So this book looked cute. The blurb described a young girl in Japan who was essentially a magical girl helping her stuffed animal. When she got older, she revisits those fantasies. It was a cute premise. It’s not even a little of what I got.

Let me start with all the content warnings that the blurb did not give: mental and physical child abuse, pedophilia, sexual assault, incest, cannibalism, and self-cannibalism.

A little warning would have been nice. Just saying.

The story follows Natsuki, a little girl whose immediate family neglects her and treats her like the least favourite child in an Asian family, ((If you know, you know)) and who is being targeted by the pedophilic cram school teacher, finds solace in an annual trip to see the extended family and her cousin, Yuu. When Natsuki pressures Yuu to go too far with their relationship, Natsuki’s trips to see her extended family end.

As an adult, Natsuki marries a man who has no interest in being married or in a relationship whatsoever, the pair of them living as amicable roommates as it becomes clear that not only has Natsuki’s coping mechanism of viewing the world as a baby-making factory and herself as an alien trying to assimilate to a society she doesn’t understand has spread to her husband. When an opportunity arises, they go to visit the old family home from Natsuki’s childhood, reconnect with Yuu who has been living there, and…

Well, the last bit of the book takes a hard turn into cannibalism.

On the one hand, this book has left me thinking for a while. I have not willingly tried to interpret a book since school, and I’ve been doing a lot of trying to give this the benefit of the doubt. There’s surely something I’m missing both in the translation and the cultural context, right? And if the book is a commentary on being asexual in Japanese society, the fact that all three of the asexuals seem to be that way due to childhood sexual trauma and all turned to cannibalism, so that’s probably not intentional, right? Maybe it’s just about othering and systems failing children, which leads to stunted emotional growth?

On the other hand, I did not enjoy the experience. There was a story I was expecting and it was nowhere in here. Instead, this was like something I would have read in a Uni English class, which is not ultimately what I’m looking for.

Today in trying out some new genres, something that’s a bit closer to home for me. I do love documentaries about cults and true crime, so a story about kidnapping and cults seems like it would be right up my alley.

The story follows “Esther,” a young girl who must maintain the persona of someone she has never met on a farm where her every move is monitored or she will be eliminated. The farm is the home of the Special Ones, four young people who have been kidnapped to live the lives of people they have never heard of before who are supposedly the reincarnation of older souls who are supposed to lead their followers to a better life.

It is a little slow at the start as life on the farm is established that quickly ramps up upon the need to replace one of the Special Ones and you get to see how the process actually works. The information gets revealed slowly for the first half and really well until you get the introduction of Him, the one who is controlling everything. His perspective provides a lot of context, though it’s a little jarring to get that second perspective so suddenly and without any indication. It helps to make sense of what’s happening beyond our lead, which is important because she does not ultimately find out much.

I don’t think this is a detriment because there’s a lot about it that feels unsettling because of the way the information is distributed. Things are not neatly wrapped up. I do like that not all is well at the end. The story ends, we know why, but the character relationships aren’t all brought to a satisfying conclusion and it feels uncomfortably realistic that it wouldn’t all wrap up nicely in the end.

Overall, I really enjoyed it! It’s a quick read with some interesting ideas. If you’re also interested in true crime and cults, this Is a fun read.

Did you know pet mystery was a genre? One for adults? Because I certainly didn’t and I absolutely needed to check it out. I haven’t really read any mystery since high school, so this was a little nostalgic for me.

The story follows Harry as she tries to solve the mystery of who killed her friend, Gary, in broad daylight. As Harry, along with her very opinionated cats and dog, try to uncover why a masked shooter would want to even target Gary, much less commit a crime in broad daylight, the story flashes back to the distant past to show that the roots of this go back further than expected.

As much as I loved the ideas, this ultimately wasn’t for me. I was more interested in the banter between the cats and dogs than I was in the mystery unfolding, and ended up completely skipping over the flashbacks in favour of trying to get to more of the pets. The cozy mystery part was ultimately completely dwarfed by the antics of Pewter the drama queen, which I don’t think was supposed to happen.

Ultimately, I think I’m just not a cozy mystery person. This is also the seventh book in the series, which did me no favours in getting into it. It’s still well written and the mystery does unfold in a satisfying manner, but it wasn’t for me.

Some of you may know that I’m constantly working on creative projects. While I do tend to actually get a few of them done on a relatively regular basis, I’m always interested in new strategies for how to get them all worked out and done.

Unlike a lot of the books I’ve been reading lately in this genre, this one does actually have practical advice, albeit stuff that I’ve already tried. There’s the standard of figuring out your vision and figure out how to make it happen as well as delegation advice, but it comes with actual strategies to try as well. There’s also an interesting bit about leadership in the last third, which is something I don’t personally aspire to but something that Belsky clearly feels strongly about.

There is a decent amount of promotion for Benahce woven into the book, but I’d still say this is one of the better books on how to generally get things organized and work out how to make your ideas into plans that actually happen. I’ve used a lot of the strategies and still use a few of them, so check it out if you’re looking for a place to get starts.

I’ve needed something a bit light to read.

This follows a few characters. The lead is Jack, a young boy starting at a new school who has been zoning out and seeing a small girl selling matches. He meets a classmate, Lucy, who takes an interest in him and has also seen the girl. And lastly, there’s the little match girl, a character from a Hans Christian Anderson story who may not be so fictional and who wants Jack to stay with her forever.

This was a cute idea, and full of very interesting ideas. I did like the layering of diabetes into the plot, as Jack is given a natural way of talking about it with Lucy and it doesn’t feel like it’s being forced into the narrative. It’s also very Canadian at points, mostly in that Jack moved to Ontario from Quebec and there are quite a few mentions of the cultural differences between the two places.

The story is very light and best enjoyed when you don’t think about it too hard. If you do, you will find logic and plot holes. Those points aren’t really what the story is about, so I don’t think it’s a detriment. It’s a very quick and easy read, overall fun, and worth checking out.

Those who know me personally know that I have a lot of trouble taking breaks. Downtime for me consists largely of picking up new hobbies and obsessions. Doing nothing is a thing I aspire to be able to do one day without immediately getting bored and picking up a new something to fill the time.

This book did not help with that because it is a philosophy book. I’ve never read a philosophy book before, so I’m not sure what is standard for something like this, but there wasn’t a lot in here that was actionable. It felt very much like there was a message here about how social media is draining, and then more aspects of intersectionality were placed on top without actually integrating them into the message. There were mentions that other groups deal with something like this as well, or other groups would not be able to do this because of oppression, but the book moved on before actually talking about the how or why.

There was also just a lot of talking about what other authors said. Not as a reference, but wholesale summary of other people’s works and points. This might be standard, but it wasn’t what I expected.

Overall, it’s not really for me. I am annoyed that it wasn’t what I expected, but at least I know now that philosophy books are not my thing.

I know I’ve been reading a lot of nonfiction this year, but I’ll mention why I keep reading these finance and self-help types of books. I’m looking to write something in this general genre, specifically about publishing, and I’m trying to get my footing for what it should read like. And this one reads a lot like the rest.

You Need a Budget is something I know mostly as a budgeting app. The book gives a lot of helpful tips about the first steps you could take into creating a budget based on what your actual spending looks like, rather than applying blanket rules that your money should conform to. It’s very similar to what I did when I first moved out, so I know the strategy works well, and there are other useful tips throughout that are great for people at the start of their budgeting journey.

There are some specifics in here that feel very much like it was from a different era. Even in my day, I couldn’t go to school without loans or getting my parents to pay for it, even if I worked throughout ((Which I did)) and applied for scholarships, for instance. I get the feeling that this is just what happens with finance books. Specifics get out of date, but the overall ideas and messages remain good.

Overall, it’s a good read for someone looking to get started with budgeting. It is US-focused ((Aren’t they all?)) but the general strategies can be used just about everywhere.