I visited such a nice bookstore today, went around sampling a bunch of different books. The one I left with is called Battle of the Linguist Mages, and nothing has ever described me more accurately. I'm really excited, they even used the word "morpheme", and it's about a virtual RPG from what I can tell so far? I'm hoping it will be like Ready Player 2.

My other favorites I saw today were:
- A gorgeous illustrated Sleeping Beauty, with a biracial Aurora!! When she falls asleep, the next two pages are cut-out vines that cover her more and more as you turn the pages. It was so pretty.
- Never Whistle at Night, an indigenous short horror story anthology. It started out really strong, with a big focus on social inequity and family, and a body double/evil twin. Which leads me to my next favorite,
- Out There Screaming, a horror anthology by Black authors compiled by Jordan Peel. Also starts really strong right away with a cop pulling over a Black woman and smirking at her for "watching too many tik toks of what to say when you're pulled over." Jordan's foreward was awesome too, short and to the point, but it really gave me insight into Get Out, and provided a really nice narrative thread that all the stories fit into.
- A deck of cards that each have a different spell on them, with ingredients and instructions for how to cast it. It was really inspiring, I kinda want to make my own.
- Untranslatable Words, a deck with cards that have words in different languages that don't translate.
- Mutant Cats, a graphic novel that's really brightly colored and all about different monster cats.
- Zero's Journey, a graphic novel based on The Nightmare Before Christmas, about Zero the ghost dog. It was huge, and such nice quality, would definitely make a nice display. I really liked the style too; it wasn't exactly like the movie, they had their own take on it, and I think it really translated to the medium well. They also had really cool painterly shading, which is a refreshing change of pace from all the cel-shading I've been seeing in comics everywhere.

@ Cora:

I just finished "The Girls in the Garden" by Lisa Jewell. I had a hard time getting into it. Two of the main characters were these 12 year old girls and the things they thought and said and did seemed unrealistically adult to me. I asked me coworkers about it though and the ones who had kids were like, saying they could see a 12 year old today saying or doing those things. That apparently 12 is like the new 16 with the age of the internet.

I guess I'm just an old fogey now having grown up to high school educated parents in the middle of nowhere without internet.

It kind of scares me thinking about having kids and having a 12 year old know what a pedophile is and speculate that mommy married daddy who had mental health issues (schizophrenia) because "she wanted something to take care of". Yikes!

In better news I finally visited the local library and it's pretty cool! They seem to have a pretty big selection. I didn't mean to but I picked out a bunch of books. I started reading "All that Consumes Us" which was in the LGBTQ+ section and have been enjoying it so far. I also started the audiobook of "The Unmaking of June Farrow".

---------- Post added 06-04-2025 at 03:06 PM ----------

@ Ghost: Ooh, if you end up reading "Never Whistle At Night" do let me know how it is. I'm pretty sure that one is on my list. I'll also have to look up that Mutant Cats one, that sounds really fun. That sounds like a super cool book store!

Originally Posted by zigbigadorlube

@ Cora:

I just finished "The Girls in the Garden" by Lisa Jewell. I had a hard time getting into it. Two of the main characters were these 12 year old girls and the things they thought and said and did seemed unrealistically adult to me. I asked me coworkers about it though and the ones who had kids were like, saying they could see a 12 year old today saying or doing those things. That apparently 12 is like the new 16 with the age of the internet.

I guess I'm just an old fogey now having grown up to high school educated parents in the middle of nowhere without internet.

It kind of scares me thinking about having kids and having a 12 year old know what a pedophile is and speculate that mommy married daddy who had mental health issues (schizophrenia) because "she wanted something to take care of". Yikes!

In better news I finally visited the local library and it's pretty cool! They seem to have a pretty big selection. I didn't mean to but I picked out a bunch of books. I started reading "All that Consumes Us" which was in the LGBTQ+ section and have been enjoying it so far. I also started the audiobook of "The Unmaking of June Farrow".

---------- Post added 06-04-2025 at 03:06 PM ----------

@ Ghost: Ooh, if you end up reading "Never Whistle At Night" do let me know how it is. I'm pretty sure that one is on my list. I'll also have to look up that Mutant Cats one, that sounds really fun. That sounds like a super cool book store!

I'll spare you all the details, because I'm much too tired to hash them all out again at the moment but knowing the details of the things our 12 year old is going through....they are indeed much more adult then we wish them to be.