What I Got:

• This Song Is (Not) for You by Laura Nowlin
• The Ensemble by Aja Gabel
• The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King
• Heart Shaped Fire by P.W. Davies
• Take My Hand by P.W. Davies
• The Complete Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe (Signet Classics) by Edgar Allan Poe

What I Read:

• Taking On the Plastics Crisis by Hannah Testa
• Just Like You by Nick Hornby
• Feelings: A Story in Seasons by Manjit Thapp
• Blossoms and Bones: Drawing a Life Back Together by Kim Krans
• Fauna (ARC) by Christiane Vadnais and translated by Pablo Strauss
• This Poison Heart (ARC) by Kalynn Bayron
• “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Masque of the Red Death”, “Annabel Lee”, and “The Raven”(audio; reread) by Edgar Allan Poe and narrated by Geoff Castellucci
• Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Hello! I’m back! My unplanned hiatus from blogging and bookstagramming was mostly a product of burnout, but this month I am fueled by visiting my best friend in Maryland, Razz-Cranberry La Croix, laughter from John Mulaney’s live show, and Nick-Charlie cuteness from Netflix’s Heartstopper adaptation—so I’m ready to talk books!

Side note: Heartstopper is the best adaptation I’ve ever seen. Shoutout to my sister for bullying me into watching this show because it made my gay little heart shiiinnneee. Queer teens playing queer teens on screen? Yes, please, always and forever.

I’m going to try a different format for this post to see if it helps me organize my thoughts better. Because I participated in the Magical Readathon: Orilium Spring Equinox 2022  in April, I’m going to list the books and their prompts together before talking about them. Basically, I love lists, they help me organize my thoughts, and I need any help I can get to make my thoughts coherent.

For this month’s Magical Readathon, I chose to do the prompts for the Beast Master calling, which is sort of like a magical vet/zookeeper in the world created by G from Book Roast. It’s sort of like D&D but as a readathon; you create a character and play a somewhat interactive game with a bunch of other booklovers. There are quests and everything! Here’s the readathon info if you’re curious. Now, onto the books!

Calling: Beast Master

• Less than 100 pages (Elemental Studies: Basics of Air Dynamics) — Taking on the Plastics Crisis by Hannah Testa

I learned lots of useful and eye-opening information from this Pocket Change Collective book about how plastic in its many forms affects pretty much anything and everything. Like, there’s plastic everywhere—in the air, in your veins, in the ocean, in that bird who ate your plastic-infused French fry.

Every now and then, I need something like this essay to smack me back into being as environmentally conscious as I can be. I tend to become lax, especially in periods of burnout and poor mental health, and this type of informative essay offered the perfect jumpstart. Hannah Testa gives you the facts, but instead of leaving you feeling hopeless, Testa also gives you a call to action. Kind of like John Oliver does at the end of Last Week Tonight.

The ocean is super cool; I don’t want to let plastic ruin all the mysteries we still haven’t discovered. No one should feel comfortable with that.

Also, I discovered that “nurdles” is a word. Which is fantastic. (Even if actual nurdles aren’t so fantastic.)

• A quick read (Animal Studies: Ways of a Pegasus) — Feelings: A Story in Seasons by Manjit Thapp

This illustrated book creates a vibe more than a story. The artwork is very soft as it depicts the ways in which the seasons affect Manjit Thapp’s emotional wellbeing. We can all relate to that on some level!

I can certainly relate, especially now that the days are getting longer and the temperature warmer, leading to my annual realization that winter generally makes me feel depressed. Who knew, right? It’s new to me every year.

This book isn’t groundbreaking or deep or amazing, but it is beautiful. It feels like a breath of fresh air.

• Features romance (Alchemy: Potion of Infatuation) — Just Like You by Nick Hornby

As usual, I love Nick Hornby’s wit and dry humor. He has this weird ability to write about the awkward and mundane parts of life without losing my interest.  

The simple premise of this book is that a younger Black man and a slightly but significantly older white woman fall in love. The vote for Brexit is going on at the same time, so both characters must navigate the differing opinions their families and friends have about Brexit and their age-gap relationship.

I would’ve liked to know more about how Hornby prepared for writing from the POV of a Black character and the POV of a woman as a white man. Did he have Black and women beta readers? Is he actually qualified to comment on these issues from these POVs or just trying to capitalize on hot-button topics? Unfortunately, there is no author’s note so… Yeah. That sucks. Makes me take this book with a hearty sprinkling of salt. Like the salt shaker’s lid fell off and dumped a mound of sodium chloride all over the text.

Setting that aside, I like this brand of regular-people romance (i.e., no bells & whistles, just two people living two ordinary lives). Hornby writes about people who would normally seem uninteresting, but by taking us on a journey through their thoughts and emotions during an important moment in history, he makes them interesting. This is also the only fiction book I’ve read that involves Brexit as a backdrop, and it added a whole new dimension to the story. And honestly, without that addition, I’m not sure I would’ve found the book interesting enough. I would love to read more fiction having to do with Brexit.

• Features healers (Restoration: Cure Wounds) — Blossoms & Bones by Kim Krans

I’ve always loved the idea of storytelling as healing, and this is quite possibly the rawest example that I’ve come across. Kim Krans takes a break from regular life and stays at a retreat in order to kickstart the healing process after a difficult miscarriage. She vowed to draw something every day, and according to the author’s note, made very few edits before publishing them.

The art and story and feelings and pain and healing all become one big thing, and they all need each other; otherwise, the story would be incomplete. Recurring “characters” in the form of skeletons and dimes (borne from a play on the word “paradigm”/“pair of dimes”). She has conversations with her drawings about the story, about her past, and about the reader. It’s very meta and incredibly coherent for something with such an organic origin story.

• Inspired by mythology (Lore: Myths Most Known) — This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron *review based on an ARC

Going in, I only vaguely knew that This Poison Heart had something to do with mythology; it references the Medea story often, and I have to admit that I’m not super familiar with that one. (Something to do with killing her kids as revenge for something her husband did? Cannibalism, too, maybe? I’m still not sure.) I probably I missed some of the story’s nuance, but I still really enjoyed it.

Briseis has the mysterious ability to make plants grow and is discovering the depths of her immunity to poisonous plants. Then she inherits a home and apothecary business from her birth mother’s sister. She and her parents move to the small town, and classic small-town creepiness ensues—secret rooms and gardens, mysterious lineage, poisons and deaths, underground magic community, etc.

Delightfully, the town in this book has defunded their police and has a public safety office run by the community. It’s one of those books where queerness and Blackness are talked about when relevant, but aren’t the main topics. Both identities are generally just accepted by the people in the story.

The pacing in this book is super weird, but damn, that ending really pulled through! There was one character betrayal that I really didn’t see coming; it left me shook. I’m not sure if I like the random turn the cliffhanger takes, but there’s no denying it’s an interesting ending.

I expected this book to be a new fave, but it ended up just being a good book, which is perfectly fine. I’m not sure if I’m going to read the next book in the duology, but I’m certainly intrigued! Plus, I’m always down to read more diverse LGBTQ+ lit.

Extras

• Set in the future (Psionics & Divination: Clairsentience) — Fauna by Christiane Vadnais *review based on an ARC

This book was kind of disappointing. I mean, there had to be one, right? I enjoyed the rest of what I read this month.

I didn’t know much going into Fauna except that it is set in future and has to do with climate change. The story is told in little vignettes following certain characters who deal with extreme weather caused by general climate change. Natural disasters often accompany main plot points, like one character giving birth during a huge storm.

There’s also a parasite spreading, possibly through the water. This part of the plot confused me to no end. Some people die from the parasite. Some people evolve in weird ways, like sprouting feathers for flying or growing scales for swimming. I don’t mind so much that it isn’t fully explained, because a story told in vignettes naturally leaves some details out, but the parasite seemed to have no logic attached even though one of the main characters is a scientist studying this parasite.

Overall, I wasn’t a fan. Fauna is very unique and creative, but it left too much out for how many sci-fi elements and characters the author introduces.

• Short story(ies)/essay(s) (Spells & Incantations: Anti-Gravity Spell) — “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Masque of the Red Death”, “Annabel Lee”, and “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

When I discovered these narrations by Geoff Castellucci (a talented bass singer), I couldn’t help but reread these Poe stories and poems. The narrations are perfectly eerie and well-paced, including sound effects that add to the atmosphere. There’s nothing better than listening to someone with a deep voice read a creepy story…

Anyway, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is still my favorite Poe story. It will always freak me out, no matter how many times I read it. The way Poe writes about madness gets me every time. The narrator tries to convince the reader he’s not a madman in the creepiest ways, like explaining how he dismembered the body before hiding it. Or that he killed the man for a reason—because of his “vulture eye”—rather than just random madness. The narrator’s paranoia infuses the whole story.

“The Masque of the Red Death” is the most vibey of all Poe stories. It, too, is creepy, but in a more atmospheric than visceral or psychological way. Another top-tier macabre masterpiece.

“Annabel Lee” is a morbid love poem about a dead girl from “a kingdom by the sea.” To me, this reads like a childhood crush that he’s romanticized as an adult. But still, it’s a good Poe-m. (Get it? I’m hilarious and definitely the first person to ever make that joke…)

I’m not sure why, but I always find “The Raven” slightly amusing. Don’t get me wrong, this is a beautifully written and clever poem. But the idea of a raven just badgering this lovesick twit when he’s trying to pine after Lenore is funny to me.

• You think it’ll make you cry (Quest: Familiars) — Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas

Well, I was right. This book did make me cry. It’s partially because I read most of this during my comedown from the feelings I had watching Heartstopper, but also because the main character, Yadriel, is also a trans guy who loves his family and is hurt by their inability or refusal to treat him with the respect he deserves. And just like with Heartstopper, the cute and hopeful moments made me feel things just as much as the difficult and heartbreaking ones.

(And anyone who knows me well is aware that intense emotions freak me out, so it’s been a weird week for me.)

Yadriel is up against the traditionalism in the brujx and Latinx communities, so he performs a ritual to prove to his family that he is truly a brujo. Unfortunately, he accidentally summons the ghost of a murdered kid from his high school. At the same time, Yadriel’s cousin also goes missing, kicking off the murder mystery aspect of the story.

Oh, and Julian, the ghost, is super hot. So, of course, there’s a little romance between Yads and Julian. And it’s adorable.

I loved this book. The characters are lovable, the foreshadowing is wonderful, the language is beautiful. It’s an amazing piece of queer media by a trans, Latinx author. I can’t wait to read more by Aiden Thomas.

After many months of not feeling so great, April 2022 was like a walk through a sunny and verdant forest. Sure, there were some dark moments, some heavy foliage and logs to trip over, but it was an overall wonderful start to spring. Now, please excuse me while I go watch Heartstopper for the fifth time and bawl my eyes out… again.