User Profile

Llaverac

Llaverac@bookwyrm.social

Joined 3 years, 3 months ago

Currently interested in queer books and obscure comics [he/him]

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Llaverac's books

Currently Reading

Daniel Lieberman: Exercised (Hardcover, 2021, Pantheon Books, Pantheon) 4 stars

The myth-busting science behind our modern attitudes to exercise: what our bodies really need, why …

TFW you start a book because the topic genuinely interests you, only to realize halfway through that a well-written longform article would have satisfied your curiosity (but you have to finish the book anyway).

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K. C. Davis, To Be To Be Confirmed SE: How to Keep House While Drowning (EBook, 2022, S&S/Simon Element) 5 stars

How to Keep House While Drowning

4 stars

How to Keep House While Drowning felt like a distilled therapy session about cleaning. I saw this recommended on fedi somewhere, and felt like this was useful for me to read right now. It's less "here's my life hack productivity advice for folding shirts" and more "here's some better ways to think about and emotionally approach taking care of yourself and your space". (Honestly, this is probably the more valuable thing.)

A bunch of thoughts I enjoyed that stuck with me: * cleaning is morally neutral * your space exists to serve you (do you hang clothes on a chair? if that works for you, then that's awesome) * interrogating preconceived notions of what cleaning looks like * prioritizing health > comfort > happiness in care tasks (and cutting out perfectionism saying you have to do all of these things all of the time) * balance in care tasks between …

Johanna Taylor: The Ghostkeeper (Hardcover, 2024, Penguin Young Readers Group) No rating

Dorian Leith can see ghosts. Not only that, he listens to their problems and tries …

The story had a lot of heart and, on the whole, I liked it a lot. However, even though the main character is literally a therapist for ghosts, I could have done without all the therapy-speak that he or some other characters use, especially outside therapy sessions.

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Vajra Chandrasekera: The Saint of Bright Doors (Hardcover, 2023, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom) 4 stars

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. …

Weird, inventive, and pointed commentary at the same time

5 stars

I tore through this book, and might just re-read it immediately, which is something I never do.

It starts out as a fantasy story that feels exceptionally weird because Chandrasekera's willing to do his world building / exposition very slowly. I kept going through a lot of confusion because the writing itself is just so beautiful. And then gradually as the exposition falls into place it becomes clearer that the book is at least partly a critique of religious fanaticisms and chauvinisms... but each time I felt I really had a handle on the book something in its world would shift - either the protagonist learning a new piece of his own story or a significant detail the the author waited until a dramatic moment to show the reader. Even the ending feels like another instance of that, and it is a relatively unclear ending, though it fits the whole …

commented on The Night Guest by Taylor Titmouse

Taylor Titmouse: The Night Guest (EBook, 2024) No rating

Ever since the death of her husband, Mrs. Arakawa has run her inn alone. There's …

These last months I have started several books that I still haven't finished even though they're interesting, which depresses me a bit.

  • Option A: self-flagellate and get even more depressed

👉 Option B: read Taylor Titmouse's short smut stories with engaging premises and likeable characters

Lucy Knisley: Woe: a Housecat's Story of Despair : (a Graphic Novel) (2024, Penguin Random House LLC) No rating

WOE! SCREAM! MEOW! ...PURR? Join the hilarious and of course dramatic world of Linney the …

It’s weird to read it again, five years after its content was published on social media. I remember being a HUGE fan of it, and if I had had to do an end-of-year list with my favorite comics from 2019, all the strips that Lucy Knisley posted about her cat Linney would be my #1.

But in 2024 it feels like this kind of voice is now present in a ton of cat videos on social media. Reading the book didn’t make me feel anything, but reading the strips again this morning on Instagram - where they’re still available - instantly brought me back to where I was working in 2019, how a new publication would be the highlight of my day (OF MY WEEK) and how I felt when the last strip was published.