Author: Stargrace

Just another gamer with too much time on her hands.

5/5 Star Review

My very first 5 start review of 2025 – woohoo! I loved this book. The author is an intellectual and it came across the pages in a way that wasn’t condescending or obnoxious and had a lot of things I could relate to, especially when he was talking about his children. The book was about a lot of food – it made me hungry (a good thing)! I’m so glad I decided to borrow it from the library. So far, the best read of the month.

5/5 stars

Another Day – Another Reading Journal Spread

There are a LOT of different ideas on reading journal spreads out there. When I want to relax, sometimes I just watch videos on YouTube that talk all about them. I wasn’t really happy with a few of the spreads I had put in my reading journal, but I also didn’t want to just start over in a new journal so I took a big piece of sticker paper, and started fresh. That’s where both of these spreads come into play.

On the left hand side is my reading Matrix. At the end of the year I’ll take the top 10 books (with the highest ratings) and then pit them against one another to figure out my #1 book of the year. So far I’ve only read a single book with a 5 star rating, we’ll see if that changes. I didn’t want to do monthly ‘favourites’ because what I read varies so much depending on my moods. It didn’t really seem fair, and wouldn’t be an accurate representation of my favourites.

On the right hand page is my alphabet reading challenge. That one is pretty self explanatory, I write down the titles of the books I read for each letter of the alphabet. I do have a few simple rules, like “they, all, them” do not count as words for this challenge. It’s just a silly little game, but I think it’s a lot of fun. While I don’t think I’ll actively go out and look for books that begin with those letters to try to complete it or anything, I do think it will be fun to see where it naturally leads.

A Year of Goober

One of the book challenges I’m doing this year is “A Year of Goober” from the book club that I belong to. The challenge is pretty simple, there’s two prompts for each month, and each one coincides with a flower. You can do either of the prompts, and at the end of the year you have a bootiful (beautiful, but Goober is a ghost, see?) bookuete (bouquete) of flowers. So far I’ve got January and February planned out, January is a Carnation “your favourite author” and I went with Holly Black, and then February is a violet, “continue a series” and I went with Iron Flame (I can’t wait to read the next book). On the left hand side I’m pasting the prompt along with the flower (I printed them out onto sticker paper) and on the right hand side I’m writing down the book and the author, but I think instead I might print out the covers and stick them there. This is my 2nd attempt at this layout, I had an earlier version that I just wasn’t loving at all. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when it’s completed at the end of the year!

2.5/5 Star Review: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

To be honest this book was not on my radar at all, but I had some free time and saw it was available at the library, so why not. The book does a great job of reminding you that humans are small and know very little about the universe. It’s important to question things and ask why – and to trust in science. I’ll be honest, a lot of this book went over my head, but I’m still glad I listened to it, and I still feel like I learned a bit about the universe, dark matter, and how we’re all joined. Not a great read, but it was OK. Just not really for me.

2.5/5 stars

2/5 Star Review: A Christmas Duet

A pretty brainless romance, which I was looking for. A city girl heads to the country for Christmas to escape her overwhelming life, meets a fellow musician, then her family shows up with all of their own issues, and even her ex-boyfriend shows up. In true Debbie Macomber style though it all works out in the end and everyone lives happily ever after. It’s basically a Hallmark movie in book format. Not a fantastic earth shattering read, but I wasn’t expecting it to be, so no big deal. Sometimes I just want to shut off my brain for a while.

2/5 stars

2/5 Star Review: White Fragility

I’m not sure what to think of this one. It’s written by a white woman and she comes across as having a white savior complex, where blacks need to be rescued. I wanted to educate myself but I was pretty frustrated during certain parts. It was an OK book and I’m glad I tried it, but I think this subject is better coming from someone else.

2/5 stars