Author: Tanya

  • I started a Podcast

    I made a joke on Instagram a while ago.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/Cj-71zyhDUK

    And I’ve actually done it! I’m reading my books a chapter at a time, starting with Return to Wonderland. On alternating weeks, I’ll also have a behind the scenes episode talking about things like what got cut from the stories, elements that never quite made it in because of the way the stories unfolded, and generally looking back on the series as a whole.

    Check it out!

    https://open.spotify.com/show/6Qu1G1DOZ4y8j50ZiALacf
  • Just Like Home review

    Just Like Home review

    There’s something about this randomly picking up books from the library app that I really love, because I don’t think I would have ever gone to this section of a book store or looking through a library. It’s much easier to add random books to your holds and just read them when they become available after forgetting everything about why you added them in the first place.

    The book follows Vera, the daughter of a convicted serial killer who has come home to her dying mother to settle things with the house once her mother finally passes. Her relationship with her mother is distant to say the least, but she also has to deal with a border, an artist and the son of the man who wrote an expose on her father’s crimes. But this old house holds secrets, as does Vera’s own past and the truth behind that final victim that got her father caught, and Vera soon finds that she is more attached to the house than she thought.

    I really liked most of this book. There is a twist at the end that I think I would have liked a lot more if it had happened earlier so that it could be more thoroughly explored, because I do love a good “It wasn’t all in my head” reveal. I liked the supernatural element, but the vagueness of some of it was frustrating because I wanted to know more. It may be that as a horror story that was intentional, but I didn’t find it scary so it was a bit disappointing.

    It is pretty slow at the start, including some elements that I thought would play into the story more like the people of the town wanting her gone. I think the pacing may have played into some missed opportunities to make the story feel more complete in the end. It does feel much more like a story that stops rather than ends, like there’s a lot of loose ends and like I am missing chapters that might wrap it up more fully. It doesn’t feel like it needs a sequel so much as a couple more chapters, or a five years later epilogue.

    Overall, I did really enjoy the story. I just wanted a little more in the end to make it feel like it ended, even if it wasn’t over. This might be more of a genre mismatch for me, and I still had a lot of fun with the book.

  • Finna review

    Finna review

    I am finally getting some of my holds in! I’ve been working on a few new things I’ll talk about in a bit, so the books are a nice reminder that I was planning to read a lot more this year. That goal has not gone well, but time to try and pick it up again!

    The story follows Ava who has been called into work at an Ikea knockoff store where her ex who she’s been avoiding, Jules, is also working a shift. When a little old lady slips into an alternate dimension, the pair of them are voluntold to go get her and are sent into the wormhole to find first the remains of the woman, followed by a replacement as they work through their relationship troubles.

    This feels very much like Horrortor in a lot of ways, from the premise of it being an Ikea knockoff with alternate dimensions and horror elements. It has a much more action adventure angle to it, though, with much more exploration and much less being horribly scarred by the carnivorous furniture and hive mind employees of the alternate dimension.

    A lot of the book was relationship stuff, though, and the two exes working through their relationship and why their recent breakup happened. And it never feels like they actually work out anything so much as they air out their grievances. I hoped that these issues would have some kind of parallel to the horror worlds they ended up in, but ultimately it felt very separate.

    Overall, it’s not bad. I’m not a fan of relationship heavy stories and I thought it was a little heavy on that aspect, but I did like the way the story played out in the end. It’s also pretty short, so if you have an afternoon it’s worth checking out!

  • Thistlefoot review

    Thistlefoot review

    It’s slow, but I’m getting back to all the books! Something about not having a massive physical TBR waiting for me has made me forget that I still have a whole digital library to explore until the holds start coming in.

    The story mostly follows Baba Yaga’s house, Thistlefoot, as it is delivered across the ocean to her surviving relatives in the US. Bellatine and Issac are estranged siblings who have both taken very different paths in life, with Issac becoming a professional wanderer and Bellatine becoming a wood smith, both trying to escape their pasts in different ways. They are brought together by the house that has been left to them, as well as the strange man that is after it who spreads distrust and fear wherever he goes.

    I love a story that revolves around a sibling relationship, and this one very much does that. Their distance from one another over the years is counterbalanced a lot by their familiarity that doesn’t quite leave in adulthood, and the ways in which they grow as people throughout the story because of one another.

    There’s also just a lot of elements that exist in the story that never feel overwhelming while you’re reading, only when you’re trying to put together a summary. Between Bellatine’s trying to come to terms with her magic and Issac’s need to escape himself with his own, there’s a whole other narrative with the man following them, the history of Thistlefoot that is sprinkled throughout, and a travelling band that is determined to stop a rash of people going mad and murdering people around them. Oh, and a living statue and a tragic backstory. It’s well paced and all of the elements are really well woven together.

    Overall, I really loved it. It was a lot of fun and I really liked the characters, each of which felt like complete people with their own problems and goals. I would highly recommend giving it a chance if you ever see it.

  • My Best Friend’s Exorcism review

    I’ve been not finishing a lot of books lately. It’s been a rough reading period for me, but I finally picked up something I was able to finish. In one day, at that! It’s been absolutely ages since I’ve been able to do that with something fiction.

    The story follows Abby and Gretchen, best friends in very different tax brackets at a prestigious private school. One weekend while trying acid for the first time, Gretchen disappears into the woods and is changed when she comes back. At first it seems like she’s dying before Abby’s eyes as she crumbles and talks about the feeling of hands and voices, leading Abby to think she was assaulted. When she suddenly returns to school looking like nothing ever happened, more confident and with a very different edge, Abby comes to realize that she’s been possessed and needs to get her friend back from the demon that’s inhabiting her body.

    The story is very late 80s-early 90s, which made it a lot of fun. There was a lot of setup that would have been cut from more modern stories to make it tighter and slicker, but I appreciated getting the background of everything that went into the end of it and understanding where things came from and why some things had more effect than others.

    At the same time, it can feel very slow at the start. It goes through Abby and Gretchen’s whole friendship and their arcs from when they first met to where they are now in grade 10, most of which has nothing to do with possession or anything that might imply the crux of the story that is to come. I appreciated it in the end, but while I was reading I was wondering when things would pick up.

    Overall, though, I really enjoyed it. It’s a pretty quick read, and once it gets going it’s really engaging. I enjoyed watching as things twisted, and appreciated watching as Abby and Gretchen had their friendship strained and really pushed past its limits. I do love a good story about friends, so I really enjoyed it.

  • Can’t Even review

    Can’t Even review

    As someone who is deeply burnt out at their current job, I’ve been taking a lot of random recommendations from people around books about burnout. I’m not really sure what I’m looking to get out of them yet, but something about having the resources makes me feel a lot better.

    Can’t Even is mostly an exploration around how burnout happens for the millennial generation, from being raised as a resume to get a good job and be a productive member of society to how jobs have continued to get worse as a result of companies investing less in their workforce and more in ensuring optimum productivity. I was actually a little surprised there was no reference to the Netflix book in here, because that would have been a fantastic parallel in some areas, but this author is originally from Buzzfeed which has it’s own set of issues.

    There are no real answers about what to do about it, only an explanation of why it’s happening, which I found frustrating at first but as I’ve sat with it I think it’s better that it doesn’t. I’ve been very irritated by the empty solutions and instead looking at the causes gives a bit more understanding that there may not really be a solution on an individual level.

    Overall, not a bad read! Not exactly optimistic and there’s a few takes that I don’t necessarily agree with throughout, but I enjoyed it as a read, especially at this point in my life.

  • Spells for Forgetting review

    Spells for Forgetting review

    Libby is really the only thing that is keeping me reading these days, I swear. The random books that come in seem to know just when I need something, and this one came in right as I was taking some time off of work because, well, I need the time off. And I needed a pretty calm read.

    The book follows two people: August and Emery. August in returning to the island after many years to bury his mother, but his return comes with the resurgence of all of the reasons he left. He was accused of murdering a friend in the midst of a fire and essentially run off the island, leaving Emery behind to continue living in a place that feels like it lives in stasis. But in the short time August is there to finish what he needs before leaving forever, the past comes back in strange ways and the truth of the mystery behind that death comes to light.

    It’s a very calm and atmospheric read, and one that was really hard to place in terms of genre. While there’s implied magic in some of the characters, it’s never really clear until the end one way or another whether it is actually a thing in the world. And while there’s the feeling of it being a murder mystery or some idea of a gothic horror, nothing really stands out in terms of how the story was told or where it ended up to really understand what I should be expecting.

    And really, the atmosphere was probably the best thing about the book. The characters never grow or change ((Which is expected in some genres, which is why the genre is throwing me)) only reveal more information. There were no surprises until the end when you get the definitive answer about whether or not magic is real and ultimately it feels more like the story ends than concludes. It’s a bit disappointing in that there is no feeling that there’s any justice or finality to what happened, only that everyone walked away to never speak of it again.

    Overall, it was mostly an okay read. It was what I needed for the time, something calm that didn’t ask too much in terms of complicated plots or characters. The perspective shifts threw me at first, but once I got used to it, it was a pretty chill book with a disappointing ending.

  • Ink and Bone review

    Ink and Bone review

    I’ve been having a rough time of things, so reading hasn’t been happening as much as I’d like. But I did get one of my holds in and got it finished before I had to turn it back in, so let’s see what I decided I wanted to check out several months ago.

    The book follows Jess, a kid who comes from a book smuggling family who has the opportunity to get into the Library of Alexandria where he can better help his family smuggle books. While there, he uncovers more about what it takes to be a part of the library, and some of the darker aspects of how the library works to keep their secrets and prevent the public from access to the information within.

    The world is one that took me a bit to understand. At first I thought it was meant to be a straight alternate history where the Library of Alexandria did not burn but had instead been privatized, but there’s a lot of subtle and not so subtle magical elements in it that threw me off. It’s revealed slowly and very matter of factually, where Jess is not entirely new to the world so a lot of information is presented much more as fact than something that is explained. Which, honestly, I really like and once I got it I was in.

    The story gets a lot darker than I expected from this story about a bunch of kids in a school to pursue their ambitions to this much more political game that is being played with them as pawns. While Jess is bright and able to eventually recognize what’s happening, it’s clear that he’s not in a place to actually do anything about it. At least, not in this book.

    Overall, I really enjoyed it. The pacing was quick and, once I got a better understanding of the world, I was in and I really enjoyed watching the story unfold. There’s a lot of interesting characters besides Jess and they all feel very well rounded, each with their own mysteries that I was excited to uncover. Definitely worth the read!

  • The World Before Us review

    The World Before Us review

    I had been having a rough time of things, so I just needed to read something. Anything that was available. none of my holds had come in and I was not able to get into anything that was in my digital purchases TBR, so to the library and picking something at random!

    Normally I would talk a little about what the book was about, and there was a story to this book, but I cannot do that. I am aware that there is a character named Jane, that a girl named Lily went missing, and that there is an asylum with a bunch of people in it, but I cannot tell you much more than that. I cannot remember this book at all, and I just finished it last night.

    Some of it is likely due to the aforementioned inability to get into anything, ((And health issues flaring up again, yay brain problems)) but also some of it is the framing device that made it hard to get attached to anything happening. The story is told through the perspective of a bunch of ghosts that are watching Jane as she goes about her life, which made her story feel like it was so distant from what I was supposed to be paying attention to. Even though Jane was the throughline, I never felt like I was supposed to be paying attention to her so much as the characters in the foreground, and those characters did not stay on topic.

    I think this was ultimately just not for me. I’ve never had a book vanish from my mind so quickly after reading it and, though the prose did have a nice quality to it, I think it was just not a good match for what I was looking for.

  • Range review

    Today in books I added and completely forgot about, I have a feeling I thought this was going to be another book like How to be Everything. And it kind of was, but mostly was not.

    Range is an argument for and a series of stories about not specializing and instead getting a broader background in terms of education and experiences. Each chapter takes a slightly different perspective on how either specialization doesn’t provide the insight that might be required to accomplish some big endeavour and gives them a limited view, or how people with very wide and varied background were able to bring perspectives that were able to create something great.

    I thought it was a really interesting read. As someone who has often been in work situations as the only one who has a broader background, it’s come in handy and it’s interesting to see how that can be applied much more broadly to wider applications. It’s good to see that this personal experience appears to be not so isolated to just myself.

    Overall, I thought it was a really interesting read. Definitely worth checking out if you have some time, and especially if you’re feeling like you’re meandering in life.