Best Books of 2024!

January 2, 2025

Okay, here's the big one. I'm gonna talk about my top 5 books of the year, and try to figure out which is my top book from the whole year. Let's get into it!

Claimed by the Cthulu by Wendi Gogh

This is, I'll admit, a WILD pick for one of my top 5 of the year. This is a real smutty book about a girl and a Cthulu, and it is... Bizarre. It's genuinly so weird, and that's why it's up here. I've read a lot of monster smut in my day, and this book is the one I keep thinking about and telling people about because it was SUCH a wild ride. I'm not going to get too blue talking about it here, because I don't want to get this journal to an R rating lol, but I wrote more about it in my top smut recs journal so if you want to know more about the plot and vibe you can check that entry out. So without saying too much about the actual contents of this book, I'll say that it was so fun to read, even more than other monster romance which I generally have a BLAST reading. This one was so crazy and unexpected that I don't think I'll ever forget the kind of turns it took. There's a span of about five chapters that genuinly gave me emotional whiplash from switching between two VERY different perspectives. This book is, in my mind, how monster romance should be done. So much monster romance can be so normie, but this book?? WAY outta left field in the best way.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

I love a faerie book, and this one has the vibe and the lore juuuust right to make me kick my feet and twirl my hair about it. Genuinly, this book is so good for me. Faerie books can take their lore into all kinds of different directions, and I don't love all of them tbh, like sometimes they just don't hit that good good faerie vibe for me. This book?? This is exactly how I like my faeries. Between how good the fae are written and the main character being such a fun character with SO much autism this book is a perfect me trap. The main character, Emily, is so much fun and her faerie bestie gives me major Howl from Howl's Moving Castle vibes and I love that. Actually, I think I'm realizing right now that one of the things I love about this book is that the two main characters give me Howl and Sophie vibes, and Howl's Moving Castle is one of my favourite books of all time. I also love a book that's presented as a journal, and I think the first book in this series does so really really well. Genuinly this was such an enchanting and delightful read and I'm so excited for the final book in the series that's coming out later this year. This book is peak, no one reccomend faerie books to me unless you've read this one and know that this is the vibe I'm looking for lol.

Funeral Songs for Dying Girls by Cherie Dimaline

I loved this book so much. This is a really beautiful story about a girl raised in a cemetary who meets a ghost girl while pretending to be a ghost herself, and it's a great coming of age story about grief and belonging. I really enjoyed this book and I've been wanting to read something by Cherie Dimaline for a long time and I'm glad I finally did. I also love a ghost story, I love how they're always about more than just the ghosts. This was an atmospheric read and I really liked how the teenage characters really show the kinds of flaws that teenagers have. As someone who felt like an outsider as a teenager I really empathised with the main character, and loved reading about her character growth. It's interesting, I love YA books still as an almost-30 year old, but I feel like I interact with them in a very different way than I did as a kid. Reading this book was more like watching a kid I know and love grow into themselves, and it was a really nice experience. big ol' reccomend from me.

The Pairing by Casey McQuiston

I've enjoyed Casey McQuiston since Red White and Royal Blue, and when I found this book I was so excited that there was another one by her. I really liked this book, I thought it was so fun. It's about two childhood friends that were childhood sweethearts, and who broke up a few years before the book begins. It follows them on a European food journey that they coincidentally happen to go on at the same time. The book follows them across Europe, eating and drinking incredible food, and coming up with having a competition for who can sleep with the most folks through this journey. It's a really fun celebration of hedonism and pleasure, and I had a BLAST reading it. This book is so fun and it made me really hungry because the food descriptions are really good. I really loved the characters as well, they are so fun and cool and emotionally constipated in a really fun way to read about. Big ol' reccomendation from me.

The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

I love Robin Wall Kimmerer's work. Her book Braiding Sweetgrass genuinly changed my life when I read it a few years ago. This book is a beautiful essay about reciprocity, abundance, and gift economies in the natural world. The main theme is that the serviceberry, which goes by many names and I know as a saskatoon berry, gives freely to birds and animals and people, and how that builds relationships between the plants and animals, and how gift economies exist everywhere in the natural world and in indigenous communities all over the globe. Its a really great read and it made me think about how we build communities and stand against capitalism by gifting our abundance freely to our friends and neighbours. One of the big ideas from this book is that "all flourishing is mutual," the idea that if you are succeeding and you share that success with your brother it will continue to encourage your whole community to thrive. It's such a short volume but it is so full of beautiful and inspiring ideas, and I really believe that gift economies and doing what you can do for your community is how we keep going through these difficult times. Please, please please spend a day or two reading this book. It's a great change to your perspective.

Okay, so all that being said, which book am I going to call my number one of the year? I think it has to be Emily Wilde. I really really think all five of the books in my top 5 are fantastic reads and if any of them sound interesting to you you should absolutley give them a try, but I think that Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries is so so good and it really grabbed my like a book rarely does now that I'm a grownup. It was so fun to read a book that made me feel like I was 15 devouring a fantasy novel with abandon. I love books that make me think and feel and introduce me to new ideas, but I still think that the number one quality a book should have is that it should be really fun, and I think Emily Wilde was the most fun book I read last year. It wasn't an easy decision, because all these books could have probably been my number one. I read so many good and fun books this year, and I'm looking forward to reading more in 2025!

November Reading Roundup

November 26, 2024

this is kind of a funny time to start doing monthly reading journals, because i genuinly didn't read a ton this month. we've been moving into a new house which takes up a LOT of time, and any down time I have i've been playing stardew lol. i just don't have the brain power to be doing a lot of reading right now. but i'm still gonna do a quick update of what i've been reading and how i'm liking it

Babel by R.F. Kuang

i WISH i could be reading this book, but i haven't found it since moving yet. it's somewhere in the house, i know it, but i've lost track of where it is in the chaos of moving TT-TT i've been really enjoying this book, it's so compeling and well written, and I really love the characters. i'm just under halfway through this book so far, and it's definitley a bit of a heavy read. it has a lot to say about racism and imperialism and how translation can be a tool of the opressor. as soon as i find this book again i really wan tto dive back in and hopefully finish it before the end of the year. it's one of those books that i've been taking my sweet time with, because it deserves that and also because it's a big book that requires i pay real attention lmao. i hope i find it again soon.

The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchet

i started reading the discworld books! this is the first one i'm reading, and i'm listening to it on audio book. my plan is to listen to them all while crafting, because i need something to listen to! i've been enjoying this one. it's been a while since i've read a good ol' episodic fantasy novel like this. it's real interesting and i have no idea where it's going or where it'll end up. it's a real fun read! the characters are fun and i'm enjoying their funny little journey, just doing stuff. the world is, i think, really the focus here, it's really fun to read about. it's just... pretty goofy and fun and i'm enjoying exploring it. I just bought a new crochet critters pattern book so i'm probably gonna be making some fun wild monsters, so probably i'll need to be listening to more audio books... so hopefully i'll finish this one before too long!

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield

okay, so this is my second attempt to read this. not because it's not a good book, but becouse the first time i went to read this i got it as an ebook from the library, and then my loan ran out before i could finish it, and then the library removed it from their collection so i couldn't take it out again! U-U but i kept thinking about it because, even though i didn't read a lot of it when i had it out from the library the first time, the bit i did read i really liked. so i recently went and bought it as an ebook, and now i'm actually getting through it. this one is supposedly a horror novel, but tbh it's more atmospheric and spooky than actually scary. it takes place in an inn on the thames in like, the 19th century era. the story is winding and meandering, in a way that is reminicent of how a river winds along. I love rivers, and having a story that has a river as the main setting and also, in some sense, a character in itself. it's so beautifully written and i'm really, really enjoying myself reading it.

anyway, let me say a little something about the actual story lol. it starts in an inn on the thames on a cold, early winter night, when a man barges in with his face all smashed up, carrying a drowned little girl. the local nurse is called, she stitches up the man, and then she goes to check on the child. who wakes up. everyone agrees she was definitley dead when she first arrived, but now she's alive. the story reaches out in all directions, finding a few people who believe they know who the girl is and they all start coming together. The ways all the characters lives are tied up together is really interesting, and i'm really excited to see how it all turns out. there's so much going on and it's so great to read.

The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer

this is the newest book by my favourite writer on nature, spirituality and science. Robin Wall Kimmerer is an indigenous scientist and her books blend both ways of knowing and understanding the natural world around us. her book Braiding Sweetgrass genuinly changed my life a little. I just started reading The Serviceberry, so i'm not very far into it. it's a real short little book though, so i anticipate finishing it before too long. this one seems so far to be about apreciating the gifts that nature has to give us, which is so my shit. it's so beautifully written and there are gorgeous illustrations throughout as well. i didn't even know this book was coming out until i saw it in my friends indie bookstore and instantly zeroed in on it. i'm so thrilled to be able to read it!!! i might manage to actually finish this one before november ends lol

Fae's top smut book recs

October 30, 2024

when i was thinking about what i wanted to post about first in this reading journal, i kept coming back to some of the, frankly, incredible smut books i've read this year, and wanting to yap about them on the internet. and maybe it's not the most high-brow subject i could start out on, but hey, i'm out here living my truth. i also thought that maybe, it being Halloween and all, i should write about something more spooky, but most of these are going to be monster love, so i think that about covers that.

first i wanna speak to the subject of smut books in general, but just a little before we get to the really fun stuff. i get that smut, and especially monster smut, isn't for everyone. that's totally fair, not everyone enjoys reading about or engaging with that kind of thing, and no one should be forced to read smut or shamed for not wanting to. but for the people who do like it, smut books create a unique way of engaging with sexual themes that could not possibly be non-consensual. the only real people involved when reading something smutty is you reading it and the person who wrote it, and if either party was to revoke consent at any time the experience would simply stop. if a book makes you uncomfortable you can put it down, and if the author wasn't comfortable writing what they were they would stop. and this makes it a completley safe way to engage with kinks and risky behaviour. that's part of why i like smut books. there are some kinks that i honestly wouldn't want to engage with in real life, but i still like to read about them and engage with them that way.

anyway, with that out of the way, i'm gonna jump right into talking about some of the filthiest, funnest books i read this year.

Initiation by Alethea Faust

this is the first book in a series called "Sex Wizards." need i say more? well too bad because i'm going to. this series features a magic system where spells are made through kinky sex acts. to get a sheilding spell, for example, you tie someone up and bang em. there's some explination that has to do with the expulsion of energy in an orgasm and stuff, but honestly how the magic works isn't really the fun part. the fun part is reading about the casting methods themselves (๑>؂•̀๑)

there's also a great range of diverse characters that i really like, and the emphasis on consent and healthy relationship dynamics throughout the book is really refreshing. every chapter starts with a hint as to what kind of ~magic~ will be cast in the chapter, and any chapter that could be more intense or troubling also has a content warning. and the way the characters interact is so good, like they really care about each other and their mental health and also they enjoy dicking the shit out of each other.

i've really enjoyed this entire series and i highly recomend them. the fourth book just came out and i've been reading it recently, and whooo boy is it a fun ride. i should probably mention that there's a plot to these books too, there's an evil wizard to defeat after all. i should mention, an evil wizard in a world where wizards make magic by having sex is.... predictably horrible. but i really think the darker, more intense aspects of the story are handled well and the rest of it is so fun that it really balances out in my opinion. obviously, like any book like this, these books are not for everyone. read the warnings, take care of yourself, and if you think you'd enjoy a book like this i'm going to tell you that you probably will.

Claimed by the Cthulhu by Wendi Gogh

okay. this book. i don't even know how to begin to explain what happens in this book. the story on this one gets so WEIRD in so many fun ways, and whooooo boy is it a ride worth going on. it takes place in a world where Cthulhus and other monsters are everyday members of society, like a lot of monster love worlds, and i'm always a fan of that. the characters are fun and the romance may be het but at no point is there traditional p-in-v sex happening. the sex in this book is actually,,,,, incredibly absurd. let me explain by telling you about the first chapter.

so Cthulhus in this world have a mating season, where they all meet on an island in the middle of the ocean for a three-day fuckfest. they can't avoid it. which sucks for our main man because he hates being obliged to bang someone he's not in love with. every year he meets up to mate with this female Cthulhu who also hates breeding season because she's a lesbian. the year this story starts she finds the main man on this fuck island, pulls him into a cave, and shows that she's brought her medusa girlfriend this year, which is super against the rules. but main guy is a gentleman, so he decides to help them.

by pulling off his dick and giving it to the medusa to use like a strap-on.

turns out a perk of Cthulhu biology is that their dicks pop off and can suction cup onto other surfaces. and when main guy puts his dick back on after the medusa used it, his breeding urge is satisfied because his dick has a kind of brain of its own. this removable-dick thing leads to all kinds of hilarious situations throughout the book, which i loved every second of. it's a dual pov book that flips back and forth between human woman love interest and Cthulhu man, who btw is a doctor, and at one point he's doing a tense medical proceedure while his gf is... pleasuring herself. for several chapters it flips back and forth between two VERY different vibes and tbh i got whiplash and it was SO fun! i'm not going to spoil all the rest of the crazy shit that happens in this book but trust that it is one of the most fun trips i've ever taken.

Morning Glory Milking Farm by C.M. Nascosta

at this point this book has got so much attention for being ~weird~ because she ~milks a minotaur~ that it feels almost cheap to put it on this list, but genuinly i really enjoyed this book. it's so silly and the fact that milking minotaur men is her day job and quickly becomes boring for her is so funny to me. so yeah, maybe this is a cliche pick, but i think it's fun. i love a wholesome monster love book series!

which brings me to the real reason i included this book on this list: i think the whole series is really fun. the second book features a mothman, and the third one??? a werewolf breeding clinic??? fantastic premise. there are some more books in the series that i haven't read, because honestly i got kind of wore out of monster love books where the man is the monster, but i'm sure i'll go back to them soon because they're really fun and cute. i think part of the reason this one got so big is because it's a really good intro to monster love. bizzare premise, wholesome vibes, and hot as hell sex scenes. if you're curious about monster love and you wanna dip your toe in, i'd reccomend this for sure.

those are my top three recs right now, but next year my goal is to read more gay and lesbian monster love, and especially books where the woman is the monster. tbh i'd love to read some books where the woman is a monster and her male love interest is the hapless human, but idk if that even exists. if anyone knows any books like that, or has recs in general, please let me know!! and if you read any of these books based on my recomendation i also wan to know!! happy reading!