Ownership: Subscribed on their 6 boxes option. If you are interested in purchasing an Illumicrate subscription, you can do it on their website.
Illumicrate is a book subscription box that usually features fantasy and sci-fi, and curates a wide range of books, including both young adult and adult fiction. It usually contains a new release and several bookish goodies.
I have mixed feelings about Dark Academia but let’s go into this with open eyes, starting bottom left and going clockwise:
The Dark Academia Bookcase jigsaw puzzle. I love when they send jigsaws, because they’re very fun and I find it a nice activity to do, so this is already a win.
A task journal (interesting concept) with a gorgeous cover.
Reading prompt cards, not a concept for me particularly since I am a mood reader and being prompted or forced to choose something does not work, but I did like the idea behind it. It has genre suggestions but also things like “a book with dragons” and so forth, which is quite fun.
A satisfying closure glasses case, which I don’t use simply because I don’t use a glasses case for my all the time on glass except when I sleep.
The monthly leaflet as usual.
And the featured book which was A Dark and Drowning Tide, which is on my list to read and I haven’t got to it annoyingly. But still looking forward to it.
Overall a very dreamy box, which had some very good items and some less useful for me but still creative and useful for others. Visually it’s one of my favourites of the year and the book was also a big favourite.
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
I love Annalise Jensen’s art, and had already kickstarted and enjoyed her previous fairy anthology art book, so backing this one was going to happen.
This is an anthology that compiles art, comics, and short stories about fairies, transformation, and queer desire. It does have a dark theme overall, and I think it is a wonderful little collection of various artists in it (You can read the Kickstarter project here).
What can I say about it? I liked the previous one more, but this one had gorgeous artwork, some dark and creepy stories, some really good comics (some were not up to my taste or really my topics) and it is a great quality book.
It just makes me feel like I need to get back to creating art after going through this lovely anthology and which gives you art, comics, and one fo my favourite things was that the short stories had artwork or headers or side graphics which made it a stunning piece reminding me of old illustrated books. IT is a beautiful piece of art and very magical.
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
Disclaimer: Receiving a review copy from the publisher does not affect my opinion of the book. If you think I review it highly it is due to me knowing my taste well and therefore not requesting books I won’t enjoy. And I am not obligated to review the book if I do not like it, so you may not see bad reviews due to me preferring not to hype down a particular book. I only do reviews of books I disagreed with if I think it is worth bringing a topic or warning to light.
Welcome to the first creepy post of October. I don’t know how much content have of this kind, but this felt fitting to be the first post for the month.
This sounded interesting in many ways when Orbit sent the monthly list of interesting books. Mushrooms, eldritch horror, a cult, and a lot of chaos, why not?
I think the best way I can describe this is that it was a trip! The story follows Sarah who studied to be a mycologist but didn’t finish and now grows mushrooms for people to consume and have a bit of fun. But life isn’t going great so when friend asks her to go on a trip to find spores for a new mushroom that gives the best trips when consumed, she agrees despite misgivings because she wants to try it again and also, the money will help her a lot to get back on track with life.
We also follow a few women who are part of the cult of the Green Lady, which is a feminist cult that exists in the Pamogo woods, that are meant to be difficult to navigate, shuffling themselves and known to belong to the Lord of the Forest. The cult is all about the feminine Green Lady and power to feminity, with lots of sexual power in it but only between women because apparently male energy is bad and corrupts.
Sarah makes it to outside of the woods where she meets her guide and then they start the trek, and Sarah starts getting weird messages that seem to be calling her deep into the woods. And you know, if you are already kinda lost, why not follow this random glitch message.
There’s a lot of chaos, some god events, a lot of sex and drugs, a lot about mushrooms (loved how they’d go all nerdy about things every now and then, which was funky), and a lot about what defines a woman and well, also cult behaviours and brain washing. As I said, it is a trip. But I laughed a lot, was terrified and the ending was just so creepy.
So it was horror well done, and very creepy. There is a lot I am sure on content warnings and I recommend you look for a list (I know there’s body horror, gore, killing, drugs, sex, transphobia, police brutality in a way, guns) because there’s loads going on, but it was a quick read, it just flowed and the ending felt fitting to the chaos ongoing in the Pamogo Woods.
Theme/Month: Look What You Made Me Do, August 2024
Ownership: Subscribed on their 6 boxes option. If you are interested in purchasing an Illumicrate subscription, you can do it on their website.
Illumicrate is a book subscription box, it usually features fantasy and sci-fi but not exclusively young adult, sometimes it features adult too. It usually contains a new release and several bookish goodies.
August box definitely had a distinct colour vibe going on here. So let’s go from the featured book and clockwise:
Mistress of Lies by K.M. Enright which I still have to read, I just haven’t felt particularly compelled to, and so I don’t know when I will get to it.
A weekly pill box inspired by Ruthless Remedy. I like this one but I had one in use already so haven’t used it yet.
Silver Under Nightfall inspired snack bowls. I love these and they are perfect for snack sizing. I generally love almost everything that is dishware they bring out.
Underneath it we have a black and a red packing cube, which I gifted out as I didn’t need any but these were gorgeous.
Then we have the usual monthly leaflet of contents
And finally a replica dagger from The Serpent and the Wings of Night which I didn’t read so no clue. I generally don’t keep these since they’re too heavy to use as hair pins (if they were good as hairsticks, then I’d be all over them, but they’re much too heavy) and I don’t have much reason to keep them otherwise.
Overall, it was definitely a box in theme but I didn’t keep much from it, even if the snack bowls were absolute winners (they are still a winner). Part of me wishes the collectible was more useful but I get the nice unique factor here for the replicas.
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
For the life of me I have no clue how I ended up with this book, but when I was doing my book clearing before the move I decided to get through this one because it didn’t feel too samey like others that had not made the cull.
Ophelia After All follows Ophelia who is known to be a little boy crazy and full of crushes, but also she has a good hand in growing roses, and a bit of a romantic heart.
So she is quite surprised when she is suddenly having the same kind of feelings she has for the many boys in her life, for a quiet and cute girl, Talia. This starts making her doubt herself and her own identity because everyone knows she’s boy-crazy. And as things start getting a bit out of control, including in her friends group partly due to her and to her friends figuring their own doubts out about things, she feels like life is spiralling out of control.
There were a few things I found quite refreshing about the book, which will put us into spoiler territory, so maybe skip this paragraph if it matters to you. One of them was that it isn’t all revolving around Ophelia, her group of friends has their own dramas and doubts and they in part fail her while she is full of doubts, but equally, she isn’t there for them either. And they all notice this slowly, specially as she shut them out while she was doubting herself. The other thing, which is the main spoiler here is that she does not end up with Talia. When she finally decides she wants to figure out things and invite Talia to prom, it turns out Talia wasn’t leading her on, but had a boyfriend and was simply glad to have a friendship with Ophelia. I like that her crush isn’t suddenly a happy ending all magical, but it shows that sometimes we get wrapped up on our own side of the feelings without considering what the other person may be thinking, and that they may not even be sending the “signals” we think are being sent, and are genuinely being friendly. Also, this was a girl to girl kind of oh no, not actually single thing, and Ophelia, well, she has to come to grips with that, and it was nice to see that here.
Overall, the book was fun to read, and it had a refreshing look at identity, figuring things out and romance, and I really enjoyed that.
Jupiter Nettle and the Seven Schools of Magic by Sangu Mandanna. Illustrated by Pablo Ballesteros
Rating:
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
I think I found this while searching for Sangu Mandanna’s new book which I couldn’t remember the title exactly, and then saw there was a cute graphic novel, and had to get it!
Jupiter Nettle and the Seven Schools of Magic does not disappoint. Jupiter has always dreamed of joining one of the Schools of Magic, so when she tries all the tests for all seven schools, feels like she has failed them all and then gets a visitor to say she has made it is not the School of Earth Magic, she does not know what to do.
She decides to go anyway, despite knowing that the School of Earth Magic is looked down by the rest of the students, doesn’t seem to involve any “cool” magic spells and her main tutor and teacher is too serious and demanding. She still sticks it out and somehow starts carving a place for herself in the school, but then an old enemy of the school and magic in general returns, testing Jupiter and her own magic.
IT is a lovely artwork and the story was adorable. I liked the view of the different schools which is a different approach to subjects or houses and here it is more about affinities, including ghosts (which if you are not a ghost, you can’t join). And Jupiter finding her place and figuring things out was also nice, and the way she almost gives up but then finds a way to find her own voice and magic was quite nice too.
Can recommend as a quick sweet read full of magic.
Ownership: Subscribed on their 6 boxes option. If you are interested in purchasing an Illumicrate subscription, you can do it on their website.
Illumicrate is a book subscription box, it usually features fantasy and sci-fi but not exclusively young adult, sometimes it features adult too. It usually contains a new release, a pin and several bookish goodies.
Sometimes the items go beyond my backdrop and then you get a weird photograph. I probably need to better my picture taking skills. But in the meantime, starting from the leaflet on the left and going clockwise:
Magical Menagerie leaflet
Hidden Ones magnetic critter bookmarks (adorable as always). I don’t use magnetic bookmarks a lot because I find after clipping and unclipping them they break and wear down too much and too quickly.
Birds of a Feather desk mat. I love desk mats and this one is gorgeous, so it has been used (though it is not the one currently in use).
Mythical Creature reading journal. super gorgeous both inside and out. I just wished it was a plan sketching notebook rather than a reading journal. I don’t really journal my reading.
The featured book, which was The Phoenix Keeper, is still to be read (sometimes I read the book, sometimes it takes me a while to get to it).
A lipstick holder, which was interesting because I have never even thought about using a lipstick holder, but it was cool even if currently unused.
The items were very much in the theme, but sadly about half of them aren’t in use or haven’t been used which is a bit sad for me, but I still like them and think they are lovely items, just not as useful for me overall. I think the biggest miss is the reading journal, because we keep being sent reading journals and I don’t need more of those, I want notebooks that have epic nice paper to sketch on instead.
For some chaotic reason (I think health and house move) I had not posted my review for this entry into one of my favourite middle grade series!
Diary of an Accidental Witch follows Bea who moves into a new village with her dad who studies the weather, and the weather here is all funky, but it may have to do with the magical school nearby rather than just natural phenomenon.
Bea ends up going to witch school and turns out she is a witch, so we follow her shenanigans through a series of books (I have reviewed all of them and I love them so much!). Magic Ever After is what looks to be the last of the series. This is the one bad thing of this book, that it is the last so far and I am heartbroken!
Bea’s ready for magical plans over the school holidays and then she realises her dad is obsessed with trying to do magic, and Taffy is being too serious and thinking hard. So Bea is here to help her Dad and Taffy with their not so secret wedding. She then has extra secrets to keep, magic to teach, and a party to plan full of magic, chaos happens, but also, it is a very sweet book.
I enjoyed the relationships showing up and the friendship and everyone pulling up to help make this memorable, including Bea still panicking about things and her dad’s chaos happening, but in the end the wedding is so cute and very much in line with the chaos of the family.
Very cute, a nice “ending” for the series and with lots of potential for picking back up if they ever do!
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
I have been following Wendy Xu for a long time and love her art a lot, so after Mooncakes and knowing she was making a new graphic novel, I had my eyes on it for ages. This where I find out I haven’t actually reviewed Mooncakes here even though I loved it loads.
Anyway, the Infinite Particle follows Clementine Clang who moves from Earth to Mars and lands her dream job, working with an Artifical Intelligence pioneer. It also follows Kye, who is the humanoid AI created by Doctor Marcella Lin, the AI pioneer Clem works for.
Clementine finds Kye fascinating since he seems a bit too human. And that is intriguing to her as she has built her own robots since she was young (it is part of why she got the job) and her current companion is a lovely moth-shaped one, called SENA.
As Clem collaborates and interacts with Kye, their chemistry and interactions set off sparks, but this independence and change in Kye’s behaviour starts causing friction with Dr. Lin who has issues and doesn’t handle things well, throwing rages and tantrums and being too rigid. And she’s not very forthcoming with allowing Kye independence. Brings out the interesting question of why would you create a humanoid AI and try to make it as human as possible then keep under your control too much, and not let it develop and grow as an actual AI?
As the interactions and relationship between Clem and Kye grows, it makes Clem and KYe both ask questions of where the line between humanity and AI is, what makes one human? (this is an ever pondered question, we still ponder it between humans and animals/other creatures).
The artworks was very cute and fit right, and the story didn’t shy from interesting questions and difficult topics, tackling them with curiosity and openness, and giving space for the characters to discover and work things out. I liked this thought and approach that was given and it reminded me of my own days building robots, playing with neural networks and algorithms and programming. Very well worth reading and getting a copy of it if you can.
Sea of Stars main art from the Press Kit. Art by Bryce Kho.
At some point I had planned to also review and talk about (video)games I enjoyed playing, and yet it felt daunting to do so knowing I do not live up to more mainstream and established reviewers. But some games live rent free in my head and I wanted to share with you about them.
I bought a copy for myself on my Steam Deck on sale after playing the demo and enjoying it enough. According to Steam, I spend 40.4 hours on it (most of it on the main game and a few hours on the DLC), and I have managed to get 31 out of 54 achievements. I was not achievement hunting so this was mostly through just playing the game and trying to complete it.
I am usually picky with my RPGs, particularly ones that are turn based and JRPG. I don’t play many nowadays, since they tend to be very difficult, require too much brain at times and not be engaging enough or be too slow. But Sea of Stars, had probably one of my favourite features, that through acquiring items you can modify how combat and gameplay happen to your preferences in very specific ways. This meant that I could immediately tell it that I wanted to recover to full health and stamina/magic after every combat ended successfully. This made all the difference.
So let’s cover all the usual points of games, starting with:
Combat
I hate having to worry post combat about not encountering new combat (the whole “oh no, I have fought 10 Pokemons in my journey to the next town and my party is about to be wiped and now another one just jumped on me out of the grass, oh hell” vibe is part of why I don’t finish Pokemon games or do so very slowly or without spending extra time on them). So having a way to just hit the next fight on a blank slate and keep levelling up helped a lot. There a few other modifiers you can add, like making the cooking dynamic a tiny bit quicker and a few others. I would try most of them (except the ones that made combat harder) and then decide if I wanted to keep them on or not, because it is extremely easy to toggle them on or off in your inventory.
Combat is true to a turn based RPG and you get the same experience but smoother that you would get in classic RPGs. You can play 3 characters max on the ground but easily swap them during the turn to create combos and ultimate. They interact well with each other and I kept the two main characters on as main fighters for most fo the game. Experience is gained amongst the team regardless of if you used the character or not, which is also great. Hate having to grind all the party just to get them to similar levels.
For me the combat was accessible and good. Enough of a challenge, but with good modifiers that made it easy enough to be enjoyable.
Art style and Aesthetic
This is a massive winner, I am in love with Bryce’s art and the old style PRG vibes are immaculate but with all the modernity and years of expertise added to them. Love the colour palettes of different places, the thematic vibes for each island and area, and even for each character. It was incredibly satisfying and I even ended up buying the art book because I love the art and style so much.
Plot and story
One thing I actually enjoyed a LOT about this, is that there was zero romance in it. It is a story of friendship, of children who love each other and grown to support each other, and they also fight evil and hope for a better world. And you get wholesome relationships between the characters, with each having a unique personality, unique challenges and ways their story comes through in their items and plot. I cried, I hoped, and I was with all characters all the way. It was just so beautiful and kept me engaged and I kept wanting to known more of their backstory. The story goes both fast and slow, and the progress can feel a bit grindy (but when doesn’t it in an RPG? This is what kills me from Final Fantasy games, they take forever).
Gameplay and overall feeling
This game reminded me of the joy of playing RPGs, and it took away most of the frustrating parts of it. It still has a lot of puzzles, many many fights (though as you revisit areas and level up, the fights end faster or you can completely skip them with new abilities) and some interesting abilities.
I had like zero strategy on how I levelled my characters up, so the builds were simply by “hey I think this will do well here because this characters is suffering from this” or “hey I use this character a lot to do this type of attack, so might as well buff that attack type”. It felt approachable and it worked. I didn’t need to read up several guides to be able to make my party well rounded and working to defeat enemies. I could you dive in, so I stayed in the game and played and played (40 hours of it).
I enjoyed it until I completed the main game, but I did get a bit overdone with it by the time I approached the DLC, and so I paused that, because the mechanics changed a bit and I just had played too many hours of it, to devote time for it, but I still wanted to give it a fair go once I have completed other games in between to give me a fresher mind.
Overall, it genuinely was so accessible, kept things fresh and has immaculate vibes. I want everyone to play this, particularly if you ever played old pixel graphic RPGs. Plus we have a sun and moon character, a wonderful best friend, an enigmatic ninja, a mysterious pirate captain and her odd crew, and a few other characters who have a lot of story to tell.
And even better, I actually stayed engaged and completed the game. It was that enjoyable that I played it end to end.
