I’m continuing my journey to learning more about personal finance and a friend of mine recommended that I check this one out! The author is fairly well known in personal finance circles apparently ((Very early in this journey)) so I figured it was worth checking out!

It’s good foundational stuff. The first half of the book has a lot of basic information about how stocks and bonds work, as well as the mechanics of how investing could work and how to set your goals.

Unfortunately, I am Canadian, so a lot of the more specific advice is not as useful for me. The tone comes across as very finance bro-y as well with a dash of FIRE movement, which is not my thing. He’s also very into Vanguard investments. Like, to the point where I think he has a share in the company for how much he emphasizes that everyone should use them and only them ever.

Overall, though, it’s not a bad starting point. I learned a lot about the basics of investing, and certainly enough that I could get started with something. Just… not Vanguard.

After some issues with the preorder, I have finally gotten my hands on it! I need to stop trying to preorder things, given how strangely things keep going whenever I try to do that. It’s been a fun year of trying it, at least.

Lost in the Never Woods follows Wendy, a young woman about to head off to the next stage in her life and leave behind the unresolved parts of her childhood. Her brothers went missing when she was young and so did she, but she was the only one who returned. With no memory of what happened, the past continues to haunt her as local children start disappearing. Worse, Peter Pan, the boy from the stories her mother told her as a child, has come to ask for her help.

I do have a soft spot for Peter Pan stories ((Ahem.)) and this one did not disappoint. Having this one set in modern day and centering around Wendy’s trauma more than the fictional world of Neverland made it feel a bit more grounded, and made Peter feel a lot more magical by contrast. In doing this, it does create a contrast to how other people have done it before, and I rather enjoyed the experience of having the story focused almost entirely on the experience of Wendy over that of Peter.

It does use the same villain as other ones do, though, which makes me think I was missing something when I read the original back in the day.

It’s not too romance-y, which is nice for me. There’s certainly elements of it in there, but it doesn’t ultimately overtake the story that I came for. And I will note that it’s likely a lot more prominent for the audience that might be looking for it, but, well, it’s me.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book! It’s a lot of fun and a different look at the story from any of the others I’ve read before. If you’re looking for a new take on Peter Pan, definitely check it out.

Apparently, I preordered this! Which is confusing because it’s paperback. I’m not really sure why I got it, but it was a pleasant surprise for the week while I was between books!

Dark and Deepest Red follows two storylines. In modern day, Rosella has remade a pair of red shoes that her grandparents once attempted to destroy and they have attached themselves to her feet, causing her to dance and seek out the help of Emil, a childhood friend who she’s grown distant from. In the distant past, Lala is trying to assimilate into the city of Stratsbourg, where women have been coming down with a dancing sickness that keeps them dancing until they fall down dead.

This is another one of those books that really benefited from being a bedtime book because I don’t think I was feeling it at all. The two storylines feel disjointed from one another, and I’m not sure how they were intended to play off of one another. The dancing sickness exists in both places, but that seems to be the only thing connecting the two.

On top of that, the story is very much about discrimination more than it is about the dancing sickness and the thing I was reading for felt like it was more of a background element. Though I don’t usually need an explanation, I don’t think I ever figured out either what was causing the sickness or how it was solved, and over the course of the book I found myself more and more annoyed that we weren’t focusing on it. Other people seem to really like it, though, so it is likely more that this is not my kind of book.

Another random library book! I’m enjoying picking up these random books that I’ve never heard of and this was another fun one. And quick! I think it’s a novella, and apparently it’s part of a larger universe of books. I’m not sure, but you can absolutely read this one without knowing anything about whatever other books take place in this universe.

Haunting of Tram Car 015 is a buddy cop mystery. Set in a magical Cairo in the early 1900s during the suffragette movement, there is a tram car that has had some supernatural activity. Agents Hamed and Onsi quickly encounter the spirit in the car and determine that they need to exorcise it from the car, but there’s more to how the spirit got there than it initially appears.

It’s been a while since I read a mystery story that felt like you could actually solve it. Even with being put in a universe where I was just learning the rules and the time period, I never found myself lost. There were a good number of twists and turns, many of them driven by learning a new thing about the universe, and the background plot of the suffragette movement that ties in at the end made the story feel more real despite the fantastical elements.

I’d definitely recommend checking it out. The story is quickly paced and a quick read that is absolutely worth your time.

House in the Cerulean Sea follows Linus, a case worker who is sent to check up on an orphanage that takes care of supernatural children. This one in particular contains not only the antichrist, but a mysterious headmaster and a town that is racist against the supernatural people on the island.

I kept hearing that this book was cute and it turns out that was right! The story feels very much like a light, slice of life narrative where it’s more about Linus meeting the children and helping them overcome obstacles than anything else. There is the idea that he could shut this orphanage down lingering in the back of your mind at the start, but ultimately you know pretty soon into this book that it is going to be a fairly calming read about interpersonal relationships and seeing how people learn to accept themselves in a healthy environment.

I’d argue that there is a framing device, but ultimately there is no overarching plot. This isn’t ultimately a bad thing, but there are no major antagonists outside of the general circumstances. It’s entirely characters interacting with one another and growing.

It does do that thing at the end, though, where it explains the thesis of the book in very direct terms. This isn’t so much a criticism of the book as a trend I’ve been noticing more and more in modern fiction that I’m not sure how I feel about.

Overall, I really liked it. It was a calm, light read about people finding themselves and I do like stories about that.