• Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth

    5th March 2021
    Cover of Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

    Plain Bad Heroines by emily m. danforth, read by Xe Sands

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    AUDIOBOOK REVIEW

    Content warnings: death (including drowning), gore, insect (yellow jacket), hallucination, internet trolls, alcohol (recreational, abuse), fat-shaming, murder, manipulation, PTSD (maybe)

    I listened to the audiobook of Danforth’s Plain Bad Heroines narrated by Xe Sands. The narration itself was, without a doubt, 5 stars. I don’t think I would enjoy the book as much if not for Sands’ performance since her voice, always with a slight tremor and purposefully distorted in hallucinations as well as under curses, made this horror story feel creepier than it would have been on paper.

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  • Book Reviews,  Fiction

    Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers

    26th February 2021
    Cover of Record of a Spaceborn Few (Becky Chambers)

    Record of a Spaceborn Few (Wayfarers #3) by Becky Chambers

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    ‘I am seventy-nine years old. If I want dessert twice . . . I get dessert twice.’

    Tamsin

    Content warnings: catastrophic spaceship accident resulting in ~44k deaths, bodies, death of prominent character, equivalent of underage smoking of weed?, PTSD?

    When I read a few reviews stating that there is virtually no plot in this installment, I was excited that it must be very character-driven. Sadly, there were a bit too many characters, similar to The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (my review here) but with looser bonds. Since it took me a month to read the book, that could also be a reason why I failed to connect with any of the characters and felt that the plot dragged a little. That being said, I love the pureness of them all and also the philosophical questions Record of a Spaceborn Few decides to tackle.

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  • Book Tags,  Bookish

    Under the Tree Tag: Lucky Money Edition

    18th February 2021

    A long time ago, Morgan @ Morgan Is Reading Again tagged me to do Books Under the Tree tag (thank you!), which was originally created by Jessica and Christeena @ Game of Tomes. But growing up, I’ve never had a tree big enough to put presents under, I thought I’d put a little twist on the Christmas tag and make it about Lunar New Year.

    This is the second Lunar New Year that I missed celebrating with my family. The New Year celebration usually lasts a few days and we consider the fifteenth day, Lantern Festival, as the last day of Lunar New Year festival.

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  • Jan 2021 Wrap-up Banner
    Bookish,  Wrap-Ups

    January 2021 Wrap-Up

    8th February 2021

    Hey friends! I hope you all had a relatively good first month of 2021! Lately, I find myself unable to even format my book reviews and post them here on the blog, so I’ve been a bit scarce in the blogging world over the past two months or so. I genuinely want to put together a 2020 wrap-up, especially since I read a ton of amazing books I’d like to share with you, but thinking about writing a post sometimes freezes me up and I haven’t been able to completely get past that yet. I have a lot of fun stuff planned for this year that I hope I would able to bring myself to write about, too. Please stay tuned as I slowly find my way back to blogging again. In the meantime, thank you so much for sticking around and being awesome!

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  • ARCs,  Book Reviews,  Fiction

    The Project by Courtney Summers | ARC Review

    1st February 2021
    Cover of The Project (Courtney Summers)

    The Project by Courtney Summers

    Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.

    Content warnings: cult, gaslighting, manipulation, child abuse, abuse (cigarette burn, scalding, etc.), panic attacks, death of family members, suicide (jumper), vandalization, pregnancy, car accident, substance-induced psychosis, threatening, possible PTSD, infidelity

    The Project is a story about a cult, The Unity Project led by Lev Warren, and the unbreakable ties between sisters Lo (b. 1998) and Bea (b. ca. 1992) Denham.

    Lo has always dreamed of being a writer but is currently, in 2017, stuck working as an assistant for Paul Tindale at SVO, a magazine company. When the opportunity arises for her to dig into The Unity Project, a religious organization Lo believes to have taken Bea from her, she risks her own safety for a series of exclusive interviews with Lev. With Lo being facially scarred from a life-threatening car accident that killed both her parents in 2011, she is recognizable everywhere at The Project’s compounds as Bea’s little sister. But Lo is tired of everyone else knowing Bea when she hasn’t heard from her sister in a long time, and she is desperate to find out what is really going on at The Unity Project.

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