This book was fantastic! I was hooked the entire time. I loved the shifting perspectives and timelines. It was infuriating when chapters would end in cliffhangers and then the perspective would shift. But kept me hurling through the book. It was impossible to pick up the book and read less than 50 pages. Also! The chapters are mega short!! Usually less than 10 pages. This book is so ADHD friendly. It was ~550 pages and I didn’t even really notice.
Good job, Liz Moore!
There are two disappearances, and thus two mysteries to solve. I am proud of myself because I feel I figured out one of the mysteries pretty early. I had so much fun guessing at clues and hypothesizing theories. The other one I did NOT figure out and was shocked (!!) at the reveal.
If you like mysteries, you should definitely go read!
The Knight and the Moth is a fantasy novel written by my favorite author, Rachel Gillig. It is the first in her current series, The Stonewater Kingdom.
5/5 this book is AMAZING. Gillig is incredible at creating fantasy worlds that are completely magical and immersive, without requiring dense and tedious world-building. I can picture the world she has created so vividly and with such color.
I am a huge fan of the main character and the journey of self discovery she is on in this novel. I cannot wait to see how she continues to grow in the next book, and how the person she discovered in this one handles the challenges she was saddled with at the end of book #1.
I cannot believe the Man Love Interest is named Rodrick Myndacious. I love it. He is funny and sarcastic. I am a big fan. Perhaps one of my favorite TDHs.
STAR OF THE SHOW: The talking bat gargoyle who is tactless and calls everyone Bartholomew. I am obsessed. He is adorable. I need a cat named Bartholomew. Maybe I will start calling my cat Bartholomew.
This book is so perfect. Go read it now! And if you haven't read her other books, One Dark Window and Two Twisted Crowns, go read those IMMEDIATELY!!!
Beginning and End by mightbewritting is a 241,981 word fanfiction from Draco’s point of view. This is the prequel to Wait & Hope. For first time reads, W&H should be read first and B&E read second. I decided to reread in chronological order based on the storyline. Beginning and End tells the story of Hermione and Draco’s love story, from the beginning. It is 4.5 years after the war and Hermione is the Ministry Representative assigned to decommission all the dark magic and objects in Malfoy Manor. Draco is fresh off a year abroad spent acquiring his potions mastery. Lucious and Narcissa require Draco to supervise Hermione at all times during the decommissioning. This story takes place over multiple years and involves time travel.
The first time I read this book, I rated it 7/10. This time I am giving it a 9/10. I cannot think of anything wrong with this book. It is not quiiiiite God Tier, which is why it is a 9.
I cannot express how much I adored this reread. I am so excited for T to read this series so I can talk about it with her.
In many ways, this story is so refreshing. The characters and relationships are not perfect, and experience trials and hardships in a way that felt so real and human to me. Sometimes books are too shiny and perfect, and that is not what I am looking for at this time in my life. Draco and Hermione are not perfect to each other. They make mistakes, they fight, and it is hard to read their avoidance of and failed attempts at communication. They do not give up, but it takes work LIKE A REAL RELATIONSHIP. What a breath of fresh air.
The writing of this masterpiece is immaculate. It is not showy, it is simply without flaw.
I will finally be taking on reading The Count of Monte Cristo in honor of this story.
This goes on my favorites list now.
Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis is a nonfiction book that confronts truths about the prison system in order to investigate their usefulness at this point in time.
This book gets a 5/5 EASILY. Anyone interested in learning about the prison system or has curiosity about the prison abolition should read this. I typically struggle to read nonfiction, even when the topic is one I want to learn about. I did not have any such struggles with this book. It is short, to the point, and doesn't use gratuitously dense or academic language.
Here are notes I made while reading about specific things that stood out to me:
Davis points out that many people lack the belief that prisons could be abolished because they can’t imagine a system without them. She asserts that many people felt this way about slavery and segregation as well. At the time, people would be opposed to the treatment of people under the system, yet not be able to imagine how society would function without them. Looking back, it is obvious that those systems could be abolished. Will we have this same hindsight perspective on prisons once they are abolished?
Similarities between prison and slavery system: daily routine organized by materials. Dependent on others for basic needs (food, materials). Subjected to the will of others. Isolated from the general population. Confined to a fixed habitat. Coerced to work.
Supermax prisons are incredibly inhumane. Essentially solitary confinement 23 hours of the day. There are no cell mates and you can’t see any other prisoners from inside the cells. I think I feel similarly about this as I do the death penalty. Which is to say, I think there are some people that are evil and deserve that form of punishment, but I don’t trust the government to judge who that is or enforce that level of punishment. I feel the same about solitary confinement
Native Americans are incarcerated at incredibly disproportionate rates, especially women. Davis puts forward that this is to keep them under a colonial system
Sexual assault of inmates by officers is not punished or corrected. It functions as an accepted form of punishment with how little it is meaningfully reprimanded/punished.
Prison industrial complex is a system that transforms bodies, primarily bodies of color, into profit
Prisoners were medically experimented on until 1974. After WW2, this helped boost the pharmaceutical industry.
Female prisoners are getting strip searched, which includes a search of internal cavities, something prisoners call “getting the finger” or “being fingerf**ked”. This is sexual violence at the hand of the state. I’m horrified to discover this. In some cases, refusal to be searched leads to being thrown in solitary confinement until you consent to the search
While jails and prisons have been dominant institutions for the control of men, mental institutions have served a similar purpose for women” men = deviant, women = crazy.
Black women have always been punished differently than while women, dating back to slavery. See: pregnant women.
Enslaved women being hypersexualized to justify SA perpetrated by slave masters mirrors the hypersexualization of inmates and the prevalence of SA at the hands of jail staff
Old prison structure: Domestic cottage structure for women’s prisons, with an emphasis on teaching women domestic skills in the name of reform. This was to make good proper wives. For poor, often women of color, inmates, this served as training for domestic servitude.
Black women are more likely to be sentenced to men’s prisons. More likely to have experienced the horrors of convict leasing.
Women tended to receive longer sentences. The argument being: men are being sent to prisons for punishment, whereas women are being sent to reformatories to be reformed and trained, which takes more time. They’re not serving time proportional to their crime. They’re serving as long as it takes to be reformed
Female prisoners are sexually violated by officers with FREQUENCY in prisons. Officers use their power and hand out punishments and privileges/rewards based on inmates willingness to engage in sexual behavior with them.
Abolish prisons: engage in a mindset where punishment is not the response to crime. Demilitarize schools, as they are the main conduits to prison.
Don’t incarcerate mentally ill people, treat them.
Envision an array of alternatives to the carceral system. This is similar to how people view abolishing the police.
We need to decriminalize activities and also communities that are typically criminalized, such as drugs.
Learn more about restorative justice.
Those who wait is a romance novel by Haily Cass. This story follows Sutton Spencer, grad student at NYU and daughter of a congressman and a famous author, and Charlotte Thompson, granddaughter of the first female president with ambitions to be the second. Sutton has recently realized she is attracted to women and her meddlesome best friend/roommate, Reagan, makes her a profile on a sapphic dating app. Here, Sutton meets Charlotte and is taken under Charlotte's wing to learn all she needs to know about the sapphic dating/hookup scene. Complications ensue…….
I heavily enjoyed this book!! I am rating it 4.5/5. It was a bit long for a romance and that led to me taking a long time to finish it.
I loved the characters and the content. I was quite fond of Ms. Charlotte, as she reminds me of my own girl with Political Ambitions.
I would recommend this! I can’t wait to read the sequel :)
DMATMOOBIL is a 199,699 word Dhr fanfiction by @isthisselfcare about Hermione’s adventures as an established and esteemed researcher and healer. She travels around on Pagan holidays to collect mysterious ingredients for her research. The Minister for Magic is worried that her Mystery Research Project is going to make her a target for some dangerous and erratic groups. Draco Malfoy, accomplished Auror, gets assigned her protection gig. This is a slow burn, enemies (though they start off closer to neutral than enemies in this book) to lovers. Tropes include: forced proximity, one bed, bodyguard, Auror Draco.
My first time reading this book, I rated it a 5/10…. Hello????? What was I on. This fic is a 10/10. A TEN OUT OF TEN. I can’t believe that Past Lisie disrespected it in such a manner.
Everything about this book is scrumptious. The writing is exquisite: hilarious, full-bodied, riveting, and relatable. A fic entirely from Draco’s point of view is always a delight! He is so sassy and entertaining.
I love the specific stylistic choice in the writing of consistent capitalization of certain words. It almost feels like a bit between me, the author, and Draco. It helped bring me in as a reader and form a sense of camaraderie. For example, Draco encounters a computer for the first time in his life when he enters Hermione’s lab and finds out she keeps all her research there. He is flabbergasted by this technology and refers to it as (in his head) The Computer. When he begins to develop feelings for Hermione, he calls it The Something, and considers The Something to be A Problem.
A slow-burn for the ages. Over 100,000 before a mere kiss occurs! Devour, devour, devour. It is supported by the spread out timeline of this book. The pacing was wonderful. There are times where a few weeks go by and it feels very natural that life just goes on without us knowing every detail. The author does a great job of anchoring us with the prevalence of the pagan calendar every few weeks. These events were always Significant to the development of Hermione and Draco’s relationship as characters, to the plot point of Hermione’s research, and to the development of both characters as individuals. They were also very creative, and a very fun theme to follow as the reader.
I feel like I need a vastly profound review to impart upon yee readers how perfect this book is, but, alas, no words can capture the beauty of DMATMOOBIL.
This book is a study in Dramione fanfiction. The gold standard. Chef’s kiss.
Amor Vincit Omnia is a 288,120 word Dhr fanfiction by @twin_flame_blues about Hermione and Draco’s original love story at Hogwarts, and reunion in their early twenties. In this story, Hermione and Draco dated from Fourth Year, until shortly after the final battle. Then they separated, and Ron and Hermione began to date a few months later. We learn this part of the story through flashbacks and memories. The story opens with Hermione at the Weasley’s for Christmas 4 or 5 years after the war. She and Ron have been broken up for a few months and he announces to the family that he is engaged to Daphne Greengrass, and they have been seeing each other for 2 years. Hermione realizes that many of the Weasleys (including Ginny and Harry) knew that Ron had been cheating, and feels betrayed by the whole lot. Draco finds out about this ordeal and returns to Wizarding London to win Hermione back. Hermione is working to develop a cure for lycanthropy and Draco, who is an Auror, is assigned to protect her.
My first time reading this book, I rated it a 9/10. What high praise!! Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this reread very much. This time, it gets a 5/10.
I did not like how flawless and instantaneous their love is. They get back together so quickly and then they are perfect, magical soul mates. I crave a more realistic depiction of love. Even with them getting together in 4th year. It took one week of detentions for them to get over his blood supremacy tendencies and be together?? Unrealistic to a degree that challenges me too much. On that note, the depictions of the Weasleys are gratuitously evil, to the point of unenjoyment. I can get down with Ron-bashing, as he is canonically hot headed, and I believe he would have some trouble accepting Draco. But Ginny being evil, down to cover up Ron's cheating, and actively out to get Hermione due to her jealousy and insecurity?? I cannot get down with this. Ginny is a girls''s girl. She is going to threaten to bat bogey hex Ron and Harry if they dare try to tell Hermione who she can and cannot date. She is witty. She develops a teasing banter with Draco. The evil characterization of her in this book is so far from Canon and Fanon that I cannot stand it #JusticeForGinny. My final grievance is that Draco calls Hermione "Love" at least once a dialogue paragraph. Too much. Too many times. No. Also, I feel like the conflict this book was leading up to was sudden and resolved very quickly. My view of that scene might be tainted, since I was already over the book by the time I got to it. Anyways. Not my fav characterization of any of the characters, though not all of them were bad.
Things I still like enjoyed about this book: I love Narcissa and her adamant support of Dramione, I love that Dhr were together in school and I'm sure in previous readings, I was delighted by the fastburn of it all.
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