Every Book, Ever*
*not actually every book, just the ones I remember reading. Also, only new ones I've read since I started this website, not all books I've ever read. I have a LOT of issues with focusing so every book read feels like a reason to celebrate. I read a lot of short stories online (especially horror) but they don't feel like they count, and neither do audiobooks so I will only count real, physical books here.
to read:
Nona the ninth (started it in may, still slogging my way through it...)
House of Leaves (I own a physical copy. should get around to it)
all of the morbillion (morbius million) x-men comics I just bought
2024
total books read: 12*
*excluding some I didn't find interesting enough to write about, such as 'A-Babies vs X-Babies' which is, literally, about babies fighting each other in a baby war.
January 2024
- Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow ★★★★★
SO good. started reading it in December, in a shitty hotel room, in the bathtub until 4 AM. just finished it. GOD this book was good. I'm still crying a bit. This is it. This is my favourite on this page, so far. It's really sad but it shines through, again and again, that people are good, and even if they don't know you very well, most people will want to help you, because that's just humanity. Normal people. Christ. Really good book.
February 2024
-Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir ★★★★☆
oooh! very good and very sad. There is no way around the sheer arrogance of what I am about to say, so avert your eyes, but-- I think I enjoyed this book a lot because it reads like something I would write. Okay, maybe without the fight scenes, which never really interest me in anything. But the lore was really interesting, the relationship between Gideon and Harrow is (obviously) just perfectly written and... yeah. I get why everyone likes this series. Will start reading the second book as soon as possible. I think it's a trilogy, but there are three books out, and another one coming..? which together makes more than three, I'm pretty sure. But. Well, I'll look it up once I finish reading the second book. They say that is where it gets really sad.
-Silence is Goldfish by Annabel Pitcher ★★☆☆☆
this book was dumb. I don't really know what else to say about it. a large plot point is the main character (a cis girl) getting called transphobic slurs by a classmate. The main character also just spends the whole book getting called names for being fat. Unpleasant to just read, like, 400 pages of a girl hating herself and being hated. it just doesn't end.
April 2024
-Mijn tante is een Grindewal by Anne Provoost ★★★☆☆
Good story, but the ending feels like it's written by a completely different person. Ends very abruptly too. Strange. The start and middle are good, though. It's mainly told from the perspective of a child (and later, a teenager) but the true 'main character' is her cousin/neighbour. It's interesting. That's probably why it's extra off-putting that it ends so badly.
May 2024
-Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir ★★★★☆
better than the first part of the series. Gets lost in sci-fi jargon and loses me on occasion. Has slightly too many characters. But all-together a solid story. The main character loves someone so much that when that person dies, she asks her friend to give her a lobotomy so she forgets the person. I get it
-Camino Wandering by Tara Marlow ★★★☆☆
this is a book mainly consisting of three middle-aged women on a hike together, complaining about the hike and how all of them have a terrible life at home. I felt very 'meh' throughout, and yet got very emotional near the end when the main character got proposed to. Damn it, I want these old, angry women to be happy.
August 2024
-Bad Dreams in the Night by Adam Ellis ★★★☆☆
This book is a beautiful hardcover with really high-quality, glossy pages. Unfortunately Adam Ellis has done way scarier comics in the past and... decided not to put them in this book, I guess, because none of these were really scary. Still a fun read though.
-Fifty Shames of Earl Grey by Fanny Merkin (Andrew Shaffer) ★★★★☆
This is your standard 'Fifty Shades of Grey' parody. But it's really funny. I bought it on iBooks when it was new (and iBooks was still called iBooks) and have read it many times since then. Apparently there are sequels too, which I didn't know about. Anyhow, this is a good book. Very rereadable.
September 2024
-Niet Jouw Girl by Annette Mierswa ★★☆☆☆
this book lives within a very specific subgenre of book where a teenage girl drinks and does drugs and hates her life and does dangerous things so she can feel something. In this particular one the main character, Kim, is a fucking menace. She gets sexually assaulted and her reaction to it is to do such a myriad of terrible things... including posting a nude picture of her friend to a school group chat, even though that girl didn't even do anything to her? Jesus christ. Anyhow I wouldn't particularly call this book good but it was really cheap at the store and I love shitty books for teenagers so I enjoyed it. There's a lot of misery but it has a nice ending. It's a bit overly preachy on one hand but on the other hand seems very cool with the underage drinking. which is pretty funny if I'm being honest.
November 2024
-Wolverine by Claremont & Miller: Deluxe Edition ★★★★☆
this is a comic book anthology (graphic novel? I have no clue what the terminology is) that includes Wolverine (1982) #1-4. I thought it was very good! I love how much of a cliché ‘brooding bad guy’ Wolverine is. My favourite part was when Storm met a woman who was an adrenaline junkie and it dazzled her so much that she, I guess, became a leather lesbian and shaved her hair into a mohawk? It was great. Lots of laughs at things that were probably meant to be taken seriously.
- X-Mannen Special by Claremont & Lee
this is a translated version of Claremont's 1991 X-Men run that was released in the Netherlands as 'X-Mannen Special' by Junior Press Strip. These vintage comics are delightfully obscure and yet surprisingly cheap so I bought the first eight volumes (with there being almost fifty in total). I'm VERY excited to own these and they look very good in my bookcase. I'm not sure how I'll review these yet but I thought I'd just mention them here for now and then make it up as I go. Each volume of X-mannen special contains 2-3 original X-Men comics.
- X-Mannen Special 1 ★★★★★
contains X-men 1991 #1 and #2. really solid start for the series with beautiful artwork. I am really loving this so far. Also, I think I'm enjoying it doubly because I'm reading it in Dutch. Gives the characters a whole other vibe that I really enjoy. In my headcanon Rogue speaks Mokums, for example. in volume 2, Crazy plot twist (that everyone else probably saw coming). Evil x-men! random mentions of the holocaust! danger room within a danger room within a danger room! Magneto keeps calling people sweetheart! Great book.
- X-Mannen Special 2 ★★★★★
ALSO really good. I've only finished the first two comics but I really like them. I like Wolverine's stupid basketball outfit and the fact that Moira MacTaggart saw her friends get into a car accident and was basically like 'I have too much on my mind right now, I'll let them die'. Dare I say iconic? Rogue might be my favourite character. And the art is just beautiful, too.
2023
total books read: 6
April 2023
read these:
- Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, ★★★★★
- Coraline by Neil Gaiman, ★★★★☆
- The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller ★★★★☆
I liked all of these... Lolita was beautifully written, so much so that I occasionally almost forgot the disgustingness of the topic, until it would be brought back with a vengeance. Coraline was good, though I knew the plot already since I've seen the movie a bunch of times. The Song of Achilles... I didn't think I'd like it at first but as I continued reading it just kept getting better. The ending was especially amazing!
May 2023
just one this time:
- Cyberboy by Tanja de Jonge★★★☆☆
I wouldn't call it a literary masterpiece or anything but I don't know, it kept me amused and it gave me an excuse to sit outside and read in the sun. The main character seemed very stupid though. He kept getting clues that his friend was a cyborg (spoilers. whatever. you're not going to read this book anyways) but only found it out near the end of the book.
October 2023
I was reading a Hitchcock Presents pocket on the train but I think I dropped it because it is no longer in my bag. whoops. well it was quite bad anyways. every story I read (and I was about halfway through) was about a different guy killing his wife. Thanks Hitchcock
November 2023
- The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor ★★★★☆
Read this on the overnight ferry when I couldn't sleep. I liked it! it was realistic yet still interesting to read about. Mattie was my favourite of the women. Kiswana being visited by her mother was a really interesting scene, and the bit about Cora Lee was delightfully uncomfortable. Thanks Gloria Naylor. RIP
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