September (almost forgotten!) mystery read

September snuck up on me AND both my sisters I'm doing mystery reads with so hard, it took days before one of us was finally like "oh shit, it's September" and reminded all of us to unwrap our new books.

My new book...let's just say if it reads as good as it looks, it'll be a fun journey.

Truly such a beautiful book, and the wintry vibes have me so ready for colder weather. Looking forward to getting into it!

August Read Harder

Ah, August. Back to school, back to real life, back to responsibilities. We already covered that I accidentally pre-read one of my August books, My Lady's Choosing, so one down, bingo bango. I also started It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful in July, as stated in my previous update, because I figured it's non-fiction, it's a heavy topic, and it would take me a while to finish it. Look at me, thinking ahead! 

Turns out that pays off, because I finished it, and it was very emotional and educational and inspiring and fascinating. The more I read and learn about history, the more I'm like wow, fuck, growing up and "learning" about history, we really were just straight up deceived about so many things. It's truly fucked. And no wonder so many people now have their heads so far up their asses. 

And speaking of not learning about real history, last book of August, Like a Hammer, another heavy read. I'm not a huge poetry reader, so I tried to read just a few at a time to give myself the chance to really experience them, and SHEESH, powerful words, heartbreaking. It's an incredible collection of poetry, and it's so overwhelming reading about the experience of incarceration and our bullshit justice system from people living within that system. If you can get a copy of it (if you know me, you can borrow it from me!), I recommend it.

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And here we go, into the last third of the year! For challenge #4, read a book about obsession, I'll be reading the second book in the What the River Knows duology by Isabel Ibanez, Where the Library Hides. I also picked Rebel Witch, the second book in The Crimson Moth series (maybe duology?) by Kristen Ciccarelli. Maybe I'll finish one this month, maybe I'll have time for both, we'll see. Looking forward to both, though.

For challenge #19, read a queernorm book, I chose The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon. And now we're going to get into a little bit of a shananigan, because this book is over EIGHT HUNDRED PAGES, y'all. Soooo, since I'm reading one book that's basically two or three or four books, I'm giving myself a freebie and using Crier's War, which I read earlier this year, for challenge #20, read the first book in a completed YA or middle grade duology. Typically I only a count a book if I specifically chose it for a challenge, but...I think I deserve a little bit of a pass with such a behemoth to get through.

August Mystery Book

July's mystery book turned out to be excellent (and a dang series, of course, so I had to request the next book from the library), so I've been looking forward to the next one and hoping it's just as good, so I could start a streak. After starting the book, I'm not sure it's going to happen. But I'm getting ahead of myself!

August's mystery read is Murder of Crows by K. Ancrum. Cool, I like K. Ancrum. Seems intriguing.

But then I started reading it, and it's immediately apparent that this is a sequel of some sort. Even though it's listed as "Lethal Lit #1" on the Storygraph. Soooooo what is it a sequel to? 

A PODCAST. 

Yeah, apparently the events in this book take place between the first and second seasons of a scripted podcast called Lethal Lit. And I just...do we think this is a good idea, pals? I guess technically so far (four chapters in) it doesn't seem like it's a requirement to have the context from season one to understand the plot of the book, but events from the podcast are HEAVILY referenced, so it's such a weird vibe NOT having that context. Plus numbering a book as the first in a series when there is already existing story, just not in book form, rubs me the wrong way. I don't know the correct way to denote that this is set in an existing podcast universe, but like...it just all leaves me feeling a little offput. 

I looked it up, and the first episode of the podcast is six episodes, pretty short, so listening to it and then reading the book would be an option. But if I'm being honest, pushing readers to the podcast is part of what I don't like about this whole concept. Listening to the podcast feels like rewarding bad behavior, and if you know me you know one of the things I love to say is "I don't reward bad behavior." So no, I shan't be listening to season one of the podcast. I SHALL give the book a few more chapters and see how I feel about it. And then we can go from there.

No lie, Read Harder went great in July

Hey, do you want to hear something exciting? I finished Oathbound! Turns out that while the first roughly 200-250 pages could have been whittled down (and, let's be real, possibly a little bit more further in), the rest of it was GRIPPING. It ended on such a cliffhanger, too, which is VERY rude given that I first thought this would be a duology and then when I realized it wasn't crossed my fingers that it was a trilogy, but hey, what are you gonna do? It was a solid ending, and I can't wait for the next one. I just hope it isn't another 600+ pages that could have been shorter.

I also finished The Third Gilmore Girl, which made me cry so many times and also made me rewatch Gilmore Girls to admire Emily with fresh eyes. Also need to rewatch Bunheads because...Bunheads. It's so great. Seriously, I had no idea what an incredible, tough, tenacious badass Kelly Bishop was, and wow. She's a marvel.

Next up, I finished The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding, which I discovered is not a standalone, so...that's annoying. It was a solid read, but I also have like four books that I recently read only to discover they were part of a series, so I'm really on the fence about if I liked this one enough to add ANOTHER sequel to my stack of books waiting to be read. Man, my kingdom for fantasy/supernatural/spooky books that are NOT a series.

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For August, I'll be reading books for challenges #12, #16, and #21. 

Prompt twelve is read a recommendation from a (preferably local) indie bookstore. Look, I don't know about "indie" but I picked my favorite local bookstore, Palabras, and will be reading Like a Hammer by Diana Marie Delgado, a book of poetry about mass incarceration.

Prompt sixteen is read a genre blending book, which...I accidentally already read. I picked My Lady's Choosing by Larissa Zageris and Kitty Curran, a historical romance choose your own adventure book (sorry, not choose your own adventure, that's trademarked...but you know what I mean.) It was also available at the library when I went to pick up my books for last month, so I grabbed it while I was there and then was like oh yeah, this book looks interesting. So, hey, check this one off! It was quite the experience. Very funny, such wild euphemisms for genitalia. I'm not sure if it was meant this way, but it was a wildly successful parody of a historical romance. If it wasn't intended as parody, my apologies to the authors for taking it that way - if it was truly meant as a tribute to the romance genre, they would have benefited from fewer storylines and better development. But hey, regardless of intent? I had fun.

Aaaand finally, prompt twenty-one is to read a book about a moral panic. For this, I chose It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful, by Jack Lowery, which is about the AIDS pandemic. Growing up mormon, AIDS was kind of something we were shielded from because god forbid your kids hear anything about gay people, and after I read another book about it I was blown away by how little I knew and how much I thought I knew was incorrect. I've started reading this one but not gotten far, and I'm looking forward to learning more about it and how activists fought for change (particularly relevant right now, given the fascism of our current "administration" sooooooo...yeah).

July Mystery Book

Ooh, July's mystery book seems bound to be a good one, with lots of mysterious threads coming together to tell a great story. It's Threads that Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou - the story of Io, the youngest of the Ora sisters, all three descendants of the Fates themselves.

Io's work as a private investigator leads her to a job where she has to work with Edei, right hand to the Mod Queen, and the boy with whom she shares a fate thread linking them as soulmates. It also leads her to an encounter with her estranged oldest sister, on the arm of one of her top suspects. Io must unravel clues leading through the darkest corners of the city before her own world unravels.

The moment of Read Harder truth

Vacation reading mode, activated! I didn't have quite as much reading downtime as I usually end up with on this trip, but I still did pretty well. First off, I finished The Grimoire of Grave Fates, which while interesting in concept and studded with authors I adore fell a little flat for me. I think on the surface "a mystery, but make it an anthology" is cool, but when the story is told across eighteen different chapters featuring eighteen different (mostly disconnected) characters, it ends up being disjointed. If it had been like...four or five characters and you revisited characters, I think it would have come together a little tighter, but I also just think seamlessly weaving a whodunnit with so many moving parts is a tall ask.

I also finished Persepolis, which is SO SO GOOD. It has been on my TBR for a very long time, and I can't believe I waited this long to read it. I know woefully little about Iran, and while I've been trying to follow more people from the Middle East to get a better/more accurate picture of what goes on there, that doesn't do much to catch me up on the complicated history of the region. This was a glimpse into some of that history, and Marjane's writing and artwork captures so much emotion and nuance in what she lived through. Incredible.

Finally, I whittled away at Oathbound. I'm still nowhere near finished, but I've made it into the 200s, so I'm inching ever closer. It does seem like maybe it's picking up a little bit, but I'm a little stunned that I'm about 230 pages in and still so little has happened. The plot is moving at a glacial pace.

Up next? First of all, I'm finally KEEPING NOTES! During July, I'll keep working away at Oathbound, unless I decide to admit defeat. It picked up a bit, so I'm hopeful. My other plan for next month was to pay a visit to the library to check out Perfectly Parvin (prompt #10, read a romance book that doesn't have an illustrated cover, in case you forgot like I had), The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding by Alexandra Bracken (prompt #11, read a work of weird horror), and The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop (prompt #7, read a book about a piece of media that you love). I did that. And then? Then I finished Perfectly Parvin, which was excellent and also heartbreakingly timely because it was written shortly after the "Muslim ban" during the orange dicktator's first term and I started reading it just days after his dumb ass decided why not ignore laws and decency and bomb Iran for no fucking reason. So...if we could actually get our shit together and create a better world for kids like Parvin, that would be amazing. 

On a brighter note, I haven't started The Dreadful Tale of Prosper Redding yet, but I started The Third Gilmore Girl and am loving learning more about Kelly Bishop, who is kind of a badass. I've still got a day in June, maybe I'll finish her memoir before July and roll for some additional July books while I work on reading Prosper Redding's dreadful tale.

June Mystery Read

𝅘𝅥𝅮It's the first of the moooooonth...𝅘𝅥𝅮

And that means it's time for a new mystery read! Truly, what does it say about me that even if I looked at my TBR shelf to try and guess which books I have wrapped and waiting for me, I would have ZERO idea of which books are missing? (That I don't have a great memory. It says nothing about the amount of books waiting for me to read them.)

We're getting off topic. The important thing right now is what June's mystery book is! And it's a good one - One of the Good Ones, in fact.

I know this is probably going to be very sad, and "I'm looking forward to reading it" really feels weird to say, given that it's a book about two siblings trying to find a way to honor their sister after she dies under mysterious circumstances at a social justice rally. I think it will be a good book, though.

May update in June

Well, shit, I got my weeks all mixed up, posted late last week, and then forgot that the last week of the month is my Read Harder update. Or maybe I blocked it out, because update? What update? I've been working on books for the committees I joined for work, the book for my book club was chonkier than normal, and so I have barely done any reading for this at all. Haven't started Persepolis. Finished a few chapters of Oathbound, but honestly, I'm struggling with it. The other books were solid, but this one is moving at a glacial pace. I'm gonna keep chipping away, but I don't know how far I'll get.

I'm out of school now, at least, so hopefully I'll get my butt in gear and finish some books. Persepolis, obviously. The Grimoire of Grave Fates and Perfectly Parvin are the next two on my list...I've got a vacation coming up next week, so that's the perfect chance to knock some reading out. If only I had planned ahead and bought copies. It makes me nervous bringing library books on vacation, so I guess I'll be checking out the ebooks to read instead. Congratulations, everyone who has ever told me "you know e-readers are a thing, right?" when they find out how many physical books I bring on vacation. You finally get your way. (Except my library apparently doesn't have the digital version of Perfectly Parvin. Womp. I'll figure something out.)

May Mystery Read

It's been a streak of somewhat heavier/longer books for my mystery reads for the last few, and May's is a bit lighter...or maybe it's just that it's a middle grade book, so it feels easier to fly through? Whichever it is, the book is Strangeworlds Travel Agency by L.D. Lapinski. 

This is an Owlcrate Jr book from back in the day, which became one of the many middle grade books waiting to be read and possibly added to my school library that I made my way through at a glacial pace. Congratulations, book, it's finally your time! I wonder if I can finish it before school lets out.

Reading so very hard in April

Briarheart wasn't bad, but I found it pretty meh. It had the potential to be exciting, but the style of storytelling felt almost clinical to me, and while the buildup and mystery of what was going on had me hooked, the ultimate payoff was a little bit of a letdown. Glad I read it, at least, so now it's off my list. I also started Oathbound and picked up Persepolis from the library, and I read the second book I had chosen for promp #24, a book of ghost stories, some of which were truly creepy. Good for me, reading TWO books for two prompts instead of reading books for other prompts!

I haven't gotten any better at keeping notes on my plans, either. I'm going to level with you, I joined a few committees for our state book awards, because my students LOVE voting for this award every year, and it's possible that in my enthusiasm for something I know my kids enjoy I bit off more than I could chew. So unusual for me, overextending myself? Not something I'm known for! 

Anyway, I swear I went back and tried to untangle everything with my last Read Harder post, but now I can't find those notes, and on the PDF that I use for tracking which books I choose, I have one listed for January but for a challenge that I'm not sure I'm actually doing yet? So...I don't know, I'm just muddling my way through. Look, with any luck I'll finish Persepolis in May and make decent progress on Oathbound (truly such a long book), and then school will be out and I can try to really straighten myself out. Until then, I'm out here building the plane as a fly it. It'll be fine.

Ahhhh, time isn't real

I really thought I had posted last week, but truly the last few weeks have run together. I can tell it's nearing the end of the school year because I am VERY tired. Could also be the lingering effects of being sick over spring break, but no...that's impossible.

Anyway, missed a post, it happens. I finished my mystery read for this month, and WHEW it was good. BUT. The whole time I thought it was a standalone, and then at the very end...I don't think it is. Or maybe it is and they wanted to leave you with an "and then..." Hold for research.

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Nope, confirmed, it's the first book in a series. The age-old curse of fantasy, even realistic fantasy, everything has to be a series. Yet another book for me to decide if I read the sequel. Le sigh. I'm glad it was an enjoyable book, at least, and honestly even though it's part of a series I do feel like it was satisfying even as a standalone.

Now, related to reviews, if you can count this as a review, an announcement!

My household has recently gotten into puzzles, and I think we're going to post some puzzle reviews for funsies. So hey, if you like puzzles...keep an eye out for those.

Monthly Mystery Read - April

Before we get into which book I unwrapped for April, I'm gonna take a moment to say that if you have a big backlog of TBR books on your shelf and can't summon the motivation to dive into it...this is such a great way to get yourself reading them. Not only are you tricking your brain into being excited about a book you've probably owned for years, but who doesn't love unwrapping presents?! I might start wrapping other already-owned things for later use. Shirt I haven't worn in a while? That's a gift for future me now. Pair of shoes I forgot I owned? Merry Christmas in July to me! You get the picture.

Anyway, March's book was pretty solid, although I discovered that it's a duology. 🤦 So now I have to decide if it was solid enough that I read the second book. I mean...I do want to. If my library had it on audiobook, I would already be listening to it. So I guess more accurately I should say I need to find the energy to read the second book, because energy is in low supply at the moment. I'll get there.

For now though, we're not talking about Illusionary, sequel to Incendiary! We're talking about April's mystery book, a.k.a. The Buried and the Bound.

A little haunting, a little spooky, a little mysterious...I'm already almost a quarter of the way through, and I'm very intrigued so far. I'm also crossing my fingers that this is a standalone, because please, authors. Please. There are so many great books waiting to be read, they can't all be series books, I'll run out of tiiiiime!

March Read Harder, or "I'm Trying My Best"

Yeah, it has been a rough start to the year. Not just with reading, like generally with life. It happens. I'm trying. Did I get back on track over spring break? Nope! I did get sick though, so that was fun. I do feel like I'm finally starting to straighten things out, though and that's not nothing. I finally finished The Crossroads, sequel to The Only Road, and it was beautiful and sad and hopeful. I also read (one of? Surprising no one, not only have I not been reading my challenge books, I haven't been keeping great notes of my plans) my choices for challenge #24, The Storyteller. It's magical realism, and it was very strange and fascinating and cool. 

So hey, four prompts complete, all told not too shabby! It could certainly be worse. I haven't requested Persepolis from the library for challenge #14 yet (frustrating, because I went to TWO libraries today and could probably have found it at one of them if I had thought about it), but I've got the audiobook for Briarheart so I've got that going for myself. And my pick for challenge #1, Read a 2025 release by a BIPOC author, has arrived. Oathbound, last book in the Legendborn series! 650 pages, whaaaaat? Who doesn't love a hefty tome like that? I'll chip away at that, though, listen to my audiobook, and next time I make a trip to the library I'll grab Persepolis. Baby steps, baby.

Monthly Mystery Read - March

It's March, and that means it's time for a new mystery read. (Pretend we aren't already a third of the way into March. Life is hard right now.) March's mystery book is another tome - Incendiary by Zoraida Cordova. 

I think this was an Owlcrate subscription book, so I had to look up the synopsis because it's been a while since I got it: 

"Renata Convida was kidnapped as a child by the King's Justice, her Moria power to steal memories exploited by the king and his guard. Renata is now one of the Whispers, rebel spies working against the Crown and helping other Moria escape the kingdom. When the commander of her unit, Dez, is taken captive, Renata is forced to return to the palace, undercover, to complete their top secret mission. But returning to the palace unlocks long suppressed memories, and as Renata becomes more embedded in royal politics, she uncovers a secret from her past that could change the fate of the kingdom and end the war that has cost her everything."

Intriguing, for sure! I'm looking forward to diving into this! 

February Read Harder update...if you can call it that

Look, this will be a short update. Did I read the other books I planned to from January? No.

Did I read my February books? No.

Did I even request February books from the library or purchase them from my bookstore of choice? Also no.

I'm going to hold off on choosing new challenge books for now so I don't overwhelm myself in books I should be reading. Maybe I'll catch up during spring break.

Monthly Mystery Read

Shortly before the 2024 holidays, a meme started going around where as a "gift" someone was given 12 wrapped books from their TBR shelves, each labeled for one month of the year. Two of my sisters and I decided to do that for each other, and so far it's a lot of fun looking forward to unwrapping my new book on the first of the month to discover what it is. My January book was #VeryFatVeryBrave by Nicole Byer, which was SO good. It's also pretty short and is a photography book, so has lots of (incredible) pictures, which meant that I finished on January 1st and have been impatiently waiting for my next book reveal for the rest of the year that has been January.

And at last, yesterday was the day.

At long last, the February book reveal! And the February book is...

Drumroll, please...

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Yessssssssss, I'm so excited! I've read a time travel duology by Alexandra Bracken and really enjoyed it. This one is modern day Greek mythology, which like...what's not to love? I'm definitely looking forward to it - will report back when I finish!

January challenge update - a.k.a. "I thought I wrote this already"

If you were to throw yourself a 13-13-13 birthday party, what would you plan? Because yesterday was my 13-13-13 birthday, and I find the idea of a 13-themed birthday party so much more fun than a 40th birthday bash. 40? So cliche. 13-13-13...who does that? (Probably no one, because it's weird. And I accept that.)

Speaking of births and days...how about that Read Harder challenge, huh? You'll never believe it, but I fuckin forgot that I came up with the roll the dice thing to choose challenges.😬 Sooooo yeah, I read two books for challenge #2, reread a childhood favorite book - Beauty by Robin McKinley and The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare. Love them both so much, even though I find it silly as hell that the main "conflict" to Beauty when you boil it down is her not being pretty. Anyhow, after I remembered that I was rolling dice to choose which challenges to do, I started working on my challenge #5 books and challenge #24 books. Have I finished them? No. But I still have five more days in January, so there's time. So far, I like them, but man, in the current climate, The Only Road is making me cry even more than it normally would.

Pending completion of my January books in the next five days, for February I'll be completing challenge #6 and challenge #14. For #6, read a standalone fantasy book, I'll be reading Briarheart by Mercedes Lackey. My unofficial goal for this year was to choose books I could add to my school library for as many challenges as possible, but sooooo many middle grade fantasy books are part of a series, I got tired of looking for an intriguing standalone. Briarheart has been on my list for a minute, so it'll be good to finally read it! For challenge #14, read a comic in translation, I'll be reading Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, translated from French. I also kiiiiind of want to read Persephone by Loic Locatelli-Kournwsky, also translated from French, so I guess we'll see how my reading goes.

Read Harder is Over, Long Live Read Harder

2025 Read Harder is here, and...I guess I'm ready. (I AM ready, I'm just tired. I may have just woken up from a nap.) As always, there are some intriguing challenges and some meh challenges, but overall, I'm looking forward to them. I got a dice tower made out of a book for Christmas, so I decided that I'll be rolling dice to choose which challenges to do each month. What's more fun than rolling dice and reading books? 24 challenges, so I'm keeping it simple and rolling a d12 twice - one for challenges 1-12, one for challenges 13-24. January's challenges?

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5. Read a book about immigration or refugees

For this challenge, I ended up picking two books. I'll be reading The Only Road, by Alexandra Diaz, and its sequel, The Crossroads. 

24. Pick a 2015 Reader Harder task to complete

I debated between a couple and ultimately landed on "Read a book by someone from an Indigenous culture." I'm torn between two for this one - Living Ghosts and Mischievous Monsters, a book of short stories by Dan C. Jones, and The Storyteller by Brandon Hobson. They're both relatively short, so maybe this will be another two-fer.

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And so it begins...2025 Read Harder, let's gooooo!

I read harder, and now it's time to read easy

Oooh baby, read harder has concluded, and a month early?! Go me! I finished my Who Has Done This, Super Puzzletastic Mysteries, and while I will say that I question whether each story really gives you all the information you would need to solve it, I still found it engaging and fun to read and try to figure out what happened. I'm looking forward to adding it to my school library, and I'm thinking I might use some of the short stories as a lesson activity to see if classes can solve the mystery.

Rumaysa was not something related to poetry, which I think was my guess for the challenge that I picked. It's actually a retelling of a fairytale - I went back and looked, and I picked one of the 202 challenges, read a retelling of a classic of the canon, fairytale, or myth by an author of color. I picked a good one! It's a compilation of a few retellings: Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. I loved the way they blended the three stories, with some girl power flavor. My only gripe is that the Rumaysa's story was never fully resolved. Otherwise, excellent!

And...that's a rap, I guess. I'll be back in December with my first picks for 2025!

Books to read when you're sick

We spent fall break in Costa Rica, and when I tell you it was amazing...y'all, it was amazing. I mean, feast your eyes.

It was very hard to narrow all my pictures down to only four, but I tried to pick a nice sample of all the incredible things we saw and did. There is balance in all things though, so as lovely as this trip was...of course the day after we got back, I got sick as fuck and missed my entire book fair. It wasn't COVID, so that's a plus, but I do have some kind of weird, never-ending stomach bug, so that's very much a negative. Whatever it is, I needed something to fill my time between naps on the couch and what better way to fill time than rewatch Ted Lasso for the millionth time and then rewatching it again read a bunch of books?

I started off ambitiously with a new non-fiction book I was really excited about, Yonder Come Day by Jasmine L. Holmes. VERY good, incredibly emotional. Then I realized I was probably too tired to hyperfixate on another non-fiction book, so I finished listening to an audiobook I'd started on my trip, Gemina, and moved on to the audiobook for the third book in this trilogy, Obsidio. 

Now, the tricky thing about audiobooks...can't listen to them while Ted Lasso plays in the background and pretending you're absorbing both. So between audiobook listens, I also read Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett and Foolish Hearts by Emma Mills (my love for both of these is well-documented), interspersed with chapters from The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon, which is fantastic. 

And while I did manage to work a half day today, today being...about a week and a half before this post is published, I am still very much sick. I'll be off tomorrow so I can go to the doctor and hopefully figure out wtf is going on with my stomach (please, I'd really like to climb again at some point, not to mention just generally be able to eat and feel normal), and while I wait for my appointment, I'll be rereading Starry Eyes, also by Jenn Bennett, my love for this also well-documented. So hey. If you have to be sick, at least there are books. And Ted Lasso.