Alex > Recent Status Updates

Finally done! There shouldn't be any more shelf updates from me for a while. Sorry for whatever weird stuff you may or may not have seen *eyes emoji*

I am running a Calibre/etc. reconciliation with my Goodreads shelves to start 2026 in a somewhat organized fashion, and I am so sorry for the several thousand updates you're about to see from me.

Christmas roadtrip vacation is simply not the time to try to make progress on an ARC, y’all. This would’ve taken me two days at home, but there was merriment to be made and festivity to be had!!

also BRO WHAT IS HAPPENING this book is so wild. SO MANY THINGS ARE HAPPENINGGGG

I have a very close and very comforting friend in entropy, and I honestly feel so seen by The Rot. Even if I smell a twist coming, the concept of a people comforted by dissolution and decay… yeah. that me.

hear me out: a Dragon Age: Inquisition playthrough with an Inquisitor Sophie, played in character. CAN YOU IMAGINE?? Project Fenrir onto Blackwall… I’m so obsessed with this book.

Cannot TELL Y’ALL how excited I am to have received this ARC 👀 the worldbuilding has me foaming at the mouth. I have other reads still waiting to be reviewed but this one will jump the queue as soon as I finish!!

I’m honestly not sure if I want to finish this. Shelving for now, I think.

WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

How did this go from SO interesting to such a snooze-fest so quickly???

this book should NOT be taking me as long as it is to get through, but I seem to have misplaced my brain lately and that's certainly not helping

this book can be very neatly summed up as: "Johnson & Johnson lied. and then they lied again."

I’m not going to rate this when I finish it, but I will finish it.

Doing my best to stay in my lane here: I have a problem with the way the author conflates rape, or sexual violence, with desire. Everything I have read so far - yes, even the homoeroticism - screams “POWER” to me rather than “desire.” To the point that it makes me very uncomfortable each time he ramps up the “wanting” thesis again.

It has been a long time since a book made me feel this stupid. Just goes to show how out of practice I am in social texts vs engineering ones, I guess? I am operating at 99% CPU when I’m in this one. Enthralling, though!

I am SWEATING, but I finished this with 19 minutes left on my Libby loan. Phew. Excellent work, Laura Bates.

Kind of regret starting this as an audiobook, because there are 1,001 lines and passages I wish I could highlight and annotate.

Read. This. Book.

Laura Bates is a stellar audiobook narrator. Authors reading their own books can be hit or miss, but she knocks it out of the park here. I kind of want her to narrate every audiobook I pick up now.

me yesterday: there’s no way this book is actually as good as all of the reviews are saying

me halfway through: that was the wrongest I ever got it

I thought it would be funny to read this while reading the book about salt because nothing quite says “natural pools that are a portal to hell” quite like a natural brine pool eh?

I thought this would be better.

:(

THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING

i'm begging for something to....... happen..?

For a debut novel, Bengston’s tone and prose are clicking sooo right for me. Kind of have no idea what’s going on, but I’m here for a good time!