What I Got:

• Lumberjanes Volumes 1-5 by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Faith Hicks, Shannon Watters, and Carolyn Nowak (sorry if I left someone out!)
• Ultimate Spider-Man: Ultimate Collection Books 1-2 by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley
• Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
• Rebel by Marie Lu
• The Midwinter Witch by Molly Knox Ostertag

What I Read:

• Prodigy (re-read) by Marie Lu
• Champion (re-read) by Marie Lu
• Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory
• Lumberjanes, Volumes 1-3 by Noelle Stevenson, et al.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (re-read) by J.K. Rowling
• The Midwinter Witch by Molly Knox Ostertag
• Rebel by Marie Lu
• Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
• The Outsider by Stephen King
• Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
• Ultimate Spider-Man: Ultimate Collection Books 1-2 by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley
• I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi

So… that looks like a long list of books, but are we really surprised? First off, I’ve been stuck mostly at home with not much to do except read. Second, a lot of these are re-reads or graphic novels. And third, I participated in a readathon this month, just to spice things up!

My sister told me she was going to participate in the O.W.L.s Magical Readathon this year, and I decided to join in. Why the heck not! I chose Librarian and Trader of Magical Tomes as potential career paths (a.k.a. my dream jobs if I went to Hogwarts). They were so similar that it didn’t add much work to do both. Plus, this year, you could take “extra courses,” so I also did Animagus Training and Magical Shop Management. My sister and I had already planned to re-read the fourth Harry Potter book together this month, so this was just an added magical bonus!

After I finished Prodigy for my Legend series re-read, I picked up the final book in the trilogy, Champion, and got ready to study for those O.W.L.s! Re-reading this series was very emotional for me. I absolutely loved it the first time I read it, and though I noticed a lot of cliches this time around, I didn’t mind that much. Not gonna lie, the third book made me cry. Again. I’ll never get over how this trilogy ends… Day and June will forever be some of my favorite book characters, and even the whole plague storyline didn’t deter from reading them during an actual, literal pandemic. These are some of the best dystopian novels, in my opinion, and I recommend them to everybody so we can all love Day and June forever. (This book was for Charms.)

Next up were the first three volumes of Lumberjanes, but I only counted the first one for the readathon (Potions class). These are delightful middle-grade graphic novels about a group of “lady-types” who are at summer camp together. They face all sorts of weird magical creatures in the forest and are always getting up to shenanigans! All of the characters in these stories are lovable and flawed, and there’s nothing better than a book about friendship. However, I wasn’t a fan of the differing art styles in third volume. Each time a new one was introduced, it took me out of the story. Part of why I read some graphic novels is because I love both the story and the art, so that one was not as enjoyable for me. But it was still cute and wholesome like the rest!

During a Harry Potter-inspired readathon, I of course had to read an HP book! I am one of those weird people who can just pick up a random book in a series and re-read it without re-reading the entire series. So that’s what I did here! My sister and I were in the mood for a re-read this month, so we chose The Goblet of Fire as our sibling book club pick. It’s amazing how much we both remembered from the movie and the book, and also how many details we forgot. Like S.P.E.W. I totally forgot about Hermione’s house elves crusade! And that Dobby gives Harry the gillyweed, not Neville like in the movies. Why you gotta do Dobby so dirty like that, movies? It was mostly just fun to read this familiar story with each other. We did discuss the difficulties of loving a piece of media whose creator has turned out to be a not-so-great person, but because these books hold a lot of nostalgia and enjoyment for us, we decided that reading them again wouldn’t hurt anyone. We can accept the flaws of the series while loving it, which is something I recommend that everyone do with at least one thing in their lives. J.K. may have made a fool of herself, but this series still means a lot to a lot of people. (This book was for History of Magic.)

I read my Transfiguration book, The Midwinter Witch, in a cemetery after a rough day, and it was just what I needed. This is the third graphic novel in the Witch Boy series, and it was just as delightful as the first two. I love the message that it’s okay, even encouraged, to do something outside of the box. The characters mess up, but it’s often because they are being denied the opportunity to explore the unconventional facets of their identities. Celebrating differences and paving the way for others to be their true selves, despite people who put you down, is so important. Aster’s friends and his love for witchery balance out all of the negativity he gets for breaking society’s conventional rules.

And now, the real reason for my Legend re-read: Marie Lu released a fourth book last year! Rebel is about Daniel’s and Eden’s lives in Antarctica ten years after the events of the original trilogy. The parallels to the original story were a bit too on the nose, and there were many moments of pointless repetition, but I still enjoyed the story. Probably because I already love the characters. The closure that this last book gives for Daniel and June’s relationship and the question of who Eden becomes in the wake of a civil war was wonderful to have. I didn’t mind the open ending of the trilogy, but I also didn’t mind this extra book. Like I said above, these characters will always be favorites of mine, and no matter how cliche or less-than-ideally written they are, I will never say no to more stories about them. (This was for Defense Against the Dark Arts, which is actually super fitting now that I think about it…)

When I picked up my next book (for Ancient Runes), I was also met with a meh story. Unfortunately, this meh story didn’t include characters I already love, so I didn’t enjoy it as much. Don’t get me wrong, Every Heart a Doorway was a fun story and an interesting idea to follow, but it just wasn’t as good as all of the reviews made it seem. It was literally the last two pages that bummed me out so much. The ending was disappointing and didn’t seem to fit with the way the rest of the story went. I still enjoyed it, mostly for the character Kade (a boy who is so chivalrous and kind and lives in a room practically made out of books… a.k.a. the perfect character) and a few of the other characters. I went in kind of blind to this book, so I wasn’t expecting gruesome murders, but there they were! All in all, I don’t think I would read another book in this series unless Kade was the main character. Bummer!

Okay, now I am about to blow your mind. Are you ready? I enjoyed a Stephen King novel. What? Who am I? The Outsider was surprisingly compelling and unsurprisingly longwinded, but I don’t think the overly detailed writing was a detriment to the story this time. The only thing that bothered me about the details were how specific and gory they got when describing the young boy’s body. (Trigger warnings for child rape, graphic descriptions of violence/death, shootings, and suicide.) It reads almost like you’re watching a true crime documentary with a weird supernatural twist, which is probably why I liked it. I had to read this for class, and I was quite skeptical, because I disliked the other two King novels I’ve read (Pet Sematary and Cujo if you’re interested). This was definitely outside my comfort zone (hence why I chose it for Arithmancy class), but I ain’t mad that I read it!

The other two books I read for class this month I did not count for the readathon. Spoonbenders by Daryl Gregory was a completely random book I had never heard of that has become one of the best books I’ve read so far this year. It’s about a family of psychics who used to be famous but got debunked on national television, even though some of them actually have real psychic abilities. (Or do they? This question is left pretty open-ended.) Let me tell you, this was so fun to read. The dysfunctional family dynamics added so much color to the story, and you even get a little bit of history about the U.S. government’s use of “psychics” during the Cold War. I don’t always like books told from multiple perspectives, but when I do, they usually become some of my favorite books. This one is no exception! I cannot wait to re-read this in a few years and see if I catch any hints I missed.

The last book I will ever read for my undergraduate degree was Fun Home, a graphic autobiography I have read before, and I remember not liking it at all. I was so utterly confused by it. Gee, I wonder why… maybe it was because I had a concussion? That’s right, folks, I hated this book because it confused me because I had a concussion. Whoops. This time around was a whole different experience. There are so many details and interesting references that I totally did not understand the first time around. It’s amazing what a clear head can do for your reading experience. This is a difficult read at times, as it deals with topics like homophobia and suicide, but it tells the story in such a thought-provoking way that it’s still hard to put down once you start. An LGBT+ must-read.

Okay, onto a happier topic: Spidey! If you know me, you know that I love Spider-Man. I have a giant Spidey tattoo, for crying out loud. I decided to start my foray into superhero comics with the Ultimate series because it’s the one that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is based off of. This version of Spidey’s story was written to bring in millennial audiences, meaning that it’s a bit more up to date. Man, I love Spidey’s wit and Peter Parker’s awkwardness and both of their impulsive but good behaviors. He’s just a fifteen-year-old kid doing his best! The only thing I didn’t like were the fatphobic comments made toward Kingpin, which made me uncomfortable. He’s a villain, but don’t criticize his body! Criticize his lack of a moral compass and inability to empathize with anyone. Yeah, that sounds like way more of a flaw than having a certain body-type. Spidey has his flaws, like anyone, and I still love him, but I really hope he has learned by now that being fat is not an insult. He can do better!

And back to the sorta sad stuff… I read a book about the end of the world. Yeah, that’s right, I read an entire trilogy that has plagues as a major plot point PLUS a book about the end of the world. Am I doing quarantine wrong? Anyway, moving on from my potentially stupid reading decisions, I Hope You Get This Message by Farah Naz Rishi was a pretty good read! (Trigger warnings for self-harm, suicide, violence and homophobia.) Unfortunately, I didn’t know that this book about aliens threatening to destroy humanity in a week would also include descriptions of a suicide. I had to pause before I kept reading, because suicide is not a topic I can usually read about. But since this book had a good message so far, and I was interested in how it would turn out, I kept reading. The three main characters are teenagers who are all looking for something, even if they don’t leave home—a sister, a father, some money for their mom, a purpose, hope, love, etc. The end-of-the-world scenario in this story felt really different than the one we are going through now, so it was easy to disconnect from real life. (I’m not saying it’s the end of the world, but isn’t it, though?) The book makes it a point to show that small things matter, even when humanity might be ending. So maybe small things matter even during a pandemic, too. I don’t know, even though this book made me sad and anxious at times, it also somehow gave me hope. And hope is something I think we all need right now.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. Don’t forget to take care of yourself in whatever way you need to during this weird, weird time. Books have been helping me, so if books help you, too, I wish for all of the lovely books to be in your hands! If something else helps you, I wish for you to have an abundance of that, as well!