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BooksPlanted: January 1, 2026
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My favorite books are horror and fantasy but I love exploring all sorts of genres. If you are on StoryGraph, let me know!
2025 Books2026 Reading Log
Below is a collection of the books I read in 2026. They are sorted by date read, with the most recent reads being on top.
GENRE FILTER
Click on a cover for more information and my rating/review.
Tokyo Express
CURRENTLY READING
Rating: (TBA)
🐱Blah blah blah
The Count of Monte Cristo
CURRENTLY READING
Rating: (TBA)
HERE WE GO
Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage
CURRENTLY READING
Rating: (TBA)
Reading for IRL book club. I am prepared to utterly hate this book based on the title and description but who knows. This is why we join book clubs am i right
Ward D
Date Read: 06/03/2026
Rating:
It was entertaining, like reading a movie script, but the writing was so simple that it felt like I was reading a middle grade novel. I rolled my eyes a lot.
This book is about a med student who is assigned the overnight shift at a pysch ward, and her secret hidden traumas and burdens make her wary from the start. Everything descends into chaos, and the first-person narration makes it difficult to trust what the MC sees or hears. Like most thrillers, the last third or quarter of the book was the most exciting.
I was not a fan of the way mental illness was approached and handled. The whole vibe from start to finish felt kind of insensitive.
Hemlock & Silver
Date Read: 05/22/2026
Rating:
This is Kingfisher's twist on Snow White and I loved every minute. I started reading a physical copy but when life became overly busy I switched to audiobook. As usual, there is the 30-something protag who is thrown into a Situation, in this case an assignment from the king to identify and create an antidote to save his seemingly-poisoned daughter, Snow.
Things get extremely surreal and freaky when the Mirror Mirror On The Wall becomes involved. It's a really fun read. Highly recommend.
Shit Cassandra Saw
Date Read: 05/12/2026
Rating:
This is one of the better short story compilations I’ve read. I really like Gwen’s writing style and look forward to finding/reading more soon. Like all short story compilations, there are some I like and some I didn’t, a few standouts to me at the moment as I write this include the Disneyland in Mexico story, Casper, the one about Megan who pretended to be Grace, and the one near the end with the girls at music camp. I thought it started off kind of weak, or maybe I wasn’t used to the writing style at first. I’m glad I stuck it out.
Women Without Men
Date Read: 04/25/2026
Rating:
Read for Bookbug. April was a blur and I didn't take notes as I read this, but I do recall it being very engaging to read. A few Iranian women intentionally walk away from their expected positions in society--as wives, sisters, daughters, teachers, etc.--and embark to a garden without men (except for the gardener?). There's some magical realism thrown in. I thought it was a good read especially given the present war in Iran.
Broad Strokes
DID NOT FINISH
Rating: (DNF)
It’s ok, I liked what I did read. I just lost interest bc I have other books in my queue that I’m more excited about. I may check this out from the library again at some point.
Can't Spell Treason without Tea
DID NOT FINISH
Rating: (DNF)
I got bored of it and then my audiobook loan from the library expired and I never thought to renew it.
The Melancholy of Resistance
DID NOT FINISH
Rating: (DNF)
I was overwhelmed by life and did not have the attention span to read this book. It had an incredible atmosphere, and I was very interested in the characters. I would like to read it someday when my mind is in a better place.
Downtown Owl
Date Read: 03/02/2026
Rating:
Character studies of three people living in a rural town in North Dakota: A fresh college graduate who moved in for her first-ever teaching job, a high school student, a retired community member. These characters don't really share anything in common except for the fact that they live in a town with only a few hundred people.
They don't interact with each other much, if at all, but they all experience the same events, namely the giant freak blizzard of 1984. There isn't really a plot? I enjoyed reading it because the characters felt real, albeit unlikeable.
More than anything, this book reminded me of the culture of being a high schooler in a rural town, (graduating class of 27 students) and made me feel both nostalgic and a sort of PTSD.
How Ideas Are Born: Illustrators on Creative Processes
Date Read: 02/24/2026
Rating:
Excellent collection of artists of various styles. Personal fav is Gary Baseman but I’ve enjoyed his work since I was a kid, so I’m a little biased. Everyone more or less said the same thing on what creativity means to them (observing with curiosity, playing with their inner child, experimenting) and where their ideas come from (Life), but it was interesting to read the subtle differences in their experiences.
Starling House
Date Read: 02/23/2026
Rating:
Had potential but everything was flat and anticlimactic. Writing pretty sentences does not equal an interesting story. Romance was weird and forced. Dialogue by every single character felt oddly poetic and unnatural. And ughhhh why was every other sentence a simile?
Ways of Seeing
Date Read: 02/10/2026
Rating:
A compilation of seven essays, three of which are wordless. The opening essay is my favorite, I think, because it went into how we perceive a painting depending on the context of the physical image (in a gallery? in a magazine advertisement? reproduced on television?). What does an "original" work mean when its reproduction can be viewed so easily and freely? It was written like 50 years ago (holy cow the 70s were 50 years ago) but remains especially relevant today as artists share their work widely online, AI is scraping our work and spitting out derivative slop, and all of the above are juxtaposed with online ads and influencers trying to sell us a product or idea. The other essays were excellent. I daresay this book is lifechanging to me in that it is pushing me to think critically about what it means to be an artist, what I do to influence how people perceive my art, and how I myself engage with others' art. Man.
Life in a Jar: The Irena Sendler Project
DID NOT FINISH
Rating: (DNF)
I was supposed to read this for my IRL book club but utterly failed to read more than like 10 pages lmao (January was busy and horrifying and distracting)
My Pen is the Wing of a Bird
Date read: 02/02/2026
Rating:
Picked this book for Storygraph’s read around the world 2026 (Afghanistan).
I am filled with so many emotions as I read this book, both for the stories themselves and for the real-life women of Afghanistan, who need our support more than ever. The acknowledgements section in the back makes everything feel more tragic, knowing that these stories were collected right before the Taliban’s uprising again. It feels almost impossible to rate this book, knowing the situation and context in which these stories were written and compiled.
What I appreciate are the snapshots of everyday life in Afghanistan. Moments of joy, grief, and hope. All I have known about Afghanistan are the war and impoverished living conditions, and some of these short stories let me see a bit beyond that into the humanity of its people. I really recommend picking this book up, for the challenge this year or otherwise.
Klara and the Sun
Date Read: 01/18/2026
Rating:
This was lovely. It felt kind of slice-of-life for a long while before we get that big plot point in the big city. I found some of the dialogue strange and unnatural, but it could also be due to Klara’s first-person recollection of events. I can see why this is getting a film adaptation and I look forward to seeing it when it releases.
Yellowface
Date Read: 01/03/2026
Rating:
I love a good book with a terrible MC. The first person view was great to get into the mind of a narcissistic woman playing the victim the entire time.
The ending scene in the stairs was a little unsatisfying. Like it was good, but underwhelming because it was predictable. I did, however, love the end-end.
Rating System
For many years I would rate my books, shows, movies, etc. completely on vibes alone, until I saw a rating system, below, created by aromanticduck on Tumblr. All my media reviews on Yogo Magpie will use it because it's incredible and simple to use. I won't specify if it's spicy or bland tho
| Nothing really wrong with it | A few things wrong with it | So many things wrong with it | |
| Lots of awesome things | 5 stars | 4 stars (spicy) | 3 stars (spicy) |
| A few awesome things | 4 stars (bland) | 3 stars (mild) | 2 stars (spicy) |
| Nothing really awesome | 3 stars (bland) | 2 stars (bland) | 1 star |
The idea is that you rate the thing on how much stuff you loved and how much stuff you hated, and those things weigh against each other. There's only one way to get 5 stars or 1 star, so those should end up as the rarest ratings, with 3 stars being the most common.
'Spicy' means that the thing inspires emotion, whether positive or negative, while 'bland' means it doesn't affect you much either way.
An example of a 3-star (spicy)—for me personally—would be the Twilight series, beacuse there's plenty of garbage in there but also some things that are like crack to me. I can't think of an example of a 3-star (bland) because by nature they don't stick in the mind.
(This also assumes giving 0 stars isn't allowed. That'd throw it out of whack...)
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