Book Rants - September 2026

I've only managed to finish four books and half of them started last month. I think I've been picking the wrong books to read but I guess there's no fix for that. Here are the books I managed to finish and a couple I didn't.

Books I Unfinished:

01 - The Summer War by Naomi Novik 
What's it about: a curse, a witch/mage, gay people, something about a war, 
Quit at: 44%
This was a novella (under 150 pages) but somehow it drags. First, the main character puts a curse on her brother and getting her powers (and her period - I have always hated this association - a girl gets her period at the same time she gets her power, a sign of maturity, blab, blab...) follow by a ton of back stories and then supposedly she tries to un-curse her brother but she (and another brother) was mostly reading books, doing math and listening to songs that tells happenings we don't get to witness and then something happens, the end. 
    I always read spoilers when I decided not to read a book. Click to Show/Hide Spoilers > In the end, there is an orgy (although not described in detail) which the main character watched on her wedding night and she was only 15 years old. She needed to be saved at the end which irks me. What was her power for anyway? And the cursed brother ended up coupling with the jackass who had been treating her like crap and almost killed her - both of these would would have pissed me off so I'm glad I didn't finish this. End Spoilers >

A Refresh

Born to be tidy, 2026

I like to organize, make lists, basically make my blog as tidy as possible. And I like refreshing it now and then, changing or adding something new to sort of give something new to look at.
    As of today, I had updated the hello page, writing page and added a list of the all the books I sort of reviewed but mostly ranted about (titled book index) and even changed the header. Sadly, I was too lazy to update my blogroll or anything else.
    The book index is sort of my way of organizing and listing all the books I read but of course, I don't have the previous books from my previous blogs. This is mostly for me because it's just a list so it's not all that useful unless you are looking to read some book rants about books you may never have heard of know or care to know about. (All page links are below the header).
    I was going to make the above artwork another 'Spot the difference' but decided it wasn't a good idea, too many elements that can be changed and it's kind of hard to spot things. Though I did work on this piece for months. As much as I like an office all to myself, I don't have one but I do like one that is something like that but probably without all the papers scattered around but I do seem to have paper messes every few weeks. Generally, I'm messy unless I had sudden urges to organize and clean again which happens often. Maybe it's why I keep trying to tidy this blog.

Are you a naturally tidy person? Do you like to refresh your blog once in a while? 

Fiction: Good Hair Day

This month's Words for Wednesday prompts are supplied by River. This week's words/prompts are: extravagant, koala, plane, charged, potatoes, alone. Another optional prompt is Charlotte's colour of the month - vivid tangerine. 
    The aim of Words for Wednesday is to use one or all of the prompts to write something – ie, a story, a poem, an essay or any forms of writing, fiction or nonfiction, basically write anything you want.

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~ This is a continuation of this story here ~

Fiction: Good Hair Day
11:01 AM
The Samoyed was too busy admiring herself in the mirror to notice Tess Mercy walking out the door and closing it. Sometimes Tess thought she must be living in another plane of existence or else why did it keep happening? Her ability to change people into animals when she touch them when they anger or mistreat is a family curse she inherited nine months ago when she turned thirty. 
    The Samoyed was Tess' landlady, Mrs. Grant. She never used to raise rent or evict anyone but after her husband's passing, she became highly charged with anger and distrust. Tess wished she had not been so hasty to rush down to Mrs. Grant's apartment when she read the notice with the rent raise. Considering the building had been slowly falling to disrepair, a 300 dollar raise was ridiculous. But Tess' plead didn't alter Mrs. Grant's decision even if Tess did save her life once. 
    Five years ago, Mrs. Grant was evicting one of the tenants when the man set fire to his apartment with Mrs. Grant inside. Tess heard her scream when she was walking down the stairwell. It was hard work carrying a semi-conscious Mrs. Grant down the five flights of stairs. Sometimes Tess regretted saving her especially when the old woman kept raising the rent.