2023: My Worst Year in Books, Ever (No, Really)

The whole thing feels a bit like you've spent the afternoon wandering down a long, sandy, rainy beach. (I feel like a bit of an expert in these; the PNW happens to have a lot of them.) 

You've been flipping over any big stones, hoping to find some little crabs or something, looking for a tide pool or maybe scanning for movement amongst the gravel, only to look back once you've reached the end and see you simply left a lot of holes, but haven't unearthed a darn thing. Sure, you made the distance, got some steps in, and maybe found a little bit of cool bits of broken shell or thwacked your sibling in the leg with some dried seaweed, but for the most part? A lot of sand... and it's a longer way still to get back to the car. 

What I'm saying is, personally speaking, 2023 felt like a bit of a bust.

So, can we just say "Happy New Year"? I'm trying to stay away from broad, hyperbolic statements like "Surely, it couldn't get any worse," because if there's anything I've learned from countless hours of children's media, it's that the sky would suddenly break out into rainfall, the dam would collapse behind us, and a cloud of locusts might appear on the horizon. 

How about instead, we just recognize that the last couple of "new" years have, in fact, been a little bleak, and leave it at that. 

(The most frustrating thing about this this, is that we don't all seem to be on the same page: for instance, some people I truly adore in this world have spent the past year getting engaged, getting married, starting new jobs, starting new lives in new cities, having babies, getting published, going viral, what have you... but this post isn't about them. This post is about me... and maybe you too?) 

Let's start with the obvious: I missed my Goodreads Challenge goal. In fact, thanks to Goodreads and the power of dedicatedly logging all of your reading habits into a portal that the whole world can check on whenever they please, is that you know, straight up, all the "when"s and "how"s of a bad reading year... like, for instance, when you've been on decline for multiple years in a row, and even how you've had reading years where you've read almost double what you managed in this past one. 

I think it's time to trot out some excuses for myself. So, what gives? 

• I did a lot of travel last year. You would think this would help me read more, right? After all, I have put up plenty of vacation-style reading recaps in the past... but if anything, it made my regular daily schedules feel out of whack, and hard to settle back into, every time we went out of town. Either I was reading in unfamiliar locales, which was both hard to acclimate towards and made me feel incredibly guilty for not making the most of my new surroundings, or I was at home, scrambling to do all the things I couldn't get done while I was gone.
• My family is going through some major upheaval at the moment. But it's actually a good thing: one of my siblings got engaged in 2023, and will be getting married in 2024, with yours truly serving as a Maid of Honor (or Disrepute, Chaos, or Distraction, considering which sources you believe). With another sibling graduating college this year as well, it's been pretty busy around here.
• My volunteering hours have absolutely skyrocketed. Without giving too much away: whereas I used to serve a few key functions for the organization I dedicate the most time to, in the past year, that has increased exponentially. The good news is, I have gained several new key skill sets; the bad news is it feels like my free hours are still dwindling rapidly. Then again, I wouldn't be dedicating a minimum of four-to-six hours a week to this organization if I didn't care. 
• I started a new writing venture! As you might know, I now am also the author of not only this platform, but a monthly cooking Substack. Not only am I doing a very different kind of close reading these days, but I'm also dedicating several hours a month to both jam-packing the fridge with all of my necessary ingredients, and dishing up about exactly what I've been cooking on my newsletter. 
• I experienced a serious Reading Slump, from September through December. I'm not interested in getting into it, at least right now - you might have noticed that this platform has been pretty desolate for this last third of the year - but trying to get my brain to commit to consuming anything that wasn't a scrolling Tetris game or something easy on Food Network was a hard go of it, for sure. 

And things aren't slowing down. We've got a sister to get hitched - plus the accompanying Bachelorette Trip, Bridal Showers, Wedding Weekend, and more - coming up in 2024, as well as a college graduation and a sibling's subsequent move home, and that's just all the stuff that isn't even my fault. I'm still writing my Substack, volunteering even more than I used to, and to top it all off... I just started a new job! 

So, you know. Things are fine. 

Oh, right, except the fact that in 2023, I read eight books less than the year previous. 

(Kind of funny, once you consider that my total page count was down only 469 from the year before, too. So I guess I could have just read eight more books, around 60 pages in length, to meet 2022's numbers?) 

The shortest book I read was 114 pages - Time is a Mother, a poetry collection by Ocean Vuong - and the longest book was 592 pages, as Leigh Bardugo needed every last one of them to round out her King of Scars duology with Rule of Wolves. All told, my average book length was 320 pages, which is way up from 274 in 2022. 

The only thing I can say for consistency's sake is that my average score is still rocking at 3.6 stars! This has become something of a norm for me - occasionally vacillating upwards to 3.7 every once in a while - which is kind of nice. It means that I'm not especially loving or hating books out of the norm, at least on an annual aggregate basis. 

Outside of what stats Goodreads can hit me with - like bb pellets on the shin - there were some cool, non-quantitative things that happened this year, though. 

For instance, my best months for reading were in June and August, no doubt thanks to my annual propensity for getting real weird about the Seattle Public Libraries Summer Reading Challenge.  And I did, in fact, get three bingoes on my Summer Reading Book Bingo card, just like I shoot for every year.

I successfully completed a Book Buying Ban, and the only three titles I broke my promise for were during my Bloggoversary! (But more on this later.) 

In terms of favorite bookish projects that warranted a mention on the blog, I not only reread Jane Eyre by myself to start off the year last January, but I also collected every single word I had to google during that dedicated effort, and even published all of them for you on the blog, as well as some words of argument as to why we should all be learning new words, all the time. 

Off the blog, I launched my first ever attempt at a non-scholastic buddy reading experience with my younger brother, of the Sibling Shakespeare Book Club. We read the entirety of The Tempest together through the month of July, with weekly check-in Zoom meetings, complete with PowerPoint slide decks oriented around cultural significance, literary references, and deep-dives into popular quotations (me), as well as a lot of great memes and undeniable enthusiasm (him). It was honestly really cool to not only feel like more of an English major again, but also get to experience something like one of my favorite plays for the first time through someone else's eyes. 

It was pretty quiet here, on this platform, though: only 24 posts total from the year, averaging two a month... which is still the most posts I've had on the blog since 2019. Hooray? 

books of the year 

Despite the fact that I did end up reading significantly less than I have in recent years, I still managed to read a few books that really defined my bookish experiences in 2023... showing that even if you read less than you'd like, there's still a great chance that at least one or two of the titles you pick up are going to stick with you! Out of the 38 books I read, here are five that really made me feel like I got some good reading done.

Time is a Mother, Ocean Vuong

I'm not much of a poetry collection kind of gal, but in the past few years, that's been starting to change... and I've got the carefully-printed-and-taped entries onto the wall leading into my room to prove it. The actual action of reading poetry regularly, though, is still something I'm easing into. 

The last two summers have seen me spending time with poetry collections, thanks to various Book Bingo requirements, and Summer 2023 was definitely a highlight for that. Ocean Vuong is one of those social-media-famous poets not because of any kind of aesthetic pandering or pseudo-intellectualism in their messaging, but because their words are so incredibly intentional and deliberate, their messages are universally accessible, and their voice feels so specific and unique. I'm a big fan, and I can see why everyone else is, too.  

The Twisted Ones, T. Kingfisher

Just like Poetry, I'm not exactly too much of a Horror fan... though a youthful fascination with Stephen King short stories and a collegiate-born love of Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves might surprise you. (It all dovetails pretty neatly with how I stopped watching scary movies in college when I realized they made my anxiety so much worse.) But look at me now! I read two Horror books this past Summer, and they were both incredible. This one beats out Stephen Graham-Jones' The Only Good Indians for two specific reasons: this was just a little more straightforward in its intentions, and it was one of the most fun (and funny!) reads I experienced this year. 

I actually even read part of it while I was camping, if you can believe it. 

On top of that, it was one of two Kingfishers I read in 2023, and it's the one that made me a cemented fan. I actually just received two of their other novels as a Christmas gift from my brother - Thornhedge, a Fantasy novella, and A House with Good Bones, another Southern Gothic-style Horror, both published last year - and I'm so, so excited to read them. 

How Far the Light Reaches: a Life in Ten Sea Creatures, Sabrina Imbler

Again, yet another hit from the mysterious inner workings of SPL's Book Bingo. The square was for "Sea Creatures," and the mega-hyped title everyone was trying to grab was Shelby Van Pelt's Remarkably Bright Creatures. To be honest, I am still planning on reading that title eventually, but by the time I got to it back in June, the library holds list already stretched to hell and back, so I decided to veer towards Imbler instead, and I am so ecstatic I did.

It's both informative and engrossing, matching a very genuine enthusiasm for marine life with a careful and considerate perspective of their own life, too. Imbler is thoughtful and made interesting connections, treated everyone in their social circle with intention and focus while still holding their own perspective in the foreground, and overall, I just got the very intense feeling that they're someone I'd really love to sit down to coffee with. 

(Maybe that's just one of those joyful things about memoirs; it's all of our opportunity to get coffee together.) 

Now that I'm released from the self-manufactured cage of a Book Buying Ban, this is a title I'm actively interested in securing for my own shelves, so I can reread it again later, or lend it to as many people as I'd like. 

There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job, Kikuko Tsumura

Okay, so apparently, all of the biggest and most important books I read this year came from Summer Book Bingo?? Good grief. This one was used to fill a block that called for "Worker's Rights," which is a pretty generous stretch of relevance there, on my part, but a choice that I still stand by. 

Truly a testament to the awe-invoking power of a book's ability to change the way you experience your own life, this not only set me on a more hopeful and positive job search path this past year, but is something that I genuinely believe helped make the difference in me finding the one that I did. 

A Japanese translation that was absolutely gorgeous to read, it was also a bit of a trip, matching a sense of magical realism and surreality with the mundane aspects of holding or maintaining unconventional jobs. I think I've brought this book up in conversations this year more than anything else I've read... it really is something you need to experience yourself, though, so I'm pretty unwilling to give a lot of spoilers for it. 

It's also definitely the reason I'm going to be look to read more translations from Japanese novels in the future. Like with Imbler's HFtLR, I'm trying to add a physical copy of this title to my personal bookshelves as well. 

Shubeik Lubeik, Deena Mohamed

I was looking for a bit of hope while suffering under my slump, and inspired by Goodreads' incredibly bone-headed decision to eliminate the Graphic Novel from this year's iteration of the Goodreads Awards, I placed a few on hold at my library, and picked this one up in December. 

I mean, come on. When's the last time a Graphic Novel made you cry? I still have pictures of dialogue sections from its pages saved into the Camera Roll on my phone, because I like to go back and look at them when I need another dose of perspective. 

It's a pretty unique combination of sociocultural landscape and Fantasy influence, wherein a modern-day Cairo lays the stage for interactions between regular, everyday people and genie wishes available for purchase. Where contemporary politics meets historic pain; economic status interchanges with differences in identity and opportunity; where the overarching magic seems to stem from, once again, human connection and the people we share our lives with. 

Absolutely incredible, and well worth how thick it is. I read it in two afternoons - bisecting only thanks to various family gatherings - but it would also be a great way to spend a free evening. I promise you will be grateful for the bit of peace you might feel in reading this. 

That's it for 2023. I give the year no warning about whether or not the door should hit it on the way out; I'm too wrapped up in trying to scramble as hard and as fast as I can towards 2024 to care. I'm hoping it will be kinder, or - at the very least - it will be slightly easier to manage, and that unlike in the past few years, I will somehow manage to find both more time and inclination to read again. 

But of course, there's still a little bit we have to talk about before we wrap up the past year completely. There are two major Challenges that are still under discussion... one distinctly more effective and complete than the other. 

More on that later. Until then! 

How did your reading year go in 2023? What were some of your top titles of the year? Let me know, in the comments below!

Playing in the Pages Turns Thirteen! Bring on the Tween Angst.

About a month ago - in fact, almost exactly a month ago - this corner of the Internet turned thirteen years old. 

When I was thirteen years old, I was heading into the eighth grade, had a major obsession with the Sci-Fi-for-Teens show Kyle XY on ABC Family, and was relatively confident that this was the year I was finally going to have my first kiss (I did not). Only four years later, when I was seventeen years old, I started this blog. 

Had I given birth to a baby - that stale and boring summer between Junior and Senior years of high school, when I would reliably boot up the shared computer in my parents' room every afternoon, to check the handwritten list of URLs I had curated in the back of a notebook - instead of a blog, I would have a middle schooler on my hands. If the Disney Channel Original Movies of my youth are to be believed, this would have been the year they found out they were secretly a mermaid. 

Thankfully, instead of back-to-school shopping for training bras and awkward conversations around a well-worn copy of American Girl's The Care and Keeping of You, I get to spend my days pursuing such self-directed insanity as sending 40+ slide PowerPoint decks dedicated to sections of Shakespeare's The Tempest to my brother, compulsively reading backlist mass market paperbacks about vampires and aliens and psychics falling in love, developing a dangerously dependent relationship and pseudo-retail-addiction with my local secondhand store bookshelves, and occasionally remembering to actually talk about it all on this blog. 

Again, I celebrated this anniversary a month ago, and this is the first time you're hearing about it. Clearly, if anything has managed to develop in the space between my ears within the last twelve months, feeling some kind of obligation to regularly update my blog on my various daily goings-on is certainly not one of them. 

(In the spirit of transparency: I've been doing a mind-warpingly awful amount of travel, have been dedicating quite a lot of time and attention to my OTHER internet project, and most recently, in the spirit of "seasonal transitions give me depression," decided to read five-and-counting Romance novels off of my Kindle within the space of a week. Just in case you were feeling left out.) 

So, you might be wondering, how did I spend my bloggoversary this year?

I listened to a bookish podcast while getting ready in the morning, before I realized that I have an extremely limited amount of mental capacity to listen to just about anything while I'm cooking. Certain playlists on my Spotify have the ability to make getting out of bed a minutes-long affair, rather than a nearly hour-long one, but I don't think that I'll ever be able to effectively navigate my morning to the sound of people talking. And then there's the other issue: the difference between a podcast about books, and conversations with friends, is that you can't interrupt the other person when they unleash a blisteringly bad take.

I read for an hour while my zucchini bread was baking in the oven. While there absolutely - at least, in my experience - is a documented and significant correlation between those who enjoy reading and those who enjoy baked goods, no one ever really talks about how great of an excuse having something in the oven is when you just want a little bit of time to yourself. The ten-minute bouts between batches of cookies are especially good for delegating some attention to other kitchen chores - you can unload a dishwasher in ten minutes, spend another ten clearing off countertops, and then another organizing the fridge - and at the end of it, you are rewarded with not only fresh cookies but a clean kitchen, which generates the kind of euphoria in my brain that others might find only accessible through hard drug use. Zucchini bread, on the other hand, requires over an uninterrupted hour of baking, which makes for a great reason to sit on my couch and pick up a novel, while the entire floor of the house begins to smell of delicious things. 

I went to Barnes and Noble. Shocker! I do this every year for my bloggoversary, for the celebratory purpose of picking up some of the books I've specifically saved for that occasion. Thanks to the traditions of years past, my bloggoversary had become one of the only times a year I can justify paying full price for hardcovers, and thanks to choices made during my Fifth Bloggoversary, I typically pick up five titles each year. However, much to my chagrin, arriving at this well-known establishment quickly revealed to me that they had, once again, decided to reorganize all of the shelves and store layout. This, coupled with some pretty dramatically bad shelving mistakes, means I only ended up purchasing three books: 

Emily Wilde's Encylopaedia of Faeries: A Novel, Heather Fawcett

The Way Home: Two Novellas from the World of The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

The Best American Food Writing 2022, ed. Sohla El-Wayly

At only three titles, that still ended up setting me back $80. How on earth are some people only buying books new? I maintain that reading is one of the most cost-effective past times you can pursue as a general hobby - thanks to things like The Library, secondhand and discount retailers, ebook sales, and lending books with friends - but damn, aren't these publishers and bookstores making it difficult? 

I bought myself some reading snacks from Trader Joes. I had originally restricted myself to a short list: at the age of 29 years old, I know myself well enough that to roam untethered in a Trader Joes is to suffer a short blackout and emerge from the mental fog back in the car with multiple bags of groceries in the backseat, so I knew that some kind of structure was necessary. I had optimistically thought that tags like "something bubbly," "something spicy," and "something creamy" would direct my focus a little more intentionally, but I ended up scrapping it completely and just picking things up that looked good. Meringues, s'mores bars, strawberry beverages, buffalo almonds, pickle cheese curds, and more... 

I scooted over to my local library to pick up a hold of mine that had just come in: The Fourth Wing, by Rebecca Yarros. It has undoubtably become one of the buzziest books of the year, thanks to BookTok reviewers, and what seems to be a universal penchant for books about dragons and love triangles. Billed to me as "Horny How to Train Your Dragons," I had originally placed a hold after a handful of confused conversations with my brother about how seemingly everyone on the Internet was talking about this book, then dedicatedly waited over two months for the hold to come in. (Naturally, the other 44 people waiting for their own holds after me ended up weighing far too much on my conscious, and I ended up returning it early.)

I worked on the final slide deck for my Sibling Book Club I have with my brother, where we spent the month of July reading The Tempest together. It was a tremendously rewarding experience, one I'm still debating on dedicating a higher word count to on this blog later, so all I'll say at this point that one of the most beneficial things I think you can do for yourself before 2024 hits in about four months, is picking one of the funniest people you know and deciding to read Shakespeare with them. 

And while that was the extent of my actual Bloggoversary Day celebrations, it didn't end quite yet. Because I had only picked out those three books from Barnes and Noble, I made myself the promise that if I was able to locate any of the other titles on my list while on vacation, I would be allowed to purchase one or two more at an independent bookstore of my choice. Thankfully, while in Sunriver, Oregon, with my family, I was able to track down Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire, much to my immense relief.  

And how do I feel about it?

Maybe it's because I've been doing this all for so long... maybe because I've been checking out a lot of library books this year, during my Book Buying Ban of 2023, so picking things up new doesn't hold a lot of shine for me... maybe it's because we're so busy, that my brain is already more subsumed under a million other focuses... I don't know. 

At certain points, it felt like less of a special occasion, and more of an obligation, which is a bummer of a way to feel about a happy anniversary. 

It doesn't help that I'd been massively trapped in a Summer Slump since the very beginning of July, and  had barely gotten through three books in total that month. I'd only managed to publish once on the blog, which meant that it didn't feel like there was a ton to celebrate in that arena, either.

That all being said, it is so important to me to reflect on the person I was when I first started writing this blog, how much I have managed to write through - the end of high school, all of college, and heading into my 30's this Fall - and what this changing hobby of mine has shown me about myself in these past thirteen years. I would never think of letting this kind of a moment go by unremarked. 

Yeah, I celebrated my thirteenth bloggoversary a month ago. It's pretty cool that I've had something to call solely my own for that long, and that I've kept it going while so many other hobbies have still managed to fall by the wayside as I've gotten older. Whether I'll ever be the maintainer of the "perfect" blog I desired - the kind I'd painstakingly stalk through that summer before I started Senior year - it's a space that has just as much to say about me and how I've grown up, as the stacks of journals I've been keeping in notebooks since I was in middle school. It's telling a whole story on its own, beyond the ones I talk about in its text. 

Happy Thirteenth Year, Playing in the Pages. 

Travel Reading Log: What I Read While I Was in Victoria, BC

Hey, remember January? So fresh, so new, so full of hope? It feels like just yesterday... but it certainly wasn't, based on the alarming rate at which April is approaching. Where did the time go? 

Probably lost on yet another one of the vacations I keep tagging along on with my parents. 

Yes, it's been a month since my last installment here on the blog, and it somehow comes in the wake of yet another travel excursion with my family unit.

Lest anyone accuse me of serial-hopping on my parents' tickets, you should know I was specifically invited this time: as much as my college senior brother loves both of them, he wasn't as into the idea of a weekend spent in a foreign country without at least one more buddy with whom to travel. And it just happened to work out. Well, for me, at least... he was the one who got stuck on the pull-out bed in the hotel room. I got one of the two queen beds all to myself. 

So, the four of us sailed away to Canada in order to seek a different shade of grey skies, in the midst of a gloomy PNW March. Don't think I was venturing off without some reading material stuffed into my backpack: after all, Victoria is home to plenty of bookstores. I wasn't all that interested in getting caught in a vulnerable state of mind, thanks to this year's self-imposed book ban! 

The goals of the trip were thusly laid out: Don't leave my brother behind in Canada, and definitely try to finish at least one book. 

Where We Went: Victoria, BC

Victoria, in the Canadian province of British Columbia, makes for an easy weekend jaunt over the border, for those of us who hail from Washington state. In fact, it's less than a three-hour boat ride on one of the Victoria Clipper vessels, a comfortable and leisurely sailing from Pier 69 in Seattle. For those willing to make the drive out to Port Angeles, it's only a ninety-minute ride on the Coho Ferry, which means you can even take your car with you when you go. 

Not that you really need to: one of the best parts of the city is how completely walkable it is, with a waterfront, downtown area, and plenty of fascinating places to explore, all within an accessible distance, and with plenty of options for lodging! Numerous forms of transportation provide the filler for any gaps in your travel needs, like CVS Tours' regular daily stops at Butchart Gardens, or their Hop-On-Hop-Off Bus. There's a series of small pickle boats you can take around the Harbor, courtesy of Harbor Ferry, who will putter you around to where you need to go. Pretty much every hotel you stay at will either have or be able to point you towards a bike rental service, and the roads are specifically equipped to handle bikers. That's not even mentioning Victoria's own public transport systems, either!

Because it's such an easy trip from stateside, you might forget you're in another country at all, save for two defining factors: one, you will almost never have wifi, unless you're willing to park yourself in the lobby of your hotel for an honor of social media scrolling, and two, the proliferation of large bear, beaver, and maple leaf iconography everywhere tells you you're definitely in Canada. 

Thanks to everything from architecture, to local eateries, to tourist souvenirs, Victoria is also fairly reminiscent of Europe, thanks to its British heritage. Expect lots of references to the monarchy, both historical and kitschy, as well as plenty of shops boasting treats from abroad: full English breakfasts and British candies, tea collections created in honor of the late queen, and more. Traditional Scottish wool sweaters, and lots of statues will remind you that British Columbia was originally a British colony, before joining the Canadian Federation in 1871, nearly 100 years after the first American colonies had declared independence. 

My trip to Victoria in 2018 made for my first-ever excursion out of the country, and my second-ever off of American mainland soil. This trip would be the second time I had ever set foot in Canada, which was the same for my brother, only with slightly different baggage: the first time he had ever ventured out of the country was during a soaking-wet, miserable week-and-a-half trip through the Bowron Lakes Circuit, also in British Columbia, with other Boy Scouts. Beset by mosquitos, occasionally orbited by wildlife, and constantly weighing the fear that he and my Dad were never going to make it home, BC hadn't exactly made a sterling impression on him during that particular trip. 

He liked Victoria a lot better. 

Embarking on the Clipper on the port out of Seattle; the views from Ogden Point Breakwater, one of my favorite morning walks of the trip; some of the themed city signage in Chinatown, near Fan Tan Alley

What I Packed

I honestly wasn't expecting to read so much this trip: based on my previous experiences in Victoria, I kind of anticipated more wearing myself out than anything. Besides, the hotel had a pool! 

Still, it wouldn't make any sense to come unprepared. And as it turns out, it was totally necessary! 

The one I hadn't finished since last vacation: Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, K. J. Parker

The easy novella, from a series my brother and I read together: Across the Green Grass Fields (Wayward Children #6), Seanan McGuire 

The bonus: My Kindle... on which I still have quite a few Romance novels waiting to be read! 

What I Actually Ended Up Reading

After several weeks of avoiding the challenge of tackling this frustrating read - one that I had originally started on our last vacation, on Whidbey -  I finally finished Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City! Unfortunately, all of the issues I had with the book in the first place, continued to play just as much a part in the second half; however, with the commitment I just wanted to get through it so I could review it properly, I was able to consistently read over the first day or so of our vacation, finishing up the morning of Day Two. 

Am I stoked about the fact that I had to essentially force myself to read this book? No, not exactly pleased. The problem is, it was a very good book, that made such bizarre authors choices and carried such questionable themes that the further I got into the story just made me angrier... at least if it had been bad, I could have put the whole thing to the side. Instead, I'm planning on writing a full review on just this one book, something I haven't done in years! 

In my post-Sixteen Ways upset, I felt like I practically soared through Across the Green Grass Fields. It barely took me any time at all, maybe a cumulative two hours of reading, because it was both a novella and not exactly difficult, which made me feel incredibly accomplished being able to pass it on to my younger brother on the trip back home on Day Three. A good thing, too, because it's an installment in a series that both he and I read, but based on the fact that I'm such a mood reader, something he's stuck, stagnant, in line to read until after I've finished each title first. 

(Listen: as a conservative estimate, I purchase or recommend this kid a minimum of eight-to-ten books a year. It's just that he had the misfortune to join this particular series after I had called a fair-and-square dibs, plus I was the one to lend him the first three installments. He can have a little patience about it.) 

He was relieved to get the title from me, and had finished it as well, before Spring Break was over and he had to go back to school. 

Being that I had somehow managed to finish two books before the three-hours-without-wifi boat ride had even begun chugging its way back home, I wasn't exactly willing to let go of my momentum yet. Thank goodness I had ended up packing that Kindle! I ended up deciding to finish Bromance Book Club, which I had already managed to get 10% of the way into during my "Speed Dating my Kindle Romances" back in February, last month. 

Isn't it nice when a book kind of meets your expectations? I was very nearly done by the time we had docked back in Washington, and had it not been such an exhausting weekend, I probably would have had the whole thing wrapped up with a bow on it before my head hit a pillow. As it stood, I ended up finishing the final stretch of it before 9am the next morning, which I'm calling as having counted. 

So, on the vacation I hadn't really envisioned reading on, I ended up closing out three titles, in about three days.

What Else We Did

Not that I hadn't kept myself incredibly busy, of course! It truly was just the luck of having downtime. After all, you have to have something to do when your screaming feet are trying to monopolize your attention. 

There's really just so much to take your attention in Victoria. 

For starters, I toured a whole lot of bookstores, for someone who truly has no good reason for doing so (Curse you, Book Buying Ban of 2023.)

Bastion Books, so named for its proximity to Bastion Square downtown, is a sweet, small bookstore that couldn't be more than two rooms wide, filled with secondhand, predominantly vintage books. My brother, the musician, managed to zero in on some old-school reference books that he recognized from his use in his own scholarly pursuits, while my Dad was interested in looking at the pieces of art that occupied various corners of the store, clearly created by those who loved books as well. It reminded me of a pocket-sized version of a hometown favorite, Kings Books, in which there is always something old to be made new again. 

Munro's Books, a picturesque, Instagram-friendly, and well-lit bookstore - built out of what used to be a bank - truly ranks among the more beautiful bookstores I've ever visited, though it seems that's a pretty general consensus: the place is typically packed with other interested book lovers, which can make some of its less linearly-organized shelves a bit of a practice in politeness, while contending with the crowd around you. It carries both plenty of bestsellers and new releases, mixed up with genre selections you've never heard of before, as well as gorgeous notebooks and knickknacks to add to your collection. It reminds me a lot of Elliot Bay Bookstore in Seattle, with its ample windows bringing in natural light, and well-curated shelves. While there's no coffee shop here, though, you can easily maneuver your purchases over to Murchie's Tea next door for a cuppa. 

Russell Books - a bit of a longer walk away from Government Street than your other options - was hands-down the family fave. And I know it's an incomplete comparison, but personally, it reminded me of Powell's City of Books in Portland, on two counts: for starters, it's completely unassuming on the outside, only to reveal a behemoth (two stories! with an escalator!) on the inside, and second of all, it had really, truly wonderful prices. This was the bookstore that very nearly broke me! I have pictures saved on my phone of at least seven different titles that I'm still planning of looking up later, closer to my Bloggoversary, once I get my purchasing power back. For both cheap prices and a great selection, Russell Books is an unskippable star. Do yourself an absolute favor, and schedule both Russell Books and the very nearby Cactus Club Cafe into one afternoon.

Because of course, while visiting what has become one of my personal favorite vacation destinations, we weren't just there to read and browse bookstores... we came to eat.  

Cactus Club Cafe won my sibling and I over on our last trip, thanks to its banging guacamole and the promise of frozen rose... frose, to use the appropriate parlance. Unfortunately for us, both items had vacated the menu by the time I managed to go back. Thankfully, though, damn near everything else my brother, parents, and I ordered off the menu was absolutely delicious! The drinks were gorgeous, the appetizers were absolute stunners - the chicken lettuce wraps and the beef carpaccio being crowd favorites - and my Dad and my brother both adored the mashed potatoes that came with their steaks. If it weren't for the dead-set plan on picking up some Beavertails before we headed back to our hotels, we probably would have stayed even longer... the mood lighting, club music, and friendly waitstaff make for a very fun nighttime locations. They also have some of my favorite bathrooms I've ever used, but that's beside the point. 

We also made the triumphant return to another favorite from our last trip: The Fish Store, located out on the docks of Fisherman's Wharf. Not only is it cool to tour some of the nearby houseboats, but the various food retailers on this floating network of docks are absolutely worth the walk to get there. While prices might have gone up a little bit since the last time we visited, my Dad and I are still enthusiastic supporters of The Fish Store's from-the-sea-fresh selection of oysters, which you can purchase at $36 Canadian dollars for a full dozen, with 25% off between the hours of 4 and 5pm. Eventually I will actually try something non-oyster-related on their menu... but then again, why deny yourself the joy of fresh oysters? 

Other absolute can't-miss attractions: Butchart Gardens, accessible via a short, 35-minute-hither-and-thither bus ride, which boasts a number of gorgeously-appointed gardens, as well as a gelato stand, coffee shop, and restaurant; and Beacon Hill Park, a sprawling, green public park oasis that contains numerous walking trails, ponds, and more ducks-per-square-foot than anywhere else I've ever visited... and even a petting zoo that allows you to get up front and personal with goats for only a $6 donation!

On one hand, I feel like I could have stayed there another week without getting bored. There were plenty of things we didn't really get to do there this trip that I absolutely loved last time - like spending more time at the Royal BC Museum, which was under serious construction, or taking high tea somewhere like the Fairmont Empress - and of course I had another hundred or so restaurants lined up that would have made for some good eating. On the other, there's only so much time you can spend in a hotel room with both parents and a college-aged brother without feeling at least a little stir-crazy, so I was pretty happy to venture back to Washington when we did. 

The good news is, this pretty much guarantees a return trip sometime in my future! After all, I still haven't gotten to see any of the nearby castles you can tour, nor have we made it over to Victoria West. It's nice to know that there's more waiting for me, the next time we go back. 

Though honestly, I'd do it just for the oysters. 

Have you ever been to Victoria, BC? Does it sound like the kind of place you'd like to visit? Which bookstore would you choose to shop at? Let me know, in the comments below!

Travel Reading Log: What I Read While I Was On Whidbey

Well, we're two months into the new year, and if there's any Resolution I've been totally delivering on, it's "Get out of the house more." Not necessarily by my own volition, but regardless: I'm nailing it. 

As for last weekend's excursion, the reasoning boils down to this: one of my younger siblings wanted the house all to themselves, in order to celebrate their birthday weekend with friends. My Mom jumped at the opportunity to get away for the weekend, and check out one of the many exciting vacation destinations around the Pacific Northwest. Originally we were planning a little Cannon Beach excursion down on the Oregon coast, but after VRBO prices proved prohibitive and my ceaseless begging to take a ferry ride won out, the date was settled: I packed a bag and some hiking boots, and scooted off to the Whidbey waterfront for a little island time. 

For those keeping score, this is actually the second vacation of my parents' that I've crashed so far this year: the three of us stayed an overnight in a haunted castle in Port Townsend back in January. (Which made for some pre-ferry-boarding shopping this time around, because we already knew which stores we liked best!)

This time, though, I was venturing off with an intention: there was no way I was getting out of this weekend without finishing at LEAST two reads under my belt! In particular, I wanted to wrap up a book I've been wandering through for a while, take out another from the Big Box of Paranormal Romance, and just generally get some reading time back that I've been missing out on for the past few weeks. 

Where We Went: Whidbey Island

Whidbey Island one of the longest, skinniest members of the San Juan Islands, and the largest overall island in Washington State. It is primarily accessible by way of several ferry systems through places like Port Townsend and Mukilteo, or driving around to Deception Pass at the Northern tip of the island. It's also home to several towns, including Langley, Oak Harbor, and Coupeville.

Whidbey seems to have something for just about every Birkenstock-and-sock-wearing PNW traveler. For instance, area farms produce plenty of produce, meat products, and more, and the island boasts a great many farmer's markets, which makes it a regular destination for locavores. It serves as a home to multiple wineries, breweries, and even a cider house, which is why it's considering an exciting tasting destination. Old growth forests, multiple protected state parks, and miles of coastline - each with their own diverse and exciting flora and fauna - make it a playground for nature lovers. It's waterfront views and friendly locals make it a great place to just get away from it all and relax. 

It's a popular destination during the summer for what are surely obvious reasons, but there was plenty to do during February, as well! Sure, the ice cream shops may still be shut up for another month, but we explored cool shops, dined at some truly lovely restaurants, and yes, of course, did an awful lot of reading. Or, at least, I did! 

A row of colorful stores in Langley, the view from the Coupeville wharf, and a Little Free Library we found while exploring!

What I Packed

The one I had to finish: Best American Food Writing 2020, ed. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt

The next in my Paranormal Romance Reading Challenge: Bustin', Minda Webber

The one I want to pass on to my brother when I'm done: Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, K. J. Parker

and an extra romance novel on my Kindle for good measure, of course! 

Is it a lot of books? Yes. But should this have surprised anyone? In fact, it did the opposite, if you're my mom: in the car on the drive over, she and my Dad played a speed round of guessing "How Many Books Did Savannah Bring for This Weekend?" Not only did she immediately guess the correct number, but she even nailed my rationalization for bringing four books, as well, saying, "Well, one is for Friday night, and one is for Saturday morning, and one is for Saturday evening, and one is for Sunday, before we leave!" 

Did I manage to make it that far into my optimistic TBR? Not exactly. Still, I maintain that this is the appropriate number of books for a weekend excursion. 

What I Actually Ended Up Reading

I finally finished reading the second half of Best American Food Writing 2020 on Friday night, and immediately found some new all-time favorites. I've been a dedicated fan of the Food Writing series for a while now, and they make for some of my favorite secondhand or discount finds (that being said, I think I've exhausted almost all of my backlist resources now, and am two away from being fully caught up). 

This installment, in particular, made for some of the most compelling selections of the entire series so far: while the articles published within were all written within the 2019 food writing year, they were selected and organized at the top of the pandemic, and that divide - between who we were, and what would very quickly become important to us - makes for some seriously compelling subtext. I don't want to get too much into it before I publish an official review, but it made for some of my favorite food writing in recent memory. And that's not just because of the really stunning article about the questionable history of crab rangoon. 

I rocketed through Bustin' in just about one sitting, on Saturday afternoon. To be fair: the weather was incredibly cold, windy, and rainy for pretty much the full weekend - we are in February, in Washington, after all - which made it incredibly easy to curl up in front of the fire with a blanket and a good book for about a four-hour stretch.

The book itself was less easy, for reasons I'll get into later, when I officially review this read underneath the umbrella of my Paranormal Romance Reading Challenge. Not to tease you or anything, but this ended up being a much more cerebrally-tasking excursion than originally anticipated, and one that I pretty much subjected my parents to reading along with me, as I kept having to stop and incredulously read selections out loud. (I also ended up winging off several excerpts to my horrified brother via text.)

Due to various components of the novel itself, it took a lot longer to read than I had originally anticipated. It's a good thing that we were trapped inside because of that winter weather: being that I was caught between the February rain and a *ahem* hard place, the only thing keeping me going was with a strict reading schedule. 

I read halfway through Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City on Saturday night. 

Who would have thought that a relatively linear medieval-style alternative universe, wherein a walled city is being besieged by intelligent and unrelenting pirates, defended only by the various military strategies orchestrated by one ornery engineer, would make for such a compelling vacation read? 

After working so hard to get through Bustin' - and with the completion of Food Writing 2020 so recently on the backburner - I was already happy with the amount of reading I'd done for the weekend, but wanted to get at least a little of the way into a new one before heading out the following morning. Needless to say, one chapter turned to two, until it was 11pm and I was ready for bed, but not exactly ready to put the book down just yet. 

(Spoiler alert: in the time since, I haven't quite finished the novel, because I've spent a little too much time looking at Goodreads reviews for it... and I took a look at the final chapter, because I was getting anxious about how it all would end. Yes, yes, I can hear your booing from here! It was a series of total mistakes on my part, that have kind of stalled me in picking up again since then... but believe it or not, I'm still planning on finishing it!)

What Else We Did

I know I mentioned the amount of rain we got while on the island, but I truly believe that had we not spent so much time driving around beautiful trees, checking out tourist shops, and eating at such delicious restaurants, I might have been able to get even more reading done! 

My Dad bemoaned one morning this week, after we'd made it home, that sometimes, it feels like the vacations we take are really just food tourist weekends, and honestly, he's not that far off the mark (At least for me it is!). Unsurprisingly, there were a few restaurants we really loved on the island, that I would absolutely be willing to make a return trip to in the future. 

Saltwater, in Langley, is a higher-end dining establishment specializing in - you guessed it - seafood, and was our sought-after table for Friday night. They don't take reservations, so make sure you have someone in your party go in about a half-hour before you'd like to be seated, and use your waiting time to walk around some of the local shops, or snag a glass of wine or two at Ott & Hunter across the street.

It's definitely on the pricier side, but for me - someone who prizes seafood above all else, and rarely ever gets it - it was well worth it to splurge on the seafood tower, which came with a half-crab, the largest shrimp I'd ever seen, and twelve oysters (and you choose the variety). Split between three people, it made for delicious fare, that really made me get into the waterfront vibes that Whidbey is known for. 

The Braeburn Restaurant, also in Langley, boasts one of the highest-regarded breakfast+lunch+brunch lineups on the island. The overall vibe was bright and welcoming, and the drinkware was an eclectic mix of stylized water glasses and mugs that look like they were picked up at a nearby thrift store. 

The food is amply portioned and absolutely delicious: faves included the breakfast bread pudding, and the "Braeburn" sandwich, which consisted of a fried chicken breast suspended between two waffles, complete with bacon jam, goat cheese, and maple butter to go alongside. Definitely one of those places where you can't help checking out the plates being delivered to other diners as they walk through the dining room... one of my best friends calls it one of her favorite places to eat on the island! 

Of course, there are plenty of other local faves to check out for take-with-you goodies; most notably, delicious breakfast pastries, super-sweet truffles, and one of the best pies my parents have ever tasted. 

Little Red Hen Bakery, in Coupeville, has shelves upon shelves of delicious baked goods ready for pickup on a Saturday morning... literally. If you place an order by Thursday evening on their website, they'll have a full box of goodies ready for you to enjoy with your Saturday coffee, without having to battle it out against the rest of the island for the last kouign-amann or ham and cheese scone. We went into the store on Saturday afternoon - to procure any treats for our pre-ferry breakfast the following morning - and were surprised to see they were still pretty well-stocked, especially when it comes into their fragile-yet-delicious croissants (Both chocolate and almond are delicious). 

Greenbank Farm is heralded as the home of Whidbey Pies, which are known across the Puget Sound area for their flavorful, sturdy crusts, and fresh fruit fillings. In the summer, its grassy picnic areas, dog park, and solar farm probably make for a good afternoon's exploring; even in the rain, we still found time to drift through the wine tasting room, the cheese shop, and yes, pick up a pie. We'd recommend Loganberry: Greenbank Farms was once the largest loganberry farm in the world! (And we even picked up some loganberry dessert wine from the tasting shop, too.) 

Sweet Mona's Chocolates, in Langley, made for a seriously sweet outing, too. Tucked inside the colorful shop was a selection of delicious truffles, as well as other kinds of treats, like honeycomb, fudge, and more. We ended up putting together a box of twelve to take home, in flavors like cherry amaretto, banana, and more, and we've been using them as an afternoon pick-me-up all week! 

Of course, there are plenty of cool non-food-related things to do on the island, too. Local stores make for some low-key shopping destinations while you're in town. 

In particular, Coupeville was where I found some of my favorites: Kingfisher Bookstore is a gorgeous, well-organized bookstore, with plenty on offer for those interested in the history of the Puget Sound, as well as buzzy new releases, classic faves, and even displays created to celebrate local authors. 

For someone who's always on the hunt for their next great arts-and-craft supplies, Meet Market made for some very cool perusing, as well as some happy conversation with the person manning the front desk. Not only are there plenty of supplies to check out, but there's also a few tables set up with plenty of others, as a community art space! My Dad spent the time I dedicated to browsing making an origami frog out of some scrap paper, and left it as a thank you for such a wonderful space. I, of course, walked away with a new set of Tombow brush pens (in the "Retro" color collection), a pack of new pencils, a new white gelly roll pen, and some stickers for my siblings.

Soon enough, though, the weekend was over, and we headed on a ferry back to the mainland. I'm pretty stoked on how many books I managed to fit into our all-too-brief stay, but I'm honestly just as excited about all of the seafood, fresh air, and time next to the water we got, for all of that rain we had to contend with. I can't wait to make another return trip to Whidbey soon!

But there's a whole lot of other travel that has to take place before we get there again...

Have you spent much time on Whidbey Island? What are some of your favorite genres to pack on a weekend trip? Let me know, in the comments below!

A Fresh Page: Setting Up My 2023 Reading Journal for the New Year

Out of all of the reading practices I've adopted over the years - withstanding, of course, this personal, venerated platform upon which I am currently inscribing - I think that keeping a book journal has been one of the most rewarding. 

Over the years, Goodreads has fallen out of my favor, while Storygraph never even properly managed to engage my interest; the "BookTube" and "Bookstagram" micro-communities of more active social media platforms quickly fell victim to the poppiest of pop culture crowd (and while I've got no personal qualms against reading what I personally think of as "popcorn" or "blockbuster" fiction, I resent having been vehemently offered Maas as reading material by such aggressive supporters, when I already underwent the same from the blogging faction back in the original 2012-2016 years. I literally reviewed Crown of Midnight on here in 2013! That's a decade ago!). 

In terms of more tangible models, I never really got into annotating my reading material... beyond what was desperately necessary back in my English major years, when you've got in-class essays to write. And nowadays, I save my vast Post-It Note collection for my various cookbooks, instead. 

But a Book Journal? Man, does it go the distance. 

Hands-down, it has been the absolute best for not only collecting all of my handwritten book reviews in one place... but also, for organizing my thoughts and feelings for various blogposts, cataloguing how much I manage to read in a month, tracking things like purchases, library checkouts, new vocabulary, and so much more! 

The first step, of course, is choosing the format that suits you. I knew that I wanted to incorporate bullet-journal-style elements into my Book Journal's construction, so I opted for something that would accommodate a lot of personalization, while being structured enough that I would still be able to write paragraphs in it without issue. I use a personal favorite, the Leuchterm A5 Dot Grid journal. (This year is my fourth year using it for this purpose, but I also have two additional within my personal stationery, as a collector for both recipes and gardening updates.) 

And hands down, what has become one of my favorite mini-rituals to mark the yearly transition to a new installment, is by picking out what stickers with which to adorn the exterior from the ample ranks of Redbubble offerings. I try to find a pretty robust mix that serve as references to not only my personal reading habits and opinions, but hint as to some of my favorite novels and series. (For instance, favorites from my last journal included a "Clue Crew" flashlight in Nancy Drew's signature colors and font, the Goosebumps logo made up of some of its most iconic covers, and a QR code, which led to one of my favorite scenes from the 2005 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.) Can you guess the origins for any of the stickers I opted for this year? 

The first couple of pages in my journal, serve as sort of an over-arching, general year-at-a-glance set of record-keeping, in how many books I've set a goal to read in the coming year, and what the best book I read in each month was. 

These are similar in theming to pages that I had incorporated into last year, but one has gotten a minor upgrade: whereas my last book journal simply included a series of boxes to be filled in when each book was checked off my Goodreads challenge, this year, I've taken inspiration from more than a couple of different Bookstagrammer friends, and demonstrated the progress by way of a bookshelf, instead. For every book I read, I'll fill in each boxy shape with a corresponding monthly color... by the end of the year, I'm hoping to have a full, colorful bookshelf! 

I left a little more leeway in filling out my "Best Books of the Year" page, as well, as last year, things got a little bit... chaotic. Due to a couple of reading slumps I suffered over the course of the year, there were months where I was left to select from a meager amount of books, none of which made my personal grade of standard, whereas other months, I managed to read eight or ten, many of which had garnered personal preference or five-stars. Therefore, I left this year's boxes without monthly designation, so I can add them as I move along throughout 2023's literary offerings. 

Next up, my "Stats" and "Goals" pages, reflecting my reading progress the previous year, and what I'm aspiring towards in the coming one. As you can see in my 2021 reflections and 2022 goals, I had some pretty lofty ambitions for what I was looking for from the past year, which came about with... ahem... middling success. (I definitely hit that "three book Bingoes for the SPL Summer Reading Challenge" though, so we'll take it as a win!) 

Trust me, I was a lot more moderate in my planning for this year, with a lot of personal emphasis placed on actually ENJOYING the time I spend reading, rather than holding myself to a lot of self-determined numbers I'm supposed to hit. (Imagine, actually managing to enjoy a personal hobby, rather than feeling strung-out and sad when your Goodreads Challenge resets every December 31st... who'da thunkit?)

What can I say? It's really easy to beat yourself up about numbers when you surround yourself with people whose Instagram accounts regularly boast upwards of 70 or 80 (or in some surprising cases, 120 and 180! And those people are like, real, actual people, who work as lawyers and counselors and engineers, and some of them even have children!). This year, my goals are a reflection of the idea that I should actually be allowed to have a good time, sometimes. 

More planning for the coming year, organized around similar mental pathways, but with very different purposes: "What I'm Trying to Read in 2023" and "What I Want to See on the Blog / Social Media" this year. 

When I say "what I'm trying to read," I was originally trying to generate a space for some direct, tangible titles off of my TBR shelves: a plan I could make for myself, and a list to pull from whenever I was feeling uninspired in choosing a new read. Instead, what ended up happening, was I started writing down genres, like "More Rereads of Books That Have Inspired Me in the Past" (like The Magicians, by Lev Grossman, or So Yesterday, by Scott Westerfield), or "More Thick and Dense Science Fiction" (like The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin, or Leviathan Wakes, by James Covey). As it turns out, I'm such a mood reader, that it extends to my goal-setting, too: I can't tell you exactly what titles I'm intending to hit by the end of the year, but I certainly know what vibes I want to feel. 

Meanwhile, my "What I Want to See on the Blog" and "Instagram Plan" pages are similarly minded. As these have, in the past, served as a concrete space for discrete and specific goals to hit, they are now a space for detailing how I want these spaces to make me feel. Instead of counting comments or daily hits, I used this space for generating aspirational qualitative goals, rather than quantitative. And again, a lot of them are focused on personal enjoyment! 

For instance, from my Blogging goals page: "More proof that I'm having FUN while I'm reading and writing... more jokes, memes, GIFs, and general good vibes, all around." Meanwhile, from my Instagram-focused goals: "Focusing on sharing the things you enjoy about reading communities, and having a good time!" 

And certainly not a mention of follower counts in sight. 

Beyond all that, I've got a couple more pages you'll be seeing on this space in the coming weeks... both tied to other kinds of records I'm keeping for myself this year, and personal challenges I'm striving to meet in 2023. But to be perfectly honest, they're pretty personal, and not the most relevant to anyone else setting up their book journal, so I figured they could find a home in a couple of different blogposts instead. 

And with that, our reading year is off to a great start! 

Do you keep a regular Reading Journal as a part of your bookish practices? Have you already checked off a title or two for your Goodreads Challenge this year? Let me know, in the comments below!