Books I read this year (2025)

I'm writing this as something of a document of what I ended up reading this year and what I thought. Nothing more complicated than that.

One little disclaimer though: I get it if you look at my "wannabe librarian" thing and imagine that would mean a snobbery to, say, comics or graphic novels, or even audiobooks...quite the opposite. See audiobooks are an accessibility feature for those who might not have the time to sit down and read for an hour a night, those who are blind, or those who have trouble reading generally, for whatever reason. I actually bring up accessibility as an issue in one of the forthcoming reviews as a book I read this year didn't seem to care about it (you'll see what I mean). Comics and graphic novels are a generally maligned art form for multiple reasons. Some have a basis (caricature being the biggie). Some don't (the medium IS diverse. If you're not into superheroes, that doesn't mean comics have NOTHING for you. You just have to dig a little). I'd even give comics a shoutout for helping with literacy - I mean if a kid isn't interested in Skulduggery Pleasant or The Hunger Games but IS interested in Heartstopper (I have no idea what comics sell well these days)...that's a kid reading. Why should anyone stop them because it's not the "right kind of book?" This is also an "all ages" thing, if you can't read a full book, for whatever reason, but CAN read a comic? Where's the issue? (also...that is not a controversial opinion for a librarian AT ALL! I have been to a few "how do we get more people reading" seminars, I've even done a few courses through the LIS association I'm a part of and EVERY SINGLE ONE has treated the subject of audiobooks and comics with "yes, these count as reading.").

Also I AM willing to listen to reading recommendations but even after EVERYTHING in this blog, I have a reading collection with a lot to get through. So it's basically a 50/50 if I get to it or not. Apologies.

Now that's out of the way, let's get into it.

Transgender Liberation by Leslie Feinberg - A pamphlet from the 90s about historicizing trans experiences with figures and cultures that we know of. I find this to be a weird subject honestly. Mostly to do with how young the language around trans identities is. Not to say these identities didn't exist in history, just...acknowledging that "what if these people were just crossdressers?" "what if they were transvestites?" are ALSO valid interpretations as we don't know for sure how these people would've identified, had they had the language to do so. I don't see that as a "smoking gun invalidation" of trans people though. Especially with queer culture, language around those topics are very new, historically speaking; "Homosexual" only dates as far back as the 1880s, "Heterosexual" is actually the younger term. Yet to say "X person in history was gay or bisexual", even if they didn't have the language, can be determined entirely by "who did they have sex with?" With being Transgender, as you can imagine, it gets complicated (at the risk of going off the rails - Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote extensively about the difficulties humans face in communicating. If "I'm upset" can be taken the wrong way, is it any wonder "I feel like I'm the opposite sex, neither, both" STILL gets polarizing for people? ANOTHER "language hard!" tangent - "Blue" as a word in other languages is actually the same as many a culture's words for "Green" or sometimes "White" "Yellow" "Black" or "Red" - so...explain how you'd inform someone who had (colour)blindness of the difference in hue). So I DID enjoy the book as this cool little piece of history and self affirmation. There are also some historical points in this book where "I didn't know that. I'll have to double check." The major one she seemed stuck on was Joan of Arc being a trans guy and given it WAS true that Joan was burned alive for dressing like a man and refusing to conform to a gender role, among "other things"...I can see where Feinberg is coming from. I'd still take the information in it with a pinch of salt but I'm not dismissing what she's saying either. Just an acknowledgement that...this shit gets complicated.

Nimona by ND Stevenson - To be honest, while I did give that spiel of "comics are diverse" at the beginning, I spent SOME of this year trying to break down my own biases towards it (I started doing this last year with comics by Jhonen Vasquez and When The Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs). As a preteen I DID get into comics but ONLY the superhero shit and what happened in print and other media to the genre made me fucking embarrassed by it (that was back in 2012! Seeing where these properties went and pop culture around it, I can't say I'm in a rush to revisit it). I chose this as a comic to read this year, solely because my sibling enjoyed it. I did too. It's a simple enough message of understanding what people are going through, "heroes and villains" aren't that one sided in real life, and to openly question political regimes built on dehumanization. However, this isn't some alienating "too deep" lore thing. It's still a fun read for all ages for more or less the entire thing (barring when we finally learn Nimona's backstory, I guess). If you're interested in the comedy, the main character is Balthazar who is a knight who is made a villain, his goal is to clear his name but Nimona is all too happy to adopt traditional villain traits because "chaos goblin." That is the structure of all the humour. Most of your opinion of the story will be based on how well you think the balance of that kind of humour and "weighty questions on heroes and villains and society" is handled (I mean ACTUAL questions, not "We live in a SOCIETY!").

I'll also add a QUICK review of the movie here as I read the book first - I liked it. The first comic book movie I've said that about in years (barring When The Wind Blows and The People's Joker...that is a WEIRD triple feature!). It had a lot of the book's fun atmosphere. Chloe Moretz and Riz Ahmed are perfectly cast and work well together, had BlueSky Studios actually made it, I honestly would've called it their best movie. In terms of adaptation though,...I don't like the ending. As a film, I think it works alright but it's more or less "the heroes proved they weren't villains" and I find that to just be playing it really safe, especially compared to how the book ends and how much more...reflective it is of societal attitudes towards "heroes and villains". (Disney rejecting this DOES make sense to me, despite me calling it safe. I mean it has gay characters they can't edit out in a comic book property without sequel opportunity AND is anti-war in messaging. It's like asking for them to bankroll a brand new IP instead of buying others and running them into the ground).

The Angriest Dog In The World by David Lynch - As weird as it is to say, I don't have a lot to say about this one. If you don't know, David Lynch had a comic strip in a local newspaper. This book compiles a few of them into a readable format. That was why I read it "Twin Peaks creator made a comic strip" - I had to know! (also I wanted to honour Lynch as he died around the time I read this) As much as there are trademark Lynch oddities, it still mostly functions as a silly little aside intended to make you laugh. It did for me. I don't REALLY know what to say about this one beyond "it's a newspaper comic that made me laugh." I kind of got the impression because it was Lynch, it would've given me more to talk about. Not saying I didn't enjoy it, just beyond Lynch fans and people who generally enjoy reading "the funnies," I don't see a wide appeal for this one.

Lets Talk About It by Erika Moren & Matt Nolan - I talked about this one when I read it. It's another comic book but intended to be read by teenagers in the attempt to learn about sex. It is also one of the most censored books in America. I have to admit "sex education comic" is where my attention for this thing came up. As much as I played up the "I fail to see the reason this was banned" when I read it, I get why on an American Puritanism level. I mean they had the Comics Code to censor what stories were told and why. To say nothing of things like sex education where they like covering genitals for the comfort level of the adults teaching (small statement - if you teach sex education and aren't comfortable showing reproductive organs, you're horrible at teaching sex! I was first taught when I was 10 and even THAT had "here's what a penis looks like" "here's what a vagina looks like" - call out the woke politics now! People like...John Howard? - If you're not Australian you PROBABLY don't know how funny that is!). However, the fact this book also features things like "how to tell if you're in an abusive relationship" "how to be a good friend" "my body has this, is that normal" and honestly, banning this just perpetuates a few negative stereotypes about Americans. It's an education guide first and comic second (both writers ARE sex educators as well as comics writers). On those merits, I ALSO really liked this book. I'd recommend this, especially if you're one of those "confused by the modern day attitudes towards..." I mean if you genuinely don't know, nothing wrong with learning.

Information for the Female to Male Crossdresser and Transsexual by Lou Sullivan - This one is one I read in an attempt to actually read what "the staff counterpart" goes through, so to speak. Like I know the broad strokes and I've read Feinberg but not Sullivan (the reason why I wanted to read both is both were trans activists in the 1980s/1990s and I wanted to see trans perspectives without modern internet culture bullshit). I actually think this book might be better put together than Feinberg's. It contains details on how to Masculinize your appearance, how to pass safely, if you can (I don't REALLY want to put any of it into practice but I still found it interesting), and even some stat stuff like we hear constantly about "Trans people? THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!" and this book, written in 1990 (at least that's when the edition I have came out), pulled data from families who had trans parents or family members and it showed that kids exposed to being gay or trans weren't more or less likely to become gay or trans. Just "humans that happen to have..." (I'd say the "stat stuff" has a sample size issue but we've seen the same kind of thing said with bigger studies and sample sizes over and over and over again). It also does historicizing like in Feinberg's book but Sullivan is a bit more into the nitty gritty of "this is what to do to pass, this is what to expect when trans" so there's actually a little more to it. Also, I want to share one of my favourite lines from the book. It made me laugh (I genuinely want to crochet this onto a pillow and give it to a trans guy. No specific trans guy, just "a trans guy"):

"Make special points of observing other men. Especially look for stereotypical masculine qualities in them and evaluate yourself in comparison. You may discover that, when it comes right down to it, YOU have more 'balls' than a lot of men!"

The 120 Days of Sodom by The Marquis de Sade (Incomplete) - This one is the first proper "slump book" in that I didn't just dislike it, I gave up on it. I should explain the reason in that...I knew about this books sexual content. If the title wasn't enough, it got adapted into one of the most controversial movies ever made (Salo or 120 Days of Sodom (1975) - the movie tones stuff down) and the writer is literally where we get the word "Sadism" from. This book is basically his Wattpad submission (I feel like I just made this sound like the book from Evil Dead) and even by those limitations, the pacing is horrible. The amount of detail that goes into describing the villains, multiple pages of "this is how hairy he was" "this is how his ass looked" "this is his entire world view and HOW he came to that viewpoint." EVERY Aristocrat is described that way. I mean I don't understand WHY a "why I am the way I am" is required for the villains of something like this. The aristocrats are given more development than the people they dehumanize, it's like reading/watching When The Wind Blows and being forced to root for the nuclear bomb. This is where I have to go against type and say "the film is better" - I don't LIKE the film but it understands the power dynamic and that you can't make villains in something like THIS relatable! It also has more to say on the dehumanization of the society that the story takes place in. The victims aren't given development in the film either but you at least feel sorry for them and the fact they were forced into this shit (unfortunately, that's not just a metaphor...)

I should also TRY to justify why I tried to read this in the first place, (believe it or not, it wasn't just, "how much can I destroy my own brain?"). See, I've seen a LOT of people over the last couple years in particular talk about sexual content in media. Many are so prudent with it that the act of ANY sex on screen or in written form is inherently dismissed as pornographic or immoral (I discovered this mindset on Tumblr of all bloody places!). I absolutely disagree with this sentiment - sex on the page or on the screen can be liberating, it can be used to say something about the characters, it can be an important plot point, hell, if it's between two consenting adults...I don't see the issue and don't understand why it needs justifying. To go to the darker stuff, I've read books and seen films that DO contain rape and pedophilia as themes which build on how that affected the protagonists (it helped me rationalize some of MY experiences). I also defend "smut fiction" in that if said kink doesn't hurt anyone (beyond what each participant finds pleasurable, obviously), there's nothing wrong with having a fantasy. That said, I think we could make a tapestry of all the rich people in the world who've used the simple power of being rich to abuse, use and exploit people in a sexual manner. The Marquis De Sade is basically the grandfather of that kind of controversy (his sexual exploits got him in prison BEFORE the French Revolution - he practiced "BDSM" on people whether they wanted him to or not...of all ages). I can't deny there is value in someone as fucked up as the Marquis was putting his fetishes and fantasies on display like this. Especially when you consider the film and how it gets comparisons to real world sex rings like Epstein Island. So "rich guy who was fucked up writes a book about sexual dehumanization, gets comparisons to modern rich person sex crime bullshit." By any stretch, this is a hard book to read, but I feel like examining that kind of evil has its merits.

House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski - I actually have had this on my "to read" pile for a WHILE. Reason being that Mark's sister is 90s Alternative Rock musician POE and she released an album companion piece to this book called Haunted. Haunted has been my favourite album for over 10 years. So "okay, what's the book like?" To geek out a LITTLE about the album, this book was the first time in a while I enjoyed metatextual references to another work. Lines of spoken dialogue in the album are referencing events in the book, there's also a fan theory that songs in the album are internal monologues of characters in the book (it's one of those things if you experience one but not the other, it's not ESSENTIAL but it helps). The most obvious connection being "The 5 & 1/2 Minute Hallway" is both a place in the book and a song on the album (The song also appears IN the book but the reason why would get too complicated and this is one of the longest reviews already - this book has A LOT going on!). Both the book and the album reference the death of their father (though here, the character is named "Zampano" - sorry if this borders on parasocial for both artists, but you can't convince me that's not who Zampano is supposed to be). To talk about the book on it's own, I actually think this does have an original take on the "Haunted House" trope in that...there are no literal ghosts. The house itself is alive and ever-changing. Adding rooms, interior dimensions are larger than the exterior and...when they enter said "Five and a half minute hallway", a hallway that by all laws of nature and the rational world shouldn't exist, they keep feeling like there's SOMETHING in the dark with them. However they can't actually SEE it, nor can they find it. All they have to go on is it growls and whenever it growls it sounds like it's coming from everywhere. Most obvious explanation, that growl is the house itself but some characters have theories that its POSSIBLY MAYBE a Minotaur (to be fair "corridor that shouldn't exist but does, something growls at me from inside", the situation is already insane so...why not?). When the characters try to figure out just what any of that means, they look for meaning with structural engineers, psychologists, intellectuals, real estate agents, historians, even other creatives, and after trying to learn, what they get is more questions. The more questions, the more abstract everything feels. A couple documentary filmmakers try to go in to explore but it goes VERY Blair Witch - they quickly go insane. So this is basically a haunted house story with storytelling techniques of a David Lynch movie. Oddly enough, that comparison helps in two ways, the first is the more abstract everything gets, the more it actually does feel like reading a nightmare, (to also go back to the album temporarily, I always thought the album felt like someone's subconscious mind, so even this might be a connection between book and album). The second is...this isn't a first person retelling of the encounter. It's a literary dissection OF a literary dissection of a film (the documentary mentioned). Hell, there's an entire second story featuring the most immediate character to the story basically losing his mind over what he reads and trying to drown out what he knows by sex, drugs, and alcohol (I DID like these segments but it REALLY IS just "20-something, trying to fill the void with a destructive lifestyle" stuff. "You've seen one, you've seen them all").

THAT SAID...I DID like the book but not enough to be blind to bad elements in it. Or at least, the elements that make it a hard book to recommend. For one, the formatting of the book makes an audiobook or a medium transfer of ANY KIND impossible (there IS Braille in the book AND it's been translated into many different languages but I don't envy the people who had to do it AND the idea of this thing in complete braille feels punishing in its own way). It's also very unforgiving if you happen to suffer from dyslexia in certain parts of the book. At one point the text is reversed and I had to hold a mirror up to it just to read it (my family laughed at me for going THAT FAR to simply read a book). Some pages have multiple boxes of text that go in the wrong direction. Sometimes text is squeezed into a corner. Reading this in public is a hassle because "Why is that person turning the book on it's side?" Because that's the only way to read certain chapters! I get that this was probably an attempt to isolate the reader and try to get them to feel the fear and "what the fuck is going on?!" of the characters. I will admire the author for doing something atypical but not at the expense of accessibility or even just...making the book readable. I mean people do get weirdly angry over disabled people being able to access certain art forms but this book gets "inaccessible" to able-bodied people, let alone the disabled! The other is...this horror book also doubles as a parody of academia and I actually skipped a few of the footnotes. Hell, the book even admits quite a few of the texts referenced simply don't exist or worse, don't even matter to the story. I mean there are SOME moments where it works (citations of interviews with characters, books about what the house could possibly be, translations of certain phrases or words, elaboration on that Minotaur theory, the second story I mentioned is told THROUGH the footnotes) and I have heard the fan theory that this is "trapping YOU in the 5 and a half minute hallway, you go down a rabbit hole of these footnotes and find dead ends" which I WILL pay, however, it means that I actually DID spend some of my reading time of this book deciding "is this important? Is it not?" and I feel like the fact anything at all ended up in the "not" section is an admission of the author fucking up. Maybe I'm just too picky. But this DID get to me when...backward text on a page I had to hold a mirror up to to read turned out to be a footnote that I didn't see as being important to follow up on. So...I'd recommend IF you're okay with what I just described in this paragraph. I do like the book BUT I'm aware of it's accessibility issues and then some.

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi - One thing I took away from House Of Leaves was that I wanted to read something a bit more grounded after that. So I decided to go with something autobiographical. It was either this or The Divingbell and the Butterfly by Jean Dominique Bauby (yeah, two French books). What made me read this one first was twofold - I was interested in reading a Franco-Belgian comic because I genuinely hadn't before. That and I also appreciate the way comics can cover triggering ground. In that making something "a cartoon", the author can revisit memories of a protest she went to with her family turning violent when the government "started blasting", all while being true to those events. If you have no idea what this is - it's a book about a girl who grew up in Iran during the 1979 revolution. She is grown enough to be aware of the freedoms she starts losing and after a major violent event (not the one I just described), her family decides its not safe for her there and sends her to Vienna where she sees Iran from the outside looking in. With the bigotry she experiences for being Iranian as well as dealing with...political posing, ignorance and general cultural clash. She goes back to Iran but her experiences make her even more "controversial." I'd recommend this if you want something humanist to read. A big "I am more than my country, you are more, we all have dreams, fears and hopes" statement. While I did talk about caricature in comics being an issue, this is a great example of one that universalizes one's experiences. It's also quite critical of governments in general. A power climb. The Iranian and American governance isn't so different (I'm writing this up in April. I feel like leaving that as is just to see how well this ages! I hope it ages badly but...I know what the chances are of that).

Another "what did I think of the movie?" paragraph. On the whole, the movie falls into "it's condensed but I don't have much to complain about besides that" territory. I'm not even upset at the condensing, because everything gets at LEAST the bare minimum representation. That and...the author directed it, so I can't exactly say "this isn't how she would've wanted it!" On the whole though, what I'd complement about the book is applicable to the film. I actually think you should both read AND watch Persepolis but if you can only get one or the other at any one moment, I'd say "go for it."

The Catcher In The Rye by JD Salinger - (I wanted to give myself a break between autobiographies) One thing you all probably should know for context with this one is my mother is a bit of a Beatles fan. She bought this book because John Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, grew to idolize the main character and, from that, made John a target. My mother is also a true crime fan and wanted me to read it because "what pushed him over the edge?" - (I'm buying the audiobook for her). Now, this book DOES HAVE a bit of a previous with "person reads it and kills someone!" Chapman with Lennon, John Hinckley Jr's assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan and Robert John Bardo's murder of Rebecca Schaeffer (yes, all the murders, attempted or successful, "inspired by this book" happened in the 1980s). Now I personally don't put a whole lot of stock in the idea that the book alone was enough for these people to do anything. However, I do understand why someone interested in the crimes would experience the art in a "what's IN here?!" I think people look for comfort in there being "an easy reason" why someone turned out fucked up. Be that Bardo, Hinckley, Chapman or even Manson (if we're bringing The Beatles into this discussion...). It's comforting because the truth is much scarier than "a book did this" or "an album did this" - the human mind can just BE that level of cruel, all for the flimsiest of reasons why. I also feel the need to point out that Catcher In The Rye is beloved American literature, The Beatles' White Album is beloved Pop music. If there WAS anything in these artworks that contained a secret "KILL PEOPLE" message, surely there'd be a lot more names than just the 4 here, for a combined total. So, despite the dark legacy, I don't see this book as having a "KILL" message and this is the last time I'll mention this influence as...I don't see that as being important to my overall opinion.

So...what did I think of the book? You know you're in for a long read when your book written in first person gets an eye roll on the first page. A lot of this character's thought process is done in that teenager who just discovered Nietzche "this is all meaningless!" way; "This person is a phony", "I'm not asserting myself to my schoolwork because I can't get interested", "guy next to me was boring the shit out of this ugly girl but...I suppose ugly girls are lucky to put up with stuff like that." Imagine being stuck in the head of someone who had thoughts like that about everyone and everything...and that's MOST of this book. He also never applies any of that judgement to himself because "well it's not MY fault school didn't peak my interest!" Barring the last two chapters, he also never learns from his own mistakes. The mistake is always "getting caught" or "association with phonies." THAT is the narrator you're stuck with if you decide to brow beat your way through this, like I did (if I wanted that I'd attempt hookup culture at a Marilyn Manson show!). The last two chapters are him taking his kid sister out to the Zoo for a day out and this honestly felt like the first step in him breaking down his own bullshit. I personally saw it as "too little too late" for getting this character a likeable moment though. Now I'm actually aware this is the point, but I still don't like the book. Even by the standard of "teenager's inner monologue", the character just gets too insufferable and is too much of a prick to those around him for me to properly give a shit what happens to him. I mean Perks Of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky more directly deals with the themes of this book and the protagonist there atones for mistakes, at least. I'd even defend A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess as being "an easier read" as it IS representative of the worst possible crimes humanity can do and the inhumanity of government response. "Eye for an eye, EVERYONE is blind." So I refuse to accept that this was a "doomed from the start" book for my taste. That said...still didn't like it.

The Divingbell and the Butterfly by Jean Dominique Bauby - This is another "I've wanted to read this one for a while" book. I have to confess seeing the movie first and it's honestly one of my very favourite films. If none of you have seen it nor know what it's about, Bauby was a writer/journalist who suffered a stroke which damaged his brain stem, giving him Locked In Syndrome and only able to communicate by blinking his one working eye. That was the only functionality his body had. He wrote the book with an assistant who'd use Letter Frequency to help him write it out. This is a memoir he wrote in that state. The "Divingbell" being his metaphor for what his body has become and "The Butterfly" being his metaphor for his own mind. With that in mind, this paints a PRETTY clear answer to the question of what it's like living with Locked-In Syndrome. From the casual fantasies, to the more mundane hospital routines he finds himself stuck in, to memories he happens to have, to dreams he happens to have, to days out he manages to get, to casual ableism that comes from people not knowing how to react. I say that last one without judgement as I think we're ALL capable of ableism on some level, especially if the condition is confronting and what is Locked-In if not confronting? However, because of that isolation, Bauby definitely let his thoughts run wild and that is reflected in the book. I also think a little reminder of the humanity of these people is absolutely important. That it's worth pulling out the stops to help where possible. This book is a nice reminder of that.

Now, this book is actually the first major hurdle with regards to movie adaptions because it's the first time, so far, where I saw the film first - I was worried that'd cloud my judgement. To complicate matters, something I found out was that the 2007 adaption was technically NOT the first adaptation. Bauby himself was actually in a documentary called Locked-In Syndrome, directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix. Now the reason I feel like adding this is Bauby's writing doesn't really DWELL on physical descriptions of people, places or on conversations and so to actually see the hospital staff he referenced, not to mention the man himself was interesting. The reason why I count this as an adaption despite it only being 30 minutes long is a majority of the movie is also quotations from the book. So...this is the "everyday" version of Bauby's life, so despite the short runtime, there is PLENTY here for fans of the book. As for the dramatization and "one of my favourite films" (it still is) - if we're JUST going by the book, I'd actually say this was a great adaption. The biggest change I could see is that the book DOES jump from idea to idea a lot, whereas the film adds a conventional structure, which I'd call fairly standard practice for a book like this. To be honest, everything is there and accounted for. The book is only 130 pages, the movie is 2 hours, so I can't even say "it's condensed" like in Persepolis. However, the reason I didn't get into "real life" with Persepolis is that Marjane Satrapi has more or less admitted any change she made to her life in book OR film was just "dramatic license" (so all "based on a true story" media ever made - also Satrapi's only real "that is NOT how it happened!" opposition is from the Iranian Government. I'll let you make up your own mind on who you believe). Now Bauby never watched any of the films made about his life. He actually died a week before Beineix's film came out. With THIS in mind, I've heard that while the 2007 movie IS accurate to the book, it's not accurate to his life. The biggest change is that it tries to imply the mother of his kids cared for him moreso than his then current girlfriend and...based on everything I've heard, that simply isn't true. So this is a weird first where "both movies are accurate to the book, one IS NOT accurate to his real life, despite the book being autobiographical." I don't doubt other adaptations like that exist but it's really weird to see is all I'm saying.

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay - This one is another "saw the film first, it's one of my all-time favourites, what's the book like?" (the fact it took me this long to get around to reading it is just inexcusable). This is an Australian Gothic Horror classic. If you're unfamiliar with the book - it's a mystery involving girls who go to the titular Hanging Rock for a Picnic and disappear while climbing it. Four schoolgirls, one teacher. The rest of the book is the girls' school, the media, the police and the nearby population trying to figure out what happened. Even after finding one of the girls, they never do figure out what happened. Why would I spoil the book like that? It's not REALLY a spoiler. In a lot of ways, I WOULD compare this book to House Of Leaves in that so much of it is establishment of setting and characters becoming completely blindsided by this thing happening to them that they simply can't understand. No explanation, no closure, just "this shit just happened, deal with it, WHEE!!" You also get A LOT of description for setting in both books. So both horror novels I read so far this year are basically "Life be chaotic." It's also interesting in that...I DID hear a lot of people growing up talk about this story and "what do YOU think happened?" This is because Joan Lindsay loved playing with the idea the story was actually true (both in the book AND real life). It's such a shadow over the book that, even though it clearly is just fiction, I have seen people write papers on "is it true?" in the era of the internet (People have disappeared on Hanging Rock, but it's never "without a trace" - people fall into holes and die sometimes). However what I find interesting about this is I do see theme being important when discussing the book and thematic ways to experience Picnic At Hanging Rock... just SOME ways include "sexual repression" "man vs nature" "the UK losing it's grip on the colonies" "the idle gossip of true crime and the effect it has on victims" or even "the boundary between our world and the supernatural" (there are moments in the book that imply paranormal forces are what took them - it's believed Hanging Rock was an Aboriginal Community hub or a sacred place for the local tribes before settlement). I think that mix of unanswered mystery and theme juggling is what makes this book stand out to this very day. Couple this with very dreamy writing and it makes the whole thing feel like a half-remembered folktale. So if you want House Of Leaves but accessible, old timey and Aussie (there IS slang in the book), this is for you.

Going over the films. There are three. I don't think it's fair to count the 1969 one because it was an unfinished project by a 14 year old film student and the only footage you can get of it now (HI!) is only 4 minutes long and completely silent. Because it IS unfinished, I don't see it as fair to say how accurate to the book it is. So it's best watched as video art now but I DO have respect for this attempt, which is why I included it. The 1975 film is the "one of my favourite movies" one and if you know ANYTHING about Australian cinema, or are just interested in Australian Cinema, I see this movie as essential viewing - the same way as Mad Max or The Adventures of Priscilla or Wolf Creek. To go off in a tiny way, the book mentions the painting "Picnic At Hanging Rock" by William Ford (1875) - the cinematography is gorgeous throughout but when I looked up said painting I realized they actually replicated the painting in the film itself. I honestly love THAT KIND of attention to detail (especially as the reason why it's referenced...it's understandable why they'd cut it for a film). That sentiment is how I'd describe accuracy to the book, yes, scenes are cut, moved around for plot and pacing reasons, but it's really just "medium transfer, this works well for a book, this works better for a film." Then...the 2018 miniseries. I've been complementary to the movies I've seen so far but that was just the luck of having good film versions of what I had happened to read. That ends here. The problem with this adaption is why it sucks as a show - they bloat EVERY SCENE well beyond breaking point; plot, character, mystery, consistency, cohesion and theme are just destroyed. It's recognizably Picnic At Hanging Rock but when I say that, I mean it's like watching an AI operate with a "Rewrite Hamlet" prompt. It MIGHT follow SOME of the basic beats but so bogged down by garbage that it doesn't matter. That also helps for me to explain the biggest sin - they explain what happened to the girls. Lesbian suicide pact. I'm not just mad that "they explain it" but that excuse destroys SO MUCH of the story and intent. Sara being a closeted lesbian who has to deal with her crush disappearing like that? Irma not being able to say what happened? The fact the show has a modern attitude towards sex, so even taken with the show itself it makes no sense? The entire narrative backbone of the story?! Truth be told, I did not rewatch this show because it held that level of dumb frequently, the show is 6 hours and at NO POINT was I actually entertained the one time I did watch it. And I'm sorry, I don't see "6 hour show didn't entertain me, don't want to watch it again" as being unfair.

The Secret of Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay - (you can see this as an extension of the prior review) So...remember how I said that in Picnic At Hanging Rock "we don't figure out what happened to the girls on the rock?" That isn't ENTIRELY accurate. Joan Lindsay wrote a chapter to her book that was omitted from the final version that did indeed give an explanation that was published officially a year after she died. Now, I don't think it's important to read this, especially as "there are no concrete answers" builds a LOT of the narrative backbone to Picnic At Hanging Rock. Also there's my own personal belief "omitted means omitted" so you can just "not canon!" this explanation. However, if I'm your introduction to the Hanging Rock series and film adaptions...this is slightly infamous for being a pretty shit reveal to the mystery. I first heard of this book in a High School English class as my teacher AND my school librarian at the time talk about how much they hated it. So naturally, I was curious to see what pissed them off so much. Small note, the version I found had essays from people who tried to justify the publication. Said essays take up 2/3rds of the book - their points of "why we NEEDED to publish" are repeated to the point of insecurity. I'm not going to imply Joan Lindsay didn't write this (I don't know what her non-Hanging Rock books are like and the prose DOES fool me if its a fake), but it ALSO reads like "cutting room floor" material AND the sort of thing a rights holder tried DESPERATELY to make a quick buck off of (sometimes editors "hampering the vision of the artists" are actually improving it!). So, now we've established all that...what happened to the girl's on the rock? They realize time is standing still for them and they meet/follow a clown woman through a time/space portal. A rock falls in front of it (even though the same chapter establishes gravity as we know it isn't working) and that's why Irma didn't go through. Shock of all shocks, I don't like this explanation either. It's better than the 2018 series explanation, which is ironic as that show was the ONLY adaption of Picnic At Hanging Rock created AFTER this thing came out, but, AGAIN, so much of the original story works because of the lack of answers! While I also said the book implied paranormal involvement..."IMPLIED" is the key word. I think a lot of paranormal "what if?"s just work better when what we know...IS what we know of paranormal events in real life (ie "someone went missing in the woods without a trace? Okay, what happened to them?"), which WAS how Picnic At Hanging Rock treated itself. ALSO, the clown woman is implied to be the teacher but the girls see her as a stranger...if that IS their teacher, why don't they recognize her? If that ISN'T their teacher, what happened to her?! I know you could say "magic" for why they don't recognize their teacher, but I reject that for no other reason than Picnic At Hanging Rock, in all forms barring the 2018 miniseries, deserves better than "a wizard did it." ALSO also, a time/space rift that has no explanation can be stopped with a rock? I get the appeal of "the answer raises further questions" but there are twists that genuinely serve the story and build on it (think anything Agatha Christie) and there are twists that are clearly just there because "we NEED a TWIST!" (think The Usual Suspects) and this chapter REALLY falls into the latter. So...yeah, barring the author's prose AND the length of the book (not including the essays, it's 12 pages), this is another slump. It's not a major one (it only wasted about...10 minutes of my time) but it's still bad.

Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark by Alvin Schwartz - So...this is a book meant for children - however while I do indeed remember these books, I was more into Goosebumps for "short pulp horror for kids." This one is NOT like Goosebumps though. Two major differences. For one, this is based on folk tales and is designed to be "a scary story to tell in the dark." (so...get the audiobook?) The second is...this book is gory. As in because it's "scary folk tale", you'll read stories of murder, decapitation, mutilation and cannibalism. I...actually support this kind of content for children. I mean sometimes horror is a safe place for us all to explore our fears, children need that too. You can't protect kids forever, and while it's unlikely they'll be chased by a headless woman anytime soon, the ability to confront fears and even get used to "life can be scary/uncomfortable/hard" IS something they need exposure to. That said, the stories themselves are VERY hit or miss. Some were interesting, some felt like Schwartz wanted to pad the page count of his book. That said, this is still a children's book with child logic for a lot of it. I DID still find it interesting and a MOSTLY fun read but I'd still place SOME hesitancy to recommend this book to adults.

Talking about the film is going to be weird. This is the first time so far when I have to say the film and the book don't have much in common. The book is an anthology, the film tries to add a main narrative and force the stories to the side. If you want a Stranger Things coat of paint on "What if the villain in Urban Legend was a ghost and that movie was made for families?" the film is FINE. However I'm not even going to try to pretend that the film or the book are related beyond the title and SOME of the stories told. I will give the film a LITTLE credit in saying that I can imagine a child being scared listening to their friends do the "Where is my toe?" routine in the same way I can imagine a child being scared when "Who took my toe?!" appears in the film.

The Truck Cat by Deborah Frenkel - This was actually a picture book that released to quite a bit of fanfare in Australian Library circles. It being a picture book, it's yet another "kids media escape" but...whatever. This doesn't seem that well known outside of Australia though, so...the plot. It's about a trucker and his pet cat traveling the countryside. One day the cat finds itself lost but comfortable. Then the trucker and his cat are reunited. Now what I really liked about this book was that you can see how both the pet and his owner help each other out. The trucker is a foreigner, not really having a place, then it turns out the cat found a place where the trucker is with people he can talk to and understand. A story about how pets can be beneficial AND seeing humanity in the different, even a hint of "you don't have to run forever, you can find your community"...this book is REALLY CUTE AND HEARTWARMING. So if you respect my opinion on kids media but think Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark or Nimona is a bit much for your 4 year old (fair enough on both counts, honestly), The Truck Cat is my recommendation.

The Asylum For Wayward Victorian Girls by Emilie Autumn, read by Emilie Autumn - I wanted to do an "Audiobooks count!" entry in the same way I've done a few times now with comics. This audiobook was one I bought years ago and when Emilie Autumn was my favourite singer/songwriter ("me at 19" stuff). I do think it's bad that in the near decade it's been since I bought it, I didn't actually listen to it. I do think now is a good time to listen to it as making a musical based on this book is why Emilie's work has been kind of dormant (I mean Fight Like A Girl was supposed to be the soundtrack album to a musical. Not to make the "poser Goths" feel old but...it's been 14 years!).

So what actually HAPPENS in this book? It's a dual narrative. The first is "Emilie Autumn" and the second is "Emily." The "Emilie Autumn" one is about Emilie's time in a modern day mental ward after a suicide attempt. The "Emily" one is basically Emilie's Victorian era OC. About a child with a talent for violin playing, taken to a conservatory and then...sold. The rest of Emily's story is basically a fight for freedom and Emilie takes inspiration in her modern day equivalency. I DO wonder if the book counts as "metafiction" though as Emily's story is heavily implied to be fictitious. That or it's just "crazy person goes crazy." In short - a combination of "Victorian Gothic cake" aesthetic fed into themes of mental health abuse and patriarchal oppression...I mean this both in a positive AND negative way but this is EXACTLY the book I expected Emilie to write. If you ARE interested, this IS a "book for the fans" but I don't think it's bad if you know nothing about Emilie. Much like Emilie's music, I'm not AS on board with this as I would've been at 19, but I still liked it. I would by no means call this the best book I read this year, but I'm leaving with a fairly satisfied view.

Now, because this is an audiobook, how well did the reader perform? I should explain that Emilie's work is very theatrical. When I said "Victorian Gothic Cake", imagine "mental illnesses are kitsch" and a rat obsession as the icing. Me 10 years after being a huge fan of hers, I see that combo as the perfect "I GET why people love AND hate this woman." The way she reads this book is the same way. There ARE moments where she puts on this fakey voice and it detracts from the immersion. HOWEVER, matching what's being said to the emotion? Matching the tone of a scene? She kind of nailed it. With that said, as much as I consider myself a "distant fan" - I'm actually really glad I listened to this on audiobook because the song "Goodnight Sweet Ladies" from her "Fight Like A Girl" album is IN the audiobook. Fight Like A Girl was the FIRST Emilie Autumn album I heard in full and that song is one of the standout tracks to me (if you're wondering, Goodnight Sweet Ladies references the songs "4 O'Clock" "The Art Of Suicide" and "If I Burn" - also the title of the song is from Hamlet, Ophelia says it in her madness after Hamlet kills her father...this is probably my inner 19 year old talking but I would love to be a Dramaturge for this musical), getting that 6 hours in was a really nice surprise and was contextually relevant (a mass funeral). I presume the written version is just the lyrics and...I'm not knocking that but I feel like if I had actually read it, I would've recognized what that was and just wanted to listen to the song anyway. So that fact alone made me won over that "the audiobook is better!"

Matilda by Mary Shelley - So I read Frankenstein a few years ago and was legitimately taken aback by not only how well it was written but how...it felt like one of those books that COULD NOT be adapted to film (this is backed up by the fact that of what I've seen, the best adaption that's also good as a movie is merely "okay." - Terror Of Frankenstein). So I was curious about the other books Shelley wrote that fell through the cracks. Why Matilda and not something more well known like The Last Man? Simple...this was the easiest one to find.

So what's the plot of this book? The titular character is born to a mother who dies a few days after her birth and her father ships her off to her Aunt who raises her until the age of 16. Her father comes back and is all too happy to take her in and be that figure now he's stopped grieving. Which is convenient as her Aunt is dead by this point. All goes well...until his daughter starts getting male attention, he gets jealous (yes, this is one of THOSE classic lit books!). She tries to get him to tell her what's wrong and his response is "you", he writes her a note explaining himself, admitting to THAT feeling, and then he throws himself off a cliff. The rest of the book is Matilda mourning her father and "no one can EVER understand me!" So I don't want to draw TOO MANY comparisons to Frankenstein but there IS thematic overlap. A child figure being abandoned and rejected by a parental figure, that same parental figure kind of rushing into "the act", and the grief that comes with that as the child. This is more of a direct drama though and how to deal more directly with the trauma of a child being forced to reckon with a world where they feel they've lost everything. A lot of critics have read the story as autobiographical...I don't quite buy it but I HAVE heard the death of two of Mary's children inspired the writing of this book and that I CAN believe. Her prose is unbelievably good at vocalizing depression. Her writing might be my favourite "what it feels like" documentation. I get this book is "squicky" by it's very concept AND...this book was written in 1820, you're going to get "can't say THAT today!" moments (to stand up for Shelley, she's not AS BAD as many writers were at the time or even a century later - making her probably that era's equivalent of a female "woke cuck" - but it's still awkward) but I did actually really like this book.

Hellstar Remina by Junji Ito - This was my Halloween read. I still have yet to read a few "capital C Classics" like Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde and Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson are books I've never read. However...I chose this because I knew in broad strokes why those other writers are respected. Not AS MUCH with Ito. So the plot of this Manga is that a wormhole has opened within spinning distance of Earth and the Astronomer who discovered it realized there's a planet inside, which he decides to name after his own daughter, Remina. She becomes world famous because...a never before seen phenomenon in the history of astrophysics is named after you, even people who don't give a shit about science would sit up and take notice. Fast forward about a year and Remina the planet has entered our solar system to tell us that it REALLY LOVED the movie Melancholia (2012) and wants to reenact that (if you've never seen Melancholia - the relevant part is "PLANET COLLIDE WITH EARTH!"). Then a good majority of the population of Earth is like "say, what if the girl the planet was named after and the planet itself had a connection?! If we killed her, would that stop it's approach?"

I liked this book. The horror of a seemingly alive planet wanting to absorb Earth is certainly a "how do we stop that?" threat and it's really good at adopting cosmic horror in that "We are all TINY when you look at The Universe and what if The Universe was malevolent?" I also think this book is really good at showing the chaos of the hoard. We have seen example after example for literally over a decade at this point of "idiot gets an idea going, it spreads like wildfire, scares people and makes them irrational." There is literally no evidence to the theory of girl + planet connection, even in the opening scene, Remina acts embarrassed about being named after a planet and didn't want the extra attention it brought her. It was just the act of a loving but naive father (all this information was televised in the book). However...that kind of nuanced argument being told to an angry mob...yeah, you're asking to be crucified at that point. I also feel like this book does a good job of portraying emotional exhaustion. For a good quarter of the book, Remina the girl is just done, emotionally. She's seen her friends die trying to protect her, her father crucified and burned alive (I wasn't just being metaphorical) and she's got to deal with that on top of seeing the end of all life on Earth, the majority of which wants to kill her. To say she's feeling numb is an understatement. Then when the end of the book happens and she's relatively safe for the first time in days, it all hits her. I've honestly lived through stages of my life where "you can't show emotion NOW" has led to repression and sometimes years later, it bursts out. Relatable as fuck. So I know this was a weird introduction to Junji Ito but...I liked it.

Aboriginal Fables & Legendary Tales, edited by A W Reed (Incomplete) - I bought this as an impulse buy at the State Library Of Queensland gift shop, if you don't know I AM part Aboriginal and I was genuinely interested in the stories of Aboriginal Culture. See the Oral tradition of storytelling means a lot to the cultures of Aboriginal people and to at least read something similar had an "okay! Will check this out" That said...I WOULD put some content warning stuff on it - namely I wrote "edited by A W Reed" because if he did contribute with Aboriginals to write this book NONE OF THEM ARE CREDITED! No names of people, no names of tribes, just "here's Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark but Aboriginal culture instead of Western culture". The tribes at least would've been nice so I could at least attribute a "who/what/why" with a "where" (also not crediting the tribes is a highly controversial topic in Australian Publishing Spaces at the moment...for good reason, media that does that is essentially robbing these stories of these people and incorrectly asserting, in this case, "A W Reed wrote this!"). What's worse is this book DOES have attributions in it. From books written by Westerners, which obviously doesn't help (it's also not like "this culture can't read" hasn't been used to justify unjustified racial superiority in the past!).

I WANTED to give this book more of a go beyond that. I think the place race can play in a work like this is complex. The same way that race in general in our society is complex...what made me give up was simple - there was an anti-aboriginal racial slur in the book. It's one that hasn't seen uses in mainstream Australia for decades - it's the word "L***a" (I've told a few people about it and I've had to explain what the slur even is or what it means - for those wondering, it's an intersectional anti-indigenous and sexist term that mostly refers to young Indigenous women. Just because it hasn't been used in decades doesn't mean it's okay! There is STILL a gap between Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people - every other Colonial country has SOMETHING resembling a treaty with it's indigenous population, the divide with health care and life expectancy still very much exists. ONE (1) racial slur losing it's meaning does next to fuck nothing with regard to "how racist are we?!"). I wanted to continue reading and "well the book was published originally in 1965, it was 'we don't talk like that anymore' times!" the use but...the reason anyone would buy this book would be to learn SOMETHING about Aboriginal culture, broaden their horizons and take in a culture they may not know much about. To write a book about Aboriginals and include a racial slur like that, even in the 60s, is the equivalent of publishing a book about Indigenous Americans and include sheet music of "What Makes The Red Man Red?" - I can SEE someone doing that back then but "why the fuck is it being sold today?" is a good fucking question. What makes it REALLY sad is twofold 1. "Does the SLQ KNOW what they're selling?!" 2. I actually think this could've been a really interesting and well done book, Colonial bullshit aside. However this IS another "slump book" and I REALLY WISH it wasn't!

I will PROBABLY ask my Aunt about this (who was raised in the culture) but...I don't see a scenario occurring where I keep reading this.

To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf - Much like the Mary Shelley book, this is a "welcome back author I've only read one work of but fucking LOVED said other work of!" The other Virginia Woolf I read was Orlando which is one of my favourite books (and the 1992 film adaption is one of my favourite films - that just HAPPENS to me! Okay!). This book is a lot less "grand" than Orlando is. Namely in that it's mostly a slice of life story about what happens to a family on the Isle Of Skye. One of the children of the family, and the matriarch, desperately want to go to the lighthouse and it keeps getting put off, for some reason or another. I DO feel the need to start talking about...WWI at this point. Most of Virginia's "golden age" books were written in the interwar period (including this one) so I'm not going off the rails. See gender politics DOES play a large part of this story and you do get interesting peaks into how the two overlap. The mother of the household tries to instill hope and excitement in her children and bring out the best in them. The father is more the cold hearted realist. Now I don't know if I'm reading too much into that element of this book but I can't help but think how much that kind of mindset plagued those who did fight. How these people had to shut down their own emotions in order to get on with it? The men coming back broken, the women trying to make the best with what they have. You do get the sense from both parents that they love each other and their children but "formality" has restricted that. I also don't want to get into it but "how war affected the Father" gets very telling when "how war affected the kids" ALSO gets brought up because a major plot point that "puts off the trip" is the family being swept up by war. This might ACTUALLY be a spoiler but I see the lighthouse very singularly in that it's a plan for a future. A future that...doesn't go right. How we all change, losing people we knew, how the passage of time will never stop and you just have to make the best with what you have. Yeah, this book gets really sad! What makes that worse is Woolf wrote in a way that emphasized the metaphysical over the physical. What I mean by that is she'll write about thoughts, experiences, how the characters felt while rarely doing a deep dive into the house they all live in and what it actually looks like. That said, I'll level with you, you ARE going to get "it was another time" moments and unfortunately, Mary Shelley's Incest book comes out less bigoted (I write that because Matilda was written in 1820 - this book was written in 1927...if you thought I was kidding when I said that Shelley's bigotry is more restrained than that of many authors even a century later, you must be new to classic European literature). I still think this book is good and worth the read, I DO love Woolf's prose, but I'm more than happy to admit to ways in which her writing simply isn't going to appeal to everyone.

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs - So because I liked reading to theme (I read Hellstar Remina on Halloween after all), I wanted to go for a Christmas book but...didn't own any. So I went to The Internet Archive. The Snowman is a Christmas movie that my sibling, despite despising the holiday, loves. Talking about the book, well it's about a boy who makes a snowman that comes to life and they go on an adventure. It has that childlike innocence of play captured really well and how all these happy moments will be fleeting. Snowmen have to melt eventually...okay so this is more "bittersweet" than anything, however for the fleeting moments of happiness, innocence, stupidity, however you want to look back on childhood, are important. Especially to contrast some of the harsher memories of childhood that...do exist for people. It's another children's book and one I can put next to "The Truck Cat" as one you could more or less read to any age. I WAS honestly slightly surprised by that because the OTHER book Raymond Briggs is most known for is When The Wind Blows and...I've explained a few times already why that book IS NOT "fun for all ages!" (it's not fun for ANY age!)

Summarizing the movie, it literally has the exact same appeal as the book and is only about 30 minutes long. The weird thing about my family is that all three of us have radically different "Holiday Classics" we watch like clockwork (my mother picks Elf and Bad Santa, my sibling has this and Anna & The Apocalypse). The Snowman is very good at hitting that "nostalgia of being a kid" movies. I know this is seen as a "classic" in the UK but even then, if you've never seen it, I'd give it a go.

So...a lot happened this year. I will be making a customary "2025 in Review" but some of those books mean something to me personally just based on when I read them. I'd rather not get into it but one of those books was DEFINITELY an "emotionally cope with my mother's cancer diagnosis" and another was DEFINITELY a "the cat of mine who died this year slept on my lap the entire time I was reading it, therefore it's special." I know I said "just the books, nothing more" but I think it's telling that, in a year where I lost my job, my mother got cancer, I had to start looking after her, I graduated being a Librarian AND got volunteer work as one, I found the time. Even if it was a 30 page picture book or a comic or an audiobook. I guess what I'm trying to do is encourage readership. I do think that books have the variety that "you can or will find 'that SPECIAL one' for you." That said...only 2 books came from a non-Eurofied viewpoint - Junji Ito and Marjane Satrapi - nothing from Eastern Europe, nothing from mainland Asia, nothing from Africa. I DO see that as being a problem. In that I should try out new perspectives and build on it. So that's my goal for reading next year.

So...yeah, that's what I've been reading this year and what I took away from it.