#Sydney Khoo

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads

The Spider And Her Demons

YA Australian urban fantasy/horror

about a Malaysian-Chinese girl who’s half spider-demon, just trying to keep her head down and survive high school

when she accidentally kills and eats a man in front of the most popular girl at school, they strike up a strange friendship and she starts to learn more about herself and the supernatural world

aroacespec/sapphic ish

#The Spider And Her Demons #Sydney Khoo #loveozya #aroaessidhe 2023 reads #you give me a teenage girl with giant hair spider legs who scuttles across her bedroom wall on page 3 #and then eats a man and i am already sold. #also aus books are always so familiar compared to US books :) #and yes sexuality stuff is ambiguous but basically: a bunch of discussion on relationship hierachies (ie friendship equally/more important) #themes of feeling unlovable bc you're different and different forms of love #multiple times the MC says she has no interest in dating or relationships and also is touch (and maybe sex) repulsed #- but of course that Also has to do with the whole Being A Monster thing #and it definitely shows some kind of attraction to dior - ie looking at her lips/bare skin; blushing; etc #and ends on sort of hand kiss / 'is this something??' vibes #I asked the author and they said they see them as QPR / platonic soulmates but are not at the point where they would know what to call it #which makes total sense to me! #the part of me who wants more obvious aroace YA wishes it was a little more specific #but also I DO love ambiguity and I think it wouldn't be true to the characters #who are clearly not even ready to start figuring that stuff out. #and also. aroacespec sapphics is like. also something i want #also like. I think it's reductive to assume just because 'looks at lips' is a common allo attraction trope....doesn't necessarily mean #it has to be that. yknow. #anyway. i loved it a lot. #gross spidergirl (affectionate)...... #also dior is such an interesting and complex character. like another book could have made her nicer or less fucked up

[layaart]

a few extra spider & her demons sketches 🕷

#forgor to post these #the spider and her demons #sydney khoo #book fanart #sketches #books #art #2023 fanart

[homerjacksons]

💚🤍 Happy Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week 🩶🖤

[x]

#bookblr #bookstagram #aromantic #aromantic spectrum awareness week #aroace #books #bookedit #loveless #alice oseman #the spider and her demons #sydney khoo #kaikeyi #vaishnavi patel #the lady’s guide to petticoats and piracy #mackenzi lee

[bookaddict24-7]

New Young Adult Releases! (August 15th, 2023)

___

Have I missed any new Young Adult releases? Have you added any of these books to your TBR? Let me know!

___

New Standalones/First in a Series:

Tilly in Technicolor by Mazey Eddings

Disappearing Act by Jiordan Castle

The Last Girls Standing by Jennifer Dugan

Forgive Me Not by Jennifer Baker

Holly Horror by Michelle Jabès Corpora

The Spider & Her Demons by Sydney Khoo

New Sequels:

Fracturing Fate (Breaking Time #2) by Sasha Alsberg

___

Happy reading!

#new releases #new books #tbr #to-read #Features #on books #on reading #yalit #young adult #yareads #Sasha Alsberg #Sydney Khoo #Michelle Jabès Corpora #Jennifer Baker #Jennifer Dugan #Jiordan Castle #Mazey Eddings #read #reader #reading #book list #book blog #book blogger #booklr #bookworm #bookaholic #bibliophile

[good-books-to-read]

Title & Author: The spider and her demons by Sydney Khoo

Score: 96/100

Comments: I could not put down this book at all it was so good, I love the characters and the story. I really hope there is another book, and if not I hope the authors writes more.

Also that cover is amazing

Link: https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/ce75afc8-33c5-4b06-b29e-25ec1f665941

#the spider and her demons #tsahd #sydney khoo #booklover #booklr #books #booksbooksbooks #booknerd #10/10 would recommend #book recommendation #must read #bookish #best books #middle grade #teen #australian #demons #magic #witch #family

[fahye]

book recs: aug-sept '23

THE BAYOU by arden powell -- queer horror novella! this is set in 1930s louisiana and like all good horror it's about horrible unburied secrets haunting you. but also gators and summer flooding and guilt and, uh, letting a hot mysterious man/fae/?other? rail you in a church. superb. no notes.

TELL ME I'M WORTHLESS by alison rumfitt -- MORE QUEER HORROR! TRANS HORROR!! this is a haunted house book but the haunting is modern british fascism and the house is made of TERFs. the writing is fantastic. it's like being trapped in a small room with someone who is screaming loudly and endlessly, but like, in a good way.

THE SECRET COUNTRY by pamela dean -- this is an oldschool portal fantasy that somehow manages to combine excellent diana wynne jones vibes with my most common stress nightmare, ie. the one where you're in the Show but you've been so busy choreographing for the Show that you've forgotten to learn your own lines. baffling. very enjoyable.

KNOCKOUT by sarah maclean -- listen. listen. this series is about a historical vigilante girl gang, and this is the romance between a lady explosives expert and the exasperated policeman she wants very much to bang (heheh. bang.) very miss fisher vibes and also, somehow, very Fuck The Police (...heheh.) I adored it.

AN ISLAND PRINCESS STARTS A SCANDAL by adriana herrera -- a very horny and fun f/f histrom about a venezuelan artist in paris and the duchess she is, again, extremely determined to bang. I love this series of adriana's, with all its glorious historical detail about the various latinx delegations to the grand paris exhibition.

THE SPIDER AND HER DEMONS by sydney khoo -- YA fantasy about a chinese-malaysian australian girl who is also, inconveniently, a spider demon. this has an aro-ace heroine and heaps of very cool and creepy body horror and made me desperate to go back to sydney and eat banh mi in cabramatta. a+.

WHITE CAT, BLACK DOG by kelly link -- so you know how kelly link is an absolute genius master of the short story form? you know how the best fairytale retellings are both chattily straightforward and bonkers weird? YEAH. my god this collection is so good.

#book recs #yes I do read an absurd amount #my purpose on this earth #is to extend your TBR #have fun darlings

[aro-who-reads]

Aro book review: The Spider and Her Demons by sydney khoo

(the book from my last post(s) )

I think the MC Zhi is actually aroace-coded! I just didn't find any reviews that mentioned it when I first found it...

I really loved this! It took over my brain for the day or so I was reading it.

The main character Zhi is a Malaysian Chinese girl who is part spider-demon. She accidentally kills and eats a man, and begins to form a friendship with the mysterious and popular girl from school who saw her do it.

It's also very Australian, which I really enjoyed! It's fun when there are scenes in places I've at least visited...

Zhi makes a lot of statements about not wanting/expecting romance and sex, and never seems to think about it if it isn't brought up by someone else. There's also some nice commentary on relationship hierarchies!

In any other book I would have assumed Zhi and her new friend were going to get together (apparently they are meant to be heading towards something (qpr-ish?). Even if they got together romantically I'd still probably see her as somewhere on the aroace spectrum.

Definitely recommend, especially if you like urban fantasy! I bought it on a whim but I definitely don't regret it.

#aro #aromantic #aro books #Finally posting this oops #I even have a signed copy #(that's actually why I first picked it up - I assumed if they'd been signed it was probably Australian)

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

24 in 2024

i haven't seen any of these floating around yet, so i thought i'd get one started! here are 24 books i want to read in 2024 (and a bonus readerly goal):

Welcome to Your World: How the Built Environment Shapes Our Lives by Sarah Williams Goldhagen

Obsolescence: An Architectural History by Daniel M. Abramson

Offended Sensibilities by Alisa Ganieva

The Night, The Night by Rodrigo Blanco Calderón

Dayswork by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel

Dawn by Sevgi Soysal

Trashlands by Alison Stine

The Girl in Red by Christina Henry

How to be Eaten by Maria Adelmann

The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories edited by Yu Chen and Regina Kanyu Wang

The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown

Black Tide by KC Jones

A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys

The Ambergris Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer

The Great Cities Duology by NK Jemisin

The Spider and her Demons by sydney khoo

A Shining by Jon Fosse

Bad Cree by Jessica Johns

Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology edited by Vince A Liaguno and Rena Mason

Self-Portrait with Nothing by Aimee Pokwatka

Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin

Unexpected Places to Fall From, Unexpected Places to Land by Malcolm Devlin

Always North by Vicki Jarrett

At the Edge of the Woods by Masatsugu Ono

Bonus Readerly Goal: i'm gonna try REALLY hard to only buy a book after i read five (5), this year (pre-orders DNI). gotta get that backlist under control SOMEhow, right??

notes on the color-coding: the green books are Just Because books (with a couple little red riding hood adjacent retellings in there, which is writing-project-related). a few of these came in a translation subscription box, and i am Interested in Architecture, and i'd love to read more of both this year.

the blue ones are bookmarked for nano prep (i wanna write something fucked up about space this year, i think, it's still cooking). i know it's early for that, but The Vibes™ have to marinate for a while. will probably add some haunted house books to this part of the list!

lastly, the purple ones are driscoll adjacent! filling my words well with related vibes worked well, this year, and i want to do that again next year. since i read through the entirety of my previous ~driscoll vibes~ stack last year, i've been restocking it, so most of these are very recently purchased.

(please note that all this color-coding/explanatory text is absolutely optional and Extra™, if you want to play--you can add it if you'd like, but by no means feel Obligated To Do So lol)

tagging @asexualbookbird, @six-of-ravens/@sixofravens-reads, @agardenandlibrary, @freckles-and-books, and anyone else who wants to play!

#books #24 in 2024 #reading goals #book talk #asexualbookbird #six-of-ravens #agardenandlibrary #freckles-and-books #if anyone would like me to remove their tag please say so! and no pressure to play #i'm just curious about what y'all want to read! #ALSO if anyone/any followers would like me to ADD you with an official tag please slide into my messages and let me know--i'm happy to add! #you can also just tag me in your own post and say 'thanks for the tag' if you're so inclined!! really whoever wants to play can #(i just know that i myself personally almost never respond because 'what if they don't really mean ME anyone') #(but i assure you that i mean --you-- anyone reading this) #(again: will also happily add you to tags if you'd like just let me know lmao) #(also also: yeah i'm making this instead of finishing off my 23 in 2023 reading list lmao) #(i got pretty far!! all that's left is bitch queen and daemon voices and both of those are literally in progress!!) #(so that's pretty good i think) #anyway ezra you're up lmaoo #not me procrastikn----booking? #procrastibooking #procrastiblogging even #in btw #driscoll

[auslgbtqya]

The Spider and Her Demons by sidney khoo

(2023)

From the Publisher:

Uncover an extraordinary world of demons and witches, where the ones you love can hurt you the most and hiding your true self can get you killed.

Moving and funny by turns, this is a story about what it takes to make peace with your demons – literal or otherwise. An urban fantasy spin on growing up as a second-generation immigrant, struggling under the overwhelming pressure to make others proud, while feeling trapped inside your own body.

Between surviving high school and working at her aunt’s dumpling shop, all Zhi wants is to find time for her friends . . . and make sure no one finds out she’s half spider-demon.

But when she accidentally kills and eats a man in front of the most popular girl in school, she discovers she might not be the scariest thing in the shadows.

sydney khoo is a recipient of Penguin Random House Australia’s Write It fellowship program, which aspires to find, nurture and develop unpublished writers across all genres, with a focus on underrepresented sections of our community.

Goodreads

#ausqueerya #loveozya #lgbtq #ya #YABooks #sidney khoo #the spider and her demons

[johnkhoo]

Your Fitness Journey

Do you get hot just thinking about going to the gym? Do you have no idea what a bench press and a bicep curl are, or what your target heart rate should be? FitCore, founded by John Khoo in Brisbane and Sydney, understands that beginning a fitness regimen might be intimidating, but it doesn't have to be. John Khoo has compiled a list of ten actions to help you get started and stay motivated on your fitness quest.

1. Visit your primary care physician for a physical examination before beginning any new workouts or fitness routines. Your doctor can tell you if you're free to do whatever you want or if there are certain activities you should avoid. In any case, he or she will be delighted to learn that you're working to better your health.

2. Establish your objectives: Why are you beginning a workout routine? You might want to lose weight, increase muscle, reduce stress, or enhance your cardiovascular health—or all of the above. Knowing what kind of results you want to achieve can assist you decide which exercises to do.

3. Begin small: When beginning a fitness journey, it's best to start modest. According to John Khoo. There’s no need to jump into a gym and raise a ton of weight on Day 1. That is, in fact, a good way to injure oneself and become discouraged. Start with 15 to 30 minutes of daily walking. Instead of taking the elevator, take the steps. Throughout the day, take stretch breaks. You may establish an exercise habit by doing something modest every day. You can gradually increase the difficulty of the exercises.

4. Consult a personal trainer: If you're a complete beginner when it comes to fitness, a personal trainer can help. Even two or three sessions will be incredibly beneficial. FitCore's pleasant and professional trainers are available to talk about your fitness objectives, create an exercise routine for you, and teach perfect form.

5. Schedule exercise like you would a dental appointment, a soccer game for your child, or lunch with a friend on your personal calendar. This will assist you in making exercise a priority in your day. If you simply think to yourself, "I'll work out at some point today," it's easy for other things to come up and keep you from exercising.

6. Get a friend: Everything is more enjoyable with a companion. Find a friend who wants to get in shape as well. You may keep one other responsible for your fitness goals and provide support when things become tough. Plus, walking into a gym or a new exercise class alongside someone makes it less frightening. FitCore also offers semi-private personal workout sessions with a friend using their excellent trainers.

7. Take a class: Sometimes the best approach to get started with a fitness program is to pick a class you enjoy and try it out. For example, at John Khoo's FitCore, you can participate in yoga, Rock 'n Ryde, Pilates, and MyZone, among other activities. They're all enjoyable, difficult, and beneficial to your fitness.

8. Be prepared for setbacks: Life has a habit of throwing you curveballs. Work may get hectic, or family obligations may arise, preventing you from exercising as much as you would like. The most essential thing is not to give up. Simply return to your normal schedule as soon as possible. Alternatively, find tiny opportunities to be more active throughout the day. Never forget that any exercise is preferable to none.

9. Keep in mind that fitness is more than just exercise. You must also ensure that your body receives the proper nutrition to power your workouts. There's no need to stick to the most recent fad diet. Begin by consuming a variety of fruits and vegetables, as well as lean protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats. FitCore's nutrition support team can assist you in determining what's ideal for you if you have specific weight loss or fitness goals in mind.

10. Reward yourself: You deserve to be rewarded for all of your hard work. After 30 days of steady exercise, reward yourself with a massage or a facial. After you've completed your first 5K race, get that stylish pair of sneakers you've been eyeing.

Conclusion

Come to FitCore in Brisbane, Sydney, if you're ready to begin your fitness adventure. FitCore offers more exercise, nutrition, and health services than any other facility in the area. Monthly, annual, and flexible contract membership options are available to suit your needs and lifestyle. 

[greenlesbianwitchling]

“I’m told the steps are as follows: 

1.     Find the right person

2.     Fall in love

3.     Get married

4.     Live happily ever after

It’s not that the right person is hard to find – I just don’t get the point. Why do I need this ‘right person’? What purpose do they serve? It’s like being told to bring a plus one to McDonald’s for breakfast, except McDonald’s is life and breakfast lasts forever.

I mean, I could, but do I really have to?

Are steps 1-3 mandatory, or are they optional?”

#sydney khoo #asexuality #such a good article

[aroaessidhe]

16 and 4 for book ask

16: What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

Tbh I don't think I read a ton of overhyped books at all - I read a lot of medium hyped books that I think didn't quite meet that, but also the hype I saw was probably from like 3 people, not like topping-the-charts, lol

maybe the sun & the void, I need to learn to mistrust illumicrate choices they're often mid

4: Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

Lots! Wesley Chu, I.S. Belle, Moniquill Blackgoose, sydney khoo are a few! most new authors I only read one book by and idk if I can really count that but.....

#ask tag

[layaart]

Zhi from The Spider & Her Demons by sydney khoo!

#the spider and her demons #the spider & her demons #sydney khoo #books #book fanart #loveozya #spider monster girl ! #illustration #character art #2023 fanart

[sydneykhoo-blog]

“Painted Summer”

Venice, Italy

#photography #sydney khoo #venice #italy

[asexualjournal]

I experience sexual desire. I like orgasms. In fact, I love orgasms. Orgasms are the best invention since chicken nuggets. 

It’s not til later that I learn there’s a difference between sexual desire and sexual attraction.

Free Toy Included by sydney khoo

#aspec #aspec positivity #aspec discourse #asexuality #asexual #ace

[goforcrypto]

Former government contractor avoids jail for mining crypto at work

Former government contractor avoids jail for mining crypto at work

Just don’t use work resources for personal gain.

A former government contractor in Australia who mined crypto using state-owned supercomputers has avoided jail time. 

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Jonathan Khoo was ordered to complete 300 hours of community service for installing code on two supercomputers run by Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation,…

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