Happy Wednesday again! Cutting it very close with this one!
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme that used to be hosted at A Daily Rhythm, but has been taken over by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. Now, without further ado, let’s get into the 3 Ws!
✯✯ I’m really not sure how I feel about this one yet. It started off much hornier than I expected, which put me off a little, and I wasn’t immediately into either of the protagonists, for various reasons. For now, I’m still giving it a chance, as I’m still interested in seeing where this goes at the moment. ✯✯
★★ I really enjoyed the Dressrosa arc, even if it was a little slower. Far more than the Fishman Island arc in any case. I’m teetering around four stars for the last few volumes I read, though I might end up going up a little with the rating. But yeah, great arc. Looking forward to the Whole Cake Island arc later this year. ★★
☆☆ I’m still super eager to read this, and I really hope I enjoy it. I’m nervous about hyping it up too much, especially since A Widow’s Charm is not hitting so far for me (hopefully I can really get into it soon, though). But yeah, looking to start Dungeon Crawler Carl later this week. ☆☆
What books has everyone been reading lately? What have you thought of them? What are you thinking of reading next?
Anyway, thank you to everyone for reading, and I hope that you have a great day/night!
Happy Monday everybody! I hope you had a nice week! It’s Weekly Wrap-Up time!
Last week was great, both in regards to bloc activity and for reading books. I posted on here a good about, and I read a few books. It was awesome!
But yeah, without further ado, let’s get on with the Weekly Wrap-Up!
Tuesday 3/24: Top Ten Tuesday
Last Tuesday, I participated in Top Ten Tuesday for the first time in a couple of weeks. Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It celebrates lovely lists, wonderful books and the bookish community. The prompt for last week was Books on Your Spring To-Read List.
On Wednesday, I participated in Can’t-Wait Wednesday again. Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme currently hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings. It focuses on books you’re looking forward to reading, usually new releases.
I also participated in WWW Wednesday. WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme currently hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. It focuses on the Three Ws of Reading: What are you currently reading?What did you recently finish reading? and What do you think you’ll read next?
This past Friday, I participated in First Line Friday again. First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words. It’s where you guess what book the post is highlighting based on the book’s first words.
So yeah, I’m generally pretty happy with everything I got done last week. I would’ve liked to have read (or at least started) maybe one more book and done one more blog post, but I’m satisfied with how things turned out.
For this week, I want to participate in my usual weekly posts, but I also want to post my list of most interesting looking books for April 2026. I’d also really like to get a book review out – I didn’t manage to do so last week, which disappointed me.
Concerning books and reading, I want to start A Widow’s Charm by Caitlyn Paxson, probably tomorrow. I also want to read Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman, as well as its sequel, Carl’s Doomsday Scenario, if I like it. I had intended to get to Dungeon Crawler Carl this past weekend, but the One Piece arc I was reading lasted longer than I thought, so I had to read another omnibus. Oh well.
I didn’t do much else last week, outside of books and blogging, which is a little strange. Usually something is going on. My spouse and I have continued to be healthier, I guess? We’ve both definitely noticed a difference with that, at least. I dunno, we haven’t started any new shows or anything. So yeah, nothing much outside of reading and stuff. Easter’s gonna be this Sunday, so I’m looking forward to that.
Anyway, as always thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme that used to be hosted at A Daily Rhythm, but has been taken over by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. Now, without further ado, let’s get into the 3 Ws!
✯✯ I’m enjoying the Punk Hazard/Dressrosa arcs much better than Fishman Island. I’ve heard the Dressrosa part is a little slower, but I haven’t noticed it yet. ✯✯
★★ I thought this was pretty good. I’m interested in where the story is going, and I’m loving all the buildup to the end of the current arc. I’m also liking how momentum for a future arc (Wano) is ramping up, too. ★★
★★ Ahhh, this was a much stronger and interesting start to a new arc than Fishman Island was for me. I also really liked the fire and ice thing Punk Hazard had going on – it was really cool. It reminded me so much of Super Mario Galaxy (as well as Galaxy 2). I also went back an dropped Fishman Island down like half a star to a 3.5 for both supervolumes – I didn’t realize I’d rated it so high!).★★
☆☆ I’m really looking forward to finishing this arc. I love One Piece, but there are just so many other books I want to read, and this manga is just. So. Long. It’s a huge time commitment and I gotta take some breaks. Right now I’m thinking I’ll resume with the Zou and Whole Cake Island arcs in the summer, just to give me time to read some other stuff. I really am enjoying the Punk Hazard and Dressrosa arcs so far, though. ☆☆
☆☆ This is one of my most anticipated new books from March 2026, and I’m still really looking forward to it. I’m planning to read it next week after it comes out. The summary sounds great, so I hope I like it. And the cover is so gorgeous! ☆☆
What books has everyone been reading lately? What have you thought of them? What are you thinking of reading next?
Anyway, thank you to everyone for reading, and I hope that you have a great day/night!
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme that used to be hosted at A Daily Rhythm, but has been taken over by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. Now, without further ado, let’s get into the 3 Ws!
The 3 Ws of WWW Wednesday:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?
What I’m Currently Reading
✯✯ Well, this is a bit embarrassing, but you’ve caught me in between books. Oh well – hopefully I’ll start reading something by tomorrow. I’m definitely reading something this week, though. ✯✯
★★ I thought it was better than Darker By Four, but it wasn’t quite as good as I was hoping. I did like it, however. Also, both book covers are awesome. I’m still deliberating on whether I want to give it 3.5 or 3.75 stars. ★★
☆☆ I’m definitely gonna start the next arc in One Piece wihhin the next week, but I’m not sure if I’m reading it next-next. It’s absolutely on my immediate TBR, though. ☆☆
☆☆ This has been on my radar for a few years, and I’m thinking about reading it in the very near future. I’m still not completely sure about it, however. ☆☆
What books has everyone been reading lately? What have you thought of them? What are you thinking of reading next?
Anyway, thank you to everyone for reading, and I hope that you have a great day/night!
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme that used to be hosted at A Daily Rhythm, but has been taken over by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. Now, without further ado, let’s get into the 3 Ws!
☆☆ Not fully decided though I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be continuing with the next arc of One Piece, which is Punk Hazard and directly followed by Dressrosa. I’ve heard Punk Hazard is a good arc, so I’m looking forward to it. ☆☆
What books has everyone been reading lately? What have you thought of them? What are you thinking of reading next?
Anyway, thank you to everyone for reading, and I hope that you have a great day/night!
Yes! I’m posting this on a reasonable day of the month this time! So yeah, here’s my reading wrap-up for February 2026! I’m relatively happy with it, this time.
I read a couple of books, though as always, I wish I would’ve read more. Oh well, maybe in March I can do better. I think my problem this time around was that it took me a bit to get reading. My blog activity throughout February was pretty good, though, and I’m really satisfied with that.
Anyway, let’s just start talking about my StoryGraph statistics from last month!
February Reading 2026
I’m gonna continue with what I started last month, and my general statistics here first before getting into the more specific stuff. Not everything was as high as in January – such as my page count and ratings – but I’m okay with it.
I read 📚 2 books and 📑 784 pages in February, and my average star rating was ⭐ 3.0 stars. Also, the average length of the books I read was 📈 392 pages and my average time to finish a novel was 🗓️ 2 days.
😐 MOODS: For this past month, my Moods were Adventurous, Mysterious, and Reflective, and all three slices of the pie chart were equal.
👢 PACE: The pacing of of the books that I read in February was 100% medium.
🔢 PAGE NUMBER: Concerning my average Page Number per book, all 100% of the novels were between 300 and 499 pages. So they were both the same in this aspect.
📖 FICTION/NONFICTION: Regarding the ratio here, the books I read were both fiction. As is my usual.
🎭 GENRES: The Genres I read in February were Fantasy and Young Adult. Both books were Fantasy and one of them was Young Adult.
📄 FORMAT: The Format was 50% print and 50% digital. So, one of the novels was a physical copy, and the other was an ebook.
📊 STAR RATINGS: I’ve already mentioned this above, but this is what it looks like on the graph. One novel I read I gave 2.75 stars (Stolen Midnights) and the other I gave 3.5 stars (Strange Animals), resulting in my average.
📉 PAGES READ DAILY: I didn’t read anything over the first half of the month, unfortunately, but I did during the second half. A decent amount, too. I read Strange Animals between the 22nd and the 24th, and then later I read Stolen Midnights at the very end of February on the 27th and the 28th. The last two days of the month were also my highest peak in reading.
So yeah, I would’ve liked February to have been a little bit better, but I’m overall not that disappointed. I’m really happy with my blog activity from last month, too. I just want to read more books per month.
In regards to my reading so far in March, I read Don’t Let the Forest In by CG Drews last week, and I’m planning to start Brighter Than Nine by June CL Tan today (it just came out!). After that, I’m not as sure, but I definitely have a few ideas.
Anyway, as always, thank you for joining me in checking out my StoryGraph stats for my February reading in 2026. Thank you also for reading, and I hope you have a great day/night!
It’s been quite a long time since I last participated in this post. There were a couple of reasons, but I think the biggest one was that I’d mention most if not all of the Three Ws in my Weekly Wrap-Ups every week, so I thought it was a little redundant.
But I’ve missed it, so I’m back! I can’t believe it’s been over a year. The other big reason I stopped is that I was in-between books half the time whenever the middle of the week came around, so hopefully that stops happening. 🍀🤞
Also: I made a new cover image!!
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme that used to be hosted at A Daily Rhythm, but has been taken over by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. Now, without further ado, let’s get into the 3 Ws!
★★ I’m conflicted about this book, and my star rating keeps changing. It’s why it’s taken me this long to review it, (which I’m angling to do tomorrow) even though I finished it last weekend. ★★
An ordinary man discovers a hidden world of wondrous supernatural creatures – and an unexpected home – in this enchanting contemporary fantasy debut.
Cryptonaturalist: one who studies cryptids; an expert in or student of supernatural history.
After a series of inexplicable encounters upends his life, Green finds himself alone and terrified in the Appalachian mountains, full of questions about the transformation he’s undergoing and the impossible creatures he’s starting to see.
When he meets a hermit named Valentina, he realizes that something more than chance has brought him to her door. For she has devoted centuries to researching the hidden world of cryptids that Green is only now beginning to perceive.
As Green begins his studies beneath her watchful eye, he comes face to face with time-stopping giant moths, cyclops squirrels, and doorways to elsewhere. Along the way come clues about his own nature and the powerful beings who led him here – and, most wondrous of all, a sense of fulfillment like nothing he’s felt before.
But Green’s new happiness promises to be short-lived, because alongside these marvels lurks a deadly threat to this place he’s already come to love.
Featuring incredible creatures and an unforgettable cast of characters, Strange Animals is a charming, addictive fantasy about the magic all around us.
My Review
“Empathy and curiosity take more courage than blunt force, but it is the wiser long-term path.”
Strange Animals was a pretty interesting book. It’s was one of my anticipated reads for February 2026, and thought it didn’t hit quite the way I’d hoped, I still liked it.
This novel was notably the first time I got to use the green highlighter on my Kindle, the newest color you can now use. I was actually excited about it, which is one of the reasons I mention it. I chose it for what I think is probably an obvious reason (I usually pick my color of highlighter to match the book in some way), the setting and the name of one of the characters. The other reason I’m bringing this up is because, if Kindle had a purple highlighter available, I might have picked that, for something I’ll get into more extensively later.
Anyway, the book follows Green. And no, I’m not sure if it’s his first or last name. Anyway, Green starts off the novel with an intriguing experience – wherein he has a brush with death – key word here being death, of course. Because of this, and the magic acorn that had appeared in his pocket, he decides to go find himself in the Catskill Mountains.
The Characters
“I hear you. You’re trying to make this a lesson about becoming comfortable with the unknown?”
Valentina set aside her coffee cup. “That lesson arrives most days whether or not we invite it. But we are not in the business of passively noting our own ignorance. We are in the business of finding out.”
I had some trouble getting a feel for Green’s personality here for some reason, but I did catch a few things about him. His trauma and confusion from his experience in the prologue, and his curiosity and interet in the new world order he’s found himself tangled up in are what stood out to me the most, though. He’s also kind and brave, as well. Honestly, nothing about him stood out to me as much, unfortunately, as I like to love the protagonists I’m following.
The other characters I found far more interesting. Valentina Blackwood is a mysterious woman who has lived on the mountain for seemingly forever, and is Green’s new cryptonatural teacher. She’s directly direct and intelligent, as well as very nononsence when it comes to being a cryptonaturalist. I absolutely adored her – she was so cool. The mystery surrounding her circumstances and why she became interested in cryptids was just as interesting as the things that happen to Green throughout the story, and I loved discovering the answers to them.
The rest of the cast doesn’t get too much page-time, but I still really enjoyed them. Dancer was fun and weird and I loved her character immediately. Clara Rodriguez was also pretty awesome, and I loved meeting her. I even really liked Alf and his two friends, even though they had the least appearance out of everyone. They left a strong impression, though. I also really, really liked another character, but I won’t get into him because of massive spoilers surrounding him.
The Story
“Fear has two fangs. The first is a pervasive sense of helplessness. The second is the enormity of the unknown. Today, we aim to armor ourselves against both. We are not helpless. We are not hiding in our shelters. We are actively seeking information to improve our position. The unknown does not root us where we stand. We are rejecting both helplessness and the premise of unknowability.”
The plot of Strange Animals was also quite interesting, even if the characters stood out to me slightly more. Green’s journey and encounters were very compelling. Not to mention cryptids have always been something fascinating to me, and it feels like they don’t show up in fiction in this way too often. The last time I encountered a novel focusing on them, it was Cryptid Hunters by Roland Smith from forever ago – back when I was just about to start middle school. (It’s a great book though – I think I only read the first book, though I might have also read the second, I’m not sure though. It’s a four book series in any case.)
Speaking of books that I read in middle school, I loved seeing the shout-out to My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George – one of my favorite books I read when I was younger (the entire trilogy is goated, honestly). I can definitely see that the author was inspired for Strange Animals, too.
The Writing
There, just beyond his windshield, the woods drank in radiation from a nearby star and used that energy to create oxygen, to reproduce, to send chemical messages in a language older than humanity, older than the warm blood of mammals.
I think the things I had the most mixed feelings about were the writing and the ending. Anderson’s writing style is beautiful, don’t get me wrong, but it’s almost too beautiful. The purple prose here is honestly too much – it was just heaps of it everywhere, in every chapter. It was incredibly distracting, and made some of the book feel incredibly overwritten. The author dabbled in poetry before this, and you can really tell.
Occasionally it even got to the point where my brain started digging up whenever I’d approach one of the heavy purple prose sections. I’m not a fan of it in the first place, so to see it so much in the novel brought the whole thing down for me somewhat. Despite all this, I do think that some of the writing was still very well done, and pieces of it were quite effective.
The ending was also kind of weird. I didn’t hate it, but one of the characters goes through a metamorphosis mostly off-screen and acts very differently to how they had been for the entire book before. And I didn’t really like that – I like to see my character growth and development happen in real-time, thanks.
Final Thoughts
I write to you today in a language you didn’t know on a page you will never see.
I’d say that Strange Animals was an overall positive experience for me, and I’m glad I read it. The plot and characters were both entertaining, and I really flew through the book whenever I sat down to read it, even despite the purple prose. I think that it was a pretty strong debut novel, too. And the cover is also absolutely stunning – I love everything about it.
As always, thank you to everyone so much for reading, and I hope you have an awesome day/night!
Happy New Week! It’s slightly later than I usually aim for, but I’m here with last week’s Weekly Wrap-Up!
This past week was pretty prolific for me, particularly on the blog. My reading wasn’t too shabby either though – I started a new book! Either way, I’m pretty happy with last week’s stuff.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s get on with the Weekly Wrap-Up!
Tuesday 2/17: January Reading 2026 / Top Ten Tuesday
Last Tuesday, I posted my Monthly Reading Wrap-Up for January 2026. Unfortunately, I posted it rather late in the month again. Ugh – I gotta stop that. For those who don’t know, monthly wrap-ups are when I go over the books I read over the past month, as well as my stats over on The StoryGraph.
I also participated in Top Ten Tuesday for the first time in a couple of weeks. Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It celebrates lovely lists, wonderful books and the bookish community. The prompt for last week was Books for Armchair Travelers, but I wasn’t feeling it, so I went with one from a TTT a couple of weeks ago that I missed – Book Covers Featuring Cool/Pretty/Unique/etc. Typography.
On Wednesday, I participated in Can’t-Wait Wednesday again – two weeks in a row. Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme currently hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings. It focuses on books you’re looking forward to reading, usually new releases.
This past Friday, I participated in First Line Friday for the first time in a few weeks. First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words. It’s where you guess what book the post is highlighting based on the book’s first words.
On Sunday, I participated in Birthstone Book Covers. Birthstone Book Covers is a fun little post created and hosted by Leslie @ Books Are the New Black.
Each month, for the post, you feature book covers that are either the same color of the month’s birthstone or include the color in the title. This month was February, and its birthstone is amethyst. So the colors to pick from are shades of purple.
So yeah, last week was much better the week before. And two weeks ago as well, honestly. I hope to not only keep up the pace with what I managed to do this past week, but to hopefully surpass it. Just a little. As always, however, we’ll find out what happens.
In regards to my blogging for this week, I’m planning on at least one book review, participating in at least a couple of the usual posts I engage in, and possibly doing a Bewitching Book Covers post. I’m wanting to do at least three or four additional posts this week, aside from this one.
Concerning books and reading, I actually just finished up Strange Animals by Jarod K. Anderson, so I’ll be starting another book soon. And I’ve already decided which one – Stolen Midnights by Katherine Quinn. I’m pretty excited about it. And I’m also pretty certain I know what book I’m going to read after that one – Don’t Let the Forest In by CG Drews. I’m also quite eager to read that one, too. After that, I’m not as sure, but I’m also reading Brighter Than Nine by June CL Tan (the sequel to Darker By Four) when it comes out. So that’s on the horizon.
Outside of books and blogging, not much else went on last week. Just my spouse and I trying to be healthier, but that’s pretty much it. As usual on weeks like that.
Anyway, as always thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
It’s Monday again, which means it’s time to wrap up last week!
Last week was… eh. I wasn’t really at my best, unfortunately, with either the blog or reading books. Oh well. Part of that was due to a rough last few days of the week, but a lot of it was just me getting busier or distracted with other stuff. This week I definitely want to do better.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s get on with the Weekly Wrap-Up!
Wednesday 2/11: Can’t-Wait Wednesday
Last Wednesday, I participated in Can’t-Wait Wednesday for the first time in a couple of weeks. Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme currently hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings. It focuses on books you’re looking forward to reading, usually new releases.
On Thursday, I finally posted my review of The Bones Beneath My Skin by TJ Klune. It took a little longer than I wanted (for reasons), but I’m happy to have finally reviewed it!
The book was a weird and wild ride throughout, and I enjoyed it. There were a few things that I didn’t care for about the novel, but it was an overall great reading experience. I recommend it to fans of TJ Klune’s other stuff. I gave it ★★★★☆.
This past Friday was Friday the 13th. It’s not a holiday or even close to anything like that. I just like acknowledging it for some reason. And since it’s in February this year and it’s not a leap year, we’ll have two Friday the 13th’s this year. So that’s kind of cool.
Saturday 2/14: Valentine’s Day
Last Saturday was Valentine’s Day!! 💝🌹💌🌷🍫💐 I hope anyone who does anything for it had a good one. We usually do ours on a different day, as most places are usually pretty busy (especially with it being on a Saturday this year). So on the day of, we didn’t do much. It’s still Heart Day, though, so I always like to point it out.
Books I Read Last Week
Wrapping It All Up
So yeah, last week wasn’t the greatest, but it could’ve been worse. I’m hoping to do better this coming week, though. So we’ll see how it goes.
This week I’m absolutely posting my monthly reading wrap-up for January 2026. I was angling to do it last week, but I don’t know what happened there. I’d also like to participate in a couple of my favorite weekly posts, as well as my favorite monthly one. And hopefully a book review if I get around to reading and finishing one. I actually know what I’m reading next for once, as well as the book I want to read after it.
Outside of books and blogging this past week, Valentine’s Day happened, as I highlighted above. Other than that though, there wasn’t a lot that went on. My spouse and I are still working on being healthy, but that’s about it.
Anyway, as always thank you for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day/night!
