Category: GoodReads

December 2025 Wrap-Up

A lot of books made their way to me this month, as I tried to round out the year. I picked up Throne of Glass by Sara J. Maas because it is constantly suggested to me, over and over again. On BookTok, on Facebook, on Twitter. I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I had avoided it so far because I had a feeling that it just wasn’t for me, but I wanted to validate that feeling so that I wasn’t simply judging what might be a good book, on feeling.

Nope. I was right. This is not a book for me. It was awkward and difficult to read the first few pages, the story didn’t connect, I felt like we (the reader) was tossed into a book that was part way completed with no context. I feel good about my decision to leave this one in the DNF pile.

Along those same lines, a free book called ‘Dragon his Heels’ came to my TBR pile, and since I am a fan of romance, I figured why not.

Another DNF from me. There were some personal triggers within the first few pages that I was just not willing to see past. I’m sure this book is good for someone, it’s just not for me.

Two amazing reads for the month were ‘When Among Crows’ which is a trilogy that I hope to continue, and ‘Piranesi’ which is a stand alone novella. Piranesi in specific really caught me off guard, and I found it fascinating, I really enjoyed it (it was also a library read, yay). Automatic Noodle also came highly recommended by mutuals, and it was on sale so I picked that up (another Novella, I don’t imagine this one will take me too long to read). For Christmas I received the Art of Witch Hat Atelier, which is just absolutely gorgeous. I spent the day just lost in the images, it was so inspirational. I love the details. I did not make much progress on the Emily Wilde book, but that is not the fault of the book, I simply wasn’t in the mood this month. I hope to continue it and finish it off in January, but if not, that’s OK too.

Happy reading!

November 2025 Wrap-Up

November was a pretty good month as far as reading went, and it tends to be that way as we approach the end of the year and I look for ways to relax and ‘get back to my roots’ as it were. I managed to complete 5 books this month, though some were very long reads that I had been working through for quite some time. I will do a more in-depth look at each of these books and they’ll be post dated to the day that I completed them on.

The best read of the month was discovering Witch Hat Atelier. This is a manga, and I dove into it head first – reading a few chapters for the first volume, and then promptly buying a box set of the physical books to begin my new collection. The manga does currently go to volume 13, but I couldn’t find an english box set for the volumes after 6, yet. I hope they release it in the future.

I am having a difficult time getting through Primal of Blood and Bone even though I devoured the first 6 books in the series. I’ll talk about this in depth once I complete the book but it’s taking a back seat right now so I have no idea when that might be. Maybe December, if I give it a push. I’m about half way through it at the time of this post.

I can’t believe we’re almost to the end of 2025! That means new goals starting for 2026, and I’m pretty excited about it.

October 2025 Wrap Up

Another month passes where there wasn’t all that much reading going on – well, not exactly true, but looking at my stats, I only completed one book. Still, I did manage to get some reading done each day, even if it wasn’t much. What I tend to do is head to bed with my kobo for a few pages each night, instead of bringing my phone. That way I don’t spend the night scrolling. I do often fall asleep while reading, but that’s not a big deal.

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls was a fantastic choice for my October read, and I’ve got some great books by friends on the go right now, including Midwinter’s Heart, and The First Sin. I’m hoping to finish those up in November, but it will depend on how real life is going. Look here for reviews on all of these reads in the future!

4/5 Star Review: Witchcraft for Wayward Girls

This book by Grady Hendrix came recommended to me by a good friend, and I’m so glad that I decided to pick it up even though it’s not my usual genre of choice. This book was absolutely brutal and graphic – but also well written. I think if people who read it couldn’t relate to the book, they might have a difficult time seeing it as ‘horror’. It was moving in a way that I can’t really put into words, and the author took some obvious pains to learn their subject. It really showed (I know this all sounds quite cryptic, but I don’t want to give away the plot of the book). I did feel that there were some ‘over the top’ moments, but it didn’t feel like it was ‘too much’ considering the subject. It was a fantastic read.

4/5 stars

September 2025 Wrap Up

It feels like I never read as much as I want to these days, but I did get through a few books in September, and started some new ones. I picked up Strange House when it was on sale from Kobo, this book started out on YouTube and was originally in Japanese, but has been translated. I’ll make sure to post the details about each book when I do the reviews, but coming as no surprise – This Inevitable Ruin, book 7 in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. 5 stars. Absolutely. It was a heavy read, but so well done.

I’ve re-started Onyx Storm a few times now, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as the other books in the series that I have read, but I’m glad I finished it. I am hoping to get back to making more time for reading soon, but the next few weeks are incredibly busy and don’t leave me with a lot of free time. We’ll just have to see how it goes.

3/5 Star Review – Strange Houses

This book by Uketsu was a YouTube sensation a few years ago, and a friend suggested I read it, so I did. The translation to English makes it a bit awkward. It was not my favourite genre, but it was interesting to see where it went. I think I was expecting it to be a more interesting story, but I found it pretty tame, with a lot of build up for nothing. The telling of the story was the most interesting part, and then once you knew the details the story lost interest (at least for me). I probably will not read any more of the series though I do really want to read their other book, Strange Pictures.

3/5 stars

5/5 Star Review: The Last Hour Between Worlds, by Melissa Caruso

I’ve read Melissa Caruso before, and I am familiar with her style even though it was a fantasy series, so I was pretty sure I would enjoy this one. Zero regrets. I loved the world building, and the characters. I loved how messed up each echo got the further they fell. It was a unique (to me) setting, with a pretty unique world of Hounds, and Cats. The main character was a new mother, and the God characters were amazing. I’m not sure if I’ll continue with the series right away, but I will eventually stumble back to it (there’s just so many other books to read right now).

5/5 Stars

24 in 2024 Reading Challenge – Completed

It’s not quite the end of the year yet, but I managed to finish my reading goal: 24 books in 2024. I read some incredible books and I don’t plan on stopping there, I’ll continue to read and see how many more I can add to the list before 2025.

Some of my absolute favourites include The Saint of Steel series by T. Kingfisher (so happy I found this author, I love many of her books, and read a lot of them this year), and The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. I was happy to see a fair amount of diversity in my readings, and while I did stick to a lot of my usual fantasy/romantacy genres, there’s some other genres tossed in too. I’m excited to start up the 25 in 2025 reading challenge and hopefully I am a bit better about writing reviews and other book-related posts here.

3/5 Stars: The Answer Is…: Reflections on My Life by Alex Trebek

A very interesting book that had a lot of informational facts that I didn’t know. Alex Trebek led a fascinating life, and I loved the ‘just an ordinary man’ perspective that the book came from, but, while reading I personally found a lack of flow. It read like a book of disjointed facts that were about the same person but didn’t really fit together. Each chapter was a ‘fact’ and some were explained in great detail and others left me wondering. The first half of the book read much different than the later half when he started talking about his career. It was probably on purpose, it almost felt like he was uncomfortable talking about himself (he states numerous times that the game should never be about the host) and he spends a lot of time paying homage to the wonderful contestants he had over the years.

I feel like that could have probably been an entire book all in itself, and not in his autobiography where I was there to read about him. Still, the book was an enjoyable quick read and my first Canadian autobiography.

3/5 Stars