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mkwallreads

@mkwallreads

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Lover of Fantasy, Romantasy, and pretty books
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Getting cosy in spooky season doesn't just mean books, you can just as easily cosy up with a blanket, a tea and a spooky game ✨✨

Night in the woods is one of my favourite games of all time!

What are your top 3 spooky season activities? Mine are reading, video games and boardgames

#spookyseason #cozygaming #booksta #bookstagrammer #cozygamer by @mkwallreads

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18 hours ago

I don't often read spooky books but I finished this one in August and felt with the season it is this would be a perfect time for a review 🤿🐙🌊

Our Wives Under the Sea follows a dual narrative of Moro struggling with her wife who has returned from being missing after her deep sea exploratory mission got stuck on the ocean floor and her wife Leah's narrative in the past as she experiences being stuck with her crew members.

This is not the sort of novel I would reach for but it was on offer on kindle (and as of writing I think it is on offer again) so I bought it and eventually read it. Despite it not being my usual taste I am really glad that I read it.

Armfield does an excellent job of creating a claustrophobic and frightening atmosphere in the sub and the cloying anxiousness of Miri once her wife returns, and comes back wrong.

There is a real sense of unease and the horror of the deep ocean throughout.

I devoured this novel and found it really genuinely interesting in its strangeness. However, I did feel the dual narrative got in the way of me enjoying the novel because understandably the most interesting parts were Leah stuck in the sub under the water and Miri's perspective just tended to... Go on a bit. She was introspective to a fault and obviously struggling with her wife's disappearance and sudden reappearance but her detached nature and intellectualisation of everything made her difficult to connect to and I often found myself wanting to skip parts of her narrative to get to what I considered 'the good bits'.

Without spoiling it I enjoyed the end of the novel and the overall lingering horror that it left me with as a reader - and a reminder that I have no desire to go deep into the ocean.

#bookreview #bookreviewersofinstagram #bookstagrammer #bookcommunity #booksta by @mkwallreads

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a day ago

💙🩵

In a controversial move we've aligned some of our shelves by colour and in honour of blue twilight filter month this is our (very small) blue-ish section

Have you read any of these?

#shelfie #bookstack #bluebooks #bookstagrammer #booksbooksbooks by @mkwallreads

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2 days ago

Not my own book this time but the beautiful October page in one of my favourite books I've bought for my son 😍 Mouse's Woods by @alicemelvin

October is a great month, my birthday, my wedding anniversary, Halloween 🎃 it is probably my favourite.

Have you favourite seasonal reads for yourself or any children you might have?

#bookstagrammer #booksta #readersofinstagram #childrensbooks #autumnreads by @mkwallreads

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3 days ago

Not a lot of books read but a good time was had regardless of the count ✨ more DNFs than I like to have in a month though but that's just how the cookie crumbles!

#septemberreadingwrapup #readersofinstagram #readingcommunity #bookstagrammer #bookcommunity by @mkwallreads

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4 days ago

Calling some of these books pink is maybe generous 😂 but I realise... I don't actually own a lot of pink books! But the stardew valley orchestra vinyl is really the loveliest shade!

Do you have more books in a particular colour?

#pinkwednesday #pinkbookstack #bookstack #bookstagrammer #booksbooksbooks by @mkwallreads

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5 days ago

🍂🌧️ Hoa Hoa Hoa 🌧️🍂

It's officially the time for a me-made blanket, a tea in my @milliespottery mug and a twilight reread 😍

#whatimreading #twilightsaga #readersofinstagram #reading #booksta by @mkwallreads

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6 days ago

Have you got thoughts on the books on my list? Are they worth it? I'm definitely behind on what's current in fantasy 🫣 I've not been much of a reader for a while so I'm keen to get back to business! So let me know what else you recommend 😍

#bookstagrammer #booksta #tbr #tbrpile #readersofinstagram by @mkwallreads

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7 days ago

Book of Night by Holly Black was a book club pick although I've owned it for a long time, wanting to finish the duology before I move on. I've heard only good things about my next book and got it for 99p on kindle!

What are you planning on reading next?

#bookstagrammer #bookcommunity #booksbooksbooks #readersofinstagram #readingcommunity by @mkwallreads

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7 days ago

Did you know that books can also be board games 😍 Thousand Year Old Vampire is a solo journalling RPG where you imagine you are -you guessed it - a thousand year old vampire. Perfect for spooky season and autumn weather 😍

What board games are you reaching for this spooky season?

#boardgame #solorpg #journal #ttrpg #rpg by @mkwallreads

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2

8 days ago

The Pharmacist - Rachelle Atalla 💉💊
⭐⭐/5

In this debut novel from Scottish author Rachelle Atalla we discover a world that has fallen victim to some undisclosed cataclysmic event and we follow the life of the Pharmacist in an exclusive underground bunker as she handles patients and demands from the leader of the bunker.

This book I feel is well constructed and explored the themes of a claustrophobic post-apocalyptic society and the terrible men who decide who gets to access the underground safe haven. It is deeply uncomfortable in it's portrayal of lack and confined conditions. Some of the side characters living vicariously by pretending to travel by reading brochures and at pivotal moments unable to face reality.

I appreciate what it has attempted to do and the themes it contains - however, that doesn't mean I have to like it; it just wasn't for me.

I don't mind a stream of consciousness style and lack of certain punctuation; but I found this particular narrator made it really hard for me to connect to the character. She was lifeless, things happened to her or in spite of her and she seemed mostly baffled and confused and I found her rather annoying in her wishy-washy nature.

One of my biggest gripes with this novel may just be personal to me. Something that made me so uncomfortable is that for a novel with a really central point of pregnancy and an event of childbirth that not once was this mentioned in the synopsis or blurb. I felt blindsided by the rather graphic description of a difficult (that closely resembled by own mere months ago) drawn out stalled labour with a baby presenting back to back. It was uncomfortable and personally I think unnecessary and the theme of childbirth came as a shock as there really is no indication when you pick this book up that this was going to be a central element. The discussions of pregnancy and infertility were not something I expected to be present.

Personally I actually really loved the world Atalla built, the intricacies of bunker life and the mundane repetitive nature of their existence. However for me, the narrator and story of the novel rather got in the way of some excellent world building. by @mkwallreads

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8 days ago

One of my missions has been to clear out books from my Kindle TBR, I've been quite brutal with DNFs as many of the books are quite old and as I'm trying to read around new motherhood I just don't have time to read things that aren't gripping me.

I DNF books for lots of different reasons, some I only read a few pages and some I get nearly halfway and I'll be honest a couple of these I didn't read at all but know I won't be reading so they moved from my kindle TBR to the DNF pile.

Do you DNF books? Do you like any of these?

#bookcommunity #bookstagrammer #booksbooksbooks #readersofig #reader by @mkwallreads

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8 days ago