The Immortal King Rao

I had never heard of this one, had no idea what it was about, when I saw it as one of the free ARCs that the library sometimes receives, out on the break table as a first come, first served situation. The title intrigued me, so I looked up a quick blurb, and it caught…

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The Grief Keeper

In my (mostly failing but ever effortful) attempt to read the backlist books on my shelves at home between the myriad newer releases and library holds that just keep coming, I present this success! This was part of a used bookstore haul a while ago; the concept (which I feel like I have also read about…

Sorrowland

This is one of those books that I knew I wanted to read. Both of the previous books I've read by Solomon (An Unkindness of Ghosts and The Deep) have been phenomenal. But I also knew it was going to be pretty heavy, as all their books have been, and also this one in particular leaned into horror (according to…

The Startup Wife

Another Aspen Words Literary Prize 2022 Longlist read finished! This is my seventh of the sixteen and, as is a pattern with these Aspen Words books, I ended up being much more interested and invested in the story than I would have thought, based on the blurb. Which, honestly, is why I'm continuing with this reading…

Bewilderment

Continuing my slow, but hopefully steady, read through of the 2022 Aspen Words Literary Prize longlist, this is my third of the bunch. Powers has had a number of really popular releases over the past few years, but I have never really been moved to pick any of them up. The same was true of…

The Old Drift

This particular backlist title has been on my radar since it's publication a few years ago, but sort of as a backburner situation. Interestingly, I have no idea why I chose now to read it, as it's not like my TBR is suddenly shorter or anything. But someone checked it out at the library the…

The New Wilderness

Here we are. A couple months later, a little behind schedule of my goal of finishing before the shortlist was announced, but nevertheless better late than never: my final Aspen Words 2021 longlist read/review! I won't lie, this is the longlist book I was least interested in reading, so I saved it for last. I almost decided…

A Children’s Bible

My 7th book on the Aspen Words Literary Prize 2021 Longlist and this is one that was neither on my radar at all prior to this list nor one that I read anything about before picking it up (or, to be fair, starting the audio...the narrator for which has a particularly grating voice, in my…

Catherine House

My interest in the genre of dark academia, and in fact my knowledge of that as a sub-genre of its own in the first place, is totally due to @kiara.in.the.stacks. So, shout out to her! But for real, I am really feeling this dark academia vibe. I have read The Secret History, which was good…

Vox

There has definitely been a trend in recent literature for speculative stories about dystopian futures (especially in the US and especially for women). This isn’t really a surprise, I don’t think, considering some of the leadership we’re currently experiencing. And it definitely adds a realistically frightening edge to the speculative-ness of the stories. Obviously, Margaret…