Fun – Anxious Nachos

#5OnMyTBR is a bookish meme hosted by E. @ Local Bee Hunter’s Nook and you can learn more about it here or in the post announcing it. It occurs every Monday when we post about 5 books on our TBR. Thank you E. for the awesome graphic for these posts as well!

Hi everyone,

We’re onto week 2 of the new lockdown in Melbourne and I’ve decided to start a new hobby to try keep me more upbeat in the current situation: candle making! I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of my candle kit. I bought some black dye as well so I can make goth candles and I can’t wait!

This week’s #5OnMyTBR theme is summer reads, which may be more difficult for me because it’s the middle of a rather cold winter here and thus I have forgotten what sunshine and vitamin D feels like. But more importantly: despite the fact I work in publishing, I still wouldn’t even be able to tell you what a summer read is. Something that’s relaxing and pleasurable to read on a beach? But that’s different for everyone, I cry! So for this, I tried to pick books on my TBR that feel lighthearted, warm, and easy to read, and thus the perfect book to curl up with under the sun!

Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Wen

This YA novel is literally set across a summer, so surely that counts for this theme! It follows teen Ever Wong whose parents send her to Taiwan for the summer to study Mandarin. However the program she’s been sent to is less late night study and more late night clubbing as over-achieving kids let loose.

The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall

This book sounds the lightest of the stack of SFF I have on my TBR, gifted to me by my lovely cat for mother’s day (yes, pets give gifts in this household). It is a Sherlock Holmes retelling with a female, pansexual sorceress Holmes and a trans Watson, and it’s full of sharks, gods, vampires and pirates! Aka: FUN.

Please Don’t Hug Me by Kay Kerr

Donuts = summer. I don’t make the rules…. Please Don’t Hug Me is a #LoveOzYA contemporary with ownvoices autism rep, written entirely in letters from Erin, a teen on the edge of adulthood struggling to accept herself, to her brother.

In the Vanisher’s Palace by Aliette de Bodard

Novellas feel like such as summer read because they’re usually quick and easy to get into and therefore make for a relaxing read on the beach! In the Vanisher’s Palace is one I’ve been meaning to read for so long but I finally picked up a copy. It’s a dark f/f Beauty and the Beast retelling if the beast were a dragon!

Ravensong by T.J Klune

I read Wolfsong in the Australian summer last year next to a pool in the sunshine and therefore it only makes sense that I put the second one in this series onto this summer reads list! I got about halfway through this and then got distracted by other books and never went back to it. But Ravensong is book 2 in Klune’s Green Creek series, which follows a pack of werewolves and their run ins with local witches. Whilst the first book followed Ox, Ravensong follows Ox’s friend and father figure Gordo.

That’s it for this week! I’m pretty sure that everyone else’s lists will be much more summery than mine because I tend to go for more intense, heavy duty fantasy books than light summer reads. But now I’ll go back to dreaming about sunshine whilst shivering on my couch because Australia has terrible building insulation!

So this week, Netflix Australia blessed us with adding every Glee episode and I am so here for this I can’t even.

So as I was rewatching the first episode for the 100th time, I had the silly idea to match some of my favourite books to Glee songs! Because what else. And I think this sounds like the most fun.

So without further ado, here’s some of my favourite reads of the past few months matched to Glee songs…

The Fever King by Victoria Lee = Cough Syrup

Note: content warnings for this song – attempted suicide, homophobia

The Fever King brutally tore my heart apart, Cough Syrup brutally tore my heart apart. The Fever King filled me with utter pain and devastation, Cough Syrup filled me with utter pain and devastation. Hence, these two went perfectly together in my head! Both are dark and gritty and deal with really difficult subjects, and also fill me with all the emotions.

Deposing Nathan by Zack Smedley = Born This Way

This is another match I could see immediately! The Born This Way Glee performance was one of my defining moments as a queer teen thanks to Kurt’s ‘Likes Boys’ shirt, and to this day I still imagine performing this song with my own shirt. And Deposing Nathan is the book I wished I’d had as a teen. It has such amazing bisexual rep that this novel would have been another defining moment if I’d read it as a teen.

The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers = Don’t Stop Believing

Okay so this is the song is the first time the Glee club really gel together and it’s so special and Mr Schu can see hope for the future in this rag tag bunch of misfits – and I feel like that’s such a good description for the crew on the Wayfarer as well! They are all so different and yet they match and work together and have so much fun!

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan = Me Against the Music

Okay so this song is all fierceness and empowering and sexy from Santana and Brittney and I feel like this is SO Wren and Lei and they are SO going to go all fire on the Demon King’s ass in Book 2 and show him that women are fierce and strong and won’t be pushed around.

Red, White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston = Do You Wanna Touch?

Okay if this song is not 10000% Alex I do not know what is. He is one of the most iconic bisexual characters ever and he would rock this song to Henry so bad.

I will likely be back with some more one day, because I had so much fun making this list.

STAY GLEEFUL.

Paws out,
Rach + Draco