Arduinna

Since my last update, I read:

• It's Not the End of the World - Jonathan Parks-Ramage
• The Fall of Koli - M.R. Carey
• Weyward - Emilia Hart
• Bright Young Women - Jessica Knoll
• Heartwood - Amity Gaige
• Isola - Allegra Goodman
• L'Arminuta - Donatella Di Pietrantonio
• The Long Walk - Richard Bachman/Stephen King
• Clear - Carys Davies
• Luminous - Silvia Park
• Severance - Ling Ma
• Idol, Burning - Rin Usami
• Young Mungo - Douglas Stuart
• The Bewitching - Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I found a few of these kinda disappointing (It's Not the End of the World; Heartwood; Isola, L'Arminuta; Idol, Burning), but all things considered I had a good time. My favorites out of all of these were Bright Young Women, Clear, Luminous, and Young Mungo.

Bright Young Women was a breath of fresh air when it comes to how true crime and true-crime-inspired media approach their narrative; I really appreciated how it re-centered the focus on the victims and didn't pull any punches describing the serial killer as what it was: a pathetic little man who got away with it because of the incompetence of the people who should have granted the victims justice, and not someone with a genuin-level intellect or superhuman charm.

Clear was such a sweet little story! All about the connections humans form in spite of the circumstances, the inevitability of change, and how it doesn't necessarily have to be a negative thing. I spent the whole book bracing myself for a bad ending that didn't come. For once, it was nice to end on a hopeful note <3

Luminous grabbed me like very few books manage to actually do! It has been a WHILE since the last time I felt so attached to characters in a book. And it was the author's debut! I seriously cannot wait to see where they go from here!

I've been wanting to read Shuggie Bain for ages, but somehow I ended up reading Young Mungo first. It was a rough read, but also had such stunning prose and such memorable and believable characters. I don't wanna get into TMI territory, but it his very close to home in some places, and when that happened, it was scarily accurate. Can't wait to be in the proper mood to read Shuggie Bain as well!

Young Mungo was such an incredible book that I felt a little lost after finishing it, so I hopped on the group chat and asked my friends to vote for as many of these as they wanted, based exclusively on vibes:



And they unanimously voted for Automatic Noodle, Penance, and Swimming in the Dark coming second with the same amount of votes. I started Automatic Noodle yesterday and wanted to read it all in one go (it's pretty short, 160ish pages) but a pretty bad migraine stopped me, so I'm gonna have to finish it today after quali. I'm really enjoying it so far! I hope the robots manage to make their dream come true! ;^;

I'm also supposed to start Le Perfezioni by Vincenzo Latronico for the book club H and I are trying to start. We still have a bit more than a month, but she's gonna start reading it tomorrow, so I'll try to do the same lol Fingers crossed!