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!

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.