✦ a digital literary archive ✦
Books
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2025 has been an interesting reading year for me. Though I’ve read less in terms of quantity, I have thoroughly enjoyed the vast majority of the books that I did pick up. Here’s an overview of what I read during the second half of the year. Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward I finally read
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The book review is one of my favorite forms writing. I’ve been writing reviews on this blog for about five years now (and writing/sharing other forms of book reviews and reactions since I began my Bookstagram over ten years ago), and I still love experiencing the satisfaction of publishing a book review. With so many
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I finally read Tracy Deonn’s contemporary fantasy smash hit, Legendborn. And it was everything and more. About the Book After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until
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November 8, 2014. That’s when I posted my first photo of a stack of books on Instagram under the username @cityofdeja and joined a book-centered community aptly named ‘Bookstagram.’ In 2014, I was reading anything and everything labeled “young adult” and consuming BookTube video reviews on those very YA novels. Fast forward to 2024, and
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Essay collections, surrealist fiction, and disappointing series enders are just a few of the things that have made up my 2024 reading thus far. Happy June! Month six means that it’s time for a mid-year reading check-in. For starters, if you’re a listener of my podcast, Diary of an Ex-English Major, then you may know
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As the third and final installment in Olivie Blake’s Atlas trilogy, The Atlas Complex had a tall order to fill as the conclusion to a thematically intricate and character-driven series. And while this conclusion was just as compulsively readable as its predecessors, the meat of the story tasted familiar in a way that was slightly…
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Happy New Year, everyone! It’s a new year, which means it’s time to tackle my favorite reads of 2023. My 2023 reading year was successful in terms of quality, which I’m happy about. I did read less than I did in years past, but I savored a lot of what I read, which made up
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R.F. Kuang’s Babel: An Arcane History was a pretty good read—if a little imbalanced. About the Book Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and
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Happy July! We’re halfway into the year now, which means that it’s time for a mid-year check-in. I wrote a post on my 2023 Reading Projects back in January, so I also wanted to give a few updates on how I’m faring with those and chat about other books I’ve read during this first stretch
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My first read by R.F. Kuang was one part an enjoyable enigma and another part hollow social commentary. I inhaled the book in two days, but was left a bit puzzled by the end. Note: There are slight spoilers ahead for Yellowface. Nothing major, as the synopsis really spells out what happens in the book,
City of Deja 