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.
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.
I am still super far behind on this, but one day I will catch up, I promise. This is still really the only book box I buy and I enjoy it enough to keep it going so far. Apparently for about ten years. How does time by so fast?
Anyway, let’s dig into the contents of this one:
At the top we have two mechanical pencils (I have not used these, mostly because I am particular on the mechanical pencil I use for drawing, and otherwise I don’t really use them) inspired by Empress of Salt and Fortune.
Bandits of Liagnshan enamel pin inspired by The Water Outlwas. I like the pin, it has been added to the ever growing collection.
The monthly leaflet with the photo challenge and contents description. I used to keep these but have been recycling nowadays.
A metal bookmark inspired by The Bone Shard Daughter (I haven’t read that one yet), which is super cool.
The main book, which was Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen and I have yet to read it. It somehow didn’t become a priority amongst the choices I have made to keep around in my super minimal bookcase.
And finally a print album inspired by Girls of Paper and Fire (that was a good series). I like these albums because I actually use them for prints and they are awesome for keeping them tidy and I can browse them nicely.
Overall, it was super on theme and very well tied together for pictures and showing off all the elements. Most of the items were good and useful (the mechanical pencils would’ve been in use if I was taking more notes and going places). So can’t complain on this box, I like it when they items all look good together and seem to stick incredibly well with the theme and each other and that was a win here for sure.
Zatanna: The Jewel of Gravesend by Alys Arden and Jacquelin de Leon
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 am not huge on superhero type of comics and stories, but Zatanna always seems to win me over. I read another story a while back, Zatanna and the House of Secrets, and since then I keep trying to find more of her.
In comparison to House of Secrets this is an older teenager almost adult Zatanna, and it still has touches on her identity and who she is. There is as always a lot fo magic and weirdness and that carnival festival. I think those two things, the magician and magic act feels that come from Zatanna being the child of famous magicians, and the carnival vibes definitely are big reasons for my love fo her stories.
My dad used to always do magic and even had a few years when he did magic at events. I learned a bunch of tricks and how to escape two types of cuffs for some of the tricks, and so I can think of maigicnas with joy, even if it is all in tricks.
This jewel of Gravesend is a bit darker and more mystical, which questions Zatanna’s parents, her history and what she is willing to sacrifice to save what she loves, and at the same time she isn’t sure she wants anything to do with magic, but feels pressured into it, there is also her attempting to become her own person and be independent and her love for the carnival and her odd life, and the artwork here was perfectly suited to the story.
It is definitely a favourite story of magic, mystery and intrigue and with Zatanna at the front of it. So can definitely recommend it as another good read to add to the collection.
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 bought this on a whim on a trip to Waterstones. I loved One Day (before there was a film and a series) and the way they kept meeting yearly, and how much could change year by year. And somehow when I read the synopsis for this, it made me want to read it.
We meet our two main characters, Michael and Marnie, who are both unravelling a little in their loneliness and I guess a middle life crisis for each. Marnie is a good copywriter and loves her job, doesn’t really want to see people, feels awkward but knows she is funny and well, she is the kind of person who enjoys cancelled plans. Michael is grieving a divorce and not properly over it, but also blaming himself and managing past PTSD after a traumatic event.
And a friend in common will suggest doing a long weekend of walks, starting part of the Coast to Coast walk, which apparently has a lot of history and a specific route. It is also meant to be setup as a bit of a blind date, but not particularly between Marnie and Michael, the mutual friend has other potential prospects for each. And yet somehow, things happen and they end up walking together.
If you don’t walk much, particularly in nature, then this will be less known for you. I used to love just setting off and walking for hours and then back, or go with walks with friends. Or walk from a village to the pub in the next village over, or walk between two villages (3+ miles) to go to the library, grab some books and come back. I walk a lot less nowadays as I use a walking stick, but I still love walks in nature (much less walks in cities, I am not too fond of walking on concrete). I digress, the point I was trying to get to, is that if you walk in company there is both these bits of silence that is very companionable and also the moments of talking to each other, either side to side but kinda talking forward, or one behind the other, and you somehow get very deep in what you talk, or very silly. It just happens that walks make you talk of deep feelings, deep thoughts, you may not get anywhere, but you share, you explore, not only with your feet but with your conversation.
And this book, it is a lot about that. It is also somewhat of a love story (in a David Nicholls style so don’t expect the perfect happy ending, but to me it had a good hopeful ending). But it is about encountering your own demosn, sharing them, maybe realisign you’re not so alone and others are dealing with similar problems or can relate to you. That we are both very very different and at the same time very much the same, we’re all human.
It was a very soothing read for me, the pace is set by them trying to make progress, by their talks as they walk, a bit about the actual walk and what places you go by in the Coast to Coast walk in the UK (I knew the end to end starting in Scotland and ending in Conrwall I think but not this one). And also about what they would explore when they got to their end destination, to the place where they either stopped for lunch or for the day. And the little interactions there, the spaces were you stop walking and have to figure out what living is like.
You Are Here was a nice read, with a conversational pace, a bit of melancholy, a lot of humanity, some humour and a bit of romance, and it was good. I enjoyed it a lot.
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.
Now we’re back to our regular posting schedule and somehow we are on the right month for illumicrate, just a year behind. Woops. But let’s check the contents, starting from the top left and going clockwise:
The featured book which is Goddess of the River, which I have read and reviewed already. And absolutely loved it. Big win here.
We then have some little clips, which I have been using for bags of crisps and other little things like that, very handy, even if a tiny bit big.
Anther one of the storybook setting magnets, which live on my fridge happily holding recipe cards of the things I tend to need the recipe often enough.
The usual content booklet.
Another lovely mug, which I cannot for the life of me remember what the fandom was, but they are generally my favourite style of mugs and I love them very much.
And finally, a book carrier. These are so so amazing, I have them all over the house, they’re the perfect thing to be at the base of the stairs to put things that need to go upstairs, and to have in the office for things that need to move form here to another room, and you get the idea, right?
This was a big winner box with lots of useful items and fun things that I have loved having, and that are regularly being used at home, so nothing really has ended up gathering dust or making me feel like it was wasted on me.
