Never Let Me Go || Kazuo Ishiguro ★★★★★ Started: 04.04.2025 Finished: 26.04.2025

Анна Ин в гробниците на света || Олга Токарчук ★★★★★ Started: 27.04.2025 Finished: 01.05.2025 "Анна Ин в гробниците на света" е единствената книга от поредицата "Myths" на издателство "Cannongate", която не е преведена на английски, но за огромен мой късмет съществува това прекрасно издание на български. За пореден път се уверявам, че кураторът на поредицата Джейми Бинг е имал изключителен усет към адаптациите на митове - на фона на множеството посредствени преразкази на дневни митове, всяка една книга, избрана от него, е изключителна - и творбата на Олга Токарчук не е изключение. Тя не е просто преразказ на мита за слизането на Инана в Подземния свят: в думите на преводача Крум Крумов, "Олга Токарчук разглобява древния мит за богинята Инана, след което го нанизва наново върху конците на съвремието." - самата аз не бих могла да опиша творбата по по-добър начин.

𝔱𝔯𝔦𝔠𝔨 𝔬𝔯 𝔱𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔱! 🎃 happy halloween my friends!

A Few Rules for Predicting the Future: An Essay || Octavia E. Butler ★★★★★ Started: 09.02.2025 Finished: 09.02.2025 Originally published in Essence magazine in the year 2000, Octavia E. Butler’s essay “A Few Rules for Predicting the Future” offers an honest look into the inspiration behind her science fiction novels and the importance of studying history and taking responsibility for our actions if we are to move forward. Organized into four main rules, this short essay reminds readers to learn from the past, respect the law of consequences, be aware of their perspectives, and count on the surprises. Citing the warning signs of fascism, the illusive effects of fear and wishful thinking, and the unpredictable nature of what is yet to come, Butler shares realistic but hopeful suggestions to shape our future into something good. If I was on the fence about reading "Parable of the Sower" before, I'm bumping it right towards the top of my TBR now. Butler's writing is just that good. Thank you, Goodreads Challenges!

Lessons in Chemistry || Bonnie Garmus ★★★★★ Started: 14.03.2025 Finished: 04.04.2025 Set in 1960s California; Lessons In Chemistry is the brilliant, idiosyncratic and uplifting story of a female scientist whose career is derailed by the idea that a woman's place is in the home - something she most definitely does not believe - only to find herself the star of America's best-loved TV cooking show. Admittedly, I was a bit hesitant about picking up Lessons in Chemistry - mostly because of the quite unhelpful, quite pink, quite romance-coded US cover (nothing against romance, of course, just not what I'm looking for, most of the time). But then I came across the US edition with the periodic table cover and I simply had to know more - and I was not disappointed. Elizabeth Zott is such an incredible character, it was a true pleasure following her trials and tribulations along the pages of this book, and the family she found along the way was portrayed masterfully as well, no character flat or forgettable - it all made for a novel that was virtually impossible to put down. Definitely a strong start to April!

A Dark and Drowning Tide || Allison Saft ★★★☆☆ Started: 02.02.2025 Finished: 09.02.2025 Lorelei Kaskel, a folklorist with a quick temper and an even quicker wit, is on an expedition with six eccentric nobles in search of a fabled spring. The magical spring promises untold power, which the king wants to harness to secure his reign of the embattled country of Brunnestaad. Lorelei is determined to use this opportunity to prove herself and make her wildest, most impossible dream come to become a naturalist, able to travel freely to lands she’s only ever read about. The expedition gets off to a harrowing start when its leader—Lorelei’s beloved mentor—is murdered in her quarters aboard their ship. The suspects are her five remaining expedition mates, each with their own motive. The only person Lorelei knows must be innocent is her longtime academic rival, the insufferably gallant and maddeningly beautiful Sylvia von Wolff. Now in charge of the expedition, Lorelei must find the spring before the murderer strikes again—and a coup begins in earnest. But there are other dangers lurking in the forests that rearrange themselves at night, rivers with slumbering dragons waiting beneath the water, and shapeshifting beasts out for blood. A Dark and Drowning Tide started out as a novel and swiftly devolved into a rushed trope checklist: Enemies to lovers - ✔ Accidental bed / tent sharing - ✔ Miscommunication - ✔ I loved how fairytales were incorporated into the narrative, I just wished the characters were more than fairtytale archetypes - even the two main characters, Lorelei and Sylvia were so one dimensional, it was painful to read at times. As an extension, the romance between them felt… bland. Frankly the entire last third of the novel felt bland, rushed and unearned. Perhaps if the book was longer - or even had a sequel - and the uprising / civil war plotline was more than a throwaway line, it might have been better (then again maybe not, given the underbaked cast of characters).

The Penelopiad || Margaret Atwood ★★★★★ Started: 28.07.2024 Finished: 29.07.2024 In Homer's account in The Odyssey, Penelope—wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy—is portrayed as the quintessential faithful wife, her story a salutary lesson through the ages. Left alone for twenty years when Odysseus goes off to fight in the Trojan War after the abduction of Helen, Penelope manages, in the face of scandalous rumors, to maintain the kingdom of Ithaca, bring up her wayward son, and keep over a hundred suitors at bay, simultaneously. When Odysseus finally comes home after enduring hardships, overcoming monsters, and sleeping with goddesses, he kills her suitors and—curiously—twelve of her maids. In a splendid contemporary twist to the ancient story, Margaret Atwood has chosen to give the telling of it to Penelope and to her twelve hanged maids, asking: "What led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to?" In Atwood's dazzling, playful retelling, the story becomes as wise and compassionate as it is haunting, and as wildly entertaining as it is disturbing. With wit and verve, drawing on the story-telling and poetic talent for which she herself is renowned, she gives Penelope new life and reality—and sets out to provide an answer to an ancient mystery. What a singularly brilliant exploration of Penelope, as she sees herself and as she is in turn seen by the twelve hanged maids. Atwood hasn't contented herself with depicting Penelope as the singular archetype of the faithful wife, but rather sought to illuminate the woman behind the myth. The writing, of course, is beyond reproach, and the approach to Penelope and the maidens as deities of their own matriarchal cult was a real highlight. And at only about two hundred pages, "The Penelopiad" is the very definition of "small but mighty" - I read it in a day and have been thinking about it ever since.

Experimenting with a different kind of graphic for the April wrap-up! Finished up the Goodreads Community Favorites Challenge and made a little progress with my 25 for 2025!

compilation of all the beautiful illustrations by Howard Lyon in Tress of the Emerald Sea. for the audiobook girlies