jayeless | Reading

Not books, just book this time

I finished The Shots You Take (hockey m/m book) a few days ago and feel like posting about it before I've got any more other books done. This book was so good it both solved a problem and created a problem for me. I had been thinking just last week how it's annoying that I don't have a book that I can recommend without caveats, and nothing that hits that sweet spot of both being well written and having content and themes that appeal to me. This book solves that problem.

The problem it makes is that it's a m/m hockey romance by Rachel Reid that's not in the Game Changers series. I want to recc Heated Rivalry, Tough Guy and other books in the series, but all those books are weighed down by being in an series of uneven quality. Some amazing writing, and some not. Come join the TV show waiting room anyway, we have fic (I even wrote some), and one of the actors has been posting thirst traps to insta. Ignore that there is a much better book by her that's a stand alone and come join us.

I put off this book for a while because it's a second chance romance where one of the guys really hurt the other in the past. I usually hate these kinds of storylines. The problem is that authors like to make the past be really bad for drama and angst... and then either they start to hand wave how bad it was to make the story work or they have one side of the pairing basically have to take it in the teeth, choose the relationship over themselves. There is none of that in this book. I have literally no notes about anything in the novel. Nothing made me go 'ugh' or 'well it has to be like this for it to work'.

In general, Reid is really good having a sense that characters also need to look after themselves and have boundaries. Even if someone is being terrible, you need to find a way to communicate that, shield yourself, GTFO, etc. Placing value on having a sense of personal responsibility while also not not feeling like the narrative is in any way blaming either or both of the characters? A lot of stuff is just really well handled in the book.

Anyway, the book is about two hockey players from the same team who had a messy relationship they didn't really talk about reconnecting years later in a small town in Nova Scotia. MC1's dad just died and MC2 shows up to the funeral even though they hadn't talked in about eight years. I'd been putting off the book, the only one I hadn't read by her yet, because I just assumed something about the plotline would piss me off. I just assumed that was part of these sorts of stories. But I was wrong. Seriously good, 10/10, no notes.

olivermoss

While I have many notes on the book, I was very charmed by what someone working on the movie said. I saw a YT short of the Comic Con panel and I think it was one of the directors who said ( spoilers )

olivermoss

Now that I am done with Project Hail Mary and can see other people's takes and excitement for the movie, I am seeing a lot of comparing that story with The Martian. I don't plan to read the book, so I watched the movie last night. It was okay. It was good to get the context and I see why people want to compare and contrast the two so much.

I could almost feel the missing bits in the movie from what was cut to make it work as a film. I think/hope Project Hail Mary will adapt better.

tozka

Book Info

Topics: Nonfiction, Nature

LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/work/3092900/

Acquired from: Little Free Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA [see visit log]

Started reading: August 6, 2025

Finished reading: August 9, 2025

Review

A book with enthusiastic views of nature (animals, plans, seasons, etc.) presented in a way that just wanted me to see sources. Like, many mentions of things that happened in “recent times” (the 90s) but in a way that reminded me of those newspaper tidbit sections that were just there to give you something to read. Bibliography at the end which does include things used to write the book itself, but I personally would’ve preferred something more science-y rather than casual info-sharing.

Reading Updates

Page 0: This one didn’t come with a bookmark like Moby-Duck did, so I’m using one I got from Downtown Books in Milwaukee. I picked up this book partly because of the topic, partly because the blurbs on the back (“Sy Montgomery has insight into the Others that every nature writer on this continent envies.”), and partly because the author photos shows Sy holding a barred owl.

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

olivermoss

( The strip club pics are from the outside, but there is a spicy billboard. )

tozka

Managed to get up slightly earlier than usual today and got out to the garden just before 7:30am. Absolutely perfect temperature, somewhere in the mid 60s and only needed a light jacket (which I happened to buy in Chicago recently! Score!).

Major difference in sounds from previous mornings! Lots more chipmunk sounds– and in fact I saw lots more chipmunks, too. Fairly blasting my eardrums with noises (birds, chipmunks, cicadas, etc.) and only very minimal human-neighbor noises this time.

Did a lot of chipmunk-watching. The easiest way to spot chipmunks was to look where the sounds were coming from, and then watch for moving branches. Eventually I was able to make out little chipmunk shadows racing around, and it was fun to watch them scream at each other.

Even more exciting was the chipmunk(s) who came close to my chair. One even went to far as to run UNDER my chair, after we accidentally made eye contact.

Spotted several birds of unknown type, but probably finches, of various colors (yellow, brown, black/white). Also saw a bright red one, larger than a finch but doesn’t seem large enough to be a cardinal. Some small white butterflies visiting flowers, and ants investigating my coffee mug per usual. (No worries: I have a silicone mug cover to keep curious insects out from my coffee.)

Later, after heading back inside to my temporary writing desk, the groundhog ventured out and snuffled around some bushes looking for food.

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

olivermoss

* Project Hail Mary - There is going to be an extra meeting of my book club sometime this fall for it, but I wanted to read it early because some people were disappointed by how much was revealed in the trailer. So, I finished it last night and then finally saw the trailer. I am glad I read the book cold, not so much because of the obvious reveal, but more the smaller details. If you want to read the book before the film and have seen the trailer, maybe try to avoid watch it again.

I enjoyed it. For most of the book the way the science information was slowly built upon and discovered was really great, kind of felt like a really good video essay at times? But then there was a point where I really wanted the author to stop explaining experiments and just say the results. There is a whole section where most of what made the science bits work is just missing. It's not one element that's missing, it's several. This happens late in the book when there is a very small number of possible endings. I think a few 'amazingly, got the results that first time' instead of 'let me detail doing this same experiments six times' would really have helped.

I read it as an audiobook, but that format works really well for a couple of reasons. It's all first person POV of the main character.

( Mild spoilers, barely any if you have seen the trailer )

I have one big note about the overall plot( and it's a spoiler for the very last part of the book ) Okay maybe more than one note.

* What Moves The Dead - Finally got his read! It's also the next horror book club pick so I am somewhat on top of my book club reading. Really looking forward to the next book and also the upcoming book which I assume is the final one in the series? But, I am going to hold off until after book club. Her writing is really great. I definitely have some gender notes about this book and, uh I have an awkward feeling based on talk about it in book club discord that we might need to have a talk about the MC, pronouns and how Alex actually self ID's.

* Six of Crows - My reading of this was broken up by a few things including needing to power-read a book for book club. I am going to take a bit of a break between this book and Crooked Kingdom as these books are long and also I want to be able to focus on reading it unrushed and without pauses. Some aspects of the con/grist/heist stuff that was going on were very clear and well done, and making that all so clear is very tricky. But the physical aspects involving buildings... she kinda lost me there, but it might be due to reading it in chunks. I'll have to evaluate that on a re-read. Her character writing and some of the twists were amazing.

This book had a lot of reminders of how young some of these characters are, and also how young some of the characters in Shadow and Bone were supposed to be. I get it, these were written for the YA market, but at times it's like... really? For some of them, it tracks, for others?

* The Death of Jane Lawrence - Enjoyed it! The world building was tight and very interesting. I picked up on all of it despite consuming it as an audiobook. The print version uses formatting and a few other things to help clarify what's going on, but using my book club as a sample: some people who were audio-only got was going on and some people who read the print version didn't even notice things like sections without capitalization. The author was surprised that some of the people who read the physical version didn't even pick up on it.

I really enjoyed the author's skill in having such a shifting world/situation/etc, but it wasn't exactly my overall vibe. I will read some more by her

* My TBR shortlist right now is
- Ocean's Godori: I can't make the bookclub meeting for it, but I still want to read along
- A Dark And Drowning Tide: I don't typically like the romantasy club picks, but this interested me
- Jade City
- Deadly Education
- Left Hand of Darkness

Currently reading - The Shots You Take: It's the one Rachel Reid book I haven't read yet.

olivermoss

Horrible POS Matt Rife has *not* bought the Conjuring House. Lots of new sites are making mistakes because they are not familiar with the world of paranormal investigation.

The actual story is much worse. He, with a business partner, have bought The Warren's home and museum that contain the artifacts and allegedly haunted items that the Warrens collected over the years. (The Warrens were the exorcists in the 'true stories' of The Conjuring House and Annabelle films) He is now the 'legal guardian' of Annabelle. All the artifacts are in his care. he plans to open it to tours and overnight stays. Link.

So sleepover party with the real Annabelle anyone?

(Warrens were pieces of shit scammers with the best PR ever in the form of their books and those movies. But there are people within the paranormal space who think that the Annabelle doll is haunted, but not by a demon and the ghost had been stuck being treated like a demon since the Warrens intervened. There is a whole 'Free Anabelle' contingent.)

The whole cottage industry around paranormal investigations and renting locations seemingly being a booming industry remains interesting to me.

olivermoss

I thought that going to Labubu Fest would be fun and I'd get some cute pictures. Oh dear god.... it was so crowded I literally gave up and pushed through some people to see more than one booth. There was lines 15-20 deep just to *look* at some booths and if you tried to sneak a peek to even see what they sold, people were not chill.

Also, when I left I walked by a guy in silver pants, a white tank top, a giant purse with a whole colony of Labubu on it, power walking towards the fest and puffing on a vape as hard as he could.

Anyway, I typically would not post pics like this from events, I don't post pics of just what people sell I try to have that not be the focus on a shot, but I did snipe a picture of the samples at the tattoo booth and also I went around the back of the tooth gems booth to see a Labubu being worked on:

I had planned to do a do a youtube short. I had hopes of cute pictures I could give captions to. That is not how the day went. The Labubu crowd is feral.

Then I went up to the Fremont Fair, which was a neighborhood street fair with 150 vendors. It was cute.

On my way home I hit up some stores I'd been meaning to hit, and also went to the Portland Aquarium. The Portland Aquarium is small, unremarkable, but I'd always meant to drop by:

Saw a shark:

I liked the glowy sea spider:

And I got some very Portlandy stickers and a pin:

The back of the souvenir guidebook has a timeline of Mike Bennet's careers from his days of 'guy who makes random art' to Crypto-Zoo which was a covid-safe project during lockdown where he made a walk-through 'A-Zoo' of cryptids in North Portland to give kids an activity to do, and then shows his other projects since then including Wonderwood Springs, Dinolandia and now an aquarium that benefits conservation efforts. Amusingly, some of my pictures of his work pre-date what's in the guide in the back.

olivermoss

* My computer lives! I just spent a few hours wrestling with a boot problem and managed to poke at it until it started letting me log in again. Not that I should have to always log in *grumble*

* Seattle Kraken announced which game is their Pride Night and I'd love to go, but I might file this under 'things I don't want to do solo'.

* Guild Wars 2's expac hype is drawing me in a little, but I don't think I'll get back into playing. I am trying to do a little bit because next year is the 10th Anniversary of Tyria Pride and I'd like to be able to donate stuff. If I do a tiny bit per day (especially with my unlocks, home instance and account set up how it is) that ads up to a lot.

olivermoss

jesse_the_k

Eliza Rain disabled_eliza posted an excellent 1:30 skit on how to interact with busybodies who can’t cope with the reality of ambulatory wheelchair users. (I'm also able to stand and reach for some things, so I appreciate helpful scripts.)

I loved her response to a stranger portrayed as complaining about the unbelievability of wheelchair users who can briefly stand. Eliza says, in a level tone, "Okay well, it makes no difference to me if you do or don’t believe me, this is my reality and I need a chair to get around."

You can watch it on on her Instagram or stream with open captions as well as narration from loud text-to-speech plus human dialogue ( right here )

Do you have go-to scripts to shut down invasive strangers (or family members, for that matter)?

tozka

Went for what turned out to be an hour-long walk around the neighborhood and visited five Little Free Libraries– and found some great books!

The majority were full of kids books, which makes sense I suppose as people tend to load up on those at thrift stores and whatnot, so they’re easy to pass along.

My favorite LFL was #119554, not least because I found two books which look really good! It also had the best design, with one box for adult books and one for children’s books, a separate dog treat library and even a water bowl. Super cute!

As far as I can tell, all these libraries are the pre-built ones from the LFL website.

LFL Visited

LFL #89560 “Elm Tree Little Library” – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Square Foot Gardening.
LFL #119554 – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Climate Resilience and Seasons of the Wild.
LFL #135682 “Barking Dog Library” – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Moby-Duck.
LFL #177207 – Ann Arbor, MI.
LFL #178758 – Ann Arbor, MI – Took Paradise Rot.

( Photos under here! )

🌟 All LFLs Visited

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

olivermoss

Really just fucking sick of people using 'oh but we are anti-TERF, we are the good guys' as a shield

* There was a Harry Potter film fest in Portland this weekend that was... pro-equality? It was put on by "SPEWW - the Society for the Promotion of Equality for Witches & Wizards" They say they are anti-TERF and it's totally striking back at her.

2 teeny, tiny problems. It was an HP film fest with artist alley at a location that absolutely and definitely only shows properly licensed movies and pays royalties. Since they run indie theaters, their split is worse than, say, what Regal pays. So, literally worse than seeing the films at national chains.

Second, I know some of the artists involved and certain people involved are absolutely transphobes. This is so not an anti-TERF event. I know a certain subsection of the Portland art scene very well, and that subsection is 'people who table at geek events'. Not just as someone who hits up as many as I can find, but also as someone who has run artist alleys and events, and also just as someone who is at a lot of events. I know what some of them have said about me behind my back, because they were within earshot. When I say 'behind my back' I am being literal.

So yeah, this is just a pile of bullshit.

* RomanceCon is an evolving situation right now and I want to start by pointing out that they have changed who is managing the con, but as far as anyone knows, they did not change ownership. Unless, new info comes to light, it looks like they involved an indie bookstore so they could go 'oh, look, it's run by an indie bookstore now, how wholesome, come to our con to support them!'

It looks the majority of authors have pulled out, a lot of the big names definitely did. I would like to have hard numbers, but most places I'd go to for sourcing have banned discussion of this about two weeks ago so the numbers are old. The management company bringing in Julie Soto and having a lot of focus on Harry Potter at the con was the point of contention. They were going to have several HP panels because 'fans don't have a safe space online' to discuss HP anymore and they are all about safe spaces. Basically, the romance con was going to have a huge HP focus and the attending authors were not expecting that.

Here's the thing, while authors were scattering they put out statements talking about how some of the panels were the idea of trans people and also if authors decide to return then they'll donate part of the table fee to trans charities. The table fees are non-refundable, so if the authors didn't come back it just goes to the con's owners. They really tried to pull 'we have trans staff, coming to our con is listing to trans people. And if you don't come money wont be donated to a trans charity'. What the shitfuck? When it comes to trying to use trans people as a shield this is just next level.

We've got enough shit going on without transparent and cynical attempts to use trans people as a shield. There is even a local bookstore that is making a point of carrying HP books because 'they are so important to queer people, the next gen of queer kids need these powerful experiences too'. What? Just carry the books or don't*. Stop with the weird using 'for queer people' or other weird insane bullshit. This convoluted 'oh but it's FOR people like you' bullshit is driving up a fucking wall.

(* I'd prefer not, obviously, and I have the option of shopping at stores that wont carry her. But like, don't try to paint carrying her as even more supportive)

olivermoss

Watch on YouTube

Lost Tom Leher today, so a very timely song

tozka

Gotta get back to doing these! So:

Life Updates

Mostly I’ve been busy settling into my newest housesit and sorting through my new-to-me thrift store clothes (DW). I’ve got everything washed, but unfortunately the homeowners didn’t leave me a lot of hangers so half the clothes are in a pile in the closet (and I don’t have a dresser, lol). One of the downsides of nomadic living, I suppose…

🐈‍⬛ Me and the cats are slowly getting used to each other. (See previous post [access-locked] for more info!) They’re all picky about wet food flavors and they have different flavors they’re picky about, which is irritating. One cat loves salmon, the other wants tuna and the third prefers chicken bits. Luckily they all eat the dry food, so if one doesn’t finish the wet food they can supplement with other stuff. Silly kitties!

Media Consumption

🎧 I’ve been catching up on Cruising, a queer documentary podcast that this season is focusing on interviews with lesbians and queers doing amazing things in history. Love it! (More recommended podcasts here btw.)

📺 I watched all three episodes of Solo Traveling with Tracee Ellis Ross, which I wrote about here (DW). Also been re-watching Midsomer Murders (the early seasons) which is nice to have running in the background while doing other stuff.

📖 I finished A Girl’s Guide to India (written about here / DW) on the bus from Chicago to Ann Arbor, and haven’t started a new book yet though I’ve been carrying my Kindle around from room to room in hopes of actually using it.

I HAVE been re-reading some favorite fanfics, including this amazing IT Chapter 2 longfic.

Food & Dining

🛒 Did a big grocery order because I had a $10 coupon AND a 30% off discount, so I got enough stuff to (I think) last me about a month, with some supplemental purchases throughout, for about $70 INCLUDING the tip. Was shopped and delivered by a very nice older lady who knew to look at expiration dates AND check for rotten fruit.

Bonus: Meijer grocery prices here in Michigan are fab, especially compared to Oregon/Illinois. Example: one dozen eggs under $3, even on the delivery app!

🫖 This house has an electric kettle, so I can finally make tea again. (I hate microwaving water and I’m too lazy to boil it on the stove for one cup.)

I bought a huge box of PG Tips when I was catsitting in England earlier this year, and I think I have enough to last maybe through the end of August. Imported PG Tips prices are nuts (even excluding potential import fees), so I’ll have to start rifling through my hosts’ cabinets soon for replacement tea. ;D

Website Updates

Did lots of fun things on my website this week! Some highlights:

Started building a Wikipedia Pages page, to keep interesting articles
Joined a bunch of fanlistings, especially in the movies/tv shows section
Re-organized the recipes page, and added a biscuits recipe I found on a Clabber Girl baking powder container. I have a lot of other food package recipes to add this week!
Also changed the blog layout and made a header, so it looks a bit nicer/easier to read. And I added a thing at the bottom so people can email replies, if they want, or else do a regular comment or even a Webmention! Also set up ActivityPub so new entries are sent to the Fediverse, where of course people can respond (and responses are imported as comments, very cool!).

Looking Forward

This week I’m going to work on my website more (recipes, more fic recs), as well as join a few more webrings and site directories. And I’d like to email someone in response to THEIR post/website!

I’d also like to go out into town and visit some thrift stores. I don’t need new clothes (lol) but I’m casually looking for other stuff– something I can make into a laundry line, a backpack, perhaps a new travel purse, that sort of thing.

Crossposted from Pixietails Club Blog.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Location: Ann Arbor, MI, USA

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jayeless@dreamwidth

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