HIVVER|W1NTER|XEIΜΏΝ

Here we are for ROUND 2–I think I’m doing this for every 10-ish books I’ve read, so a new post whenever that happens!

This one’s got a few comics in it because we just did MCAF & TCAF and I was in the MOOOOOD~

I also picked up a library card so we’re really cookin’ now~

PREVIOUS READS

READS CONTINUED:

[between March 2026 & June 2026]

MOONFLOW – BITTER KARELLA this one…I could see what it was doing. I appreciated a lot of how weird it totally got. But I’m not sure it stuck the landing, or was quite my personal thing. I can’t decide. I’m glad it exists for those who will enjoy it but it was not totally for me.

THE WORKS OF VERMIN – HIRON ENNES god…I’m not sure I could stop thinking about this one even if I tried. It pretty much did everything I wish I could pull off in a story. It was strange and the characters were so fucking fantastic. I wanted more… but I don’t know how they could have packed more into this one. It was incredible. I’m looking forward to rereading it when I get the chance, just to pick up on the subtleties I missed in my first read through…. to watch all the threads coalesce into that fucking ending. Wow. Incredible. Thank you, Hiron.

BETWEEN TWO FIRES – CHRISTOPHER BUEHLMAN reading this one right after reading Works of Vermin was a hell of a way to go. I really liked the structure for this story. I liked the choppier aspects, the stilted prose really gave it a certain character and made it feel like it was a translation, which kind of added a really charming quality to it (yeah despite the whole, plague, horrible demons, cannibalism what have you). I was fascinated by it the whole way through. I’ll definitely need to go back to this one. I was travelling a lot in my read and I know I missed some of the detail via distractions on said travelling.

MALGRÉ TOUT – JORDI LAFEBRE j’étais introduit à cette artist parmis mon ami qui a visité pour le FBDM, elle cherchais le livre et c’étais mon idée d’essayé notre local, Planète BD et voilà. J’ai eu la chance de m’immerser et wow. Les dessins, l’histoire. Tellment charmante. Tellment inspirant. Incroyable. (This one’s a French translation from Spanish I believe… I’m gonna try and up my game here and start by immersing myself in French comics to help with my own bilingualism… my speech is good but my writing is… rough).

GLOBETROTTERS: NELLIE BLY & ELISABETH BISLAND WORLD TOUR – JULIAN VOLOJ & JULIE ROCHELEAU beautiful artwork, as always Rocheleau is incredible. I have a few of her tomes already just for her artistry. The story itself was fun, non-fiction about how one woman took on the challenge to travel the world in less than 80 days, and another woman tasked with beating her to the punch. There was a lot of interesting play between the expectations of a woman who takes charge and makes her way, and the women who are expected to live up to and challenge that name for the sake of entertainment.

IN UNIVERSES – EMET NORTH this one is gonna stick with me for a long time. It’s definitely not gonna be for everyone but the main character resonated with me pretty deeply and the theme circling around mistakes and self-blame was a type of catharsis I didn’t realise I was even looking for at this point in my life. This book not only cradled me but tore me open and poked its fingers all over my heart. I’ll have to pick up a physical copy at some point. (MY first stint into Library reading through Libby!! idk why it took me so long!!)

AUTOMATIC NOODLE – ANNALEE NEWITZ…….. i really just wish this one was actually about robots making a lil noodle shop.

THE VOW – ARDEN RIPLEY & JULIAN CORMAC the art was absolutely incredible… and what a BEAST (size???) for comics! It had a lot of moments I really really wanted to like but I felt I couldn’t seem to sit with for very long? Which sounds insane because this book is a TOME. But everything felt like it was going kind of at full speed.

RODNEY R. RODNEY – V. BRIAT this book was so funny. It just scratched the itch on my right kind of humour (i found myself laughing quietly throughout). The drawings were insane, the scratchier art style really just pulled everything together. Rodney, my beloved freak. I also just liked how the strips emulated this newspaper cartoon strip–it lent itself really well to the story progression! Admittedly I bought this book at TCAF because I’d read a few of the strips on Tumblr and thought they were hilarious, so i couldn’t stop myself from seizing the chance while I had it!

HELL FOLLOWED WITH US – ANDREW JOSEPH WHITE uhmmm I’m glad this was borrowed from the library! I came across it a couple times at Argo books and–it was the type of book I wanted to read but had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t gonna live up to what I was hoping for. In the end I think I’m too old for this one haha.

Here I was going to add another one because I’m nearly done but you know what? Fuck it. It’ll go in the next post~

If you’re reading these posts (whoever you are) and have any reading suggestions I’m always down to try~ You’ve probably got a decent grasp of my taste so far.

So I’m back on a reading binge these days and I’m feeling all kinds of fun funky feelings about books again! I wanted a little spot/series where I talk about them. I’m not planning most of this so here’s what I’ve read this year so far.

A lot of these can probably be found on my Books That Are My Jam list though as I was making it I figured I wanted to really hone it in to books I feel Feral over. Hence making a couple posts like this to kinda go over honourable mentions and stories that still made me feel something even if it was the massive desire to script doctor the shit out of it.

So here we are! Lets get into it!

READS SO FAR:

[between January 2026 & March 2026]

THE CHAOS WALKING TRILOGY – PATRICK NESS, I went back to this series just to get myself on that reading kick~ The first two books of this trilogy are extremely strong. Taking the premise of, ‘oops is a sci fi where colonists land on a planet that allows men’s thoughts to be heard & women’s not at all’ could have taken a real sour turn–but Ness’ writing is incredible here, using this premise to underline toxic behaviours between men, how that’s imparted on young boys and how this kind of mentality can really quickly turn itself into fascism. Unfortunately this IS a YA fiction from the aughts… the romance between the main characters is… tough swallow imho. The final book really suffers the landing, a lot of the themes get tossed out the window for a sake of a bombastic series of events, especially where the planet’s native inhabitants are concerned.
His writing style is incredibly addictive though, and the skill with which he turns the simple understandings of the main protagonist(s) to tackle such big themes is pretty–just wow.

SCOUT IS NOT A BAND KID – JADE ARMSTRONG, so I needed something completely different after Chaos Walking and picked up a graphic novel. I didn’t really know what to expect from this one, it was sitting on my shelf for a while (I’m so sorry Jade) and was pleasantly surprised at how engaging the characters were in this contemporary fic. Scout doesn’t really want to be a band kid (or does she??) and that really does mess with her friends. Its a really good messy romp about friendship, finding what fits for you and really doesn’t lose its teeth on the moments that actually hurt.

SUNWARD – WILLIAM ALEXANDER, I was sold on the idea of a tired postal worker raising baby androids and the characters really jumped off the page from there as I started reading it. I’m a bit of a sucker for a book that has (what feels like) massive world building but we, the reader are just given one small instance in its grand scheme. There’s a charm to it, makes it feel so much homey-er.

WALKING PRACTICE – DOLKI MIN, This one was fucking crazy. The main character is a shifter who feeds on humans to keep living. It’s fucking gross and fucking hilarious. I’ll never walk up a flight of stairs again without thinking of this protagonist’s absolute utter disdain for them. Me too, buddy, me too. It was having a whole lot of fun with Gender. I’m still reeling at the ending. I think it’s going to need another reread or two before I can fully grasp what the author was doing in this short-stacked story.

MORE THAN THIS – PATRICK NESS, god, Patrick what are you doing to me here. I guess major warning is don’t go into this one if you’re struggling with unreality. It’s not going to give you straight answers. But the answers it did give really struck a chord. What happens when you kill yourself… and find out your whole life was a simulation…was that life a simulation? Or is this new purgatory one? Does that really matter in the end? I really like the take-away being that even virtual experiences (especially in an era where long-distance friendships and relationships were starting to be a more cultural norm) matter. Especially if they really matter to you.

A PSALM FOR THE WILD BUILT – BECKY CHAMBERS, okay well not to be a baby or whatever but while Ness’ book already had me weak and weepy, this book came for me in a much stronger way. Ough I was crying…more than once throughout this ending. I think I’ve also just got a sore spot for a character that Overdoes and is fixated on some sort of Purpose being asked, “Why?” and not having a real answer. Idk!! Idk!! I just need to be Useful!! Anyway. I’m fine.

DOCILE – K.M. SZPARA, Well… this one had promise but it failed to pick a direction. There were a lot of fun things that could have happened in this book, but it felt really held back. It was almost a DNF but I’m a sucker and by the time I decided I didn’t care for the story I’d finished reading it. It uh… sure gave me a lot to rant about.

HELL’S HEART – ALEXIS HALL, I’m an asshole who only listened to about 20 chapters of Moby Dick via audiobook so I can’t attest to how fully this retelling keeps to it–but it DOES seem to keep to the narrative structure of Moby Dick–except in space, in Jupiter’s stormy skies hunting leviathans instead of sperm whales. Um… this book was incredibly fun and I found myself laughing–the main character is a riot. Give me a bi disaster transfem any day. I was often reading passages out loud to my partner when I couldn’t keep from snickering. I fell in love with Hall’s versions of all these characters. So much so–I did really want to sit still and simmer in some scenes with these character’s personalities.
It WAS a retelling, though. I get wanting to keep to the source material. Honestly I’m just about ready to jump into Moby Dick properly after all that. I know I ought to read it before I decide to reread this one.

I’m halfway through another book but I think I’m gonna tack that one on to the next post. I will say that ALL but the first trilogy (CHAOS WALKING) featured prominent queer characters in all of their casts. Chaos Walking does feature: Tragic Gay Dads but its a dystopia so someone’s gotta die.

IDK! If you’ve read any of these let me know what you thought! These are just quick blurbs but I have Thorts and Opinions about pretty much all of these!

Anyway happy reading!