When We Were Orphans || Kazuo Ishiguro ★★★★★ Started: 24.05.2025 Finished: 30.05.2025

January 2025 reads!

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi || S.A. Chakraborty ★★★★☆ Started reading: 01.01.2025 Finished reading: 07.01.2025 This was a lot more fun than I thought it would be! I can't wait to see what the sequel has in store for us!

All the Lovers in the Night || Mieko Kawakami ★★★☆☆ Started: 28.12.2024 Finished: 18.01.2025 Hmmm, given how popular Kawakami is, I expected more from this book… not that it was bad, per se, just that it wasn't particularly remarkable or even memorable. Maybe I should have tried "Breast and Eggs" first

Anxious People || Frederik Backman ★★★★★ Started: 24.01.2025 Finished: 30.01.2025 Buddy read Trust Frederik Backman to make you cry with his heartwarming novels about found family.

The Will of the Many || James Islington ★★★★★ Started: 25.12.2024 Finished: 31.01.2025 Favourite read of January 2025 ♥ Where do I even begin with this incredible book? I loved the worldbuilding, I loved the characters, I loved the writing - it could not have been much better, and I had some pretty high expectations going in. James Islington managed to surpass them all. Safe to say I'm impatiently waiting for "Strength of the Few"!

Emissa and Vis. Still thinking about them

HI HI HI I LOVE YOUR ART SO MUCH HIIIIIIIII

ANY AEQUA DOODLE!! because i love her so bad and also again i just want to say that i saw your art and it made my day and i am losing my mind i am so happy thank you for existing

Aah thank you so much!! I LOVEEEEEE Aequa so much! I would love to draw her more and I've been wanting to design different outfits for the different festivals and events we see in the book. Thank you so much for requesting her bc she deserves so much love aaaaaah I know there's a lot more going in in the story and she's not the biggest character ever but I think she's so interesting. I like to imagine her as trying very hard to achieve and surpass the standards set before her, but trying to find how she can do it her way. She's a mix of confidence in her skill but also doubtful. She's got every reason to be suspicious, but stays true. I just love how even though she has a smaller role, you get so much of a sense of who she is. I hope we see more of her next book! P.S. the colors might be wonky bc of my ipad. like no matter what i do the colors always turn out soooo different when it comes from there raah

A Certain Hunger || Chelsea G. Summers ★★★★☆ Started: 21.12.2024 Finished: 28.12.2024 Food critic Dorothy Daniels loves what she does. Discerning, meticulous, and very, very smart, Dorothy’s clear mastery of the culinary arts make it likely that she could, on any given night, whip up a more inspired dish than any one of the chefs she writes about. Dorothy loves sex as much as she loves food, and while she has struggled to find a long-term partner that can keep up with her, she makes the best of her single life, frequently traveling from Manhattan to Italy for a taste of both. But there is something within Dorothy that’s different from everyone else, and having suppressed it long enough, she starts to embrace what makes Dorothy uniquely, terrifyingly herself. Recounting her life from a seemingly idyllic farm-to-table childhood, the heights of her career, to the moment she plunges an ice pick into a man's neck on Fire Island, Dorothy Daniels show us what happens when a woman finally embraces her superiority. A satire of early foodieism, a critique of how gender is defined, and a showcase of virtuoso storytelling, Chelsea G. Summers’s A Certain Hunger introduces us to the food world’s most charming psychopath and an exciting new voice in fiction.

Do you lay bread on your tongue and think of me [...] do you swallow it like a sacrament, do you still get down on your knees?

Sophie Mackintosh, from 'Cursed Bread'

The Penelopiad || Margaret Atwood ★★★★★ Started: 28.07.2024 Finished: 29.07.2024 In Homer's account in The Odyssey, Penelope—wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy—is portrayed as the quintessential faithful wife, her story a salutary lesson through the ages. Left alone for twenty years when Odysseus goes off to fight in the Trojan War after the abduction of Helen, Penelope manages, in the face of scandalous rumors, to maintain the kingdom of Ithaca, bring up her wayward son, and keep over a hundred suitors at bay, simultaneously. When Odysseus finally comes home after enduring hardships, overcoming monsters, and sleeping with goddesses, he kills her suitors and—curiously—twelve of her maids. In a splendid contemporary twist to the ancient story, Margaret Atwood has chosen to give the telling of it to Penelope and to her twelve hanged maids, asking: "What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to?" In Atwood's dazzling, playful retelling, the story becomes as wise and compassionate as it is haunting, and as wildly entertaining as it is disturbing. With wit and verve, drawing on the story-telling and poetic talent for which she herself is renowned, she gives Penelope new life and reality—and sets out to provide an answer to an ancient mystery. What a singularly brilliant exploration of Penelope, as she sees herself and as she is in turn seen by the twelve hanged maids. Atwood hasn't contented herself with depicting Penelope as the singular archetype of the faithful wife, but rather sought to illuminate the woman behind the myth. The writing, of course, is beyond reproach, and the approach to Penelope and the maidens as deities of their own matriarchal cult was a real highlight. And at only about two hundred pages, "The Penelopiad" is the very definition of "small but mighty" - I read it in a day and have been thinking about it ever since.

[2023|46] Clytemnestra (2023) written by Costanza Casati

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter || Brandon Sanderson ★★★★★ Started: 15.02.2025 Finished: 23.02.2025 Yumi comes from a land of gardens, meditation, and spirits, while Painter lives in a world of darkness, technology, and nightmares. When their lives suddenly become intertwined in strange ways, can they put aside their differences and work together to uncover the mysteries of their situation and save each other’s communities from certain disaster? The second one of Sanderson's secret projects that I read (after Tress of the Emerald Sea, another five star read), and Yumi is just as good, if not better - the narration is similarly humorus, the world is completely different yet still whimsical and meticulously thought out, and the characters - simply lovable - you can't help but root for Yumi and Painter from start to finish. The action does take some time to truly pick up the pace, but the payoff is absolutely worth it!

I must admit I am charmed by these little GR reading challenge bookmarks, I just wish the categories included lesser known books, and not just the current TikTok darlings (looking at the Valentines Day challenge with eligible books such as Fourth Wing and the Dark Romance of The Hour)