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2025 book award and highlights! ✨️🎪

Can't believe the year has already come to an end! The older I get the quicker time seems to pass.

Thank you for the tag @joanes.bookshelf This is a greet way to look back on all the books I've read last year 💕

🍦 Most disappointing read of the year:
— Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss (2.5☆)
I didn't hare it but just was expecting something.. more

🍦 A book that surprised me:
— A Dawn of Onyx by Kate Golden (3.5☆)
I enjoyed it more than your average romantasy booktok series

🍦 Fave book couple of the year:
— Helen and Harper (An Ember in the Ashes series)
Iykyk 😭

🍦 New fave author you discovered this year:
— Sabaa Tahir
I loved Ember in the ashes. One of the best series I've read in a long time 🤭 Def need to check out her other works

🍦 Happiest read of the year:
— Swordheart by T. Kingfisher (4☆)
Sometimes a low-stakes, cozy fantasy is the way to go

🍦 Most frustrating book of the year:
— All My Lies Are True by Dorothy Koomson (3☆)
The author just kept piling plot twists on top of plot twists. It was too much 😪

🍦 Book with a unique concept:
— Garlic and the Vampire by Bree Paulson (4☆)
Unique and cute 🤭

🍦 Book I haven't stopped thinking about:
— Uncultered by Daniella Mestyanek Young (4.5☆)
Memoirs about people escaping cults>>

✨️ the favourite book award goes to...
Uncultered by Daniella Mestyanek Young (4.5☆)
and
The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner (4.5☆)

✨️ most read author award goes to...
T. Kingfisher (11 books 👀)

✨️ Most stunning book award goes to...
Garlic and the Vampire (just look at the illustrations 🫶🏼)

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Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh 🖤

Last summer I dnf'd Eileen at just 70 pages but since @of.prose shared her thoughts on it, I've had a nagging desire to give it a second chance. I'm glad I did because I ended up devouring it in two days last month.

This time, rather than being repelled, I was lured in by it's dark and mistifying atmosphere.
It's told from the perspective of an elderly Eileen who is reflecting on the miserable years of her early adulthood, trapped in a gloomy New England town as a carer to her alcoholic father, and stuck working an unfulfilling job at a correctional facility for young offenders. The back stories of the troubled boys and the cruel punishments laid out to them, adds to the book's intensity and further reinforces just how hopeless and dysfunctional a place X-ville is.

Eileen has internalised the discontent for her external environment into absolute self loathing. This is confronting and difficult to read at points but Moshfegh succeeds at portraying just how detrimental some environments can be to the human psyche and our own wellbeing. "Romanticise your life" is just another catchphrase flaunted on social media now and I see the power of positivity but a part of me also knows better. I know it's ultimately rooted in capitalist interests but I also wonder to what extent this is also denial hiding in plain sight, preventing people from enacting the big changes truly necessary to improve their own lives. Some places are beyond romanticisation and no strength of rose tinted spectacle will ever work.

...Everything changes for Eileen when she befriends Rebecca, a new employee at work. This becomes her first real glimpse into a different way of life as well as the ruthlessness of the world and un unbeknow to her, the beginnin of a chaotic cascade of events that culminates in he fleeing town.

I was surprised to be left hopeful and with a renewed appreciation for the remarkable capacity for human endurance and transformation when I finished this book and I found myself rooting for Eileen. I suspect it will stay with me as one of the most memorable reads of the year.

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🚪

If I needed 2
find a cozy
new reading spot
if say I...

s h r u n k

Where would I go?!?

○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○

(Wbu)

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currently reading 🌷

I've been wanting to read Joan Didion for a long time now, but I had no idea where to start. After finding Slouching Towards Bethlehem in a second-hand shop recently, I decided to just start there.

Have you read any of her works? What would you recommend to read after this?

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This little book felt like stepping into Frida Kahlo’s inner world—raw, vulnerable, and fiercely alive. “L’immagine era un gioco” isn’t a traditional biography, but that’s exactly what makes it special. It’s made of glimpses, letters, and thoughts that reveal a woman who used art to survive, to love, to resist. I found myself pausing often, rereading certain lines just to sit with them a bit longer.

Thank you @lormaeditore & @poveronicola for the copy ✨📚#giftedby

💭 Who's your favourite painter? 👨🏽‍🎨👩🏽‍🎨

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Lavender matcha tag 💜🪻🍵✨️
Tagged by @literary_lys, please check out her post & account! 🫶🏻

🪻 Lavender syrup - a book with spring vibes:

Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, a book about growth, becoming comfortable in and accepting where you are in life whilst exploring spaces in nature. It's also one of the sweetest dynamics I've read in a book, ever.

🍵 Matcha - a book that is rich and satisfying:

Count of Monte Cristo is a pretty lengthy book so is rich in the sense that it takes longer to finish it, but it is satisfying when you do. Also, a book about getting revenge is always going to be a bit satisfying.

💜 Milk - a recent addition to your physical tbr:

Strange Houses by Uketsu, which I actually finished the other day! I got it through work. 🤭

✨️ Ice - a grump that thaws throughout the book:

Gretchen Winthrop from A Very Merry Bromance! She is the grump in the grumpy x sunshine dynamic in the book, but it is also a Christmas romance, so she fits pretty perfectly into this category!! Her journey reloving Christmas is so sweet, and of course, the romance is steamy in places, too!

☁️ Cold foam: top read of the year so far:

I've actually had quite a few 5☆ books already this year, but a lot of them are for quite specific niches of readers. Not everyone will enjoy them, and they wouldn't be my very first to recommend. With that fact and it being a book I very much LOVED and would highly recommend is, Curses of Lavender by @isabellastofka_author! 💜 I recommend it often because of how much I enjoyed it.

Happy Tuesday, everyone! I hope you're all well!

I've tagged some other creators in this. Please feel free to participate if you have or if you have not been tagged! 💜☁️

#bookstagram #booklover #bookchallenge #bookchallenges #bookworm #booklove #booktag #matcha #bookrecs #bookstack #bookish #bookpictures #bookpic #booknerd #bookcommunity
#booksta #readercommunity #bibliophile

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S L U M P

:

A collage

✂️

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'Book Taste Test'

Inspired by the lovely
@tatis.booknook

💛

+ I just had2
do it like this

Bc I luv a niche
library read lol

But as always
It's just for fun

And hopefully
U can find a title
That interests u
If we don't have
similar taste

Much luv,

Ereaddr

📖🪽

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LOOK WHAT I FOUND AT THE BOOKSTORE

I had to linger behind an old man hoping he didn’t snag this vintage War and Peace paperback, grabbed it the second he walked away 😂

Really excited about People From Bloomington too, I hadn’t heard of it before but the description sounded cool as I grew up not too far from there.

What new book purchases are you excited to get into soon?

🏷️
#BookStack #VintagePaperbacks #CitizenSoldiers #PeopleFromBloomington #FarFromTheMaddingCrowd #WarAndPeace #ClassicReads #HistoricalFiction #LiteraryFiction #BooksOfInstagram #BookLovers #ReadingClassics #TBRStack #MustReadBooks #VintageBooks #FictionAndHistory #EpicReads #TimelessLiterature #BookAesthetic #ReadingGoals

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#mytastemyrecs
An amazing book challenge which I saw somewhere but now finally got the time to write. So these are the 5 pivotal things I look for in a book and along with it, I’m sharing 3 recs for each!
These books shaped my literary compass—intricate, unflinching, and resonant. Saw this amazing, informative challenge to voices I deeply admire, i tagged some of my fav people, please consider yourselves tagged!✨

>>Lyrical Writing & Sparse Prose

📖 Time is a Mother – Ocean Vuong (Devastating reflections on grief and identity.)
📖 Boulder – Eva Baltasar (existential themes explored in sparse prose.)
📖 Foster – Claire Keegan

⸻

>>Honesty & Shock Factor

📖 A Little Life – Hanya Yanagihara (Keeping this—it’s still one of the biggest shockers out there.)
📖 I’m Glad My Mom Died – Jennette McCurdy (Raw, brutally honest, and still widely discussed.)
📖 Notes on an Execution – Danya Kukafka (A philosophical take on crime, trauma, and justice—deep and haunting.)

⸻

>>Philosophical Depth

📖 The Stranger – Albert Camus
📖 East of Eden - John Steinbeck
📖 No Longer Human – Osamu Dazai

⸻

>>Vibes & Atmosphere

📖 The Tunnel – Ernesto Sabato
📖 Stoner – John Williams
📖 The Elementary Particles – Michel Houellebecq

⸻

>>Dry Humor

📖 Death in Her Hands – Ottessa Moshfegh (Dark humor, unreliable narrator, eerie atmosphere—perfect blend of wit and dread.)
📖 The Pachinko Parlor – Elisa Shua Dusapin (Dry, melancholic humor mixed with nostalgia and cultural identity.)
📖 The Mezzanine – Nicholson Baker (Hilarious, deeply observational, and underrated in the book community.)

Bonus point in the comments—

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red, white & royal blue
by casey mcquiston
-
“𝘏𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺, 𝘩𝘶𝘩? 𝘉𝘦𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦”
[4/5]

it’s been a while since i read a book that had me fully invested in the plot. red, white & royal blue pulled me in from the very first page and didn’t let go. it’s a story that blends humor, love, and hope in a way that almost feels like a breath of fresh air.

i absolutely adored the portrayal and backstory of alex’s family. their dynamic felt rich, layered, full of love, history, and just the right amount of chaos. from his fierce & ambitious mom to the easygoing yet quietly supportive dad, every interaction felt genuine. his sister, with her own unique blend of humor and wit, added another layer to the family’s complexity. their bond wasn’t perfect, but aren’t those little moments what make a family real?

now as for the romance: a queer love story that’s finally joyful, triumphant, and unapologetically happy? yes gawd. some say this book is too sugary, too unrealistic, but honestly, isn’t that what the world, and especially the lgbt+ community, needs sometimes?
so much of queer media is wrapped in tragedy and loss, as if happiness is something that can’t coexist with queerness. this book challenges that notion and imagines a world where love isn’t a struggle but a celebration, where two men can be in love and still lead, still change the world.

however, this story is very american-centered, which makes sense given the political race, but as an international reader, many references went over my head. the electoral system wasn’t well explained, so i literally had to pause and do my research just to keep up. at times, i wondered if i was too dumb or just not american enough to get it. a little more context would be nice.

to sum up, it was a sweet utopian novel that might serve as a perfect distraction from all the madness that is going around the world.

#redwhiteandroyalblue #bookreview #bookstagram #explore

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📚 In 2024, my reading goal was 12 books.

I began 2024 in one of the toughest reading slumps. After all my time spent on Bookstagram, I felt drained and found no joy in bookish content due to the pressure. Bookstagram, which had been a safe place for me in 2020-2021, had turned into a major source of anxiety. For the sake of my mental health, I decided to leave social media at the end of 2023 and didn’t intend to return to reading immediately. I didn’t read much during the first three months of 2024, mostly tackling history books for my courses.

From April and ongoing, I found my way back to reading and signed my comeback on Bookstagram a month later, in May! But my priority was still the same: 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝘆𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 𝗯𝘆 𝗲𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗮𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗲, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗽 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝗳 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝗼 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵.

I set my yearly goal at 12 books, and I exceeded my expectations by reading 40 books! How is that possible? I explored new genres, authors, formats and stories to keep my reading experience fresh rather than going around in circles.

What’s my plan for 2025? To do the exact same thing. But this time, I’m setting my goal at 40 books right from the start. This is a personal challenge to integrate more reading into my life, instead of just scrolling on my phone, and to enhance my writing creativity. I also want to improve my reading habits by continuing to discover new genres, authors, and perspectives on the world.

And I’m bringing you with me 🫶🏻📖✨

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