July & August 2021: Monthly Wrap-Up & Blog Rebranding!

Hello, world! 🌎

Long time no see! The past two months have been… kind of silent over here on my blog. The main reason for that being that I was up to my neck in ~master’s thesis~ writing, editing, and presenting… and, well, didn’t really have time for much else. That being said, I am OFFICIALLY done school, ✨FOREVER!!! ✨

(I could not be more overjoyed about it.) Don’t get me wrong, I love learning. (It’s one of the reasons I love reading so much!) But the grad school work-your-butt-off-until-it-literally-falls-off culture? I could do without.

But it’s actually, totally ~fine~ because I’m DONE! I’m working now, which is crazy, but true. At my dream job no less and I’m loving it. So, I’m in a really good place right now.

Flower Crowns and Fearsome Things by Amanda Lovelace: ARC Book Review

Inspired by the Greek goddess Persephone, who is both the goddess of spring and the queen of the underworld, Lovelace’s newest poetry collection explores how we can all be both contradictorily soft and fierce at the same time, and what that means for the modern woman.

As I’ve said before in my previous reviews of her work, I feel as though Amanda Lovelace’s poetry just gets better and better with time. Her latest compilation is still a force to be reckoned with, and a welcome addition to her expanding repertoire of novels that tote women empowerment.

Olive by Emma Gannon: ARC Book Review

Olive and her three best friends have always done everything together. So, in her thirties, when all her friends are married with children (or at least trying for them), Olive can’t help feel like she’s being left behind. While her friends are preoccupied with managing their households, scheduling playdates, and the daunting process of IVF, Olive feels as though she lacks those maternal urges all her friends have.

After breaking up with her boyfriend of many years for that exact reason, Olive feels even more adrift than ever. And each other’s judgment over their different life choices has caused a rift between her once inseparable group of friends. So, when Olive is tasked with looking into the reasons why some young women choose to be child-free for an article at work, she can’t help but see herself in them, and is forced to reconcile the different path her life has taken compared to her friends’.

Catch Lili Too by Sophie Wittemore: Book Review

I got a ton of “Buffy” vibes while reading the premise of this novel, and that immediately piqued my interest. I was also super excited about the idea of an urban fantasy that included non-Western myths and legends, and very intrigued by the concept of a depressed, asexual siren.

Catch Lili Too is a paranormal thriller, and tells the story of Lili, an immortal siren, who gets roped into trying to catch a serial killer terrorizing Gamin, the town she’s passing through. Along the way she manages to find herself a group of comrades, including ghosts, necromancers, vampires and more.

The representation in this book is really great, with many LGBTQ+ characters and even a couple queer romances. I also really enjoyed the diversity of paranormal creatures that made an appearance in this novel. Some were based on myths and legends I had never even heard of before, which was cool to learn about while reading!

The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn: ARC Book Review

I binge-read this book so fast! It was addictively dark, and so twisted!

The Girls Are All So Nice Here tells the story of Ambrosia Wellington, alternating between timelines of “then” – her first semester away at college, leading up to the deep dark secret that’s been haunting her ever since – and “now” as she is forced to face the people who were there for the first time after years of trying to bury everything that had to do with that fateful night and everything that came after.

This book is a psychological thriller with dark academia vibes and classic “mean girls” – where the main character herself is one of the worst ones. Then, after meeting and hitting it off with the enigmatic and enticing Sloane “Sully” Sullivan, Amb finds herself is Sully’s web of cruel intentions, where her most devious desires have the space to bloom. Now, after trying to ignore her past behaviour for the better part of a decade, Amb is forced to once more come face to face with Sully – and everything they did together.