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Leaf 🍂 Locked account

Magneticcrow@ramblingreaders.org

Joined 6 months ago

I read a lot of SFF and horror, leaning toward the weird, and I adore a good translation (to English) and small press book. I’m queer and I like to read books about queer people and by queer and otherwise marginalized authors. I tend to avoid things that are marketed strongly as YA.

I’m a former bookseller and I’ve never been able to let go on being way too aware of what’s coming out, so my tbr list is a very active living document (and being realistic, highly aspirational).

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Leaf 🍂's books

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2024 Reading Goal

41% complete! Leaf 🍂 has read 31 of 75 books.

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reviewed The Border Keeper by Kerstin Hall

Kerstin Hall: The Border Keeper (Paperback, 2019, Tor.com) 4 stars

woman lived where the railway tracks met the saltpan, on the Ahri side of the …

Review of 'The Border Keeper' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

I enjoyed the world building a great deal, the imagery of the different realms and cities, and their different rules, reminded me of fantasists like Moorcock, Barker. Lurid and beautiful. The plot, however, felt almost unnecessary? It was a bit meandering, and I didn’t feel particularly attached to what was going on. I just wanted to see more cities. 

reviewed The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

Nghi Vo, Nghi Vo: The Chosen and the Beautiful (Hardcover, 2021, Tordotcom) 5 stars

Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, …

Review of 'The Chosen and the Beautiful' on 'Storygraph'

4 stars

Vo does an incredible job of complementing the feeling and tone of Great Gatsby while adding magical flourishes and giving Jordan a unique backstory and voice of her own. 

reviewed The Memory Theater by Karin Tidbeck

Karin Tidbeck: The Memory Theater (2021, Pantheon) No rating

Review of 'The Memory Theater' on 'Storygraph'

No rating

I enjoyed this quite a bit! It feels like a mashup of Scandinavian folklore with Time Bandits. Be prepared for some of the darker, bloodier aspects of both of those...

reviewed Tender by Sofia Samatar

Sofia Samatar: Tender (2017, Small Beer Press) 5 stars

273 pages ; 23 cm

Review of 'Tender' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

It’s hard to give a single cohesive rating to an entire short story collection, but the one thing I can say conclusively is that every single story was absolutely gorgeous. Not a single off note. Every one of them gave me chills or left my heart racing. 

reviewed The Kingdom of Liars by Nick Martell

Nick Martell: The Kingdom of Liars (2020, Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers) No rating

Review of 'The Kingdom of Liars' on 'Storygraph'

No rating

Just didn’t vibe with the style. It has a blurb from Brandon Sanderson, and yeah - it reminds me a lot of Sanderson’s style, which is very much not for me. 

reviewed The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein

No cover

Gertrude Stein: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

 5 stars

"The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas ... is not an autobiography by Alice Toklas, …

Review of 'The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

If you, like me, absolutely adored Archivist Wasp and Latchkey, and were always niggled by the tantalizing fragments of a world almost like our own, where the ghost may have come from and how it all fell apart... here it is, and it’s glorious. What Kornher-Stace has done here, writing a post-apocalypse backwards to its origin, is like nothing I’ve read anywhere else.