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.

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

Hello friends! Instead of monthly wrap ups this year, I’m going to do Pondathon round wrap ups! If you are confused as to what the heck a Pondathon is, check out my intro post about it! Each round is ~roughly~ a month, so it’s basically the same thing. But instead of just sharing the books I read, I get to share the Pondathon quests I completed. And share my updated garden!! I’m excited. Round one has just finished so it’s time for my first wrap up.

BUT! FIRST! Since the Pondathon didn’t start until January 10th, I did read a few books before it started. Those were:

1. Along the Saltwise Sea by A. Deborah Baker (excellent middle grade adventure)
2. Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson (a new favorite book of mine!! Sabriel vibes)
3. Tides of Mutiny by Rebecca Rode (pirates! standalone! whee!)

Okay NOW on to the readathon stuff.

Letting books take you where they might – that was one part of the Library magic.

The Archive of the Forgotten

Are you the kind of person who reads an entire series right after another, or do you prefer to take breaks in between? I’m honestly a bit of both. I don’t know what the deciding factor is haha. This is just to say, I’ve just finished reading this wonderful trilogy, and I read it in the span of a week. So of course I’m here to recommend the series to you! I mean, if I read it this fast you can assume I loved it haha. Probably I wouldn’t have finished it otherwise lol.

You know I love science fiction – particularly space operas, and you also know I love queer books. So what’s even better than each of those?? WHEN THEY’RE MASHED TOGETHER!! So I made a book recommendation list with a ton of queer space books. I originally posted it on my bookstagram here, so sorry if you’re seeing it twice. But here I’ve included the Goodreads links so you can check them all out easily!