Break Notice

It's time for our annual break from the blog. We'll still be around on Goodreads, to answer comments, and (maybe) on social media sites like Instagram. See you all in the New Year and, until then, happy reading!

2023 Favorites: Music, Movies, and TV

 

The blogging year is coming to a close, and I thought it was time to go over some of my favorite things from 2023. This concerns media—books, short stories, music, movies, and TV shows—that I read, watched, or listened to this year. In this second part, I’m focusing on music, movies, and TV.

Music

There was so much good music that was released in 2023. My top albums and Eps released in 2023 were: Sweet Justice by Tkay Maizda, So Much (For) Stardust by Fall Out Boy, A Reckoning by Kimbra, Going…Going…GONE! by Hemlocke Springs, Tension by Kylie Minogue, and Feed the Beast by Kim Petras. I also enjoyed Holiday Sidewinder’s Forever or Whatever, Wednesday Campanella’s expansive backlist, The NYChillharmonic’s album 1, and Marina’s The Family Jewels. Along with songs by Halle (Angel), Caroline Polachek (Bunny Is A Rider, Dang, Caroline Shut Up, and Welcome To My Island), METTE (Van Gogh), Doechii (Pacer), Aurora (Your Blood) and Allie X (Black Eye and Girl With No Face).

Movies and TV

I didn’t watch as much this year as I thought I would. For movies, some of my favorites were: Barbie, The Haunted Mansion, and The Portable Door. As for TV, I’ve mostly been watching: Mystery Science Theater 3000, SurrealEstate season 2, Svengoolie, and a number of classic shows like Murder she Wrote.

And, with that, there is my list of 2023 favorites. If you want to check out the first part, you can use THIS LINK.

Happy reading!

2023 Favorites: Books & Short Stories

The blogging year is coming to a close, and I thought it was time to go over some of my favorite things from 2023. This concerns media—books, short stories, music, movies, and TV shows—that I read, watched, or listened to this year. In this part, I’m focusing on books and short stories.

Books

I read a good number of books in 2023 and, overall—besides a few hiccups—I’m pretty happy looking back.

My favorite young adult books and manga were: A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid, Holly Horror by Michelle Corpora Jabes, Bittersweet in the Hollow by Kate Pearsall, A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, and Clock Stricker vol. 1 by Issaka Galadima and Frederick L. Jones. For general fiction, my favorites were: Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Ninth House & Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo, Starling House by Alix E. Harrow, The Fatal Folio by Elizabeth Penney, The God of Endings by Jacqueline Holland, The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett, and Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo. My three middle grade reads were excellent: Field of Screams by Wendy Parris, Adia Kelbara and the Circle of Shamans by Isi Hendrix, and Totally Psychic by Brigid Martin. And last, but certainly not least, my favorite nonfiction books were: Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes by Edith Hamilton, The Cult of We by Eliot Brown and Maureen Farrell, and The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan.

  Short Stories

My favorite short stories I wrote about toward the end of each month, for the blog’s Short Stories segment—with the exception of The Lover by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Review HERE). Plus I started reading an anthology this year called The Book of Witches. I'm no where near finished with it, but I still wanted to include stories from it. The ones I liked were: What I Remember of Oresha Moon Dragon Devshrata by P. Djèlí Clark, Met Swallow by Cassandra Khaw, and The Nine Jars of Nukulu by Tobi Ogundiran. I read other short stories this year as well, and that includes those that can be found on online magazines like Strange Horizons, Uncanny, Apex, Lightspeed, and Tor.com. I'm linking back to them here, for ease of finding them. And those stories were:

• Your Wings a Bridge Across the Stars by Michelle Denham (Apex Magazine; April 6, 2023)
• Did You Hear About The Neighbors? By Seth Wade (Strange Horizons; Issue: 24 April 2023)
• Yingying—Shadow by Ai Jiang (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Fifty-One)
• The Gratitude of Mice by Yume Kitasei (Strange Horizons; Issue: 6 March 2023)
• Our Exquisite Delights by Megan Chee (Lightspeed Magazine; Mar. 2023 (Issue 154))
• Silver Necklace, Golden Ring by Marie Brennan (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Fifty)
• Guidelines for Using the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library by Marie Brennan (Lightspeed Magazine; Issue 153)
• The Magazine of Horror by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki [Apex Magazine; August 15, 2023]
• The Discarded Ones by Linda Niehoff (Apex Magazine; August 8, 2023)
• Four Steps To Hunt A God by Athar Fikry (Strange Horizons; Issue: 12 June 2023)
• Mirror View by Rajeev Prasad (Clarkesworld; Issue 201—June 2023)
• All These Ghosts Are Playing to Win by Lindsey Godfrey Eccles (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Fifty-Two)
• A Lovers’ Tide in Which We Inevitably Break Each Other; Told in Inverse by K.S. Walker (Uncanny Magazine; Issue Ffty-Two)
• The Locked Coffin: A Judge Dee Mystery by Lavie Tidhar (Tor.com; October 25, 2023)
• What You Are and the Wolf by Jae Steinbacher (Lightspeed Magazine; October 2023; Issue 161)
• Simmered in Their Wealth Like the Richest of Sauces by Jo Miles (Lightspeed Magazine; September 2023; Issue 160)
• The Tale of Clancy the Scrivener by Ramsey Shehadeh (Tor.com; September 20, 2023)

That’s it for today. Up next: Yearly Favorites Part 2. Until then, thanks for stopping by and happy reading!

What I've Been Listening To: September 2023

September was a busy month for music, at least on my end, with some of my most anticipated albums and Eps of 2023 being released.

I have been waiting for Going…Going…GONE!, an EP by Hemlocke Springs, and I’m so happy that it’s finally here. Released on September 29th, it was some of the last music I was anticipating for the month. Hemlocke Springs does the awkward black girl style so well with catchy earworms like the viral hit Girlfriend, followed by other songs like Haevun. And while Stranger Danger! and Sever The Blight aren’t on the EP, the music video for POS has references to Hemlocke Springs’ other music videos—like the plushy and outfits from Girlfriend and the paper bag character from Stranger Danger!. It was a neat little detail that sort of tied everything together. Going…Going…GONE! did exactly what I was hoping it would do and delivered a seven track EP filled with quirky and fun music.

Tension (Deluxe), Kylie Minogue’s sixteenth studio album, was one of my most anticipated releases this year, and I liked it. It felt like a sequel (or continuation) to her 2020 release Disco, but Tension still had its own thing going for it with plenty of catchy songs on its tracklist. I mean, it’s Kylie Minogue + disco/pop music, and that’s always a good combination. 

Some of the singles that have made it onto my playlist are:

• Van Gogh by METTE
• Pacer by Doechii
• SZA’s acoustic version of Snooze
• Jersey by Baby Tate

So that’s about everything I was listening to in September. If you have any recommendations, feel free to leave them in the comments.

 

Hello, I'm Back + Some 2023 Stuff I'm Looking Forward To...

Hello, I’m back from my annual break from blogging. As usual, some posts—like Short Stories—will return to a more regular schedule in February as I get back into the swing of things. To start out this new blogging year, I wanted to do a brief recap of the stuff that kept me entertained through December and early January, as well as the books and albums I’m waiting for in 2023.

On my break, I didn’t read as much or watch as many movies and TV shows as I thought I would. The main series I watched was Harry & Megan on Netflix. As for books, I won’t mention them here, since I have upcoming reviews for them.

What preoccupied much of my attention was: I got into a couple of indie games. Nintendo was having a great sale on some of the titles I’ve had my eye on, and I couldn’t pass them up. The first was Ooblets. It’s a cozy life-simulation with a cute style, which had the creature collecting aspect of Pokemon with the farming and decorating features comparable to games like Animal Crossing. But, it also has mini games as well as fun dance battles, which you conduct with your Ooblets and their special dance moves. Jokes aside, that aspect is basically a strategy card game. It’s not very hard to get the hang of it and start leveling up, but the deck had a measure of unpredictability to the moves that are dealt each turn. And, it kept it interesting. The other titles I picked up were Going Under, an action-rpg set in an office building, and Lost In Random, an action adventure game with a card/chance aspect to part of the battle mechanic—which reminded me of the dance battles from Ooblets (just a little more complicated and with a focus on defeating enemies to progress in game). I’m still in the early stages of those games, and I like them so far. The only drawback for Lost In Random that I’ve come across, is that it lacks a manual save function. I have to pay especially close attention to when the game is auto saving, before I go back to the main menu. Other than that, I like the style of the graphics, as well as the story (at least to the point where I’m at).

And, now for some of the stuff I’m looking forward to. My list is, of course, never concrete, and it evolves as the year goes on and more stuff finally gets announced. What I have now is very short.

Albums

Ellie Goulding’s Higher Than Heaven. This album is slated for an early February release (the third, to be exact). I’ve been an on-and-off follower of Goulding since her 2010 album, Lights. The singles released in support of Higher Than Heaven, has set a certain expectation for me, since I’ve liked everything I’ve heard so far.

Kimbra’s A Reckoning. Slated for a January 27th release, A Reckoning is one of my most anticipated albums of the year. I’ve been waiting for another full body of work by Kimbra since as far back as 2018. That was the year Primal Heart released, and, to this day, it’s one of my favorite albums.

Books

**Note: As a reminder, the Harpercollins Union is still on strike. So, no Harpercollins titles will be mentioned here today.**

The books I’m currently looking forward to include: Cinnamon Twisted by Ginger Bolton, Four Parties and a Funeral by Maria DiRico, and Hot Pot Murder by Jennifer J. Chow. I also want to get back into the Veronica Speedwell series by Deanna Raybourn. And as far as classics go, I’m planning to tackle The Iliad and The Odyssey. 

So, that’s about it for today. I look forward to another year of blogging!

Happy New Year!

 

Happy New Year! It's 2023. We're not back to blogging just yet, but there are some posts scheduled for early January. We're still around on Instagram, Tumblr, Goodreads, etc too. See you all after our break is over! Happy reading!