📚Book Review📚

📖Teo’s Durumi by Elaine U. Cho.

Cover art by Jee-ook Choi.

I love ‘Ocean’s Godori’ with every fibre of my being and found ‘Teo’s Durumi’ to be a very worthwhile continuation. The story brought the characters to an excellent pause point in what I sincerely hope will be just the first of many more stories in this fictional universe.

This duology is an absolute must-read for fans of space opera who appreciate character depth and complicated relationships, and I will be eagerly anticipating more stories from this author in the future.

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📚Book Review📚

📖Don't Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews.

Cover art by Jana Heidersdorf.

I had a deliciously wicked experience reading this story. It has a similar vibe to stories like ‘Off With Their Heads’ by Zoe Hana Mikuta, the 1994 film ‘Heavenly Creatures’, and ‘The Summer Hikaru Died’ by Mokumokuren.

I have no clue how much is meant to be real and how much is meant to be metaphor, but the writing is achingly beautiful and I ate it up. Sometimes love and pain are the same thing.

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📚Book Reviews📚

I was finally able to beat my previous high score from December 2019 in ‘Number Match’ at the beginning of this month. I’ve also finished reading two books so far in August:

📖Cackle by Rachel Harrison (ebook library loan)

I had a fun time reading this one. I loved the burgeoning friendship between Annie and Sophie, and Ralph is oddly adorable. The epilogue felt right to me too.

📖Hammered by Lindsay Buroker (ebook bought in 2022)

Decent characters and world-building for an urban fantasy, but didn't really feel like a self-contained story in terms of the plot development. Will likely pick up the second book at some point and see how things progress.

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📚July 2025 recap📚

I read a total of five books in July, two of which were manga volumes, one translated work, one ebook, and one library loan.

💛💛💛💛🖤- Elizabeth and her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim
💛💛💛💛💛- The Moon on a Rainy Night, Volume 1 by Kuzushiro
💛💛💛🖤🖤- Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
💛💛💛🖤🖤- Nana, Volume 1 by Ai Yazawa
💛💛💛💛🖤- The Sirens by Emilia Hart

In addition, I read the short stories ‘Home’ and ‘The Flowering’ by Soyeon Jeong, and the novelette ‘Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy’ by Martha Wells.

Husband and I finished the first season of ‘Murderbot’ and started watching the new seasons of ‘Foundation’ and ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’. I binge-watched ‘Too Much’, and two Japanese BL series: ‘When It Rains, It Pours’, and ‘Love is a Poison’.

Family finished watching the currently available episodes of ‘The Apothecary Diaries’, and rewatched ‘Murderbot’ with our Teen, as well as ‘Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai’ (which I personally refer to as ‘Adolescence Syndrome’, that being the central concept). We also started watching the current seasons of ‘Sakamoto Days’ and ‘Kaiju No. 8’.

Twiglet has been very adorable and spent a lot of time snuggling with me in the mornings since I don’t have to get up so early and can do a bit of bed rotting.

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📚Book Review📚

‘Dungeon Crawler Carl’ by Matt Dinnimin.

Kind of has a ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ meets ‘The Running Man’ vibe to it.

Some of the humour just didn't work for me (ableist vibe, or just kind of gross). Overall, the story knows what it is and delivers on what it promises.

Princess Donut is the star of the show and the reason why I would probably read more in this series, but I'm not in a particular hurry to try to catch up.

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📚Book Review📚

‘The Moon on a Rainy Night’, Volume 1 by Kuzushiro.

Absolutely loved this first volume in what I'm hoping is going to be a beloved series for me. Originally picked it up thinking that it would be a good one to tempt the Teen to read over the summer, but honestly think it is just done so well that I'm keen to read more for myself.

Disability representation is wonderfully woven into the fabric of the story, and the nuance of someone being deaf without complete hearing loss is very welcome.

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📚Book Review📚

‘Elizabeth and her German Garden’ by Elizabeth von Arnim

I found this book quite charming (though, being the musings of an upper class lady published in 1898, the classism is a bit discomforting in places). Also, please note that there is one moment when a young child is described as being careless with a kitten in a manner that feels cruel and certainly unpleasant for the poor kitten, but it is mentioned only briefly.

As someone who is introverted, and finds the lingering habits of guests wearisome, I find this account of a woman finding solace in her garden strangely relatable (despite not being good with plants myself) and feel like this might be considered an example of a woman entering her hedge witch era.

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📚Book Review📚

‘Cat + Gamer, Volume 2’ by Wataru Nadatani.

I’m continuing to love this manga series about an inexperienced cat butler learning the ropes whilst trying to balance her duties with work and her existing gaming hobby. Just gentle and wholesome vibes with snippets from the cat’s point of view.

The series comes with Twiglet’s approval too!

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