Follow this link for a list of funds and bails for the #BlackLivesMatter protests still going on across the country, and donate if you’re able.

As I so astutely stated on my Twitter last week, oh crap! It’s September!

My brain? Mush. My sense of time? Nonexistant. My bank account? Struggling. I went on a week-long trip last month that ended up with me buying…more books than necessary. I haven’t counted them yet. I probably will never count them. For the forseeable future, I’ll probably just pick one up randomly, think, “Oh look, another one from that trip,” and go about my day.

So between that book-buying adventure and another trip for job interviews (a pointless endeavor in the time of COVID, really), I didn’t have a whole of reading or writing time this month! Still, I’m really happy with what I DID get done, and I hope September is even better!

WHAT I READ

August was full of emotional books, pulling me in many different directions and draining me at least once. At the beginning of the month, I finally finished and reviewed Melissa Bashardoust’s Girl, Serpent, Thorn, the beautiful Persian-inspired story of a princess doomed to be a monster. From setting to story to characters, GST was a delight to read. Shout out to NetGalley for giving me an eARC (that I kept forgetting I had–I’m a big “out of sight, out of mind” person, and only finished the book once my physical copy arrived in the mail)!

Last year, I collected a handful of thrillers from an indie bookstore’s sidewalk sale, including two of Gillian Flynn’s most popular titles, Sharp Objects and Gone Girl. After reading Sharp Objects, I *may* be regretting that purchase. While the mystery was delightfully despicable and wonderfully wicked–seriously, I enjoyed the dark, twisted story immensely–the writing itself, or more specifically the narration, grossed me out on another level entirely. Maybe the nasty descriptions of thirteen- and eleven-year-old girls and their future sex lives are unique to this narrator, meant to paint her as horrible in her own way, but I swear to God, if I read Gone Girl and find the same unnecessary analysis of prepybescent bodies, I will SCREAM as I burn the books in a bonfire.

Just as unnerving but in a much better, more critical way, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic was an absolute thrill to read. While it contained a lot of dark, potentially-triggering content, the way it handled and condemned the actions of its villains (because, unquestionably, those committing the crimes were villains) satisfied the anger I held after SO. Beyond this, though, Mexican Gothic was an opulent, terrifying, glorious story examining white supremacy and invasion on native lands, and now, weeks later, I’m still not done thinking about it! (Full review of Mexican Gothic here.)

And then! To my utter delight! I finally read the essential children’s fantasy, Howl’s Moving Castle! The Ghibli version of this novel has always been one of my all-time favorite movies, and finally reading the story expanded my love for it ten-fold. While it was MUCH different from the film, the novel was so much fun to read. I felt as if the multiple threads of the narrative were given much more room to weave around and through one another here, and I felt as if the relationship between Sophie and Howl was just sillier and fuller and much more satisfying. Seeing Sophie get fed up with Howl’s nonsense from Day One of knowing him was perfect. I can’t wait to read the rest of the series!

Finally, I finished Junuada Petrus’s The Stars and the Blackness Between Them on August 31st! This started as a buddy read with Majik Mia, but as she started school and I had to keep leaving town, we both ended up falling off from any coordinated reading, and continued on our own. As I neared the end of the book, though, I WISH I had had an IRL buddy to hug for emotional support! I very rarely cry over books, but this one got me bleary-eyed more than once. I really don’t know what to even say about TSATBBT, but it’s a lyrical, emotional, cathartic piece of art. I had a lot of moments of pure awe as I read Mabel and Audre’s stories. Pure beauty, that’s all I can say.

WHAT I WROTE

Hahahahahaha basically nothing. Between the travelling and the existential crises that August brought me, I didn’t get much of a chance to sit down and write anything. My goal is to have this first draft done by the end of the year, but 2020 and My Piece of Crap Brain, an iconic duo, keep playing jumprope with that timeline, so we’ll see.

However, I did start really working on the magic system in the world, which is something I’ve been putting off for a while. And I’m not super sure how to build a magic system, so if you’ve got any recs for books with great systems or innovative ways to worldbuild with magic, let me know! I’m all ears!

That’s it for this wrap-up! I don’t really have a September TBR, and I think I’m just going to focus on reading what”s been slipping through the cracks. (Plus, my preorder of Iron Heart should be here this Wednesday, so I’ll be reading Crier’s War in preparation! Yay Sapphic robot fantasy!)

As always, you can find me here on Instagram or here on Twitter! See you around!