Tell Me Something Tuesday: What Day in Your Life Would You Like to Relive?

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...

WHAT DAY IN YOUR LIFE WOULD YOU LIKE TO RELIVE?

Truth be told...none. As Lewis Carroll would put it,

"It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then." (Alice in Wonderland)

If I could go back (as in, shove my grown-up mind in my younger body, I assume?) to one of the (few) capital-happy days of my life (like when I met my once-favourite singer for the first time), I would indeed be a different person, or the people in it would mean nothing to me anymore because I've become too far-removed from them, or I would be aware that the joy I felt back then was based on false premises. There isn't a single happy day that I can think of that wouldn't be tainted by the turn my life has taken since then, or by my present awareness of things I didn't realise at the time, or by my knowing I should have taken a different path, sometimes even in that very moment, and built a better life for myself. So...if you asked me, would you like to go back to a certain day and tell your younger self to live her life differently, I'd say yes, please, take me back NOW. But the happy days of the past are better left alone. That naive, hopeful girl will never come back anymore.

Sarah Hollowell: "What Stalks Among Us"

Title: What Stalks Among Us [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Sarah Hollowell [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Supernatural, Contemporary
Year: 2023
Age: 14+
Stars: 4.5/5
Pros: Spectacular premise that delivers all along. Lots of (often literal) twists and turns. Powerful friendship dynamic. Fat rep. Addresses lots of important topics (see the WARNING! section).
Cons: A couple of plot points ended up being red herrings of sorts or getting no explanations.
WARNING! (TW list provided by the author): Physical, emotional, and psychological abuse; aspects of abuse including victim blaming, isolation, manipulation, and gaslighting; mental illness (depression, anxiety, PTSD), self-harm (cutting), death, violence (gunshots, stabbing, strangulation), gore and body horror.
Will appeal to: Those who are in for a time-looping supernatural mystery with a strong contemporary core.

Blurb: Best friends and high school seniors Sadie and Logan ditch their end-of-year field trip to the amusement park in favor of exploring some old, forgotten backroads. The last thing they expect to come across is a giant, abandoned corn maze. When they stumble on the corpses in the maze, identical to them in every way (if you can ignore the stab and gunshot wounds) they quickly realize they’ve not only entered this maze before, they’ve died in it too. A lot. And no matter what they try, they can’t figure out what - or who - is hunting them. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: I requested this book on NetGalley last year to no avail. It turns out that (regardless of my small following, that might very well have been the reason for the rejection) I was a potential champion for it all along, because I kept it on my radar, I ultimately read it all the same and I loved it! (It doesn't hurt that it matches my blog aesthetic so well LOL).

A-MAZE ME

You know that feeling when a book has got an exciting premise, except the story doesn't make it justice? Well, nothing of the sort happened here. What Stalks Among Us (genius title, BTW) delivered on all counts, keeping me on my toes with all the twist and turns of the plot and the setting alike. I was invested in the mystery and the outcome (plus other aspects that I'll talk about later), but regardless, navigating the maze was a ton of fun in itself, a never-ending source of surprises and exhilarating moments. Also, the maze had a timey-wimey quality that I dug a lot, with intersecting temporal planes and even a number of loops - not to mention, it sometimes reacted to its visitors' (or better, prisoners') presence in very specific ways. I have to admit that not every one of the labyrinth's peculiarities made complete sense (neither did its genesis - knowing what I know now, I would have expected something different than a corn maze at the very least): e. g., I'm not sure how two instances of the same character could coexist, since it seemed at odds with the premise, and Sadie's connection to the maze and the significance of the sheep skeleton were never explained (though I have a theory about the former...but then again, it's contradicted by what happened with another character). But on the whole, the worldbuilding was well-executed and full of interesting angles (and paths...and more angles...see what I did here? 😉). [...]

Offbeat Offline: August 2024

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!

What happened last month to yours truly? THE HEAT. And...oops...a new eye problem for me, because of course. That's it. Well, I mean, my husband's ulcer is slowly but steadily getting better at last...but goodness, THE HEAT. I've been numb for the whole month, barely reading, barely reviewing, eating the usual assortment of quick/cold dishes, with the who-cares attitude of a cavewoman (primordial-instincts-only mode activated). Seriously, THE HEAT 🥵 😭. And then, the eye.

Tell Me Something Tuesday: Which Books Are You Looking Forward to Reading This Fall? (September-November)

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...

WHICH BOOKS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO READING THIS FALL? (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER)

I don't know if I'll ever get around to buying all these books or when, since 1) early reviews and excerpts might cause me to change my mind in the future, and 2) given my current situation (see: unemployment status), book money is scarce...(I got most of these in eARC form though! See below). Anyhow, I wanted to give a bit of exposure to all the fall books that caught my eye, so here's my list (complete with pub dates)...