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#my sister just read the house in the cerulean sea and she LOVED it

kimium · 8 months

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I saw one of Vil's lesson lines mentions he likes reading, and that sparked my curiousity. What do you think is the favourite book of each Housewarden? (can be novel, novella, nonfictional, anthology, comic book, etc., just as long as it is some sort of book!) I love reading and I know you love reading, so I eagerly await your answer!!!

Oh, what a good ask for me! I certainly love books (I know, shocker), so I am very excited to answer this.

For everyone else note that I am going to pick books that I've personally read, so I can actually talk about the book in depth. Also, since we're picking books I've personally read they're going to be all fiction books. I'm sorry everyone, but I don't usually read non-fiction.

Each of the Housewarden's Favourite Book/Story

Riddle - Howl's Moving Castle by: Diana Wynne Jones

I picked this book for Riddle because it has what I think Riddle deserves: some whimsy and magic with fun, silly characters. He probably grew up forced to read boring textbooks or "classics" from his mother. Thus, I think Riddle deserves something that she would have never allowed him to read.

Leona - "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

A classic short story and one of my favourites from Shirley Jackson. I picked this one because I think Leona would like one of the main themes of the story: the questioning of tradition and the blind following of it. I also think he'd like the tone of the story and how it leads the reader on a journey before revealing the ending. I also picked this for Leona because it's not a novel, since I think Leona generally reads non-fiction/isn't a big reader.

(Note: My runner up for Leona was "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe. I think Leona would enjoy the story of revenge and murder.)

PS: I know "The Lottery" is a short story and not exactly a "novel" or even a "novella" but it could be in a collection, so I counted it.

Azul - The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Easily one of my top ten favourite books of all time, I think The Night Circus suits Azul. We have: magicians with their apprentices pitted against one another due to a bet, magic is real but the apprentices are doing their best to pretend they don't have magic as they "fake" their acts, and a sprinkle of romance. This book is a fantastic read and I highly recommend it.

Kalim - The House in the Cerulean Sea by: TK Klune

For Kalim I think he'd enjoy a light, breezy book. For me this is the most recent book I've read that fits that description. I also think Kalim would love seeing someone who is closed off and lonely (the narrator, Linus Baker) discovering love with Arthur as he navigates between fulfilling his job duties and opening his heart.

Vil - Clytemnestra by: Costanza Casati

A spin/retelling of the Greek myth in a similar vein to The Song of Achilles, I think Vil would love this book because we have a female character who has many grey areas to her. The reader can understand her plight and dilemma. However, her actions could also be read as villainous, making people question and have doubts. I think that vibe perfectly suits Vil.

(Note: My runner up for Vil was The Great Gatsby because it's a classic and I think classics suit Vil.)

Idia - Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

The sheer willpower to not just pick a light novel was astonishing. However, I decided to stick to books mostly because I don't read light novels often and so my knowledge of them is limited. I also considered sci-fi novels, but in the end I think Thistlefoot is a good pick. I picked this for two reasons: one, it has folklore at the core (Baba Yaga) and two it has siblings (brother and sister) unwillingly inheriting a family heirloom and that sort of vibes in my brain with Idia.

Malleus - The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

My favourite murder mystery novel, I picked this one for Malleus because of all the moving parts. There is not just the mystery of Evelyn's death, but the narrator stuck in a timeloop as well as switching bodies every reset which adds to the complexity of the story. I think this would intrigue Malleus and keep him hooked in the world of the story.

And there you go, friend! My pick for the housewardens' favourite books. I hope you like my answer! Let me know what you think and what your picks are!

#personal #replies #twisted wonderland #my headcanons #can you guess who gave me the hardest time??

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pancakehouse · 9 months

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hiii mads :^) bc we don’t have a book tag going around quite yet i am just going to personally bother YOU <3 have u found any absolute must read favs this year…any books that pleasantly surprised you or disappointed you?? HOW WAS YOUR HUNGER GAMES REREAD most importantly….

omg HIIII BRYNN !! love you, love this, and LOVE talking about thg most importantly... <3 (i rambled hehe sorry x)

okay for faves this year i am def gonna go w my last read which was in memoriam, alice winn! it was so. so sad and kinda makes my tummy hurt to remember it, but just incredibly well written and the characters were like .. !!!!!! ahh i loved them so much, it was the first book i'd read in a v long time where i stayed up crazy late finishing it & immediately wanted to reread as soon as it was over <3 it is starting at me from my shelf rn but i am holding out til fall <3

i was pleasantly surprised by my brilliant friend, elena ferrante! i worried i might find it a bit dull but it was so much fun those lil italian girlies were crazy & co-dependent. think it would make a perf summer read :-)

hmm i was a bit disappointed by under the whispering door, tj klune. i was prepared to be sorta emotionally destroyed by it as it was inspired by the author's own life & grief, but i didn't really connect with the characters as much as i did in the house in the cerulean sea :-//

AND LASTLY THE MOMENT WE'RE REALLY HERE FOR!!!!!! i ended up listening to the thg audio books which were narrated by tatiana maslany and she did SO GOOD!! getting 2 exp them in a whole new format was like getting 2 read for the first time again truly. and peeta, brynn... i sometimes forget. and he is like... crying emoji heart eye emoji angel emoji...those tags on your peeta <3 post made me crazy he makes me crazy I CAME HERE W HER..the PEARL !!!!! :-O also finnick. and annie. jfc .. anyway the first one is free on spotify (slay) and i bought the second but held off buying third and gonna make my sister do it so i can listen bc i lavvvvvv them so so much <3 prim... <3

okay i'm done this answer was ridic long but hehe i made an ask game for you (also stealing your q's) ... please do it for me ....

fave read of year so far, one that pleasantly surprised you, one that disappointed you, your current read, top 2 on your tbr, an author you're loving, and (bc i'm greedy) rec a book to the person who tagged you :-) and umm.. i'm going to tag @fastasyoucan1999 hehe duh xx + if any of the storygraph buds see this and wanna playyyy pls DO!!!!

#MWAH THIS WAS SO FUN <333 #love realizing we can just. do whtv we wnat on here be the change you want 2 see in the world etc..#less ask games about wips i'm neglecting and more ask games about the books brynn and i are reading pls #brynn tag #answered #books

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 3 years

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2020 reading roundup

feat: every book I read this year!

Favorite fiction:

Witchmark (C.L. Polk)

Kindred (Octavia E. Butler)

Fledgling (Octavia E. Butler)

The Killing Moon (N.K. Jemisin)

The Shadowed Sun (N.K. Jemisin)

Circe (Madeline Miller)

Freshwater (Akwaeke Emezi)

The House in the Cerulean Sea (T.J. Klune)

My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite)

The Affair of the Mysterious Letter (Alexis Hall)

Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir)

The Traitor Baru Cormorant (Seth Dickinson)

Further fun/fabulous/fruity fiction:

The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

Stormsong (C.L. Polk)

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home (Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor)

Rat Queens, vol. 1-4 (Kurtis J. Wiebe)

The Deep (Rivers Solomon)

The Song of Achilles (Madeline Miller)

Gods of Jade and Shadow (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

Books that left me furious at death for taking Octavia Butler before she could write another sequel and tell us just what the hell Earthseed was getting up to out there in space:

Parable of the Talents (Octavia E. Butler)

Books that gave me a new appreciation for the short story as an art form:

Falling In Love with Hominids (Nalo Hopkinson)

Books that I didn’t get into right away but then they REALLY picked up and by the time the Big Reveal happened I was screaming like a howler monkey and feeling like a fool for not catching on sooner:

The City We Became (N.K. Jemisin)

Novellas that made me cry in record time, which is entirely unsurprising given the author:

To Be Taught, If Fortune (Becky Chambers)

Books that frankly took me by surprise and made me think I should be reading more horror, or at least more Stephen Graham Jones:

The Only Good Indians (Stephen Graham Jones)

Sequels that were good but also made my head hurt because Jesus Christ, oh my god, WHAT is going on:

Harrow the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir)

Books that I LIKED but wanted to like more than I actually did:

The Taste of Marrow (Sarah Gailey)

The Ballad of Black Tom (Victor LaValle)

In the Vanishers’ Palace (Aliette de Bodard)

Upright Women Wanted (Sarah Gailey)

The Devourers (Indra Das)

Sister Mine (Nalo Hopkinson)

Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

Axiom’s End (Lindsay Ellis)

Totally respectable literary fiction that I cannot in good conscience lump into literally any other category:

Real Life (Brandon Taylor)

It was fine and I feel bad for not having anything particularly positive or negative or interesting at all to say about it, but it really and truly was just kind of alright:

My Lady’s Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel (Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris)

Favorite nonfiction:

In the Dream House (Carmen Maria Machado)

How We Fight for Our Lives (Saeed Jones)

An Autobiography (Angela Y. Davis)

Feed (Tommy Pico)

Ace: What Aseuxality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (Angela Chen)

Black Women, Black Love: America’s War on African American Marriage (Dianne M. Stewart)

Heavy: An American Memoir (Kiese Laymon)

Notable nifty nonfictions:

The Dark Fantastic: Race and Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (Ebony Elizabeth Thomas)

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death (Caitlin Doughty)

So You Want to Talk About Race (Ijeoma Oluo)

A Curious History of Sex (Kate Lister)

Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power (Anna Merlan)

Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press (Kim T. Gallon)

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot (Mikki Kendall)

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower (Brittney Cooper)

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality (Jane Ward)

Other people’s lives that I happily devoured:

Dear America: Notes From an Undocumented Citizen (Jose Antonio Vargas)

Wow, No Thank You (Samantha Irby)

I’m Afraid of Men (Vivek Shraya)

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays (Esmé Weijun Wang)

Uncomfortable Labels: My Life as a Gay Autistic Trans Woman (Laura Kate Dale)

Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson)

When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir (Patrisse Khan-Cullors)

Poetry & personal essays that I wanted to Get but didn’t quite:

Homie (Danez Smith)

Something That May Shock and Discredit You (Daniel M. Lavery)

More Than Organs (Kay Ulanday Barrett)

Junk (Tommy Pico)

Nonfiction that was interesting but also incomprehensible in many places because I don’t have a degree in biology, which I guess is my bad:

Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation (Olivia Judson)

Nonfiction that was interesting but also felt lacking in its analysis, perhaps as an inevitable side effect of trying to publish it quickly enough to stay topical:

Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger (Soraya Chemaly)

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger (Rebecca Traister)

Sweet graphic novels:

The Prince and the Dressmaker (Jen Wang)

Shadow of the Batgirl (Sarah Kuhn)

Books that are significant for various reasons and good to read but sort of felt like homework:

Stone Butch Blues (Leslie Feinberg)

Are Prisons Obsolete? (Angela Y. Davis)

Books I reread during quarantine even though I am not generally much of a rereader:

Her Body and Other Parties (Carmen Maria Machado)

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

A Small Place (Jamaica Kincaid)

Books that weren’t really for me but probably would have rocked my socks if I read them when I was like 14:

Internment (Samira Ahmed)

The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls (Mona Eltahawy)

Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity (Jennifer Weiss-Wolf)

The Bone Witch (Rin Chupeco)

Pet (Akwaeke Emezi)

#bookblr

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shinylitwick94 · 3 years

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Shinylitwick's summer (SF/)Fantasy reads - Part I

As it turns out trying to complete the r/fantasy book bingo and not wanting to get into heavy reads this year meant that I spent most of my summer reading almost exclusively SFF, and I read a lot of it. I'm sharing my thoughts on these with anyone who might be interested in them. This covers books I read between july and the first week of september 2021. I'll be doing this in two parts because it would be too long otherwise.

As a reminder, these are personal thoughts, not professional reviews, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.

Without further ado:

Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay

By this point I think I can say pretty firmly I’m a fan of GGK. I just really enjoy his “alternate history with a dash of fantasy” stuff, and I like his writing and the fact that he’s so good at capturing that sort of bittersweet melancholy I’m a huge junkie for.

That being said, Under Heaven started off amazing, spent a lot of time in eh, and finished solid. I like it, but it’s my least favorite of his books so far. I think it essentially suffers from making promises it doesn’t deliver on. There’s a lot of stories which go nowhere, which I’m sometimes fine with, but I don’t think it worked here. Especially with the sister. I have very little familiarity with Chinese history, but from what I’ve read in other reviews, he stuck rather more closely to the history here than he usually does, which maybe limited his ability to maneuver his characters. Still, I would recommend it, if this is your style.

The Last Wish, by Andrzej Sapkowski

I’ve tried reading this before…in Russian. Don’t know why I thought that was a good idea (something about maybe a better translation?). Anyway, my Russian obviously wasn’t up to scratch and the books are polish anyway.

So, English translation it was. As many of you will know this is actually a short story collection, which is the first part of the Witcher book series. I’d already watched the tv show, and played a bit of the game, so some of the stories were new to me, and others weren’t.

I liked how the book highlighted the “twisted fairytale” aspect of some of these (e.g Snow White, Rumplestiltskin) – that didn’t really come across so well in the adaptations. I think altogether it was a fun and enjoyable read.

The Farthest Shore, by Ursula Le Guin (Book 3 in the Earthsea Cycle)

Ursula Le Guin made me cry again. I’ve been talking about Le Guin a lot recently, with a friend who’s read a lot of her nonfiction, but none of her fiction, while I’ve for the most part just read the fiction. She’s one of those authors who just seems to get it, and who knows how to use the genre to its full extent. Magic and dragons aren’t just a toy, but a tool to actually say something.

She does that across the board, of course, but Farthest Shore hit me harder than the other Earthsea books have, maybe because imho it’s the saddest so far. There’s a lot about death, acceptance, and time passing, and responsibility in this which I really liked. I feel like it manages to get its themes across in a way that is crystal clear, but not ham-fisted. I loved this book, I really did, but I feel like I will need to read it again in a few years, and I’m sure it will be a different read then.

One of many nice quotes:

“When I was young, I had to choose between the life of being and the life of doing. And I leapt at the latter like a trout to a fly. But each deed you do, each act, binds you to itself and to its consequences, and makes you act again and yet again. Then very seldom do you come upon a space, a time like this, between act and act, when you may stop and simply be. Or wonder who, after all, you are.”

The Black Company, by Glen Cook (Book 1 in the Chronicles of the Black Company)

This was sold to me as the granddaddy of grimdark fantasy, and I can certainly see it. It’s clearly influenced a lot of later fantasy authors (Erikson, Abercrombie, to some extent Martin). Yet somehow it manages to be less explicit, or graphic, than some modern grimdark. It can be pretty gross too, but it knows how to cut away when necessary and is usually smart about implying things. I also really liked the basic concept of following characters who work for the Dark Lord (or Dark Lady in this case). The characters themselves are interesting enough – in this first book we don’t go super in depth on a lot of them, but the ones we’re stuck with are decent, and the story holds. Still, I felt like this was more a worldbuilding book than a character book, if that makes sense. And I did like the world. It’s appropriately dark and petty and sucks, but hey that’s what we’re here for.

So overall, I enjoyed it and would recommend to anyone who is interested into the more grimdark side of fantasy. Stay away from it if that’s not your thing or you’re super squeamish.

(most of Tumblr dni I guess)

The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo

This was a fun little read. I had no idea what to expect going in and I ended up enjoying it. The story follows a nonbinary monk as they go through the affairs of a deceased empress and in discussion with Rabbit, the said empress’s servant, learn her story. The story is mostly told by Rabbit and each section follows a particular object. I liked how that was set up and the way in which the whole picture was slowly revealed to the reader. It’s apparently been read as a feminist story and I can see where that reading comes from, and it was likely intentionally so. It wasn’t the most important part of this to me, but up to you to judge.

I will say though, and this is not the book’s fault, but mine, that reading a story where the POV character uses they/them pronouns was more confusing than I anticipated. I kept expecting there to be more of them at random points in the narrative, and having to backtrack to understand.

It’s a short nice read, but definitely something I feel more comfortable recommending to people here than irl.

Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett (Discworld)

Not much to say here. Discworld is Discworld and can do no wrong, apparently. This might be one of my favorites so far. Loved Granny to pieces, it was fun, it was funny, it was thoughtful without being heavy. It’s the Discworld, what can you do.

The House in the Cerulean Sea, by T.J. Klune

This was pure tooth-rotting fluff, which I think I kind of needed to balance out my reading. It’s cute, it’s cheesy, it’s wholesome it owns it and is proud of it. It’s very LGBT friendly. It’s a good guys win, bad guys lose, discrimination dies today kind of thing.

I’m surprised it’s not bigger on Tumblr tbh (it’s not non-existent either, I checked, just smaller than expected; maybe it’s too nice?).

Anyway, I did like it, and I’m exaggerating just a little bit on the cheesiness. It’s a sweet little story about a character who would normally be played by Martin Freeman (if a bit chubbier) learning that there is more to life than Rules and Regulations and finding love and a family.

If that’s your sort of thing, give it a shot.

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svtshuastruck · 2 years

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december wrap up!

i honestly cannot believe it's the end of the year already-- not to mention the fact that i'm still processing 2020 xD

note that i will not be doing a yearly wrap up so here's a mini one:

number of books read: 100 (my goal was to read 30 lmao)

top genres: young adult and contemporary

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number of books read in december: 10

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1. the spanish love deception by elena armas

rating: ⭐⭐⭐

enjoyed this a lot! i'm not gonna lie, i did have pretty high expectations for it and was taken aback by how many stupid decisions our mc makes but ultimately, the third act conflict was very well handled in my opinion!

2. under the whispering door by t.j clune rating: ⭐⭐⭐

😐 after house in the cerulean sea, i was expecting to love this and would've certainly dnf'd this if it weren't a buddy read. the handling of grief was all over the place and while i did like hugo, what i came to conclusion is that klune really likes writing main characters who are quite mean and are enlightened upon the love interest's entrance and all of a sudden change all their ways and become a "good person".

3. you've reached sam by dustin thao

rating: ⭐⭐.5

this was the book club pick for the month for the late night book club. first of all, out main character is annoying. her whole relationship with sam is just her going "sam...". the story is quite repetitive and sometimes it felt like i was reading the same chapter twice. i was kind of disappointed especially because this was one of my anticipated reads for the year.

4. honey lemon soda vol. 1 by mayu murata

rating: ⭐⭐.5

lol. can you tell this month was off to a bad start? this was the pick for the host club for december. the art style in this?? stunning. that being said, our mc is the typical "not like other girls" girl who this really popular dude is hinted to have a crush on. your typical ya set up. our mc is the least popular, quiet girl and the dude challenges her to make a 100 friends for something in return (i don't remember what the "something" was so please bear with me). thank the lords that this was only 4 chapters long cause i could not bear the mc or the love interest. and don't get me started on the "oh my! he smells like honey lemon soda!!!"

5. wings of ebony by j.elle

rating: ⭐⭐⭐.25

this was a really strong debut! i loved the sisterly bond between our main character rue and her sister. the world building was kinda confusing at times and the back and forth dynamic of the two worlds (the gods and humans) was really interesting! i wish the world building had been a little more clear but other than that, it was solid book!

6. yolk by mary h.k. choi

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.75

before i start talking abut anything: I 👏 LOVE 👏 THE 👏 TW👏 PAGE 👏

no, seriously. the trigger warning page was phrased so well, i was afraid i was gonna start crying from the first page. choi's writing style is such a unique one. she describes people, not through adjectives but rather with thoughts through our mc. this was my first book from her and it is safe to say i will be on the lookout for more cause god did i love this. the book explores a complicated sibling relationship of two sisters when one of them gets diagnosed with cancer. really really enjoyed this!

7. punk 57 by penelope douglas

rating: ⭐⭐.25

now listen, i read this solely because of my friend because they absolutely loved this. i quite liked ryen as a character but misha? 😬

!! minor spoilers !!

the whole needing to "fit in" with the other kids was relatable but the extent she went to fit in, i think was little too much. i didn't like the book mainly cause misha was lowkey a creep. not gonna lie, i liked him in the beginning; going on about how ryen was his muse and stuff. but once he like got to know her persona in school, i thought it was a dumb move to just judge her like that after reading all her letters about how hard she's tryna fit in. the epilogue was cute but all and all it really felt like the author was trying to make a really strong point and ended up failing.

!! minor spoilers !!

8. house of stars saltacuentos

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

you can find my review here.

9. shiny broken pieces by dhonielle clayton and sona charaipotra

rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

this is the second book in the tiny pretty things duology. to summarise the first book, it'd be: psychotic ballerinas trying to kill each other to get to the top. i flew the first book and though i didn't remember everything that had happened in there, the second did a fantastic job too! it sort of recounted everything that had happened in the first book without being too repetitive and i really enjoyed it!

10. normal people by sally rooney

rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5

first of all, i went into it unaware that it was marketed as a romance and when i first saw that it was being done so, i was quite surprised, honestly. to me, it just seemed like character studies of two fucked up individuals whose childhood trauma kinda made them do really dumb things and the "romance" being them hooking up multiple times throughout their lives. with that being said, i really enjoyed the writing. i love how by the time i finished the book, it felt like i knew the characters well enough for it feel as though they were a part of my life but they also felt just out of reach for me to actually know them. i hope to keep an eye out for sally rooney's other books and hopefully i have a clear head of thoughts when i do read it!

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aand we're done with 2021!! im really happy with my reading for the year ! hope to catch y'all in the next post and until then, happy reading !

#book review #serenity's bookstore cafe #books #reading #monthly wrap up #bookblr

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droo216 · 3 years

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mid year book freakout tag

@wormwoodandhoney tagged me in this, inspired by booktube and book took! (tag created by earl grey books and chami)

1. Best book you’ve read so far in 2021: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. This book fully lived up to its hype. I enjoyed Crooked Kingdom as well, though mostly for the Wylan POV chapters and not nearly as much as the first book in the duology.

2. Best sequel you’ve read so far in 2021: Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix by Julie C. Dao. Everyone in the reviews on Goodreads and other websites seem to love Forest of a Thousand Lanterns, the first book in the Rise of the Empress duology, but it took me three tries to get through that one, it just dragged for me, though admittedly the second half picked up the pace and I enjoyed it much more. These reviewers tend to be down on the second book so maybe I just had lower expectations or maybe I just enjoyed it more since it was more of the actual Snow White retelling, but I enjoyed Kingdom way more than Forest!

3. New release you haven’t read yet, but want to: Darling by K. Ancrum and Sisters of the Neversea by Cynthia Leitich Smith. I have both of these Peter Pan reimaginings on my shelf but haven’t read them yet!

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year: Gilded by Marissa Meyer - though I must admit I’ve actually already read the ARC, and it is so good. Everything Marissa Meyer touches turns to gold (pun intended).

5. Biggest disappointment: The Seafarer’s Kiss by Julia Ember. Just didn’t really do it for me.

6. Biggest surprise: Grump by Liesl Shurtliff. I was a little reluctant to approach this middle grade retelling of Snow White, but I was delighted with some of the ways in interpreted the story and I ended up really liking it! I’ve also read Rump and Jack by Shurtliff this year and didn’t enjoy them quite as much, though Jack does some fun things with the story. The author has one more in this series called Red, and my sister says it’s very good so I do want to get that one in this year too!

7. Favorite new author (debut or new to you): Hmmm, I don’t know if I could pick one. For the sake of not repeating anyone who has already appeared on this list, I’ll say C.J. Redwine. I’ve been wanting to read her Ravenspire series for a while now and I was surprised by how I felt about the books. I found that the one I was most anticipating, The Shadow Queen, fell a little flat for me, and the one I enjoyed the most, The Wish Granter, was one I wasn’t especially excited about going in.

8. Newest fictional crush: I don’t really get fictional crushes, but the closest character I’ve encountered to “my type” this year is Simon Snow from the Simon Snow trilogy by Rainbow Rowell.

9. Newest favorite character: Nina Zenik from Six of Crows! I love her, she’s such a refreshing character!

10. Book that made you cry: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz. I started crying for no real reason about a quarter of the way through this book and then just continued to weep continuously through the rest of it. It was so beautiful, and I can’t wait for the sequel to destroy me later this year.

11. Book that made you happy: Heartless by Marissa Meyer. I thought I knew how it would go, and I was delightfully surprised. Meyer’s characters are so enchanting, and her Wonderland feels like an extension of Carroll’s original world, instead of reinventing it like most people do these days.

12. Most beautiful book you’ve bought (or received) so far this year: Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Turner. I enjoyed this Peter Pan retelling, but there were some things I wish had been explored more. But the cover is so beautiful, it’s worth having on my shelf no matter what! I’d also add The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune, that cover is gorgeous too.

13. What books do you need to read by the end of the year? In addition to Darling and Sisters of the Neversea, I want to read Cemetery Boys by Aiden Turner, Red by Liesl Shurtliff, Circe by Madeline Miller, The Wrath and the Dawn duology by Renee Ahdieh, and Dark Shimmer by Donna Jo Napoli. I have a long list of other books, but those are my priorities!

I tag anyone who wants to do it!

#about me #books #tag game

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endetithei · 2 years

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in-progress list of books I read this year (2021)

finished books only. listed in random order, because I’m just trying to write them down as I remember them. Starred are books I particularly enjoyed or felt a connection to in some way. Commentary included/coming along. i’d love to talk about any of these books with anyone *The Jasmine Throne-- Tasha Suri (probably my favorite book of the year) *She Who Became The Sun-- Shelley Parker-Chan *Earth Logic-- Laurie J. Marks *Water Logic-- Laurie J. Marks *Air Logic-- Laurie J. Marks (I wished this book was like twice as long, mostly because I know it’s the last one) *Summer Sons-- Lee Mandelo (I don’t know if I’d recommend this to other people, but it had a specific and explicit queer masculinity in it that meant a lot to me to see in a published novel) *-The Bone Shard Daughter-- Andrea Stewart *-The Vanished Birds-- Simon Jimenez *-Felix Ever After-- Kacen Callendar *-In A Lonely Place-- Dorothy B. Hughes *-The Decagon House Murders-- Yukito Ayatsuji -The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu-- Tom Lin -*The House in the Cerulean Sea-- TJ Klune (provided comfort where and when it was needful) -The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet-- Becky Chambers -Star Eater-- Kerstin Hall (where... are... the... trans... people...) -Malice-- Keigo Higashino -Elatsoe-- Darcie Little Badger -*Witchmark-- C.L. Polk -Stormsong-- C.L. Polk -Soulstar-- C.L. Polk -Magic For Liars-- Sarah Gailey (this had... such a shitty ending) -Skyward Inn-- Aliya Whiteley (there was like half a wonderful novel in this and the rest of it I just really didn’t enjoy very much) -*Master of Poisons-- Andrea Hairston -*Wyrd Sisters-- Terry Pratchett (the first Discworld I actually finished) -One Last Stop-- Casey McQuiston -Out of Salem-- Hal Schrieve -*Witness for the Dead-- Katherine Addison -The Memory Theater-- Karin Tidbeck And a ton of Greek and Latin stuff and DNFs; life’s too short and I’m too grumpy

In progress: -The Black Coast-- Mike Brooks (I’m loving this so far-- reading it currently) -The Natural-- Bernard Malamud -Celine-- Peter Heller -Paul Takes The Form Of A Normal Girl-- Andrea Lawlor -Blame-- Nihei Tsutomu

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spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub · 3 years

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SO’s January Reads

Hey guys! So, one of the things I want to do with the blog is talk about the books I’ve read over the past month. Not only will it keep me reading, but maybe someone will find a new book to check out! I’m going to try to do these regularly, posting on the last Sunday of the month.

January Reads:

Title: House in the Cerulean Sea Author: TJ Klune Genre: Fiction; Fantasy

Goodreads Summary: A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret. Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days. But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

My Review:

Upon this being a rec from the company I work for, several of my coworkers kept recommending it to me. I ended up reading it in three days.

This is an incredibly beautiful book. While uniquely its own, there are shades of Harry Potter, X-Men, and Umbrella Academy among other things. It kind of sits on a line of between reality and fantasy, and is less of a plot driven novel, and more of a character study on letting go of what's considered normal, and embracing the strange person you are on the inside; as well as being a novel about finding a family, and finding the good in people no matter who they are. It's a quick read (read it in three days!), but its simplicity is a fault. It's positivity is one of its touchstones, and I appreciate that a book can be moving and not rely on tired darker or grittier tropes. It's also a good read for all ages, and a book parents could read with their kids.

Rating: 5 Stars

***

Title: Red, White, and Royal Blue Author: Casey McQuiston Genre: Romance; LGBT

Goodreads Summary: First Son Alex Claremont-Diaz is the closest thing to a prince this side of the Atlantic. With his intrepid sister and the Veep’s genius granddaughter, they’re the White House Trio, a beautiful millennial marketing strategy for his mother, President Ellen Claremont. International socialite duties do have downsides—namely, when photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince. As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?

My Review:

This is a sweet, light-hearted LGBT romance -- an easy read if you're looking for something to escape into for a few days. It's a bit on the tropey side, but that's where the fun is, and the characters are engaging and fun to spend time with. If you’re a big fan of fanfiction, this has all the trappings of really good fanfiction (though I’ll admit, maybe cause it’s published fiction, it’s not going to be as explicit as a lot of fanfiction usually gets).

My only real criticism is the number of pop culture references and celebrity name drops go a little overboard. Sometimes they feel shoehorned in to make it seem more 'now', which is just going to end up dating the book in the long run. Also, the American political stuff feels a little idealistic, especially after the tumultuous election we’ve had, but that’s not really the heart of the book.

Otherwise, while it's not going to win a Nobel Prize for literature, it's still a lot of fun.

Rating: 4 stars

***

Title: Truly Devious Trilogy (Truly Devious; The Vanishing Stair; The Hand on the Wall) Author: Maureen Johnson Genre: YA; Mystery

Goodreads Summary: Ellingham Academy is a famous private school in Vermont for the brightest thinkers, inventors, and artists. It was founded by Albert Ellingham, an early twentieth century tycoon, who wanted to make a wonderful place full of riddles, twisting pathways, and gardens. “A place,” he said, “where learning is a game.” Shortly after the school opened, his wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history. True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case. That is, she will solve the case when she gets a grip on her demanding new school life and her housemates: the inventor, the novelist, the actor, the artist, and the jokester. But something strange is happening. Truly Devious makes a surprise return, and death revisits Ellingham Academy. The past has crawled out of its grave. Someone has gotten away with murder. The two interwoven mysteries of this first book in the Truly Devious series dovetail brilliantly, and Stevie Bell will continue her relentless quest for the murderers in books two and three.

My Review:

Truly Devious: I love the mystery aspect of it -- it's definitely intriguing, and as someone who's read a lot of mystery novels, I'm glad the mystery in this isn't glaringly obvious. It did, at times, feel like a ton of set-up, but because this is the first book of a trilogy, that does make sense. The teen angst/drama aspect felt a little much at times, and I wish there was more of some of the side-characters who only seem to pop up when the plot needs them, but this is minor nitpicking and overall, this book was an incredibly fun read.

The Vanishing Stair: The mystery is still incredibly intriguing as it unfolds in more detail in this one, and Johnson's ability to unwind what's going on is fantastic. I still have a few minor quibbles -- I think this one starts out slower, since it's saddled with recapping the first book, and there are times when I feel it's a little padded (I'm not sure this needed to be stretched into three books, but trilogies, I'm sure, make more money), but I don't think that detracts too much from the overall story. I do, also, wish that some of the side characters (Janelle, Nate) had more to do, at times they kind of feel like window dressing, and there because Stevie's world needs more people in it. But overall, it's still a fun read, and an intriguing mystery.

The Hand on the Wall: Better than the second one, doesn't quite capture the magic and mystery of the first. Overall, this trilogy was a fun little mystery with a lot of cool (albeit sometimes underdeveloped) characters. I still think it should have been one, larger novel, as this one, too, feels like there's a lot of padding. And I have a few smaller issues with how certain things were resolved (a lot of conclusions felt like leaps to get there for the characters, even if overall the 'mystery' made sense), while some things I wanted more closure on (what happened to Francis? they alluded to her in book 2, but never closed the door on it). I'm also not a fan of the romance in this book -- it never really clicked for me, and often felt like it was there to keep the plot going. But these are all pretty easy reads, and there are a lot of fun things, too. I'm curious as to how the author handles these characters in her next stand alone novel.

Rating: Truly Devious - 4.5 Stars; The Vanishing Stair - 3.5 Stars; The Hand on the Wall - 4 Stars

#sbc bookclub #house in the cerulean sea #red white and royal blue #truly devious

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cricketnationrise · 3 years

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Quarantine Reads Part 6

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5

126. Battle Magic by Tamora Pierce: flashback book. takes place between Street Magic and The Will of the Empress in the emelan series. tw: war, violence, death, threat of sexual violence, torture

127. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates: memoir in the form of a letter to his son focusing on being black in America.

128. Elantris by Brandon Sanderson: first in the elantris series. also sanderson’s first novel. epic fantasy. political intrigue. demons posing as religious leaders. if atlantis was just a place for powered people along the coast and then suddenly everyone inside decayed and became a myth.

129. Stuffed Vol. 1 by Extended Play: adorable comic strip collection where a girl’s stuffed animals are alive and talk to her and each other. all of them are mythological creatures: unicorn, dragon, gryphon, etc. chaos ensues. you never see the parents’ faces. can read for free on webtoons (and i think tapas? i’d have to check)

130. The Door in the Hedge and Other Stories by Robin McKinley: short story collection. fairy tale riffs mostly.

131. Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett: book 12 in the discworld series. 3 witches need to help out a scullery maid on her way to a ball, a cat turns into a hyper sexual man, a prince turns into a frog, there’s another witch in a bog, reanimated butler

132. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy: okay look. this is one of those that i am glad i read and i absolutely will never read again. there’s so many philosophy tangents, everyone is whiny, and its 1812 for like 2/3 of the book. 2 epilogues, why???

133. The Isle of Youth: Stories by Laura van den Berg: short story collection, women-centered

134. Heartstopper: Volume One by Alice Oseman: found the webcomic at the beginning of the pandemic, got a physical copy a few months later. sweet high school comic about Charlie and Nick falling in love with each other

135. The Witch’s Kind by Louisa Morgan: her magic systems are always interesting. woman’s dog finds a child abandoned on the beach. the kid has gills. alternating timelines, the woman’s childhood and young adulthood in the lead up to WW2 and post WW2 from finding the baby. eventually the timelines connect.

136. Parnassus On Wheels by Christopher Morley: eager to get away from her layabout brother, a woman buys a book wagon and goes around to various farms/towns selling books to locals. falls in love with the previous owner of the wagon

137. Shadow Scale by Rachel Hartman: book 2 in the Seraphina series. dragons and humans are living tensely next to each other, seraphina and a few other half dragon/half humans have to stop an all out war. also the antagonist can control minds. so. oh! and seraphina ends up in a poly relationship at the end

138. The Dragon Slayer of Trondheim by EK Johnston: middle grade novel about a girl who becomes the bard for a dragon slayer. very cool world building. set in canada.

139. The Giver: Graphic Novel by P. Craig Russell: beautiful artwork. words all taken from the novel by lois lowry. all in blues and whites before Jonas gets the memories of colors.

140. Serpentine by Philip Pullman: short story set in the golden compass universe sometime after Amber Spyglass. illustrated.

141. Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman: book 2 in the arc of a scythe series. please read the first one first, this is a continuation for sure. alternating POV.

142. The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett: novel following one woman’s life through her eyes, her second husband’s eyes, and her daughter’s eyes. i believe it is ann patchetts first novel.

143. Snapdragon by Kat Leyh: graphic novel with loads of queer representation, magic, and growing up in a small town tw: parental abuse, danger to minors

144. The Toll by Neal Shusterman: third and final book in the arc of a scythe series. extremely satisfying ending to the series.

145. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde: essay collection, focus on racism and feminism

146. The Little Witch by M. Rickert: tor.com short story, spooky vibes, older woman takes in a strange little girl

147. The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E Harrow: i’m so mad i didn’t get a chance to read it when it first came out because WHERE had it been all my life. doorways to other worlds, a huge dog that is fiercely protective of its owner, magic, fun names. framework is that the book you are reading is a book written by various characters in the story. that shit is my catnip. content warning: harm to dog (THE DOG IS FINE I PROMISE), murder, protagonist held prisoner in her room multiple times

148. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro: very strange book. i loved every second of it. the weirdest boarding school you’ve ever attended. if you think i’m being vague i am. a story you’ll want to discover on your own.

149. A Room with a View by EM Forster: follow this one young woman around italy and then the english countryside as she deals with society’s expectations. writing style takes a little bit to get used to but worth the time to read it.

150. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune: buckle up buttercups. this book has everything: found family, queer representation, kids with powers, small town charms, a cat!, heartwrenching poetry, on purpose child acquisition, sticking it to the man, Extremely Upper Management, the antichrist. everyone needs to read this book. i now need to get my hands on everything klune has written. i also wouldn’t mind like, 40 more novels in this universe.

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anonymous0writer · 4 years

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The Third Rule II Kiara Carrera

Summary: Kiara is finding it hard to fit in at the Kook Acdemy, but quickly finds solace in the beautiful Sarah Cameron. She finds more than just solace, but when a certain member of the Cameron tribe find out, it scares Kiara away from the people she loves most. Which leads to the third rule of the Pogues pact that begin used.

Author: @anonymous0writer

Word Count: 4,629 (I know, I’m sorry but I’m not sure how I feel about this?? This is probably the longest fic I’ve ever done)

Pairing: Kiara x Sarah, Kiara x Pogues,

Request: A platonic pogue imagine where kie and rafe have a history. lots of people think they had a past and rafe has a soft spot for her but i think he did something to her/hurt her because of how mad jj was when he called her hot. so i was wondering if u could write an imagine where something bad happens between them during her kook year and then when kie returns to the pogues they find out what happened which sparks the tension between the pogues x rafe?

A/N: I’m sorry it’s 2am and I just finished it and I really want my anon to read this on their trip!! And I’m sorry anon, I just realized my fic isn’t totally based off your request, but I really hope you like it because I’m kinda of proud of it?! Also, Rafe is homophobic towards Kie but I swear it’s only once. Also this blog and myself fully support anyone and would never stand for homophobia. If you do, please get off my blog.

Warnings: Typos probably. Cursing? A homophobic Rafe (we do not agree) and I think that’s it.

Rule Number One: No Pogue on Pogue macking.

Rule Number Two: Never leave a Pogue behind.

Rule Number Three: Pogues= Family. Families love each other no matter what.

Kiara Carrera was a lot of things. Her friends, the group of ragtag boys that somehow roped the girl into their little family, would call her fun. Plain and simple, she fit the word. Fun to be around, fun to hang out with and to cause trouble with. She would weedle free food from her dad and feed them, clean up after them and make sure they kept out of serious trouble. Though Kiara was quite like a mother to the three boys, she was just like them. A surfer through and through, knowing the flick of the waves and the adjustments she needed to make with her board to master them. She also loved the music the boys cared for, and was often called on to DJ their car trips. But most importantly, she would keep up with them.

Kiara matched their energy, and was possibly the only person on the island that could handle them, and all at the same time. She was good with Pope when he talked about his dream job, nodding and keeping pace with the brainiac and able to string together a somewhat intelligent sentence or question to fire back. Kiara was able to keep up with JJ, with his ideas that spun wildly out of control, or the days with his dad. She wasn’t bothered or flustered by his never ending flirts, knowing it was just JJ begin JJ. And she knew John B. Kie could figure out his moods and help him out of the dark places he went to when his father didn’t come back, and she matched his lust for adventure.

To her classmates at the Kook Academy, she was different. Too Pogue to fit in with the pristine halls and designer bags and expensive laptops and gadgets. Sure, Kiara had the money, but that didn’t make her a Kook. Not when all her time was spent on the Cut with the dirty lowlifes nicknamed Pogues. And to Kiara, the money was her parents. If she was asked, she was a Pogue with parents that got money. Which was in part true, her father originally from the south side of the island, which might have sparked Kie’s distinct loyalty to the certain side.

To other Pogues, the other throwaway fish and lowlifes, Kiara Carrera was sun. Bright and cheery, she lit up everything around her. Her straight, easy going smile was infectious, making everyone, no matter what mood give a smile back. She was warm and kind, caring and thoughtful when the Pogues were thought of as rough kids from the wrong side. And her outfits reflected her personality, bright with swirling patterns and stark colors. Her outfits were always envied and her unruly curls were often admired. Kiara was beauty and light in one and often became fast friends with any person who set their feet on Kildare’s sand.

But one thing Kiara Carrera wasn’t, was easy. And no one knew that better than the notorious Rafe Cameron. The Kook was drawn to the newcomer for some reason no one but the universe knew. Not even the boy knew his reasons for attraction to the pogue. It left him utterly confused when he saw the girl in the halls of his gilded house, smiling like there wasn’t a care in the world. But no matter his confusion, his eyes were glued to the girl as she giggled and followed his sister, and his breath left his lungs when she passed him, a soft smile gracing her features as her smell washed over him. The strange girl smelled like coconuts and the sea, which was all the more intoxicating.

Though Kiara Carrera wasn’t easy to win over with his cerulean eyes and his devilish smirk, he didn’t give up. He wanted the challenge of having to work a little harder for a girl. And Rafe Cameron wasn’t one to be refused, and he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

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Kie’s first year at the Kook Academy hadn’t been the picturesque landscape of manicured lawns, pretty and popular students and good grades. While the experience wasn’t the best, it wasn’t the worst and Kie knew that. She also knew that the ‘Kook Academy’ was much better than Kildare County High School and her fussing mother made sure she would never forget it. But as the weeks progressed and Kiara felt increasingly lonely at the school, the girl was finding it hard to appreciate the school.

For one, she was missing her boys terribly. Missed when JJ cracked a joke in the back of the class, his comment made the whole room erupt into a fit of laughter as the aggravated teacher tried desperately to calm the students. She missed the way John B.’s smiles eased her worrying about a test or the way he’d fling notes on her desk as Mrs. Higgin’s droned on. Kiara also missed the way Pope would ramble with his answers, eventually getting too flustered and putting his hand down. She missed the way he’d leave books in her locker, the pages littered with little notes and comments about the passages. But perhaps most of all, Kiara missed the way she was with them. The boys were her true home, not even the comfort of her pillows made her feel as safe and loved as she did when she was hanging out with the three. At lunch, they’d rush out of class, meeting at Kiara’s locker as she took out her lunch, handing JJ her apple, and debating with John B. at which item of her lunch he’d steal today. Pope would grab his own lunch as they bickered and the four made their way to the quad, settling in the grass with their bags. JJ leaned back, a fresh blunt plucked from the waistband of his cargo shorts. Pope took out his books as he tried to take notes but failed miserably as he countered John B.’s B.S and returned conversations. It was impossible for the boy to focus around his friends. Kiara would crack a joke and spread out her healthy alternatives to bad foods and snacked quietly on them while her phone belted out Marley into the grass.

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She missed the days JJ wouldn’t be seen in class and would interrupt her classes by poking his head in and saying, “Hey, Kie! Emergency meeting.” And with that, the two slipped away to meet with the other half of their group. The four would move off campus to an abandoned parking lot and smoke and drink their worries away.

But no matter how much Kiara missed her boys, they weren’t going to show up. She was stuck, lost in the gilded halls and drowning in a sea of nasty boys and fake girls. Kiara was desperate to escape but couldn’t find a way to get out. Kiara was ready to give up. On the school, the people and, quite frankly on life.

That is, until she met the famous Sarah Cameron. The blonde practically strode through the halls, her loaded boyfriend and the illustrious Scarlet by her side. Her dazzling smile and pretty brown eyes landed on Kiara. And as soon as Kiara returned the pleasantries, the two became fast friends.

And soon enough, Kiara was invited to the massive Cameron residence. Kiara has already gotten the tour of the property and was following her best friend when she ran into Rafe Cameron. The eldest of Ward Cameron and the famous Kook around the island, known for his suspicious resources when it comes to drugs. Kiara knew the rumors, every one did. But she still smiled and walked right on by, giggling as Sarah held her hand and shut her door.

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Since their unofficial first meeting, Rafe had been persistent. Flirting shamelessly with the girl constantly in his house and ignoring Sarah’s grumbles and mocks. Kiara has refused his advances and shook her head as a little laugh escaped her throat when Rafe asked her out. She had to give it to him, he didn’t give up.

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“Why don’t you want to go out with me?” Rafe asked one day, as the Cameron siblings and Kiara lounged on the deck of the Druthers. Rafe towered over Kiara’s lounge seat, casting a shadow over the girl.

“Rafe, I’m just not into you.”

“Why? Am I just,” He paused, still unwavering from where he stood- much to Kiara’s dislike. “not your type?”

The statement made the girl glance up, the sunglasses perched on her nose sliding down as she looked up at the boy. “I don’t dig blondes, Rafe.”

The elder boy scoffed, but left the conversation as Sarah made her way over, two hard pink lemonades in hand.

“Get lost, loser.” She huffed and Rafe nodded and left. He missed the way his little sister cuddled up against the Pogues side and quietly asked, “You still dig me, right?” The boy also missed Kiara’s immediate reply as she laughed. “Of course I do.” So the Kook walked away, blissfully unaware of what was really unfolding. Kie’s words still rung in his head. But for some reason, he didn’t believe that the only reason the curly haired girl kept turning him down was just because of his hair color.

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The next time Rafe asked, he got his real answer. His sister and Kie were getting ready for Midsummer's in the room a couple doors down, their laughter floating through the halls. Rafe listened to the muffled voices of his tongue sister and the girl he’d been strangely pining over for half the school year. They were laughing and Kie’s signature music floated down the hall and into Rafe’s bedroom. Kiara was going as Sarah’s date because she had cheated on her boyfriend again. So the girls decided to couple up.

Sarah leaned forward, the brush coated with soft gold painting swiftly over Kiara’s eyelids. Sarah leaned back and smiled, satisfied with her handiwork. Kie laughed and shoved Sarah’s hip lightly to see herself in the mirror. Sarah grinned and moved so she could continue curling her friend's hair, her hips swaying with the music. Kiara laughed at Sarah’s antics, admiring her in the mirror.

“Beach waves,” Sarah mused, deciding what to do with the front parts of Kie’s hair. “It’d frame your face.” Sarah leaned down, her breath fanning Kie’s ear as the blonde put her hands on Kie’s shoulders. “You’ll look so pretty, baby.”

Kiara beamed at Sarah’s comment, trying to hide her blush. Sarah was a natural flirt, so the fact that she said that wasn’t a surprise, but the pet name made Kie blush. Even in their secret relationship, Sarah hadn’t far breathed a whisper of any affectionate name other than ‘Kie.’ The dark haired girl giggled at her girlfriend and shifted in her seat to crank up the music. Soon the rise and fall of Bob Marley’s voice filling the carefully decorated room. Neither of the girls heard the eldest Cameron shuffle around in his room, his footfalls heavy in the hall as he approached Sarah’s door.

“You could kiss me, you know.” Kie smirked, taunting Sarah with her brows in the mirror. They locked eyes and it was Sarah’s turn to blush, her cheeks already dusted a pink. But she complied, spinning her girlfriend in her chair and pressed a heated kiss to her lips. Kiara hummed and reached up to cup Sarah’s face, not able to hear Rafe as he pushed open the door to his sisters room, a question on his tongue.

“Hey, could you-“ He stopped dead, eyes trained on his sister and the beautiful girl he’d been trying to get, lips locked. “Holy fuck.”

The girls broke apart, eyes wide and mouths popped open in surprise.

“Rafe!” Sarah screamed, rushing forward to push her brother out of her room, hands shoving at his back and slamming- and locking- the door shut.

Rafe stood shell-shocked outside his sister's room, mouth agape. Kiara was kissing his sister. Kiara was gay.

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The three; the two Cameron siblings and the pogue that they practically adopted, didn’t talk about the incident for exactly two days until the subject came bubbling to the surface. And in typical Rafe Cameron style, it was raging and messy.

Rafe glared, eyes trained on Kiara as she giggled at something Scarlet said as they leaned against their lockers. Rafe hadn’t seen Kiara since the incident, ignoring her at Midsummer’s and never coming out of his room the rest of the weekend, but now, Monday morning, he was beyond furious and disgusted. Not only did the girl shoot him down so many times, she lied. Of course he wants her type, he wasn’t even the gender she was attracted to. A shiver ran down the boy's spine as he thought about the curly haired beauty liking- kissing- his sister. He hated it.

“Kiara,” He barked, hand gripping her just above the elbow rather harshly, hard enough to bruise. “We need to talk,” He hissed in her ear as he hauled her away from Scarlet and into an empty classroom.

“Rafe!” Kiara huffed, stumbling into the classroom, free of his death grip. She stared at the boy, wondering briefly if he was high. Rafe Cameron was addicted to the powder he snorted at parties, so it wouldn’t surprise Kiara if his eyes were red and he seemed even more violent than usual. But his eyes were normal, and he seemed fine.. just furious. “What the hell are you on?”

“You're gay.” Rafe spit like it was the foulest word on the planet. Kiara’s eyes went wide. She never said the words out loud, and quite frankly, it scared her a little. With Sarah she didn’t have to hide who she was. But with everyone else, her parents- even the Pogues- she had to hide. But with Sarah it was fun, easy. Sarah got it and Kiara couldn’t think of a better person she wanted to be with.

Kiara fumbled with her words, the infinite possible combinations of words and sentences getting clogged in her throat, so she just stood there, gaping at her girlfriend’s brother as he seethed. Rafe glared, brows slanted over his darkened blue eyes. His eyes reminded Kiara of the waters when a hurricane ripped through them, dangerous and fury born.

“You're disgusting. You turned my sister into one!” He spat, making Kie’s heart clench. This was her nightmare. People finding out and their face recoiling in disgust when they heard the words, “I’m gay.” And maybe that was the reason Kiara never uttered them, not even to herself, perhaps fearful her own face would do the same in the mirror.

But no matter Kiara’s inability to defend herself, she defended the only girl who accepted her as her. Even though her gut pinched at the thought that Rafe looked at different sexual orientations as a ‘disease’ which was nowhere near true, it still hurt nonetheless. “It’s not a bad thing, Rafe. And Sarah’s bi!”

Rafe grimaced, and by the way his face warped, Kiara could tell he didn’t have a clue of what it meant. Kiara swallowed, the sudden fear of Rafe’s knowledge crowding her thoughts. What if he told the rest of the student body? What if he told her parents? What if he told the Pogues? The last thought sent a shiver down her spine. Even though she wasn’t officially out, she didn’t care if the student body found out. Not really. Her fears were about her parents, and if they’d react as badly as Rafe had or worse. But the Pogues? If they acted even a bit like Rafe had, her heart would break and Kiara would lose them. And that thought scares her the most.

So she leaves Rafe, ripping out of the classroom to race toward the bathroom, knowing her tears will spill soon. She cries over the bathroom sink, hands gripping the counter as she sobs. The first period bell rings, but the girl doesn’t trust herself enough to clean up and head to class. Instead she sniffles and glances up at the mirror. By now, her thoughts have turned into horrendous scenarios of the Pogues freaking out, convincing her that the boys aren’t going to accept her. So as she makes eye contact with herself in the mirror, Kiara takes a deep breath; if I leave first, it’ll hurt less.

————————

Kiara was wrong. She couldn’t tell, but it hurt probably even more than if the Pogues left her. She hopes, keeping the flame small, that the three troublemakers will come knocking on her door, asking why she ignored and blew them off for the whole week. But they’ve never set a foot inside her house, and now will not be the time they start. So she locks herself in her room, red eyes and Disney movies on an endless loop to try and block out the pain of letting go of not just the Pogues, but Sarah too.

When Sarah found Kie crying in the bathroom in the middle of the passing period, Kiara couldn’t find the words to tell her that her brother was a homophobic piece of shit that scared the living shit out of her. So she shook her head, passed it off as a mean joke someone said and brushed past her, trying to keep her shaking hands under control as she made her way to class.

But that was a week ago, and Kie’s phone had been blowing up with texts and missed calls on Monday, but slowly tapered off by the time Saturday rolled around. Kiara secretly hoped Sarah would just barge into her room, demanding to know what was wrong and would kiss away her worries, but Sarah wasn’t showing up and the number of missed calls from the blonde had started to dwindle.

But even if Sarah wasn’t a knight in shining armor, someone was.

————————

Kiara glanced up, brows furrowing over her dark eyes as the knock on her door sounded again. Her mom had already come by to try and coax her out of her room for lunch, so it couldn’t be her, the older woman quickly finding it best not to bombard her daughter.

“Kie?”

She would recognize that voice from anywhere. Pope. He’d come to save her, and Kiara’s heart soared at the thought. She clumsily made her way off her bed, knocking off some tissues in the process, but made her way to the door, cracking it open to reveal not only Pope, but all three boys. Kiara’s eyes widened as she took in the boys- her boys. She choked on a sob as she widen the crack of the door, letting the boys shuffle into her spacious room.

“Got a nice place here, Kie.” JJ commented, and Kie was thankful for JJ’s jokes even as her heart throbbed at the sound of his voice.

She really did miss them, and she knew seeing her for the first time in a week like this- dressed in dark blue and white checkered sweats and a white crop top with a wave of messy hair to top it off- wasn’t the best thing. All three of them turned to look at her, and Kiara was hit with the sudden need to apologize.

“I’m so sorry,” She croaked.

Popes dark eyes widened at her exclamation, the first real thing she said to them in almost a week. John B. started, unsure of what to say, but JJ reached out, hands wrapping tightly around his best friend.

“Don’t say that ok? You have nothing to be sorry for.” The blonde murmured, a soft kiss pressed to her hair as he held her. Kiara buried her face in his chest, too overcome with emotion to speak so she cried softly. John B moved quickly to add to the hug and soon, all four of them were in a big group hug.

They pulled back, and Pope slipped his hand in Kie’s to reassure her that he was there as John B. spoke to his movements.

“Kie, we’re always here for you. You know that, right?”

The girl nodded, still unable to meet their gaze. But she sniffled, and nodded, hairs falling into her face as they came loose from her behind her ears. They stood in silence, not knowing where to start with all of this. So Kiara said the thing that started it all.

“I’m gay.”

The words hung in the air untouched before all three spoke at once.

A soft, “Kie, that’s perfectly fine.” came from Pope.

JJ nodded, blonde hair falling into his eyes as he murmured, “That makes so much sense.”

“We support you no matter what.” John B. confirmed with a half smile.

Kie stopped, the responses unlike anything they said in the wicked scenarios in her head. Her mouth popped open into a surprised ‘o’. But her face split into a sad smile as she made eye contact with her friends. At the realization that they supported her and loved her for it, a happy sob bubbles up from her throat. Kie’s dark eyes lit up as she threw her arms around the rest of her heart. They hugged her back, John B’s arm thrown around her shoulders as Pope squeezed her hand and JJ hugged her waist.

“I love you guys,” she sniffled, pulling back with the first genuine smile of that week. They grinned back at her.

“We love ya too, Sunshine.” JJ’s familiar dimpled smile warmed her heart as his hand came up to ruffle her hair affectionately. She missed his smiles and his nickname for her. He called her that since the first hour they met, and it stuck ever since. Kie smiled at the surfer and quietly thanked him.

“Did you really think we were gonna cut you out?” John B asked, his honey colored orbs gazing lovingly down at her. Kie leaned into his chest, his arms tugging her close. “You know we could never do that, bubs.” He soothed, restating his chin on top of her wild curls.

Kiara let her eyes wander to the boy yet to speak. Pope stood there, unmoving as Kie smiled at him until he jumped with a realization. “Oh!” He exclaimed and immediately started patting himself down in search of something. Within the confines of his cargo shorts, Pope pulled a tiny book with a worn cover but displayed it with pride, extending it to his friend. “Here, for you.” When Kie sent him a questioning look as she took it, Pope rambled on. “A recent poem book I read. And I.. well I pretended to be JJ when I wrote notes in it.”

Kie’s laugh was sudden and stark, but made Pope grin at her reaction and the other two boys smile at the happy sound. In the beginning, when Pope first gave Kiara a book he read and thought he’d enjoy and she returned it with lightly written notes about passages on it, Pope immediately started the tradition of giving Kiara a new book with his thoughts every month. And as Kie would go through the chapters she’d write her own thoughts and then discuss them with the boy. But once Kie placed the book down in front of him as they hung out at the Chateau, brows furrowed in confusion. “What is this?” She asked, pointing to the notes Pope made in the top corner. Confused as to why she was asking, Pope leaned forward and reread the note, laughing. “Oh, well, I had a thought about JJ reading the book and figured to do the whole book like JJ wrote it.” So it then became an inside joke between the two.

Kie flips the book in her hands, fingertips tracing the outlines of the small cover. She particularly loves the months where Pope gives her poetry books because partly, he gives her a new collection on them each week because she goes through them fast and secondly, because poems are her favorite. She admires the slightly yellow pages and the soft sketch of Pope’s handwriting.

“Thanks Pope. I love it,”

She closes her eyes and feels at rest- almost. She finally got her boys back. Kiara finally got home. Back in the arms of the three boys who hold her heart equally. So she agrees when John B. gestures to the screen displaying the laziest Disney movie she watched- Beauty and the Beast- and suggests a movie marathon. Except JJ somehow got a hold of the remote as they climbed onto her bed and settled in. The surfer quickly changed the theme from Disney Princess to Horror Night. Pope rolls his eyes and John B. cheers as Kie gasps at the choice he made. It’s ‘Silence of the Lambs’, old but still a classic that’s not too scary for Kie and one of her favorites. The four friends curled up and soon they were too invested in the movie to remember why they were even here in the first place. Kie smiled and admired her friends, grinning as JJ caught her eye and winked. She was back home.

But there was one thing left unsolved: Sarah Cameron.

————————

The Cameron residence never seemed so daunting as it did right now, looming above Kiara in its glimmering windows and architectural beauty. Kiara swallowed, knowing no one but the girl she loved was home but still getting anxious when she thought about the boy who lived under this roof.

The doorbell rang twice before the grand doors cracked up as Sarah answered it. Sarah opened the door with a bounce in her step but stopped as she lay eyes on who rang her doorbell. Her throat went dry and her mouth fell open. Kiara admired her girlfriend- unsure of the title they still had- who was dressed in white shorts and a pale blue tank top of Kie’s that had three small hearts in the middle. She was gorgeous.

“Kie?”

“Hi,” Kiara swallowed unsure of how to proceed. “We need to talk.”

Sarah nodded, wordlessly opening the door wider to allow entry to the dark haired girl of her dreams. Sarah had been lost without her girlfriend. Kiara seemed to drop off the face of the earth after Sarah found her in the bathroom. The blonde called countless times, but each ‘Hi! This is Kiara! You know what to do!’ broke her heart a little more. Sarah couldn’t tell you how many times she showed up outside of the Carrera house, hand poised to knock only to have her doubts make her turn back. Sarah was deathly afraid she’d done something to Kiara unknowingly, but after her brother spat in her face about her preference of lovers, she understood exactly what happened. Which is why when Kie stepped into her foyer, she blurted,

“I’m so sorry about my brother,”

Kiara was taken aback by the outburst, but glanced down at her feet quickly before nodding and meeting Sarah’s sadden gaze.

“I’m sorry too. I should’ve told you right away, I just-“ Kiara struggled with the words, shrugging slightly. “I was scared and was so stupid to push you away.”

Sarah took a tentative step forward, aching to touch the breathtaking girl before her. She smiled softly. “I needed you and you pushed me away,” It was true, Sarah struggled about her sexual orientation and how and if she wanted to come out. And she needed Kie there, but the girl had refused to answer. “But I need to know you won’t do that again if I’m going to let you back in.”

Both girls knew that Sarah was gonna accept her back with open arms either way but Kiara nodded, stepping so they were toe to toe.

“I promise I won’t ever do that again.” She whispered, voice a little broken as she pressed her forehead against the blondes.

And with that, Sarah surged forward, lips attaching to a Kie’s in a loving apology from both sides. And within the kiss, Kie found herself truly at peace.

————————

Tag list

All: @jayjaymaebank @rudys-pankow @maaybanks @everydayimfangirling @outrbank @thelocalpogue @lyricalimerence @ahhireallydontknow @never-ever-too-many-fandoms @kylosleftbuttcheek @insanitysparkles @mcarignan @copper-boom @haharudy @x-lulu @pit-zuh @socialwriter @alwaysasadaesthetic @jjmaybanqs @magnuolia @bellaguarneri @diverdcwn @diverrdown @drewswannabegirl @drew-starkey @mahleeyuh @divcrdown @youfookendonut @dpaccione @starkeymarkey @outerbanksbro @jjs-housekeeping @teenwaywardasgardian @traumaflavouredjuulpod @ad-infinitums

Kiara, Rafe, Sarah & Pogues: @talksoprettyjjx @manicmee @notaninstagrammodel @oxmaddy @obx-direction-sos @newhopenessie @alternativehp @obxmxybxnk @sarapage89 @emsma11 @fangirlvoice @danicarosaline @timmyswrld @gmwlover100 @bxbyyyjocelyn @teamnick @jjmbanks @thesurfingsnail @lulubutton34 @obxsummer @katiaw2 @yeehaw87 @poguecollins @jessica-1120 @yxseminx

36 notes · View notes

bluethedream · 3 years

Note

for the book asks! 4, 25, 34, 35 and 36!

Hi lovely anon! Thanks for the ask <3

4. Is there a book that you think needs a bigger fandom??

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. I adore that book and I don't think it receives nearly enough praise or attention as it deserves, and it definitely needs a bigger fandom.

25. Do you prefer physical books, Ebooks or audio books?? (/there is not wrong answer)

I highly prefer physical books.

34. What do you do to mark your pages??

If this is about marking the pages to know up to which page I've read, I always used bookmarks, nothing else, but I stopped reading for like 6 months and now that I've gotten back to it I don't feel like bothering with a bookmark anymore. I memorize the chapter or page number.

If it's about how I mark parts of the book that have touched me or that I liked, I use a pencil.

35. Do you have a lot of bookmarks?? or just a few??

I only have 4 bookmarks that are readymade and bought from a shop, and I use them for huge textbooks. For pleasure reading, I make bookmarks according to the theme of the book I'm going to use them with, so every book I own has one.

36. Favourite bookmark??

One I commissioned my sister to make me a bookmark (she's an artist), and it was for Six of Crows so she drew the crow and cup tattoo on Kaz's arm, and I'm in love with it.

#asks #sabi's words

1 note · View note

vidalinav · 4 years

Text

Cassian’s Love is Warm (3/4)

Summary: Nesta’s recovery in the Illyria and her developing relationship with Cassian... Or the chapter where Nesta communicates a little better and dives more into her magic.

Links: Nesta’s Love is Quiet Series Masterlist

This took so long and I don’t even really know if it was worth it but here you go. This is dedicated to those 15 followers who always ask when these chapters will be done and like all my posts about updating this fic. Y’all keep me young...and honest.

Thanks for reading! Long asf author’s note at the end.

Something in the air smells like spring.

Nesta can imagine Elain here, in this field where wildflowers bloom and cold wind tickles her hair. She can see it all so clearly as if the sun has melted more than the snow—has left more than mud.

Cassian stands behind her, waiting for her to take it all in. She can see the purple tents of the market, the bustling of people. All of them running around with the things to do and accomplish. The presence of life in such a remote piece of the world.

They walk towards that noise, the sweet song beckoning them forward.

It hits her all at once, then. The smell of cinnamon and cardamom, the array of autumnal spices lined in neat rows. Nesta inspects the red and yellow peppers hanging above the counters. Her eyes trailing over pots of hot broth and the bubbling swirls of chocolate and cream, trying to imagine the sweet taste of strawberries coated in crystalized red.

Cassian points to food she’s missed along the way and there’s something intimate about the way he leans towards her, his hair gently grazing her cheek. He points to his favorite dishes, the color vibrant against the worn brown of the stalls. Nesta wonders if he’s noticed she’s only half paying attention, caught more by his enthusiasm than the seven different kinds of fried food.

His face grows red when he’s excited, she notes. Like spring has a made a home in him, and he too comes alive. He talks with his hands, gestures wildly, at ease in this unfamiliar place. Nesta lets him guide her along, all too aware of the shy smiles he keeps trying to hide between glances.

When Cassian suddenly stops at a stall, Nesta has to catch herself from running into him. She always forgets he is larger than her—larger than life really, but Nesta never notices how tall he is compared to her. A mountain in her way, she thinks, if he had not also been the bridge.

Cassian points to an ornament hanging from one of the railings. A chandelier of blown glass that sways gently. “How about one of these?”

Nesta tries to imagine the house with its bare walls and tattered décor and place the chandelier in the midst of its chaos. She hopes that the picture will appear like paint on a canvas with its cerulean hues against grey. A hint of sky between parted curtains. Forget-me-not shades in forget-it-all concepts. But the image that appears in her mind is her sister’s skin smudged in the same blue Nesta looks at, a brush gripped firmly in her hands.

Nesta stares into the clear teardrops.

“Where would we put it?” She asks, trying not to meet his eyes. She notes the stalls across from them and the amount of people drifting from each. Tries to count them one by one in her effort to escape his gaze, questions already forming at the tip of her tongue. How long will they stay here perusing items that have no commonality? How long before the items become unwanted again? Things thrown haphazardly around each room with no purpose but to be pleasant, yet still can’t manage even that.

“Maybe, above the dining table…after we get a new dining table.” He remarks. “Maybe, the living room.” He nods slowly, tapping his finger on his cheek. “I can see it hanging there.”

Nesta can see it there. She hates to admit it, but she does.

Such a bright light in all that darkness.

She can imagine them under it, too, with more than enough pillows cushioning them on the couch, pushed to the floor. A thick rug she can feel through her toes, that she can feel on her back. Their shadows tangled by firelight. Her head resting on his shoulder. His fingers trailing along her arms and—

Nesta shakes her head. Her face growing warm.

“We can look at other things, if you don’t think—”

“No” Nesta says, breathless and her heart beating much too fast. “It’ll work; I think. With the rest of the house I mean.”

She scorns herself for sounding flustered, but Cassian simply smiles in confirmation. Mouth wide and endearing.

“We can make it work.” He promises, as he signals the shop owner.

Nesta watches as they talk, the muted gestures careful as he hands the chandelier to Cassian. Such craftsmanship in glass. Beauty in something so breakable. She could shatter it before they even made it back home—

Home is not a prison like she thought it was. It is not four walls and a roof, or food or no food at all. It is not poverty or silk sheets. It is not made of glass and it is not so breakable that she could crush it between her palms and bleed on white carpet.

Nesta’s not entirely sure what it is, but she knows what it’s not. Knows that it is not fragile, and it does not hang, and it is not painted with decorative leaves that fall in shades of blue.

It is not glass.

But maybe it’s wood, and the next stall, larger than the last, offers an array of furniture and a female that carves and carves never noticing Nesta as she gleans.

On and on she gathers. She walks to the next stall and then the next and the next, not even sure if Cassian is following or if he stayed behind collecting the light that will hang above them like a glittering star.

It’s odd, Nesta thinks as she turns in a sea of unknown faces. She’d spent so much time with her nose raised, she forgot what it was like to stare straight ahead, and… see the world for what it is. Color and wind and sun, and not just walls. A thousand different things she could see, feel, touch… A thousand different things she didn’t have to hate—that she didn’t have to love either but could choose to anyways. So many choices at the tip of her fingers.

As liberating as that thought is, there’s something sad about it still. The world tinted grey, even when the sky is blue.

Even in a crowd of people she is still not where she ought to be. She isn’t at the center, while the world spins around her. Nesta is not where the world ends or where it begins or where it continues. She’s not even sure if she could see her world if she could fly above it. She is not the part that if removed would eradicate all function, all fluidity.

People move around her, whether she stands in place or walks. They laugh with their friends, talk to their family, to shop owners, mumble to themselves. And as Nesta stands, glancing here and there, a thought enters her head. She is still merely at the edge. Hanging off of it? Maybe not. But she could see her feet dangle. See all the rocks below—

“Are you going to buy anything?” The sharp voice cuts through. Nesta manages a quick glance at the older fairy, unaware that she’d been standing by a shelf of framed mirrors.

“I’m sorry. I was—I’m waiting for someone.” She manages, wanting to kick herself for being flustered twice in one day. The female looks pointedly at Cassian who is still talking animatedly with the shop owner.

“Could be a while.” She says, and Nesta can’t help but agree. “Come in while you wait.”

The female moves, lifting the tent flap behind her, revealing a dim, dark space. A hidden place tucked into a corner of the market, larger than the others had been. A tent, Nesta thinks, rather than a stall. With wine-stained cloth enclosing all inside.

Nesta tries not to look to curious at the awaiting female, analyzing every tick of her patient gaze.

“What do you sell here?”

The ominous panels shift, and Nesta wonders if perhaps she asks too many questions. Never trusting the slightest possibility of endangerment, even when it’s disguised as shopping and pretty trinkets.

“A great deal of things.” The fae answers. “But nothing I can show you if you stay here outside.”

Her skin like weathered paper, crinkles as her eyebrows raise in waiting. “There are things you’d like I think.”

“How would you know what I like?”

Without so much as a blink, the fae steps inside, her chipper voice carrying behind the tent flaps. “I don’t expect you to be so different from anyone else.”

It’s those words that bury themselves in her, make a home in her, crawl into her skin, until they all but coat her like a new wool sweater.

For as long as Nesta can remember, she is always the one who’s different. The smart one, the clever one, the quiet, judgmental one, the mean one, the one with the most hostility. Never the one who played nice with the others, who had many friends that ran to her with secrets and gossip. She was not the one they trusted. Not the one they let in.

But not in this world—she’s one of the many in this world. Not one of the few. So, Nesta enters the little shop and wanders.

She walks from one shelf to the next, expects to see marvelous rubies and diamonds with a thousand different colors woven into its shine. Imagines inventions that move when she winds them or talking clocks that sing songs at the end of an hour. Disappointedly, all the shop owner keeps is picture frames.

Nesta stops to stare at a large one, dust covering the worn brass.

A picture of the market appears in its frame, and Nesta blinks at the sudden image. She can make out one of the shopkeepers, children laughing with balloons and candy in their hands. She can even see Cassian in the corner, talking with the fae next door, his hands waving. His head nodding.

“Is it—” Nesta shakes her head in disbelief, “Is it moving?”

The female comes to stand next to her, peering into the image. She smiles, too self-indulgent to be anything but praise and pride. With the glint in her eyes, Nesta almost expects to hear a long-forgotten secret make its way out of her lips. Perhaps where the treasure lies. Or where the golden eggs are hidden. She leans in unconsciously towards her and listens.

“Marvelous, isn’t it?”

She points to one on her left. “This one is Monteserre in winter… and this one depicts the stunning shades of blue in the Night Court stars.”

Nesta follows her down the row as she continues to describe the various pictures that wink and wave and shudder beyond her control.

“This one is my personal favorite, Spring in Dahlias, I call it.”

Nesta looks at the flowers that flutter as if wind has shifted them. She places her hand on the image, her fingers gliding along, expecting to feel soft petals. Nesta only feels the cold glass.

She doesn’t try to keep the awe out of her voice.

“How much are they?”

“They are not for sale.” At Nesta’s furrowed brows, the shop owner explains, a small, conspicuous smile creeping along the edges of her mouth. “I only sell the frames.”

Nesta watches as the shop owner maneuvers behind the first image. The market a bustling and lively place that one could dream of and be satisfied with. “Pictures are a kind of magic, I think… and just like hopes and dreams and memories, we see what we want to see. Feel what we want to feel. ”

The fairy trails her fingers along the brass, hunching over the top to get a better view. As if she had not made the view herself.

“In many ways I made these because I was trapped in places I didn’t want to live in and was myself not someone I wanted to be. They let me escape this world. Even for a moment.” The fairy gazes wistfully at the picture, turning towards Nesta. Her eyes a pale shade of green and self-assured promise. “And later when I didn’t want to escape anymore, they were memories. Little recollections of times I didn’t even consider the magnitude of or how much impact they would have on my life.”

The female steps around the image and Nesta feels the sudden urge to run, though she doesn’t know why. She is in no danger as far as she’s gleaned and even if she were Cassian is only a few stands away. But Her heart thumps regardless, one beat after another, faster and faster, as the shopkeeper continues.

“Hopes, dreams, memories. It’s all simple magic, really. Perhaps the only kind we all possess. Past the names we call ourselves, beyond the masks we wear. I think to master it is to master ourselves.” She takes a cloth out of her pocket and wipes the edges of the frame. “How else can we see things as they truly are?”

“Why do you keep these hidden?” Nesta asks, her voice soft and accusatory. She could hear the light laughter. Mocking her or believing her to be naïve, Nesta didn’t know.

“Because there’s some who’d rather not know what they look like when they don’t know they’re being watched… Others who don’t want to know what magic looks like when it’s not used for violence or war… No, these are for the special few. Those who think too much already. The ones who need to see.”

Nesta shakes her head.

“I don’t understand—” She starts, but Cassian appears through the tent flaps, a box placed carefully in his hands

“There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

He sets the box down gently at his side, combing his hair with his fingers. A carefree, contented kind of way. “I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

Nesta can feel the urge to roll her eyes but she can’t deny that that something about him makes her feel assured. More calm. Less cautious. As if all the words ever spoken make sense somehow, even if she can’t decipher what they mean. Even if she can’t tell if they’re meant to be dangerous.

“I wasn’t so far away.” A huff in her words. “I was waiting for you, but you took too long.”

“Sorry” Cassian answers, a sheepish grin on his face. “The shop owner wanted to talk about the new policies of land ownership in Prythrian, and once he started, he wouldn’t stop.”

He notices the shopkeeper watching them, an intrigued, curious gleam in her eyes, and nods slightly in her direction, taking his time perusing the items leaning on each wall. A warrior’s assessments that Nesta would find odd in such a place if she had not done so herself.

“Did you find anything you like?” He asks, at last.

Nesta maneuvers to the corner, tracing her fingers along one of the frame’s edges.

She is not a painter like Feyre. She is not hopeful like Elain. She is not brave like Cassian. She is not useful, or pleasant, or trusting… but something in her heart says that she can have this one thing, if only she’d reach out and take it.

Perhaps, Nesta lies when she says she doesn’t want to be like them. Maybe, she’s been waiting for them and them for her and got lost somewhere along the way. Somewhere that was messy and monotonous and crass. Maybe she lets herself get carried away, swept up in the lively fire of anger and the grandeur of being unrelenting and unforgiving.

Perhaps it is also true that Nesta is not like them at all. Maybe she is merely trying on different shoes until she finds one that fits the best, until she can walk in those shoes comfortably, stand in front of every person who means anything to her and look each one of them in the eye.

What will she tell them after it’s all said and done? What will she see reflected back at her?

“I want to get these frames.”

Nesta holds them up for Cassian to see, the brass of one contrasting with the wood of another. She counts three in her palms, but she wants more. She’d take them all home if she could.

“We’ll take these.” Cassian directs his words to the female waiting, “As many as you have.”

He doesn’t ask what she’s going to do with them. Possibly trusts her enough to know about such things, or maybe he doesn’t care at all, Nesta thinks. Maybe Cassian knows she needs this, like he knew she needed all of those books, or the training, or the teasing arguments whenever she was too sad to get out of the house or out of her nightgown. Like all of those games he played with her or the food he set out to have her try. Maybe it was just in his heart to be like that. To be that caring.

Nesta barely notices as the female collects the frames, giving Cassian back his change.

His eyes light up when he’s content, she notes. Not quite green, not quite amber. A little bit eager as he looks at her. Nesta wants to know what it means to be looked at like that. If it’s as dangerous as she always imagines it would be...

Cassian takes the frames out of her hands, holding them for her as they make there way outside. But not before the shopkeeper grabs a hold of his arm and leans towards him.

She holds her hand next to her mouth as if she is telling some secret, and though the statement she says next is directed at Cassian, Nesta still grasps the words.

They float around like music notes, reach her ears, travel down her spine.

The words curl around her heart, burrow in the center of her chest, warming her all over.

Your mate is lovely.

~~~

The mountains have many different names, she learns, and its acres sprout multi-colored flowers. Enduring patches of delicate petals. She passes wisteria, rhododendron, azalea, feels their softness on the tip of fingers. It’s for this reason, Nesta asks to walk some more before they go home.

She spends her time balancing on the raised edge of the sidewalk, Cassian close beside her. Never too far away. Never so distant that she can’t make out his shape or smell his scent or feel the warmth he resonates in the early spring chill.

Her hands are clasped behind her, but she feels a little braver, a little more playful and child-like. Not nearly enough to hold her arms out like she wants to and fit the whole world in the length of them. But she does wobble slightly every now and then, just to see Cassian flinch.

“How did you find the market?” Nesta asks as they reach a clearing of muddy rocks and grass.

“I used to come here when I was young. Azriel, Rhys, and I.” He shakes his head fondly as he remembers. “We used to spend all day here, eating as much as we could and taking more home.”

Nesta waits for him to continue as he passes her, going to sit on the cold ground. His large body at odds with the tiny daisies that sprout in aimless places on the field. She stays behind watching, trying to capture the outline of his figure and every color that bleeds into his skin.

“Actually, I didn’t start coming here until Rhys’s mom took us. She used to sell dresses here and she’d take us with her sometimes. If we behaved, she said she’d get us each our own surprise. It always ended up being food, but sometimes it was new clothes, or toys, or weapons as we got older.”

Nesta can see his fists clump the grass as she gets closer to him, lured by his story and the image of three children running around the market square.

“I don’t know why I remember, but I know we used to steal food when no one was watching, even made a game out of it. Who could take the apple from the crabby goblin? Or how many strawberry tarts could we eat behind the dryads back? The one who always raised her nose at us and complained to Rhys’s mother to.”

Nesta laughs quietly. The sound bright as she pictures a smaller version of him, with rosy cheeks and a penchant for getting in trouble. She wonders if she ever looked that way, too. Innocent and hopeful. Playful and proud.

Nesta wants to say so much to him. Ask him questions about his favorite things, the memories that make his voice sound like he sprinkles sugar atop them. Such sweetness in the light of his smile.

“That sounds fun.” Nesta says, cringing at the perfunctory response.

“It was,” he agrees. “Until we got home and took turns throwing up everything we ate.”

Nesta can’t help the grin that appears, and Cassian knocks his shoulders with hers. His smile reaching his eyes as he looks at her, mirth in the crevices of his mouth.

“You have dimples.” He notes. Nesta touches her cheeks, covering them with her hands. “I didn’t expect you to have them.”

The words sink in before Nesta can decipher what they mean, and she spends the next minutes deciding on an answer, worried more about her response than the stillness that tangles around them. She can feel her teeth pull on her bottom lip, begging her not to say anything.

She never says anything.

“My mother didn’t like them.” Nesta admits, not daring to look at Cassian. “She said that I was born with such a perfect face, it was a pity that the only imperfection she could see was in my smile.”

She shakes her head, staring into the wide expanse of interlacing pinks and marigolds. When did she lose the right to laugh so freely, the freedom of being love drunk and a curious daydreamer? When did life decide she was no longer a child and the only thing she could carry were the memories piled so high and so heavy they were crippling?

“I never wanted to smile in front of her, after… I didn’t want her to look at me and only see what I lacked—how imperfect I really was to her.”

And, Nesta lacked almost everything to her mother. Always talking when she shouldn’t, saying things she could never take back. She was always too moody, too angry, too taciturn. Never what her mother wanted her to be.

Even now she reveals too much and Nesta wants to slap a hand over her mouth, rewind time, start at the beginning where her secrets are kept hidden. Safe in the anger she never hid well.

She can see the questions already forming, something Nesta hopes isn’t pity making a way in the honey tones of his irises.

“I guess I took her words too literally.” Nesta bites, the animosity burning bright red.

Cassian opens his mouth to say something, but Nesta doesn’t want to hear it. Doesn’t even want to know what he could possibly say to take the bitter taste out of her mouth.

“Why did you stop coming here?” She asks accusingly, amazed that she can switch her emotions, like blowing out a candle. One minute a flickering flame, another smoke rising to the mist.

His brows furrow as his eyes darken. Nesta is almost ashamed that she feels proud to have caused such a look. ”You said you used to come here. Why don’t you anymore?”

Cassian grimaces, his wings drifting higher. “No, I don’t come here often.”

His hands wring themselves around and around and Nesta wants to know what he is imagining between his fists. If he hopes to maim as much as she wishes to pummel.

“When she died, I never had the heart to come back. I didn’t want to see where she had walked, where she had laughed, the people she knew so well, and not see her in the midst of it all. There was a part in me, a part in all of us, that was already empty. I didn’t want to see how empty this place had become—what the world looked like without her. So, I just… stopped coming.”

Nesta pauses at his words, suddenly guilty that she is playing a game of whose life turned out worst. There is no winner in daddy issues or absent mothers. No crown for the unwanted, the unclaimed. And she will not find secrets in fingerprints or under the skin her nails dig into. There is only pain.

His and her own.

“Did she come here often?” Nesta asks, her voice steady and soft. His words blinking away the burning sting in her eyes.

“When she could get away—from raising us that is, or some task she had to do for Rhys’s father.” He scoffs. “Raising us mostly. That was all she good for apparently. Never mind that she was smart as all hell and could rival any male Illyrian, trained or no.”

“Do you think she would have been seamstress all her life if she had never mated?”

Nesta doesn’t know why she asks more questions, when she all but ruins the conversation. When they get back, she’s sure she’ll spend hours going over everything she says, marking every tally of moments gone awry. But she wants to salvage as much as she can, wants him to spill the words out so she can collect them like tiny seashells, like parts of a ship already wrecked and abandoned.

Cassian stays silent and Nesta wonders what has trapped him in his head. He stares at the mountains not meeting her gaze and takes his time answering her question. When he does, she can hear the strain of his voice, can see the veins in his hands bulge as he tightens his fists on the grass.

“Illyrians are not… good with females making their own money. They saw, it is as a bad example to the others. No one needed to get ideas, so they gave her more chores, more work. And that was before she had married, so I’m told.” He pulls on the daisies between them. The petals falling in clumps as he grits his teeth. “I can imagine what they would have done if she continued.”

She can feel the anger from Cassian, and feels it rise up inside her, as well. A pain Nesta supposes she shares with all of them, no matter what body she walks in. Like calls to like, she hears Feyre once say.

To be an Illyrian, fae, or human. To be a female, forever young and beautiful. To be a male, always the strongest and most self-assured. To be nothing, but petals and dust. To have it all. To have so little. It was never enough.

In that way, they are the same, she supposes. Both with their feet in the sand, the waves crashing on their ankles. Anger and sadness floating out in that bitter sea she so often drowns in.

Nesta never stops drowning, gives up trying to keep her head above water. She imagines her mouth opening, and a waterfall bursting out. A broken pipe siphoning from an ocean that would never dry. Something explodes out of Nesta. A silence she can no longer keep by holding her lips tightly together.

“My father used to make carvings out of the wood I had to cut,” Nesta holds her palms out as example.

She always expects to see the blisters, count them one by one, as some kind of reminder that she’s suffered. Sometimes, she wishes they’d appear, so she could rub her fingers across them and trace the memories. But they are long gone, and all she can see now are weaving lines and skin.

“I remember being mad at him, so very angry that he’d use the wood that was supposed to be for fires or…food—" She looks towards the bushes, so full and overflowing with berries. What would she have given to have just a taste then? To have these resources growing just outside her door. “He’d sell them, and I still could only thing that it was mine. He’d use my wood, my time, my pain, and it was my money—what I deserved for dealing with a father who could care less about his own daughters.

“I suppose that’s how Feyre felt.” Nesta feels her eyes sting as she stares straight ahead, “And I guess that’s why I understand.”

The anger, she thinks. The sour taste of regret.

Cassian stays oddly quiet as she speaks and Nesta can’t help but be grateful. She does not need to hear sweet coddles as if she needs sympathy, but equally so Nesta doesn’t know what she’d do if she heard criticism. He can’t possibly understand something he’s never lived through, and it makes a part of her furious to think he’d try. But it also makes a deep sadness fill the center of her chest.

Nesta—never to be understood or her sins forgotten.

He stares up at the mountains and she watches as he closes his eyes, his wings lifting slighting at the breeze. “The only thing I remember of my mother is her voice. I don’t remember what color her hair was, how tall she was, even what eye color she had. I can only assume they’re like my own…but that isn’t good enough. Not really.”

Nesta listens carefully to it all.

She’s never heard anything about Cassian’s biological mother and he’s never spoken a word about her, though she often notices how he looks at the others in the camp. The children, the couples, the families he is and will never be a part of. Even sometimes when he looks at her—like he is missing something that nothing in the world can fill.

“I like to imagine that she smelled like the woods, like fresh air… fires…warmth. That she carried me when I was tired and tucked me in when I was sleeping. I liked to imagine that she told me bedtimes stories. I hoped she told me bedtime stories, and I imagined waking up and believing every word that she said the night before. As if she painted my soul, my wants, and my wishes on the edge of my dreams.”

Cassian sighs, his shoulders sinking to the ground as Nesta resists the urge to lay a hand there. She is always trying to resist him, shake the feel of him off of her. A lump forms in the back of her throat, and she clenches her fists to stop the reaching.

“All this time, I could hear her call out my name as if she were screaming right in front of me,” He croaks. His eyes red as he stares, never quite looking at her. “This year, I could barely remember what she sounded like.”

“Why are you telling me this?” She asks, softly, her head resting on her bended knees.

Nesta watches as his grins. His face so obviously despairing that Nesta wants to ask him why he smiles when his heart is broken, why his expression looks so familiar to her. As if she were looking in a mirror as opposed to his war-torn face.

“Maybe all memories fade away, at one point or another. Whether we want them to or not.”

Nesta looks away, leaning back and blinking at the sky quickly turning to its dark cerulean hues. An ocean of darkness, she thinks.

She is always, always drowning.

“Do you miss your mother?” Nesta asks.

Cassian sighs, his hand running through his hair.

“As much as I can miss someone I’ve never known.”

“Do you miss your father?” He questions.

Does she?

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell. Grief looks so strange in Nesta’s eyes, she often wonders if she cares at all.

But she remembers the tombstone she can never visit, the goodbyes that get caught in her throat, the ships she doesn’t even want to look at in fear that she would cry and never stop.

Does she want to miss someone who hurt her so badly?

“More than I wish I did.” Nesta decides.

She looks him over once more before laying down on the grass. The feel of it pillow-soft and cool against her arms. The sky watching over both of them.

“We’re both orphans,” Nesta remarks.

Cassian chuckles, their shoulders touching as he follows suit. Nesta can feel the heat from his body all the way to her toes. “Penniless, parent-less lot, the two of us.”

She stares up at the wide expanse, the stars already peeking through the twilight. The space so substantial and vast it could swallow them whole.

“I suppose we have each other now.”

Amren tells her to think of magic as water. To bathe in it, to wash in it, to let it move around her. Nesta never tells her she’s afraid to take a bath, afraid of what the water might to do her. Even after she put one foot in and another until her whole body is submerged, she’s never wanted to touch that magic she felt just beneath her skin. Never wanted to know just how much it felt like hate.

But, Amren also tells her that if magic is water, her emotions are fire. The more she rages against it, the more she can’t control it. The more she hates the magic, the more it burdens her. Her anger breathes through her, and so the magic evaporates before Nesta can see exactly what it’s made of and what it calls to.

That’s what she tells herself when she stares at the picture frames and nothing appears. Nothing moves and she swears it’s because the magic inside of her does what it wants and doesn’t care at all about her. How could anything care about something that is so miserable and broken.

She scowls at the offending structures leaning lazily on the wall. The picture frames seeming to hum before her. The one Nesta holds in her hands, with its carved mahogany, glares at her to get on with it.

Nesta supposes it would be easier if she knew what images she wanted to appear. She can think of nothing, though she tries all morning, all last week, and all the way back to Windhaven when they make it back from the market.

Nesta sits back and sighs, her head bumping on the new couch they are still deciding on where to place.

The problem, it seems, is that Nesta can think of no good times worth remembering. She has seldom laughed with unutterable joy at the jokes her friends make. She has no friends. She can’t imagine the famous blooming roses of Rask or the briny beaches of Vallahan. She has never been anywhere. She doesn’t want to be reminded of Velaris, where she can still smell the putrid scent of puke and whiskey. An image would merely remind her of the headaches she gets with even a whiff of alcohol.

She moves on to people, but she is not inclined to dwell on any of them either. In fact, Nesta doesn’t want to think of them at all. And so Nesta sits there, resigning to the belief that she was born to be good at nothing…

Some part of her knows she’s scared.

The stiff spine, the wringing hands, the focused gaze. It isn’t an enemy that stands before her, but—Nesta inhales—there is too much that hasn’t been said.

She doesn’t want to know what her mind thinks of when she loosens the reigns. Amren has taught her so many times to keep those shields up, it seems counterintuitive to break them down now. But mostly, Nesta doesn’t want to know what magic looks like. She’s spent so much time denying it’s even there, that the idea of letting it move freely makes her feel wild—her spooked horse-like tendency to see all things as fearful even if they were smaller than her and she could stomp on them easily.

Nesta sets the frame down, the base screeching against the hardwood without leaving a scratch. Her fingers tapping along her thigh to some unnamed melody she can barely recall.

Her powers are always a mystery to her. Never to be understood, never to be forgotten. They are always there. She imagines its depth, the endlessness like drowning in a cauldron, the questions forming in the space between morphing bodies. Human to fae or… something or other.

Nesta tries to silence these questions, but she is simply too curious.

Will the magic shoot out of her hands, follow the sound of her voice, grant her wishes? Will it twist around her spine so that every time she uses it, she’ll feel a twinge in her back and a terrible need to bend and crumble? Will it spit fire out of her mouth like those roaring insults meant to bite and hide her away?

Is it hollow like a hole never filled? Does it echo like a rock in a well? Will it squirm? Eating her from the inside out.

Nesta does not want to know, she asserts, does not even want to imagine what the others have called powerful and strange.

But she can name one type of magic.

It was there that day. Between the two of them.

Nesta thinks about the idea of them several times. Even before she ever lives in this cabin. Long before she lets herself think about them together like that. The image always there, always waiting, and always agonizing.

She lets herself dwell on it now for the picture appears.

Maybe not a memory. Maybe not a dream.

In the space between mahogany lines, Nesta traces her fingers along the glass and brings it closer to her. The appearance finer than paint and perhaps more vibrant. She is almost afraid to look at it for long, fearing that it will change into something dark and horrid. But there they lay.

The two of them.

On that hill of vibrant green. The specks of white and yellow dusting their skin. A blanket of beautiful things she’d like to wrap them in, across both of their shoulders where dust and time had settled. This Cassian looks down, a soft grin on his face, pulling his arms around tighter, wrapped around this—this girl who looks a lot like her and nothing like her at all.

This girl grins. A wide and happy smile, her cheeks brimming and a lively red. Nesta watches as the girl in the picture with her hair and her eyes, leans her head on his shoulder. Both of them so close and so…loved.

Nesta hates this girl. Immediately chastises this young thing.

This girl who never sees terror or feels the deepest regrets. Who never knows starvation for touch and affection. Who never looks at the world with its hatred and despair and is just so hungry that she eats them like scraps of food left on the dinner table. This girl doesn’t know pain—

Nesta breathes deeply. Her fist only inches away from punching the glass into oblivion.

Or maybe she does… Perhaps this girl, this young, naïve, hopeful girl sees it all—feels it all, as she does, but smiles as Nesta always wishes she could, remaining free and unencumbered like no Nesta has ever been before. Perhaps this Nesta knows what it’s like to feel the raging disappointment and instead of soaking it up and bottling it for later, she tells stories instead, laughs instead, thrives instead.

Despite the pain. Regardless of the memories.

Nesta does not destroy the image. Whether its some dream manifested or some cosmic joke, the magic is there. Her power is in the center of it all and it is not cruel or angry or crass.

It’s water…and if it is, she’s made of it. There is no separation between who she is and what the magic makes her. There is no way to pull it out and leave the whole of her behind. As much as she wants to pretend it isn’t there, she can more dismiss that it exists than she can claim that air doesn’t take space in the atmosphere or that she doesn’t dream strange, improbable dreams.

Pretending doesn’t equate to truth.

So, Nesta leans the finished, moving frame on the living room wall and picks up another. The lavender paint reminding her strangely of dinner parties.

Nesta makes so many, fills all of the frames of different sizes and shapes and colors with moments she not only remembers, but of those she wishes to see—the pictures she needs to see.

Of Cassian with that group of friends she almost always resents. Of Amren and her, in that tiny apartment with puzzles strewn about. Of the camp and the raging, rising females who lay claim on her and treat her like one of them. Of the stories she swallows and the worlds that swallow her, that she can feel in the pit of her stomach.

Of her sisters. Because she loves them.

More than herself, most days.

She fills the walls with them all. The snow, and city lights, and night stars, and mountain tops filling the backgrounds, quietly saying hello, goodbye, stay a while. We promise you’ll like it here. We promise to be good to you.

Nesta straightens each one.

The one of her and Cassian though, she hides. Behind her bookshelf, where it won’t taunt her with its hopeful dreams, with its lies it tells so truthfully.

That one can wait.

When the night arrives, Nesta goes to the doorway and the moon scrutinizes her as she waits for the tell-tale sign of wings that signals Cassian’s return. It’s silvery sheen ordering her to do more this time, than watch from the living room window.

She is not the one trapped behind glass.

His feet hit the pavement as the crack of the open door reveals him. She is not a painter like Feyre, but she counts all the shades of indigo and wine that form the backdrop as he steps towards her. The stars as alive as each person who stares at her from those picture frames and blinks.

He looks at her cautiously, waiting for her response, but she takes his arm instead. Pulling him toward the day’s work.

She doesn’t ask him what he thinks, what he can read through gazes on his family’s faces, but she watches as he scans over the images, taking his time assessing each one.

She swallows when he looks back at her, and Nesta braces for the response. Will he deny her visions, her hopes and her wishes? Will he call her out for moving too fast? Will he knock all of them off the wall and yell?

Worst of all, will he say nothing? Her wants not even worth a response.

Cassian places his hand on her cheek. She feels his thumb trace her skin where it burns and if he moves any lower, he can probably hear her heart thumping wildly. And even if she’s scared beyond belief, Nesta still leans into his palm.

She closes her eyes, clenches her fists, and waits for that crippling fear.

Nesta feels the hot press of his mouth instead.

He pulls her to him, his arms moving to her waist as hers wrap around his neck.

His lips are soft, and she leans into him, tastes him, soaks him into her skin. Not at all sure what she should be thinking. Not thinking at all.

But Cassian pulls away far too soon, and when she opens her eyes again, his cheeks are brimming red. Nesta doesn’t say anything and neither does he, but she can feel him in the silence. Joy in deep breaths. Warmth she can feel to her toes.

She turns as he does, back to the images on the wall. Their shoulders almost touching as Nesta fiddles with her neckline and Cassian smiles neatly.

The two of them beaming.

The people of their pictures dreaming their own little dreams.

She will not be afraid of memories. She will not be afraid to hope.

Tags: @dreaming-of-bohemian-nights , @missing-merlin, @strangeenemy, @saltydreamcollector, @midnightbluhm, @my-fan-side, @queenofillea1, @tswaney17, @gloriousinlove, @ekaterinakostrova, @thebluemartini, @anishake, @lord-douglas-the-third, @mis-lil-red

AN:

I wanted this part to be a battle for Nesta. Happiness and Sadness are two sides of the same coin, and I wanted Nesta to constantly toss it and I wanted it to be a fight against what she hoped it would land on. I didn’t want to write her one day getting over it all, because I don’t really think that’s true. Healing, after all, is the ugliest part. So, this chapter ends a little hopeful but bittersweet and it will probably remain that way for the rest of it.

I split this chapter up, so we have one more part 4/4. And then the last segment which I may or may not ever get to called “Love is Bright Red, Hope is Dark Blue” which is more about the inner circle and their part in all of this. Since I think it’s easier for Nesta and Cassian to love each other in the dark so to speak and maybe not in front of their family. But, I haven’t written any of it, and to be frank, I only sometimes like writing this fic and I want to move past this. So, I will not make any promises.

But I hope everyone is doing well. It’s an odd time to be alive right now, and I really hope everyone is staying home and staying healthy. Oh btw, I’ve read Crescent City. It’s such a good book! I was amazed but not at all surprised. SJM always writes the books I want to read so there’s that.

Anyways, thank you for sticking with this fic, I know I take forever to update, but every comment, kudos, like, and reblog mean the world to me and tbh, the constant comments are the only reason I have even made it this far.

Of course, if you like this second to last end part, please feel free to do just that! I always love what you guys comment. I’m out! Finally

#nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #acotar #acofas #acomaf #acowar #my writing #vidalinav #nessian fanfiction

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wherestoriescomefrom · 4 years

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@half-past-late tagged me and I haven’t done one of these in a long time! Thank you for the tag :D

Three Ships -

Hmm I don’t know, I’ve been less of a shipper lately. I think everything **gestures broadly** is making it a little hard to get into fiction in many ways. But, anyway:

1. Jude and Cardan! I love how hard Holly Black went with the “enemies” part of enemies to lovers. I mean, the hatred, the anger, the trust, the coming together, the fact that they actually mesh SO WELL together. It gets me man, it really gets me. She ran with some very intense feelings and did not shy away and it’s honestly amazing how she wrote them.

2. Catra and Adora. Look I mean. It’s not just that this was some hard core childhood best friends to enemies to allies to friends to lovers with so much betrayal and angst and everything I love, it’s also that in the text of the story I can’t actually imagine them with other people if both of them exist in the same universe. If Catra and Adora exist in the same world, then who else are they supposed to be with?

3. Jaime and Brienne. Yeah fine I’m a sucker for enemies to lovers, whatever, fuck my life.

Last Song -

It was either Ready Now by Dodie or Dhadak Dhadak from the Bunty Aur Bubbly movie. It might have been The Amazing Devil too, come to think of it.

Last Movie -

I haven’t watched a lot of movies lately. I think the last one I saw was a Studio Ghibli film - possibly Castle in the Sky. Oh! The last TV show I watched was Daam - it’s a FANTASTIC Pakistani TV show, I can’t get over it even now. It’s about a friendship between these two girls.

Currently Craving -

Sigh... some certainty. Maybe a break. I’d like to... be even a little happier with how this year goes, and have even a fraction of the rest that I needed after five years of academic life. Just some rest would be nice. And maybe spicy ramyun.

Currently Reading -

I’m reading a lot lately actually! I think I’m between books at the moment, and I was about to start something called Inventing Human Rights by Lynn Hunts but I can’t find my copy. What else have I been reading? I read a lot of fantasy in the last few weeks, like Deathless by Catherynne Valente, The Folk of the Air by Holly Black, and The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune. I also have been reading a lot of stuff which doesn’t make it’s way on tumblr because it’s mostly Indian. I read When The River Sleeps by Easterine Kire, and Bhaunri by Anukriti Upadhyay, and I was going to read Yasodhara by Volga but my sister borrowed my copy.

Anyway thank you for the tag, I am going to tag @destroyerofthefreemarket @athenasdragon @seastormstars !

#hello void this is ridiculosity

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 4 years

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reading update

it feels like it’s been 8000 years since the last update, but it turns out it hasn’t even been a full month. it also feels like I’ve read approximately 83 books since then, and it turns out it’s way less than that, but it’s a new month and I like making lists, so here we go anyway!

what have I been reading?

Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - I devoured Moreno-Garcia’s soapy preternatural romance The Beautiful Ones at the start of this year, and after hearing her describe Mexican Gothic as a book for discerning yet trashy readers (paraphrased because I can’t find it, but she did very much say something to that effect). The book ended up not being quite what I had expected/hoped it would be, but damn if I didn’t still down it like popcorn, and I’m still very much looking forward to reading Moreno-Garcia’s Gods of Jade and Shadow as soon as I can get my hands on it. Garcia-Moreno is possibly becoming for me what James Patteron or Danielle Steele are for other people, and I’m okay with that.

The House in the Cerulean Sea (T.J. Klune) - the absolute softest little hug of a book, absolutely required reading for anyone who loves a good found family and sweet budding romance between kindly middle aged men. I think I described it to my roommate at “magical child protective services caseworker falls in love with the dilf who runs a monster orphanage,” which is technically accurate but doesn’t even begin to do the story justice. this has found a place beside The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and Witchmark as my favorite type of novel, which is apparently “cozily domestic queer genre fiction.”

My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite) - god, where do I even start with this book? I read it so fast and loved every bitter, gory page of it. as the title alone will tell you, the story follows an uptight Nigerian nurse who’s burdened by a glamorous younger sister with a penchant for murdering her boyfriends; as the story starts, they’re in the process of disposing of a body for the third time. it’s all downhill from there, and it’s a joyride that reads like a trashy true crime podcast as told by one of the murderers (or at least a murderer’s accomplice).

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminism Forgot (Mikki Kendall) - in the process of reading Hood Feminism I had the someone surprising realization that I was feeling seen in a way that I’d never felt especially seen by a feminist book before. it struck me that as much reading as I’ve done, as many classes as I’ve attended that preached intersectionality, I really hadn’t ever seen poverty and food insecurity talked about like this, not as if someone who had actually experienced these things was doing the writing. activism so often gets lost in the weeds of philosophical what-ifs, while Kendall offers a solid grounding and reminder about real, pressing issues. probably a great book to chuck at someone who’s just finished Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want To Talk About Race? once they’ve gotten the 101 and are ready for reading that does a little less hand holding.

To Be Taught, If Fortunate (Becky Chambers) - this novella made me cry the fastest of any of Chambers’ books so far, although maybe that’s understandable. it’s much shorter than her Wayfarers novels, and had to get to the point a lot faster. and the point is a genuinely lovely one, a firm and hopeful insistence that no matter how bleak the world becomes humanity will find a way to pool resources and continue to find value and joy in learning new things. the ending left me gutted, but in a thoughtful way rather than a sad one.

Shadow of the Batgirl (Sarah Kuhn) - this wasn’t a perfect graphic novel, but genuinely what has DC Comics ever made that I didn’t have at least some quibbles about? this was a very loving tribute to Cassandra Cain, and it was especially satisfying on the heels of the Birds of Prey movie, which is excellent but pretty fundamentally failed at the task of understanding or adapting Cass. her origin story here does seem a bit cutesy and YA-ified, but it definitely gets what makes her tick, and I was really happy to see a clear homage to Cass’ iconic “I don’t kill. But I don’t lose, either” scene. it was also interesting to see Cass benefiting from Barbara’s mentorship without Bruce’s presence, since Bruce/Batman just straight up doesn’t seem to exist in this universe, along with an original character that Kuhn describes as an “Asian auntie” for Cass - we love to see women mentoring women, even if the mainstream comics seem to have forgotten about it. overall my biggest complaint is probably that Cass was somehow living in a public library undetected, which is very hard for me to swallow even if I can accept a girl fighting crime while dressed as a bat.

The Only Good Indians (Stephen Graham Jones) - man, I don’t normally like horror, but this one got under my skin and stayed there. there are so many different types of scary here wrapped around a really real, grounded human heart, and it makes me want to read some more creepy stuff or at least some more of Jones’ work. this is a very short write-up after a whole list of long write-ups, but I don’t really know what to say other than “damn, this took my by surprise in a really neat way.”

what am I reading now? (forgot to do this part last time, whoops)

Pet (Akwaeke Emezi) - I regret to inform that I’m not wild about this one, despite loving Emezi’s first novel, Freshwater. possibly because this one is YA, and feels like it’s skewing extra young? but I’m stubborn and curious about where this is going, so I’m sticking it out for now.

Uncomfortable Labels: My Life as a Gay Autistic Trans Woman (Laura Kate Dale) - just, like, solid autobiography right here. I’m learning a lot about autism, I think.

#bookblr #reading updates

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onetine · 3 years

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End of the Year Book Tag

1. Favourite book of 2020?

I’m cheating and doing two. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune and Romancing the Duke by Tessa Dare.

The House in the Cerulean Sea because of all of the books I read, it was the one I thought about the most afterwards, and it was the one book I read this year that made me cry. Also someone elevator pitched it as Good Omens fanfic so there is that.

Romancing the Duke because that was the book that really jump started me into reading a lot of regency romance, which was the genre I read the most of this year by far.

2. Least favourite book of 2020?

A Hunger Like No Other by Kresley Cole. I was thinking about participating in a group read where we were going to go through this series. It’s a really well known/loved one among paranormal romance fans, but this was SO BAD so I dropped that idea fast. You run into it a lot with older series, but this was taking that “alpha werewolf” persona to such extremes that it was basically romanticizing gaslighting and domestic abuse.

3. Favourite fiction book?

See number one, but I can say that the series I enjoyed the most this year was Ilona Andrews’ Innkeeper series. They tend to write more urban fantasy/paranormal romance, but this is their foray into sci-fi and I loved it SO much. Such fun world building and great characters and a fun romp. I technically haven’t read the last book that follows her sister, but I’m sure it’s just as great.

4. Favourite non-fiction book?

Non-fiction is decidedly not my genre. According to StoryGraph I read 3 non-fiction books, but one of those I think is mislabeled, and the second one has a base in reality but has been edited to the point where I don’t think it really counts either. Which leaves me with Kid Gloves by Lucy Knisely. I like her art style and have enjoyed her other auto-bio comics, but it’s not really working for me anymore. She’s great, but it’s extremely apparent that she’s from an upper middle class white family and has very middle class white straight cis lady issues. Which is fine and not to diminish any of her struggles, but isn’t anything I haven’t heard before so it wasn’t really doing much for me.

5. Which books did you start and not finish?

To keep this from being insanely long the books (im very much a mood reader so I tend to start/stop 5-10 books for every book I read), I’ll instead share the books that I currently have in from the library that I haven’t started yet but will be very soon: Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost (also an older paranormal romance and I’m very hesitant about this one considering my reaction to the Immortals After Dark series), and The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan

6. Which books (if any) did you reread?

None. I don’t really re-read books, but I will be re-reading some this coming year because I want to get better about continuing series

7. Busiest reading period of the year for you?

November was my highest number of books read with 20 books, and August was my busiest length-wise with 4,909 pages read

8. How did the p*ndemic affect your reading habits?

At the beginning of the Bad Times I barely read at all. Adjusting to working from home and losing my usual reading chill time (riding the bus) put me into a major reading slump. Then in the beginning of summer I started more actively looking for new books to read and I fell into the regency romance subgenre. Most of the books I read were very tropey and formulaic and it was just so comforting to be able to escape into a world where the stakes were super low, the story was based around love, the characters delightful, and it always ended with a happily ever after.

9. How many books did you read in 2020?

104! My goal at the beginning of the year was 52, but I updated it to 100 around the end of summer and I’m super proud that I was able to hit it.

10. Which books that you read for the first time this year will you come back to again?

None. I’m not really a re-reader, and the books I’m planning on re-reading this coming year were books that I originally read 5+ years ago.

11. A book that was completely out of your reading comfort zone?

The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. I read for escape and comfort, so I don’t tend to like classics because there is generally a ton of racism, sexism, and the writing style takes more then my distracted brain to comprehend. This wasn’t super out of my comfort zone, but it is a classic which is a genre I tend to avoid.

12. Author you read most of this year?

Ilona Andrews with their Innkeeper and Hidden Legacy series this year. Technically have two more books in those series that I’m planning on getting to early next year.

13. Pick one of the books you read this year. What do you associate with it/with that time in your life?

Listen, with the amount of regency romance I read this year, I’m likely going to associate the entire subgenre with the Bad Times now.

14. One book you'd definitely recommend to others?

If you want to join me in my dive into regency romance, I recommend anything in the Girl Meets Duke series by Tessa Dare. For those of you who want to read LGBT urban fantasy YA, I’d recommend Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas.

15. What are your reading/book goals/wishlists for next year?

I’m keeping my goal at 100 books. Provided I don’t drop down to reading a single book a month again like I did at the start of last year, I don’t think it’s going to be too hard to hit. Plus lets be real here, there is a very good chance that we’ll be in the Bad Times for the grand majority (if not all) of this year, so my current reading habits won’t really be changing.

I’m also adding a goal of getting better about reading my physical books. I primarily read library ebooks because I don’t really re-read things. I’m naturally prioritizing those since there is a time limit on them, so my physical TBR is ignored way too much. I would like to only own books l really enjoy/use for reference, so while I’m not putting a quantifiable tracker on this goal, it is something I would like to focus on.

I’m tagging the only other person on here that I know does any sort of tracking on their reading @theladyw, but I’d encourage everyone to do this tag!

#end of the year book tag #TJ Klune #Romancing the Duke #Tessa Dare #regency romance #paranormal romance #ilona andrews #halfway to the grave #jeaniene frost #the duke who didn’t #courtney milan #girl meets duke #cemetery boys #aiden thomas #booklr #bookblr

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