I would really really want to know more about. It’s also like 160 pages.
Kant: A Very Short Introduction by Roger Scruton. I’m forced to take philosophy (science-related) as an obligatory class next semester and hopefully over the christmas I can read myself up, so I can actually focus on something else instead. I like diving into philosophy ocassionally, but not this “obligatory” aspect.
Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace by Ronald J. Deibert (nonfiction about tech and safety): either Edward Snowden recommended this book or I found it while reasearching more around one of the themes he talks about.
Three things on my mind:
We’re all struggling in this mid-corona university daily life, even though my friends in other cities are struggling with a lot more cases. Fortunately my city have barely any at the moment, meaning we’re starting to find an altered normal to get back to. But Thursday was a strange day. So many things went wrong this day that you’re just going to have to take my word for it, but let me explain that until dinner time I had been on campus for the first time in a while getting nothing done because anxiety, taken three annoying calls, half-hour bike ride to an important appointment that got cancelled, was nearly blown off the road with the bike as a storm was passing nearby, got lost on the small roads trying to get home through an unfamiliar, safer way. Oh, I forgot the part where a half-naked very nice man opened his curtains to find me tearing up my fingers trying to remove a baggage strap from my gears as I was running late and lending me his scissors. And then we’re back to the truly interesting part where three roommates found an unopened, old, 200 kg safe being given away and decided to get it. I sat there, truly exhausted and cold, as they discussed it. I had yet to eat anything but a piece of cake because I was supposed to have gotten home a long time ago. Still, I quickly grabbed something to eat and joined several long walks as it’s not every day old & new roommates bond together to get equipment to carry that safe up a staircase and home, through multiple busy roads. It got opened over the weekend, it wasn’t an easy task. It was empty in the end, but the adventure felt worth it. I love living where I do, a year later it is as exciting as ever, even if we also had a frying pan thrown against our very sturdy door yesterday. I’m suspecting the floor above us, and that we have to prepare for a more long-running war. We might have showed up at their door last week investigating the loud noises that had been increasing tenfold lately.
I’m finally committing to actually read the books of my small uni book club now that we’re not spending way too much time on Lolita, meaning I have to re-read “The Trial” by Kafka and read “Dune” by Frank Herbert. Yeah, I know I already should’ve read Dune as the fantasy geek that occassionally goes into sci-fi territory that I am.
I’m stressed. We’re all stressed. Go buy an more expensive or interesting coffee type than usual and watch the autumn leaves fall like raindrops from the trees if the wind is blowing. It is what I did today, as my hospital visits won’t get less stressful in the near future and I need to decompress afterwards. It’s gotten so difficult to divide what is free time and not as a student during corona, especially if you like me have hospital appoinments (or equivalent) randomly during the day that keep you from having a schedule that looks anything similar every week. I do need to learn to see this type of activity as of the same value (because it’s actually more valuable) as studying or schoolwork, especially as it’s more taxing. It truly isn’t that easy to be kind to oneself.
I’ve done this tag over two periods of time; taking two exams some time ago and trying to catch up a week’s work in a couple days. Since it was the perfect time for this procrastination this book tag that was too good to pass on. I can vouch on how I procrastinated on finishing the tag as well, love/hate that 90% done feeling. Also the graphics of the questions were so cute.
Nominate other bloggers whose procrastination preferences you’d like to know!
You DO NOT have to wait for a nomination to do this tag! Nominations are optional.
Cue me searching up what epistolary means. (It’s a novel written as a series of documents according to wiki). Truth is I rarely like romances and I rarely like epistolary novels so I don’t have a favourite epistolary romance book. (One of the reasons I really disliked Illuminae tbh).
I have read a small part of the great & strange House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, which I think of as more of a horror novel, but has surprisingly also been categorized as a love story by the author – I didn’t get to that part. Definitely would like to continue it someday.
Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuinston (full review) is the cutest enemies to lovers story ever feautyring one gay royal and one bisexual son of the US president.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (full review) is about the fabolous, dramatic life of a fictional movie star that feels so real I was constantly wanting to google details on her. Also has f/f romance and queer characters.
The Selection by Kiera Cass (full review) is just a classical YA story with a prince looking for a future princess through a reality show of sorts, but it has enough essence to it to be interesting and a quick & fun read.
My twitter (@esoffee); mostly book-related stuff and cute animals, I think.
Do any of us truly like twitter? I thought I did and then corona happened and the answer was no. Follow Hank Green, I guess?? He’s a good one. And read his new book A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor, it’s worth it.
Remember last week when all of Twitter was hacked by a single individual who could have used that power to tank the stock market or destabilize the entire world but instead they used it to steal less money than the average dentist makes in a year?
We need to deal with the reality that this hack, if orchestrated on November 3rd, and used to fake a political scandal, could have called into question the results of the US election. Twitter was criminally irresponsible here and no one is talking about it.
Before book blog there was book tumblr and it’s still up & going. I would take so many more book photos if I didn’t get physical book so much more rarely now (all these photos are old).
Zero Sum Game by S. L. Huang (full review) truly surprised me as I knew it was about an anti-heroine going in, but didn’t anticipate the high level of action plot and bloodbath mixed with math references and unique superpowers. How can you both like and dislike a main character that much at the same time??
I mean – most of them? If we want to add a part of “but also sucked”; I started reading the twilight series very young as they came out, like definitely younger than nine years old, because I remember it was before the last book was published. I truly enjoyed reading the first books, but by the last one me & my friends was just reading it together and laughing at it. It’s dear memories even so.
Of the ones I truly enjoyed that still has too much brainspace even though I read them a long time ago is “The foxhole court” and the rest of the series by Nora Sakavic.
I have a list of Mermaid & Siren Book Recommendations, where I found out I truly enjoyed the process of focusing more on reading about a specific fantasy/mythology creature and should make more different ones, but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Auto-Buy Authors was a good one that represents me & my fav authors.
Because the theme is bullet journaling this list of The Eleven Books I Never Seem to Finish (Part One) (and Part Two) fits perfectly as well. I think it’s awesome when people talk more about the books they struggle with going through as well, we’re not perfect and lose interest or concentration.
In the non-book-related sphere I really liked how to (not) do your first year at uni (physics major) turned out, even if it was truly a pain to write because the things I added here was things I was telling the new students arriving in real life as well, at the same time, and I wanted to get it as right and helpful as I could, while trying not to be preachy.
Any fantasy series by Brandon Sanderson, but especially “The Way of Kings”. I want to make a post of ‘here’s where to start with reading brandon sanderson’ included (not that you can’t find it online), but Mistborn is a good first book to start with as well. It got the epic-ness of multiple POV’s that Game of Thrones have, but in a more (not-medieval) sci-fi/fantasy and magical world and with a completely other feelings, but truly still brilliant.
A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green is a sequel so I won’t say much about it, but the way multiple POV’s was used here really warmed my heart and soul, it was so good.
I truly love this trope of enemies to lovers, but I’ve only now started its own goodreads shelf so I can answer just this question quicker. The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic and Red, White & Royal Blue (review here) is to great ones.
I truly love great books with great friends, a strong focus on platonic relationships gets me over romantic ones every time. Books like that is I Think I Am in Friend Love with You by Yumi Sakugawa (my review), Wilder Girls by Rory Power (my review), The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic (yes again, but it’s the best complicated friendgroup), Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson (my review). And not to forget The Secret History by Donna Tartt, the ultimate dark academia classic-loving friendgroup that goes too far and does bad shit together. Did make me look at manipulation in friendgroups in a different light afterwards, which is fun and terrifying.
Anyone who wants to is happily welcome to refer back to me and claim I tagged them, because I’ve procrastinated getting this done too long to take the extra step there. I think that fits (too much) with the theme.
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (classics, short story, horror)
Pedagogy of the oppressed by Paulo Freire (nonfiction, pedagogy, politics)
Chilling adventures of Sabrina vol. 1 by Aguirre-Sacasa and Hack (graphic novel)
The Little Friend by Donna Tartt: not that excited by this book synopsis or the lack of knowledge I’ve got of it even while being a big Tartt reader, but still – I got to give it a try
Lanny by Max Porter (magical realism, small-town)
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis: because my deep down on him, Donna Tartt and their time at Bennington College has interested me enough to actually read his book even though I do believe he’s a high grade idiot at his older days from the clips I’ve seen.
Three things on my mind:
I always know I’m going to be offline when starting a new semester, but this time a lot was thrown at me in a row. Do you ever get the feeling that if you knew beforehand how much you would have to go through in a short amount of time – you would just not be able to? I’m not so sure I want to be able to tell the future, is what I’m saying. Anyway, I’m leaving those two massive physics exams, then writing a majorly important letter of complaint bc of misdiagnosis (in hopes of an apology or at least that the doctor not make that mistake again) the last possible day before it would be out-dated like its own “statue of limitation” kind of thing. It was then followed by a week filled with every major hospital appointment at once (bc everything was postponed until now that corona is less of a problem here) and an abrupt total worsening of my autoimmune disease. Also during those three weeks I had signed up to welcome new students, so I went to a couple social gatherings, which made me even more tired, but also might have brought the break of normalcy to save my brain a little (well, a lot).
Ahh, a book blog this was supposed to be. Well, there’s been a lack of book blog posts, but it’s coming. Until then I would highly recommend writing some of Mary Oliver poetry on a sheet and hang it on the wall, reciting each one as many times you want until you feel comforted enough to sleep. My favourites recently has been “Wild Geese”, “I go down to the shore”, “An old story” and “Dogfish” (link here!).
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY WEAPONS! Why hadn’t I heard of this fanedit of the first hp movie that turns every wand into a gun along with more clever & fun additions to scenes? I had doubts, thinking it would be overwhelmingly much, but it’s just far enough between the altered scene that it’s just easter-egg kind of surprises to a movie you (hopefully) already love. (I realize after some research that I didn’t know about it until now because it came out a month ago … in which I was as mentioned prev. very offline.) Here’s more info.
Because I’m not going to pretend I can give advice, especially not as my circumstances will be vastly different as my first year was cut short because of corona, but now everyone is dealing with it from the start. Since the world is in widely different stages of having been through corona, this list is mostly unrelated to that.
I’ve made many “mistakes” this first year, but at some point you realize you just didn’t have the knowledge to make the better decisions at the time. But I have accomplished the things I was most worried about not being able to going into university, especially as a queer woman in a high-percetage male STEM program that is physics; to get a good group of friends. And we have reflected on and discussed our first year a lot. So here’s me summing up the conclusions we’ve arrived at for hopefully someone else to find some use of, or at the very least I will as I go into my second year.
1. Expect to do everything perfectly, already in the first semester you will achieve absolute balance
It just won’t happen. I’ve not talked to one person that’s got their whole life together and means it, you always feel lacking in one area or another. Think about what you need in your life to function, then what you would like to achieve and then whatever extra you could do to improve your life. You might have achieved really good grades in high school, but recognize that you need to find friends or another form of support network (or both) to be able to get through a whole uni programme. You might be neurodivergent or disabled or have mental health issues that you should dedicate time to get acommodation for or get a new doctor/hospital doctor/therapist/contact at disability office and figuring all that will take its toll and new coping strategies. New routines! Making food! It’s not as stressful if you go into it mentally prepared and not already overwhelmed.
What you can do; go into the first semester very aware of your priorities, observe how much time everything takes in a week, reconsider your plan & priorities the second semester. Understand it’s a learning process and about personal growth. Have compassion with yourself.
2. Change who you are to fit in or fit with an idea you have an uni student of X program
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. Because I and many others realize that we got the chance to reinvent ourselves going into uni. But the whole dark academia aesthetics reminds me that some first years come into physics ready to “fake it ‘til they make it” in shaping their life and style and persona and I would advice – no matter how much you love the idea of academia or any other aesthetic – to let that aesthetic/goal compliment you as a person instead of trying to show yourself off as some (WRONG and honestly toxic) idea of a physics student/professor. This goes for any area of study. Don’t change ur clothes, dress more modest in every setting, hide questioning of sexual orientation or gender, not ask dumb questions, pretend you’re more introverted or extroverted, change ‘not mainstream’ interests or shame people for anything like this just to fit into this perception of an aesthetic necessary for success. I’ve seen all of those happen this year. Most common one is to drink to feel less socially awkward; it’s not worth it! Do it because you want to, not feel pressured into it.
3. Hang on to only the first people you meet and not spend time with a wider array of people.
This particularly includes starting to date someone the first week/month and not attending any social gatherings. I’ve seen people do this and reappear three months into the year or more being like ‘oops I got a boyfriend’ and having to reintroduce themselves only to disappear again. Take into consideration how dependant you’re going to be on your partner (or bff really) for a while as it might be your only friend, and whether they’re also spending time with friends and creating a network or if you’re spending all free-time together. It’s okay to state those concerns out loud to someone before you two getting involved at all.
The new people I find easiest to talk to is a smaller friend-group that is trying to be inclusive because the flow of a conversation, teasing and topics of interests are already known. But where I come from people usually all move to the same place, as a friendgroup, and never learn to really include others that way because they don’t need to and it’s a sad thing because so many potential people you might love to talk to and you’re basically shutting them all out before they get a chance. If I hear one more ‘so hard to date’ I will punch them bc the problem is so obvious, they only know other people from back home.
What you can do; wait to date and state concerns or remember to spend time with possible new friends as well, maybe especially in a group with the potential partner if that’s natural. don’t hang on to one person, but try to decide to split up and find potential friends to introduce to each other or go make friends together.
4. Believe that you’re going to find your eternal friend group the first week.
Maybe you had a good group in high school, maybe you’re finally ready to discuss interesting things with like-minded, interesting people. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out as quickly as hoped.
What you can do; see it as a way to get to learn to speak with many different types of people, seeing who you vibe the best with. Become casual friends with a couple people only increases the chances of having a familiar face in a lecture or someone to ask for help when stuck or simply study side by side in a room.
5. To shame people hooking up. Or who dress less or more revealing than you. And to not keep an eye out for others experiencing unwanted sexual advances.
And of course most of all, should go without saying; never make unwanted advances when someone is saying no or clearly uncomfortable or too drunk. Actually, even if you think of yourself as a good person, get a very clear ‘yes’ to any sexual advances. If it’s one thing I’ve learned it is that you should never underestimate the trauma a person can already be carrying with them around sex (and then how they react in certain situaitons), and so thread carefully and be on the safe side.
It’s a time for people to start experimenting in all aspects of their identity, keep your judgement to yourself pls. I heard a guy make a critical comment on an older female student’s low neckline and I wanted both to kick him and it struck me how much it just emphasizes my idea of him as insecure, no matter if that is true. Don’t be that person.
6. Forget the due date for signing up for lab partners or times.
Ours was at 7 am the only free day we got! The first two weeks our schedule was insane because we didn’t have normal lectures yet, so my program the day before went from 8 am to 8 pm, I have to make dinner and am deeply tired getting to know roommates and go to sleep at 1 am, then remembering I need a lab partner for the day afterwards. I sent so many texts at 1:30 am, waking up at 6:30 to see if anyone had responded. A lab partner you know don’t matter that much, but it truly was good to have one I didn’t know, but knew I could at least be civil with. This year it was the same damn thing only we had to choose the people of our corona-friendly groups to be with the whole year, without warning. It was one stressful hour.
7. Feel like you need to participate in all aspects of student culture or be on your own. Or go the other way and think you need to focus too much on studies the first month, which is very busy.
Clubs! Interest groups! Sports! Volunteering! Each uni program’s society. I don’t know what your university offers, but you should after the first week! They’re all there to be a support and a place to meet people, spend the first month wisely by trying out which places of the university/college you feel like you are most comfortable and like. But also don’t feel like you need to drink, or that you need to drink to attend parties. It’s okay to be sober in any situation, do you think college drunk people notice your potential higher awkwardness? Mostly not. Personally, I went into the physics programme from the real world being considered someone who liked the occassional party, but not really. But I just don’t like that many people around anyway. The moment someone started talking about physics stuff at an after-party, I was in love with that aspect of the culture. If you find your people, you might find that the ‘parties’ and their conversation is a lot more interesting as well. Or not, and then you might want to do some daytime activities with a club/sports team. And again – you don’t need to drink.
8. Not look for one older, very active student’s name that you write down, (befriend on facebook) and is ready to ask if you got questions which needs to be answered quickly. Or elected student representative.
Often councellors are inaccessible in the beginning of the year and even through they’re supposed to be there every mail seem to go missing. Not to mention the professors. Usually a STEM class will have layers of people with responsibility and even knowing someone to ask who to turn to or where to look it up is truly valuable. Cue me trying to reschedule an obligatory lab time for a Germany trip and not realizing there’s one certain person resposible for all the labs among the many names of ‘lab assistants’. I had time, but if say you’re ill and can’t join – especially in corona times – have that name and a plan ready.
What you can also do: Generally familiarize yourself with what to do if ill or not able to attend obligatory work and the consequences. You think you won’t need it and suddenly you got a fever. Or just need motivation to get your hungover self out of bed and get to that 8 am thing.
9. Feel like you don’t belong in certain rooms.
I have a strange background (school-wise), making me feel like I definitely do not fit in with all these smart people I’m surrounded with. You just have to be uncomfortable sometimes, of course that’s a long way away from unsafe. Looking back there’s certain people I’ve met & gotten help from and actually courses I’ve switched out because I went into those rooms; I once joined a group of guys arguing loudly in a room only to find out that they were discussing how awful matrix calculations are by hand are with older students and I joined in after some truly shy thirty minutes. I joined a party the first day where I wanted to leave the first five minutes, near panic, but a girl took my hand bascially and introduced me – making me take inspiration from that the rest of the year. After a few weeks two older girls, separately, noted that I was the only other girl in the room (kind of like a break-room, but at 1 am and filled with older students, it’s fun & weird) and if that bothered me – at that point I’d gotten enough familiar faces that I was surprised it didn’t. (Like obviously in a working for gender equality kind of way, but not in a personal anxiety level way hahha.)
What you can do; fake a bit of courage if necessary, stay in a room for ten-fifteen minutes before fleeing, don’t do anything that’s actually unsafe, but not let anxiety/self-confidence hold you back. Only you know what you want, only you know where you belong and not let anyone tell you otherwise.
10. Not explore early on what modules/classes you want to take, even if two seem very similar
Here the older student advisor comes into good use. I briefly mentioned how I changed one of my courses the first week, it was a difficult, but good decision. There’s always the ones that take too many classes or have already taken some in high school (an offer I never got??). You don’t need to know what you want to do or which special field you like the first year, but perhaps ask anyone in your major what they would’ve done differently. My physics friends mostly agree on how we should have had one year of pure maths before then going into a physics bachelor course, because it would’ve gone pretty seamlessly at my particular university, but we didn’t know about that possibility. It’s still not something I would recommend randomly, but if you do really care about getting good in a programme, the A4 solution given might not be the best way for everyone. Or it might be a good reason behind the set-up, but now you’ll know.
11. Not go to lectures
This is straight off the press (tongue) of my math major roommate who was ahead of all of us even as first years; “my first advice to new students would be to go to lectures, even if I barely did.” I had a laugh, because if someone was way worse than me to show up; it was him. Give it a good two months’ worth of trying. Even if the lecturer is terrible, you can bond over that with other students and find out a strategy to create some kind of plan together. I didn’t attend lectures at all after the first few times in two courses; first semester’s intro programming course because it was truly annoying to sit through (but I should’ve stayed even if doing something completely different, just to pick up on possible exam questions) and second semester’s wave & fluid mechanics. The second one I had learned my lesson, but I had a weekly appointment I had to go to and it was the only day I could – let’s just say I recently retook the exam and it went better this time :)))
I hope this was useful to someone, it was at the very least useful for me to think through new students arriving! Stay safe in the corona season we are suffering through. Think about the people in the risk groups (like me) that have to be super careful, and will suffer greatly for you not participating in that work of being careful. Wish you the best of luck and please feel free to add something!
I don’t know why I’m doing this either, it was a 2 am idea I might still want to reverse if that helps. Have this fun (or not) thing while I’m hopefully studying for after-summer exams and please comment honestly on if I shouldn’t have posted this. In chronological order from oldest to newest.
that’s it, kind of. i had so much fun spending time with new friends, working hard and spending so much time trying to understand concepts, occassionally writing this book blog with updates. my home-situation living with 15 other people, but in a more fancy apartment and each having our own space, turned from a scary decision into something very interesting. I found two of my best friends in the two math and electrical engineer students living with me. We became a trio of sorts; sometimes cooking together, watching the engineer do smart shit while trying to guess what the fancy circuit boards were, everyone cursing at our computer code (different levels, to be fair) while drinking a beer, staying inside during the weekends for movie nights, all of us already being too familiar with insomnia and stress. If anything I truly realized how much I’m always in the middle of them and enjoyed that; on everything from cooking-knowledge to whether an abstract or practical smart person and the scale of how social you are. definitely also in the middle of the more unusual scales of “how likely are you to drunkenly show off your soldering skills?” and “how likely are you to resteal a shopping cart for a good cause (like cheering up your extremely-stressed-with-school friend that looked forward to motorize it)?” then corona happened sadly and we return to regularly scheduled programming aka back on the internet ranting ❤
Next post is based on a similar post based on two people finding each over staying up doing their obligatory reading for literature classes and I was like … oh I actually had this very similar thing happen in real life & also why make everything romantic?
A bonus one from pre-uni, showing you that my doubts in myself did not mysteriously appear during university. For the record, I’ve learned so much this first year, that just doesn’t quite come through here.
Also, if you need a new zoom background for the new semester, this one of a larger than average black hole has been my go-to lately (along with an actual photo of my dorm just weird-looking enough to confuse people when I was away);
I also have this one to-go for more depressing times like 8 am (it’s the bleakest picture I have of my home pre-uni basically):
This one is to show some slight self-awareness as I sit down with a cup of tea and give life-advice to my friends like they should listen to me (which you should know by now is not true at all):
And finally the zoom background I’m excited to use next semester (from debbie-sketch on tumblr, check it out for other hogwart house dorms):
aquapages 