u/FuckingaFuck

It's interesting to look back on previous months and see what else I would have chosen with the hindsight of reviews and recommendations. What did you "miss" so far in 2026?

I only picked one book per month, so I ended up with some duds that I wish I had replaced. I've heard really amazing things about these 4:

• April - Our Sister's Keeper (to be fair, I chose Japanese Gothic that month and it was superb)
• May - John of John and The Girl With a Thousand Faces (I really fucked up with The Caretaker instead, one of the worst books I've ever read)
• August - She's a Doll (which definitely would have been better than The Intrigue)

While I'm at it, here's the ones I missed in 2025 but would like to read at some point:

• Itch!
• Moderation
• The Starving Saints
• When the Wolf Comes Home
• The Reformatory

https://preview.redd.it/6zrt7hdbvjqh1.png?width=929&format=png&auto=webp&s=4958f838e716c5b4d41754178785625fed1c33e2

I checked the Storygraph reviews for Rebecca Yarros's not-yet-published book thinking ARCs may have been distributed by now, but what I found instead was this single piece of garbage. Any guesses what the ChatGPT prompt was?

Highlights:

• Marcel's mini history lesson connecting doo-wop to k-pop
• Susie unlocking a memory of mine from 2005 by mentioning that the JoBros covered Busted. Then, I crossed my fingers that she would play McFly and she didn't.
• Mariana matching the rhythm of her yoga flow to the music - most yoga instructors just let the music play in the background and reference it a couple times. Mariana's class was SO GOOD.
• Cody's NSYNC ride, the whole thing

Lowlights:

• Hearing "Bye Bye Bye" 6 times in 5 days

It is the best visualization exercise I've found in years.

Sometimes, I have trouble getting to sleep. More often, I wake up at 3 AM and can't get back to sleep. Now, I can wander through empty rooms in my mind if I can't think of anything to focus on. More frequently, my brain feeds me anxiety-inducing shit like did I forget to lock the door or remember that embarrassing moment from 2 years ago? I can intentionally construct it in the Backrooms. I lock doors in the Backrooms. I sink the setting of my embarrassment into the floor and cover it with dust.

Even after seeing monsters in the movie, I don't find the Backrooms scary. They're comforting in their endless silence and ability to swallow my anxious thoughts.

This is the first major maintenance cost that I've had on my 2019 Bolt, so I figured I'd report out here. I've been able to hear my brakes for a couple months, but not super squeaky. Just a light shhhh noise that reflects when I drive next to a wall. I could see rust and uneven wear on the rotors. I wasn't too worried about it, but I figured I would mention it at my next rotation/inspection. They checked it out and recommended I have the rotors machined for $250 per axle. Now my brakes are silent!

I'm sure I could have shopped around but $500 seems reasonable for maintenance after 7 years, what do you think? Beyond this it's just been a new set of tires around 42000 miles and a few wipers and air filters.

This is the first novel I've ever read that included a family tree directly in the book. It's about a family story of a piece of land passing down through generations. It's unique because while there's only one narrator, all relevant generations have input to the story as ghosts. It's fun to hear each of their voices, and of course there's sadness surrounding their deaths.

I liked the characters and the plot, but my favorite part of the whole thing was the family tree! It was right in the beginning before the first page, so I saw it immediately and frequently referred to it. There was still some question about who was who, multiple chapters with just pronouns where the reader is held in suspense and encouraged to guess, but that worked just fine with the established tree. I feel like the pre-reveal/lack of suspense is what holds authors back from doing this, but Sanders was able to make it work just fine!

I often annotate a family tree myself, most recently for Master Slave Husband Wife by Ilyon Woo and for The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. I definitely think Jones could have included one, although the connection between >!Arthur Beaucarne and Benjamin Flowers!< may have to have been reworded IIRC. I don't hate doing it myself, but It really added to this story to have it written out as the author intended.

I'm very new, trying Monarch as an alternative to YNAB. My primary use of budgeting software is to be able to minimize my checking account balance to maximize my HYSA balance and know when it's time to invest some more.

In YNAB, this is easy because I have scheduled all of my recurring transactions and large single expected transactions. These scheduled transactions appear in my checking account and I can see the running balance projected through future months.

I know when my account is running low because the future number is negative.

It seems like none of that is a thing in Monarch (scheduling transactions ahead of time is tedious and there are no running balances that I can see). So those of you with a similar goal to me, how do you achieve it? How are you confident with a low checking account balance?

Short context - I have not enjoyed reading this series, I don't care about any of the characters, and I dislike SJM's writing style. I have not been surprised or emotionally moved by any of the plot in EoS or KoA.

HOWEVER when the King of Adarlan takes Dorian's place to forge the Lock, because he is also Nameless, Dorian tries to say his name and the next line says "But where there should have been a name, only an empty hold existed."

This was an immediate "oh shiiiit" moment for me because I had vaguely wondered a few times earlier in the series what the King's name was. He's referred to by his title and as Dorian's father, but not by first name that I could remember. Literally nameless. And I was blown away by the subtlety and 5000 pages of planning.

Turns out I'm just a dumbass?

I don't know which book clarifies that but now I'm disappointed all over again.

Edit: I kept reading, SJM really cooked here!

I had preordered ACOTAR books 6 and 7 with my local bookstore, who is also going to be hosting a release party for preorder holders only. They sent out an email a few months ago whenever it was announced and I remembered the last release party I went to and got excited and swept up in the hype.

Well. I'm 2/3 of the way through Kingdom of Ash, and I plan to make this the last SJM book I ever read. Slogging through reading this giant book, I had an epiphany that I don't have to read every word. About a hundred pages ago, I started skimming and reading primarily dialogue. And it's SOO much better, I'm enjoying it more. My reading comprehension instantly increased by NOT reading all of the details and nonsense that she includes. Which absolutely confirmed for me (after reading over 6000 pages of her work and spending months and months of my life) that SJM's writing is absolutely not for me. I emailed the bookstore and cancelled the preorder.

(To those wondering why I didn't DNF a long long time ago, like an entire series ago, it's because I have 4 totally separate friends in my life who don't know each other but all keep saying how I need to keep going, it gets so good, Throne of Glass changed their lives. Sunk costs and friendships are on the line, I figured I would keep reading and maybe they'd be right? Maybe something would happen that would make it all worth it? Not considering that I have never for a moment cared about any of these characters or what happens to them, so what could possibly turn that around? Literally nothing can make me care.)

It's depressing that I have so many fantasies sitting on my TBR shelf that I have no interest in because right now it feels like fantasy sucks. I'm going to use the $40 from the preorder to buy some litfic or scifi or horror books at my local bookstore instead.

For context, these are the books of hers that I enjoyed in order from best to worst:

A Court of Silver Flames

Tower of Dawn

A Court of Mist and Fury

Heir of Fire

What do these have in common? They are healing journeys. Of Nesta, of Chaol, of Feyre, of Aelin. These characters started at their lowest point and slowly became the best version of themselves over the course of each of those books. I think Maas has a lot of weaknesses that I won't list here, but this is her at her strongest.

Spoiler tags needed here for sure...

I just finished Coffin Moon and I was sitting thinking about the ending - which is ambiguous, but not really. It wasn't my favorite but it did make me take time to digest, which I appreciate. I concluded that >!Minor took the last silver bullet. The signs are all there - he refused to feed, he brought the gun into the bar, and he started reading Heidi's manuscript so that their stories could end simultaneously.!<

My absolute favorite ending has been Hungerstone, but for me that's too easy of an answer. From beginning to the last word, that book is flawless.

Less obvious is Trad Wife, which was probably a 2 star rating until >!the demon really started to take care of Camille and Sweetheart. I LOVED the demon.!<

And I loved and hated the ending of You Weren't Meant to be Human. >!I spent the whole depressing time assuming Crane was on his own because of lack of support from family, but when Crane's parents immediately accept him, it makes me so sad that he went through it all for nothing. He probably didn't have to be in a shitty relationship or join a worm cult and experience the hundreds of pages of pain if he had had better communication with his mom and dad.!<

I didn't recognize the bassist in Brooklyn last night, anyone know who it was?

Edit: Pascal was also missing.

I notice my mental health is correlated with how much time is filled with other things vs. scrolling. Back in February I was having a tough time, probably due to the weather but also the free scrolling time I let myself have. Now, in my better months, it's minimized because this is my typical post-work routine:

- 4:00 PM Get home and take care of my flock of backyard chickens

- Play with my dog

- Lift weights/go for a run/practice yoga

- Meal prep or reheat meal prep

- (this is sometimes when scrolling pops in if I have dinner in front of my computer)

- Go to book club/help a neighbor/call a parent/see a local play or stay home to clean/organize

- 8:00 PM Read for a minimum of 20 minutes before bed with my phone in another room

I only have around 4.5 hours before I'm asleep every weeknight, and there are so many things that I need to do and want to do in those 4.5 hours that there's not much time to fuck around on my phone.

It still happens when my energy and mood are low, when I do the bare minimum care for my animals and myself and the time stretches open. But as I schedule more things that matter to me and stick to my habits, they completely crowd out scrolling time from my life.