I’ve been in a weird place so book reviews have been hard for me BUT!! I’m back with a review of The Circus Infinite. Because it’s my stop on the book tour! I’ve also got a post up on Instagram about it today. Thank you Angry Robot Books for the review copy and for including me on this book tour!

A disclaimer: all of the Pondathon graphics were created by CW of The Quiet Pond and belong to her!

And a note: find my intro post about joining Pondathon II here!

Hello friends! Round 2 of the Pondathon II readathon is now over, so it’s time for a wrap up! I felt a little slumpy this round, so I didn’t read quite as much as in the first round. But I read some great books and really enjoyed them all! But before I tell you what I read, let’s see what the quests and rewards were for this round.

As many of you know, I am participating in the Pondathon, a year-long story-driven readathon hosted by The Quiet Pond. You can find the intro post that I wrote here.

It is now round three of the Pondathon, which means we have a new side quest! This quest is given to us by Cuddle, the resident otter of The Quiet Pond. The prompts are:

1. Read a book by a woman (including non-binary women and femme) author of color during Women’s History Month
2. Read a book by a Black author for Black History Month

There is also a secret achievement – to read a book by a Black woman/non-binary woman/femme author. For more information, check out the full side quest post on The Quiet Pond here!

So I’m here to help you “win” this quest! I’ve got a bunch of book recs for you that fit these two prompts. I’ve split them up into books by Black authors, and books by women (inc. non-binary women and femmes) of color. In the Black author section, I’ve made a note of the books that fulfill the secrete achievement! So let’s get to the books!!

I mentioned in my November 2021 wrap up that I had watched the Netflix show called Arcane – and immediately loved it. It’s based on lore from the game League of Legends. But don’t worry!! You don’t need to know anything about the game to love the show. The animation and artwork is beautiful, and the story is AMAZING. Just look at this!!! Isn’t it beautiful?

The show became SUPER popular, and lots of my (real life and bookstagram) friends ended up watching it too. It’s been so much fun to discuss it with them. I had wanted to do a collab post with my friend Gretal (Instagram // blog // Twitter) for a while, so I was like, Gretal listen. WHAT IF!! We did a book rec post based on Arcane?? And she said “omg yes okay” which is a direct quote. So here we are!! We picked out a handful of major themes from the show, and created recs based on each of those themes. And obviously these are great books in general, so they’re really just general book recs for everyone even if you haven’t watched the show!

But you should watch it.

Gretal: Take it from me, who is notoriously bad at watching anything. Arcane is a must watch!

Happy Lunar New year!! It is now the year of the tiger! I hope all of you celebrating have a lovely time, however you are able to celebrate.

I don’t talk too much about my mixed race identity on here (I am mixed Chinese American), but a couple years ago (in 2020) I had the opportunity to do so. CW of The Quiet Pond invited me to be a guest on her blog for Asian Heritage Month. I even got to have my own pondsona – a phoenix!! CW always slays with her artwork, this is no exception. I mean look!! So cute right?

I wrote a discussion post about The Girl From Everywhere, which is a book by a mixed Chinese American author, about a main character who is also mixed Chinese. You can find that original post here! For this Lunar New Year, I decided I wanted to re-post that discussion here. It’s a post that I’m really proud of, and I hope you take the time to read it, it would mean a lot to me.