Taste the Books: Review Morsels #66 Dana Mele, Channelle Desamours, Christopher Pike

Intro

Hello beauties!

Welcome again to my own brand of mini reviews! I never thought I'd do minis, until I recapped a few of my long reviews in some digest post in 2014, and then guest-posted some shorties for a blogging event in 2015. And Karen from For What It's Worth started praising my short recs/recaps 😊. Just to be clear,  I'm STILL writing long reviews too - but for anthologies, shorter books or books that I didn't enjoy/don't have enough to say about, I decided to stick to minis, and I took to writing them also for novels that I can do justice to in a less wordy fashion, in order to ease my reviewing burden. In addition to that, I sometimes write minis for books I don't want/don't have the time to review in full at the moment, but plan on rereading and writing "proper" reviews for later. Lastly, just be warned - this feature is VERY random!

Note: all the mini blurbs (in italics) are of my own creation.

Tell Me Something Tuesday (Partial) Round-Up (January-February 2026)

Tell Me Something Tuesday is a weekly meme created by Heidi at Rainy Day Ramblings in order to discuss a wide range of topics from books to blogging (and some slightly more personal matters throw in for good measure). After Heidi stopped blogging (apparently for good), five of us took over as hosts while providing new questions. The current team is composed of Berls at Because Reading Is Better Than Real Life, Jen at That's What I'm Talking About, Karen at For What It's Worth, Linda at Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell and Roberta at Offbeat YA. This week's question is... This time I'm doing a partial round-up of the last month's worth of questions, because I hate how I've been M.I.A. when it comes to the meme! (I'll tackle the last February question on its own on the appointed day).

January-February Round-Up

+ Question of the Day:

ARE THERE ANY BOOKS YOU'VE READ THAT CHANGED YOUR PERSPECTIVE ON A SUBJECT?

• January 6th: What are your blogging/reading goals for the new year?

As I wrote in my 2025 wrap-up: post weekly (or better, produce one post per week, which isn't the same) and incorporate more backlist books into review schedule. As for the reading part, I never set any goal because I want to do things at a leisurely pace.

Offbeat Offline: December 2025 (Plus Announcing the First Hiatus of the Year)

Welcome to Offbeat Offline, where I bring you up-to-date with what went on in my life during the month just gone, give you a sneak peek of my next shenanigans, and share my favourite posts of late!

Hello sweeties! and Happy New Year! 🎉

What happened last month to yours truly?...Nothing. I read a little, reviewed a little (adding to my string of under-4-star books), beta-read a little, dined out for my birthday but couldn't eat what I wanted, gave Christmas a wide berth (as per tradition), suffered from the usual ailments, regretted my life choices one time too many. All pretty depressing, right?

2025 Wrap-Up: In Which I Hiatus a Lot but Hold My Ground

Hello my beauties!

Welcome to my last post of the year, where I will wrap my 2025 up. This was the year of hiatuses (5 months out of 12!!!), and yet, I managed to write a fair number of posts and to end it on a high note, blog-wise and comment-wise, so it wasn't a bad one...I even managed to make a new blogging friend (hi Ryan!). Now, life-wise, that's another kettle of fish (as English folks would say) or a whole new ball game (for the American crowd) - but well. So, without further ado, here goes my 2025 recap...

Pt. 1: This Year in Blogging

As of today, I've been blogging for 13 years and a couple of months!

This year was another hard one (because at this point, they're all the same...), but marginally better than 2024, since at least my husband started to go out a little after three years of being bedridden. Blog-wise, I gave myself permission to write more mini reviews, because if I had continued to review in full every book from 4 stars up (as I used to), I'd have read less and made myself miserable (full reviews take a real toll on me sometimes, especially since mine are very structured - but I like them that way...)...Also, even with five months' worth of hiatus in total, I was able to write 47 posts, that is, almost a post a week, which (as usual) was my tentative goal, so I'd call it a win...

This is what happened on Offbeat YA during the year, broken down by number of posts, books I reviewed, other bookish content/activities...plus an off-blog, real-life section!