I think I can just claim Becky Chambers as one of my favorite authors now. "To Be Taught" was great, "Wayfinder #1" excellent and fun, this book: friend-shaped, moving, adorable, and amazing!
I love the themes and messages Becky includes in her books like found family, friendship, acceptance, being loved, having a reason for being, not NEEDING a reason and to just be, climate change, hope in humanity's goodness, being kind for kindness's sake, enjoying the small things and taking time to be in the moment.
Thank you Becky Chambers for your excellent writing! This book was so good and moving I'm going to recommend it to everyone! <3

Whew! Very intense book. Only two characters but the writing makes you feel about as claustrophobic, crazy, and suspicious as the MC Gyre. Reminded me of The Descent. More of a thriller and a page turner than a true horror, but still a lot of fun to read and really hard to put down!

A fun little story that remined me of A Marvellous Light read earlier this year. M/M relationships, Victorian settings, one person is rich with a manor house, one of them knows magic and is helping save the other one, etc. I was going to say this one is spicier, but actually, Marvellous Light had some spicier scenes! This one definitely plays on the height difference and Lord Crane is a very confident, dominating horn dog. I understand he was exiled to China for many many years, but sometimes the habits or language he picked up weren't written in as smoothly and just made me think of fanfiction written by weebs who are like "Oh yeah, my character is from Japan and will just suddenly shout 'Baka!' or 'Nani??', LOL". Nowhere near that bad, just what came to my mind.

Anyway, it really was a cute and fun book to read and I've already got book two on hold!

Ah, takes me back to the early 2000s. Boy did I love this anime/manga <3
Still do!
I remember hearing there was a sequel short story written a few years ago and our library just got in this Viz translated copy, so I'm glad I got to read it!

L is still the best most adorable, despicable frog.

3.75 stars. If you like Junji Ito, then I'm sure you'll enjoy these short stories as well!

Another collection of Junji Ito's short, horror comics, this one was a lot of his earlier work. Some of them felt dated, but most of them were fun to read.

A very fun horror book for, I would say, ages 15+. It's got a little bit of everything. Ghosts ("there are no ghosts in Harrow"), huge house, family inheritance and bitter resentments,

Spoiler

a Lovecraftian being, wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, unreliable narrator.

and some really well-fleshed out characters and an adorable romance. A little bit Haunting of Hill House and a little bit Death Note . And, as the author's note says, inspired by The Great God Pan .

Why Death Note?

Spoiler

The whole "I planned this from the beginning and then made myself forget." was SO Kira. It was all according to keikaku.

The formula of orphan ostracized with weird talent + finding long lost family/inheritance + large, lonely, spooky manor house + remaining family/staff unhealthy but learned to live with curse/ghosts/unusualness + orphan's quirk saves the day = works really well even if it's overdone because V.E. Schwab is an excellent writer that makes all her books fun to read and atmospheric with engaging characters (I guess that was the weak point in this book, but it was still great)!

I enjoyed the first book better, but I am very happy that this was two books long. This one seemed to get a little drawn out towards the middle? Might have just been me at the time though. Either way, a great two books and a fun retelling of Rumpelstiltskin.

You don't stop being on the queer spectrum when you become "old"!
A wonderful graphic novel of an older woman who just wants to live her life her way while everyone else in her life seems to want to tell her what to do or what is best for her.