Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! Hope this week has treated you well.
Well…things have been…put into perspective this week. I’m now only a few days away from moving into my college dorm, so most of this week has been preparing for that—physically and mentally. I’ve got most of my stuff packed up in boxes and bags in the next room. It feels so strange that the day’s finally here, but it was bound to come eventually. Wish me luck, everybody.
Reading-wise, though, I had some great reads! All of my books were in the 3-4 star range, and I enjoyed them all. This was my last library visit before college, so that was bittersweet, so I’ll probably end up with a mix of Kindle library books and re-reads for this week, especially since I’ll be moving. I finished draft 1 of the WIP I wrote for camp NaNoWriMo this year! It’s a little on the shorter side (~250 pages), but it’s a first draft, so I’m proud of what I’ve got.
Other than that, I dyed my hair green (as seen in my new pfp…face reveal, I guess?), played guitar, drew a little, watched What We Do in the Shadows and rewatched The Shape of Water (my all-time favorite movie…many tears were shed), and started packing for college. Soon…
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.
It’s been another quiet week, and college is looming closer and closer still…don’t wanna think about that…I haven’t been busy, though, so that’s always nice. I’ve had a lot of time to read and draw, so that’s always good to be able to collect my thoughts like that. It’s been rather hot, though, so that’s…not ideal.
I finished up Camp NaNoWriMo last Sunday night, and I got to 45,000 words! I’ve been continuing with the first draft of this WIP ever since, and it’s at around 52,000 words right now, and I’d say it’s getting pretty close to being finished! Whew…
I wasn’t able to go to the library last week, so I ended up trawling the Kindle library for books to read last week. I was in a major fantasy mood this week for no particular reason, so that’s what I ended up reading. It was a hit-or-miss batch, but there were a couple of great books I discovered! (I also unintentionally read a bunch of autumnal/wintry books…in 80+ degree weather) I got a promising batch from the library this week too.
Other than that, I’ve just been playing guitar, continuing with What We Do in the Shadows, rewatching Severance, and finally getting around to Ms. Marvel (it’s one of my favorite marvel comics, so you can definitely expect a review of the show soon!), and seeing Nope in theaters (my first Jordan Peele movie—loved all the detail and the creature design!!). My other cat, Anakin, also celebrates his 15th birthday today, so everybody say happy birthday to our little crotchety old man 💗
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! Hope this week has treated you well.
It’s been a fairly uneventful week on my end; other than tagging along with my mom to run some errands, I haven’t left the house much this week. I’ve been trying to exercise a bit more—and I have, a little bit—but most of my days have been spent reading on the couch. Not complaining in the slightest. I was gonna go hiking, but after some storms, there was apparently a flash flood AND snow (???) at the place we were going to go, so…nope.
Reading-wise, I’ve had another prolific reading week. Most of it’s been in the 2-3 star range, but by the end of the week, I’d read something incredibly powerful but that made me feel rather sad (Man o’ War), and a sudden 5-star read that made me cry, but…in a good way? (The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects—the short comic “The Magician and the Snake” was the tearjerker in question). I didn’t have a chance to go to the library, so I’ll be trawling the Kindle library for books to read this week.
And now, Camp NaNoWriMo is almost done! I’m about 97% of the way to my goal, and I’ll finish it up tonight!! This year’s Camp was all about feeling my way through—the story, the website, and everything else—and I think it’s gone relatively well!
Other than that, I’ve just been drawing, playing guitar, watching the new episodes of What We Do in the Shadows, and giving one of my cats an extra chicken treat for her birthday. Hobbes turned 6 on Monday.
Jeez, it’s still so hard to believe that 2021 is almost over. It doesn’t feel like it should be over, but really…good riddance. As of now, there were good parts, but the burnout from online school, precalc, taking the SAT, and everything else in this mess deserves to go in the trash with 2020.
Okay, maybe I went too negative there. But this year did sort of suck. The first half, at least.
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
As a whole, I’d say November’s been alright. The pinkish-purple part of my hair has faded to this cool silvery color, and I’m liking it a lot.
NaNoWriMo has been a major part of this month, and it was a wild ride! There were times that I felt, in the words of Colin Robinson, “like I [had] the power of a thousand cowboys running through my veins,” but there were major slogs as well. But through it all, I managed to reach my word count and finish up the draft of that particular WIP! Looking at it now, it’s fairly short (only around 150 pages), but I’m more comfortable with it at a novella length like that. I feel like anything else that I could put in there would be filler.
And this is the last year of NaNoWriMo that I’ll be doing in the Young Writer’s Program…by the time next year comes around, I’ll be doing the full 50,000…
Other than NaNo, November has felt…strangely slow. I guess it’s the calm before the storm, since I have a big project coming up for my AP Gov class very soon [screams into the void], but it’s been an alright month; I finished up season 3 of What We Do in the Shadows (I’m sorry WHAT WERE THOSE LAST TWO EPISODES), saw Soccer Mommy live, drew more frequently, and listened to the abundance of new music that came out! Snail Mail, Spiritualized, Radiohead…life is good, folks. Life is good. Plus, Aurora’s End finally arriving brought so much joy into my life, and I’ve been gushing about it ever since.
It’s been strange, though…we’ve had almost no snow this fall here in Colorado; by now, we’re usually having a little bit of snow almost every week, but since October, we’ve seen…maybe only three or four snows? And out of all of them, only one of them accumulated, and even then, it melted the next day, and it was barely an inch. It better snow come Christmastime. It better. I’m not much of a cold weather person, but you just can’t have Christmas without snow.
READING AND BLOGGING:
Counting my re-read of Aurora’s End, I read 21 books this month! Pretty good, all things considering. Also, I’m counting the fact that I’ve only re-read Aurora’s End once as a step in the right direction.
great album! this is one of my favorite songs from it, but also a song that I can’t listen to frequently…tugs at the heartstrings
NEW SPIRITUALIZED NEXT FEBRUARY THIS IS NOT A DRILL
we are blessed by a truly FANTASTIC Snail Mail album!!
KID A MNESIA gave me an excuse to finally listen to Amnesiac…great stuff!
I’ve listened to this an alarming number of times since August but I haven’t fit it into any of my wrap-ups, so
historian was a pretty fantastic album!
this came on my shuffle the other day and I forgot how AMAZING it was
DID I FOLLOW THROUGH ON MY NOVEMBER GOALS?
Read at least 20 books: 21, counting the Aurora’s End re-read!
Enjoy Thanksgiving Break: good, AP Gov homework notwithstanding.
Keep the progress on my current WIP: the draft is finished!!
DECEMBER GOALS:
Read 20 books
Survive that AP Gov project [heavy breathing]
End 2021 on a good note!
Today’s song:
I know I’ve already posted once today and put in a different song, but since I didn’t have time to post yesterday, I figured I’d put in an extra song. love this one
That’s it for this month in blogging! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you all well.
It’s been a good start to November, I’d say. My reading week was a little slow, but I got some promising books from the library, so I’m confident that it’ll pick up soon.
The most important thing about this week, though, is the start of NaNoWriMo! I’m still in the Young Writer’s program right now, but this’ll be my last year…[sniffles] I’m shooting for 45,000 words this year, and somehow, I’ve managed to get in my 1,500+ words in every day this week! Knock on wood that I’ll be able to keep up the pace for the whole month…[aggressively knocks on the table]
It’s also been a fantastic week for music, if I do say so myself! First off, we got a new Spiritualized single, and he confirmed that a new album is on the way!! For me, it’s the best music he’s released in years, and I’m so excited to hear everything else!! We got new Snail Mail and some reissued Radiohead BOTH on Friday, and both of them are fantastic! I’m especially happy about Snail Mail—expect an album review soonish! (If Nano lets me…)
Other than that, I’ve just been drawing, watching a few more episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender (very slow progress, oops…), finishing and puzzling over season 3 of What We Do in the Shadows (I’m sorry WHAT were those last two episodes??), seeing Soccer Mommy live (she was amazing! The crowd…wasn’t.), and eating leftover Halloween candy. Also, I’m seeing Last Night in SoHo this afternoon, and I’m excited for it! My brother said it was even better than Baby Driver, which is really saying something…
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.
I wanted this week to be a relaxing one, and I’m glad to say that I mostly succeeded! My school had a four-day weekend this week, so I had lots of time to catch up on sleep and get some much needed rest.
After that week-and-a-half slump, I had some FANTASTIC reads this week! I’ve only read book 1, but I can already say that I’m hooked on the Shades of Magic series, and it was bittersweet to end the Skyhunter duology. 😭 I also resumed one of my unfinished drafts (FINALLY), and I managed to get out 1,000 words last night!
Other than that, I’ve been doing lots of drawing, volunteering at the library, finishing What If? and getting through more of What We Do in the Shadows, and dyeing my hair! My hair is now blue on top, and then it fades to purple and pink at the ends!! The appointment for my hair was long though, so I brought along Steelstriker…and then had to try and hold it together after I got to a gut-wrenching scene right as it was time to rinse my hair out 😵💫
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you all well.
Our Bloody Pearl, though I liked it, gave me false hope that my reading slump would end last week…it ended up stretching through to the end of this week, but the last book I read was fantastic, so I’m considering the slump broken. I got my preorder of Steelstriker in the mail, as well as some fantastic-looking library books, so I think I’ll have a good streak this week!
It’s definitely been a bit of a busy week this week–finishing up school stuff, visiting a college a few hours away, and going to homecoming. I’m also dyeing my hair soon, but since my hair’s so long now, we split the appointment in two, so I’m currently blonde. It’s a lot of fun though.
Other than that, I’ve just been making my way through What If? and What We Do in the Shadows, procrastinating on writing, and rearranging my bookshelf based on the addition of one (1) book. It’s a delicate balance.
And it’s finally SPOOKY SEASON! I just helped my parents put up all the Halloween decorations…
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.
Another solid week! I’ve started a few projects in school, but they’re all going smoothly. I’m definitely proud of myself for where I am in the semester!
Reading-wise, I haven’t been able to stop by the library lately, so I’ve just been dredging the Kindle library for what’s available (and trying to find Latinx and bisexual books for September), which has yielded a few decent reads, but also some fantastic ones! I’m re-reading The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea for my school’s book club as well.
Also, my middle school (and current) dreams came true on Thursday night–I got to go to a St. Vincent concert!! It was such a phenomenal show–even the songs of hers that I didn’t like as much (read: MASSEDUCTION) were performed so well. Thank you, Annie Clark. 🎸
Other than that, I’ve just been doodling aliens, looking back through my unfinished drafts for writing inspiration, playing Minecraft, and catching up on What We Do in the Shadows and the new season of Sex Education. Oh, and Snail Mail’s back!! And her new album is coming in November!! AAH!
Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.
I’d say it’s been a pretty fantastic week! Things are definitely looking up…I just wish that I could travel back a few months and tell my January-May self that everything would turn out okay in math after all.
Reading-wise, I got a great haul from the library! There was only one book that didn’t do it for me, and I enjoyed the rest. I couldn’t visit the library this week because it happened to be on the same day that I took my senior pictures (which were also lots of fun!!), so I’ll probably just mooch off the Kindle library this week. (And maybe re-read The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea…SHH I know it’ll be two re-reads in less than a month BUT IT’S FOR BOOK CLUB I SWEAR)
Writing’s been great too – I FINISHED MY SECOND DRAFT OF MY SCI-FI WIP!! It ended up at about 105,000 words and just under 400 pages! I’ll let it sit for a few months before I go ahead and edit it again, but I’m pretty proud of myself. Two drafts. Good for you, self.
Problem is, now I don’t know what to write now…I have at least three unfinished drafts of other projects and dozens more unwritten story ideas…
now look where my hand was
Other than that, I’ve just been getting my drawing inspiration back, eating ice cream, and watching more What We Do in the Shadows. Also, I saw Spoon live on Tuesday night!! Such a fantastic show, Spoon is an amazing live band
Oh, and I also had the experience of seeing a spider descend from the ceiling of my car while I was driving to school at 6:50 am…needless to say, that woke me up.
I’m in between library hauls and books I bought for a short trip, so I found this one on my Kindle library. It had been on my TBR for a while, and I immediately checked it out when I saw that it was available! And overall? The Fell of Dark wasn’t perfect, but man, it was so much fun.
August is fed up with his small town of Fulton Heights for more reasons than one. There’s the usual trapped feeling of it all, the urge to head somewhere else as soon as he graduates high school…but it’s also a hotspot for vampires.
All August wants to do is pass algebra and get into art school in a few years. But when a charming vampire arrives at his school with a cryptic omen, he’s thrown into a centuries-long conflict between vampires, vampire-hunters, and other supernatural forces that may cost him his life. August may now mean the difference between a peaceful world and one ruled by vampires – but will he learn how to stop this cataclysm in time?
it’s an endless cycle: I find a vampire book, and I pepper the review with What We Do in the Shadows GIFs, and so on
I kind of wish I’d read this closer to Halloween, but I feel like I always say that with any kind of paranormal book that I read in any month other than October. But here we are in August, and I still had so much fun with The Fell of Dark! Not without its flaws, but such a wild ride filled with vampires and the undead.
The Fell of Dark falls on more of the humorous/campy side of paranormal books, and that’s not a complaint from me in the slightest. There’s all sorts of things for fans of the genre to love – you’ve got vampires, witches, angels, dark magic, and so much more. Add in some classic teenage angst and awkward first love, and you’ve got this book. (And plus – anything where a resurrected/vampire Rasputin shows up already has my attention. There’s never a dull moment as soon as he shows up. I blame Hellboy for this principle.) And to make things even better, it’s unapologetically queer! August, our protagonist, is gay, and we have a pansexual love interest and several lesbian side characters! There’s some casual POC rep as well (the two aforementioned lesbian side characters are Latina and Asian, respectively), which I loved as well.
As far as the characters go, they tended to be on the over-exaggerated side, but I still loved a fair amount of them. August himself wasn’t terribly likable – he tended to be a little self-centered and constantly yelling “bUT wHAt aBouT mE?” at everybody else, but part of it’s…understandable, strangely. I should probably cut him some slack, given everything that happens to him throughout the book, but he still wasn’t the most understanding or reflective person. And Jude…Jude was the classic “brooding and seductive bad boy vampire who wears all black and smokes cigarettes constantly” character, BUT IT TOTALLY WORKED. He was probably my favorite – he was just such a fun character, and plus, for once said classic brooding vampire ISN’T STRAIGHT! DOES IT GET ANY BETTER THAN THAT? A lot of the characters in The Fell of Dark seemed to poke some light fun at some vampire book cliches and characters, which I wholeheartedly enjoyed.
Most of the time, I despise love triangles with every cell of my being, and…I have mixed feelings about the one in this book. I’m glad that August didn’t end up with Jude or Gunnar, but…it’s still weird both ways? It’s awesome that we have a mlm love triangle, but…both love interests are WAY older than him (what with them both being vampires), and August just…goes with it? I get it, they both seem like they would be reasonably cute, but that’s still veeeeeeeeery weird. Weirder still, Jude and Gunnar are each other’s ex-boyfriends, which makes it…all the more complicated, so there’s that. But August doesn’t end up with either of them, which…I can live with that. So that was one of the weirder love triangles I’ve read in a book.
As for the worldbuilding/paranormal aspects, I also have mixed feelings, but I also liked most of it. Everything about Fulton Heights’ culture and procedures surrounding vampires was very well developed, as well as the politics of all the different secret societies (both of vampires and vampire hunters). However, when it came to the final battle, it felt like Roehrig bit off a little more than he could chew. All of the paranormal elements that I mentioned before came to an explosive finale, but at that point, there were a few too many elements to keep up with, and all of them seemed to resolve themselves a little too quickly. I found myself skimming that final battle a bit, but it felt like there were way too many elements all shoved into the last few chapters. It’s like when you get a Build-a-Bear and the person working there fills it with a little too much stuffing, and it looks like it’s going to break a few seams when you get it back, but it’s still nice and soft. (Okay, that was a really drawn-out metaphor, but it made a little bit of sense, right? )
All in all, a vampire novel that delivered loads of supernatural fun, but may have gone a little too far about just how much to riff off and add in. 3.75 stars, rounded up to 4!
The Fell of Dark is a standalone, but Caleb Roehrig is also the author of several other novels, including Death Prefers Blondes, White Rabbit, and Last Seen Leaving.
Today’s song:
That’s it for this week’s Book Review Tuesday! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!
![Snail Mail - Thinning [4K 60FPS] (live @ Brooklyn Bazaar 1/26/18) GIF | Gfycat](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DefiantBlissfulGiraffe-size_restricted.gif)
![Utopia (Book, 1997) [WorldCat.org]](https://coverart.oclc.org/ImageWebSvc/oclc/+-+03497528_140.jpg?SearchOrder=+-+OT,OS,TN,GO,FA)
The Bookish Mutant 