★ 2024 ★

*=reread

date title thoughts
05/01 Gone Girl this book makes me want to read mysteries again. it's soooo compelling, just believable enough to give you a sense/fear of the stakes. i'm not gonna spoil anymore, just go read it.
16/01 Mo Dao Zu Shi: Volume 2 it's been slow getting into this series because a billion people always have it on hold before me at the library, but i'm really enjoying it. i think a basic component of what makes anathema-v anathema-v is a love of cool guys with swords (especially if they have unresolved romantic tension lmao). uhh yeah xianxia fun, mo xiang tong xiu good writer <3.
02/02 The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity i don't really know much about anthropology, but this book was sooooo good. graeber and wengrow have a really easily understandable writing style that still manages to get so much information across. i like their idea that the purpose of history/archeology/anthropology is to better understand the present. also all the indigenous america societies/states that they talk about are really interesting.
05/02 The Open Veins of Latin America god we're so fucked. death to the west for real.
08/02 Mo Dao Zu Shi: Volume 3 yayyy more xian xia. are we not gonna talk about the blindfolded wei wuxian scene. like is he never gonna bring that up again. guess i'm gonna have to read the next book haha
19/02 Mo Dao Zu Shi: Volume 4 lan wangji you need to learn how to be more expressive. wei wuxian is sooooo fucked up over what he did, and you, having the communication skills of a log, are not helping. still love and cherish you though <3
02/03 Mo Dao Zu Shi: Volume 5 a well written conclusion to the series. the extras needed more of teen wangji being cringe and relatable, and less of the incense burner chapter.
05/03 The Goldfinch* i was highkey obsessed with this book in the eighth grade (read it twice over the course of many recesses spent in the girls' bathroom), and i felt like microdosing on the feeling of being in middle school (aka being miserable and having no friends). anyways, it's still a good fucking book.
10/03 Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong: Volume 1 what's up everyone, it's your girl ana back at it again, "it" being reading xianxia danmei novels of questionable literary merit. they're fun though + cringe is dead.
10/03 Amulet: Books 1-8* i looooved amulet in the 3rd-5th grades, and the last book came out so i decided to reread the rest of the series. it was pretty good; i can understand why child me liked it. trellis is still very gender. i really think that kibuishi could have cut down on some of the characters at the end. like we did not need those alien medics in book 8, they did jack dick besides look weird and crack unfunny jokes. *sigh*. also that entire space plotline could have been cut down a lot; it made this really weird difference between the space resistance program tech and the rest-of-alledia tech. whatever i guess.
10/03 Amulet: Book 9 i'm gonna be real, this was a bad ending. there's so many plotlines and characters introduced that mean absolutely nothing to readers because they have less than 250 pages to do anything. and emily doesn't even resolve anything either, like even after her final confrontation with [spoiler], [spoiler] is later shown to still be doing stuff?? like actively continuing to be malicious??? and god trying to tie everything back to silas was a disaster, considering that no motivation is explained for silas wanting to carry out all these actions. and i might just be dumb but the shadows didn't really get resolved either. *SIGH* whatever it totally, definitely doesn't matter that my childhood fave kinda sucked in the end. i won't be salty about it (i will).
12/03 Dracula two saturdays ago, i went to the library in chinatown to look for a book (rzfzx), and it straight up wasn't there, so i checked this out to not seem suspicious or whatever. i understand why it's a classic.
14/03 Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong: Volume 2 more xianxia/danmei. definitely less of a slow burn than mdzs. idk but luo binghe is looking kinda scummy rn.
20/03 The Secret History i've wanted to read more of tartt's work since i first read the goldfinch, and there was finally a copy not checked out at the library! it was a pretty messed up book, but messed up in just the right way. i liked it a lot. haunting
22/03 Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong: Volume 3 goddamn a lot of stuff happened in this one. luo binghe's such a weirdo i love him.
27/03 Annihilation sooo fucking good...i kinda wanna study biology now ngl.
04/04 Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong: Volume 4 the series as a whole was kinda meh. i did think the airplane extras were fun
11/04 Gideon the Ninth okay gang, i'm off my danmei addiction and on to my... tragic yuri funtime!!! literally so good; i love me a good mystery.
17/04 Fight Club i saw the movie a few weeks ago, so i had to read the book too. incredibly fucking good. palahniuk does good stuff with prose + punctuation. also the whole reason i even ended up looking in to fight club was b/c i saw this fanart of it on tumblr (in like 2022/23?), and i've been going crazy over finding it for like 30 mins lmao. i am joe's blue light-induced eyestrain.
19/04 Doorways in the Sand good scifi adventure. i liked the weird structure + style that zelanzy used. also someone on wikipedia in 2011 was incredibly passionate about it... like insanely so; the article is unnecessarily huge.
03/05 Harrow the Ninth soooooo plot twisty, you could not imagine. very solid overall.
03/05 The Summer Hikaru Died: Volume 3 i am never not enjoying a new hgsn volume. so good for real... good enough that i read it in the span of one train ride haha.