This was the most recent book we read for book club and it kinda started a fight: it was one woman's all-time favorite book, while the rest of us absolutely hated it. Basic idea: man moves to a farm in California circa 1903 and feels a very strong spiritual connection to it. And then the droughts come…

Personally, I can appreciate the symbolic meanings and Steinbeck is a good author; he knows how to put a story together, his prose is very pretty, etc, etc, but… I just hate how much of a White Man™ he is! At the end of the second chapter, he literally fucks the Earth and wants to make it his (submissive) wife! The one woman in the book club was upset that no one else "got" it and surely if we did, we'd ~understand~ (she was taking it weirdly personally, like she wanted us to join her religion that is apparently based on this book, I guess??). But frankly Steinbeck is just a disgusting racist, sexist ass and I have no interest in some shitty male-centric religion.

Also read for book club. A teenage Black girl from DC suddenly goes missing and no one besides her best friend seems to notice or care. It's written for a… younger than young adult audience, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I found it a bit difficult to get into at first, as a result. There were a lot of weird plot things, but ultimately, it covers a lot of important issues, and works well for prompting discussions. A particularly good quote:

"I think it boils down to one question: who's really responsible for your well-being -- your family, the government, or your community?"

Also book club. I suggested this one, lol. I'm just really interested in the First World War and surrounding timeframe, and I had been planning on reading this book for a long time, but just never actually got around to it. It really captures the Zeitgeist; if you were to make a moodboard for the lost generation, you could literally just nail this book to your corkboard.

Very poignant, touching discussions of the meaninglessness and brutality of war, how having a fancy hat and a badge makes you feel like king of the world until you get your ass kicked (and later demoted to the front lines), chronically lying to yourself and others to frightening others or personal discomfort (ie: "No, ma, the war isn't so bad or dangerous at all… I'll be fine;" "No, Kemmerich, your leg's still there. I'm sure you'll be better in no time…"), how even when you get away you can never really stop thinking about it or relate to your previous life ever again… But besides all the major themes it talks about and how masterfully crafted the book was, in general, I also just really loved how human it all felt. The cooking scenes; playing pranks; stealing dinner, a nice sofa, and a cat from the remains of a town while being bombed.

I also just think I'm irredeemably Tumblr poisoned and cannot relate to media properly…

I feel very guilty saying this: I think I have a very fandomized view of the First World War. Reading this book was basically like catnip, it delivered everything I wanted it to and more in such a painfully hauntingly beautiful way; genuinely one of the best books I've ever read. Literally every scene with Kat brought a light to my heart. I am even now, months after having read this, seconds away from fujoing out. And really the most I can say is this meme:

But obviously, I couldn't say anything like that at book club, lol.

It took me three years to finally watch this, but I loved every second of it!! Honestly, I've been having a very tough, emotionally compromised time recently, and this was just extremely comforting. There is so much love in every detail, how the Pokémon are constructed, how they move, the textile design as well as other things like murals and candy wrappers… *chef's kiss* I cried through every episode.

I bought this because pretty art and it was on sale a while ago. It's structured less like a normal vn and more like Mystic Messenger, but shorter and without making you get up constantly in the middle of the night to read fictional chats. But also the characters and plots are much less compelling. Honestly, I've only played Victoria's good and bad end, and Nyx's bad end, but I think I'll give up there.

It's not necessarily bad, but I just don't think it's for me. It's always nice to see protags who aren't in high school (they're in college, transitioning to the workforce at a big tech company instead), but the target audience still reads a bit young and it didn't really do much for me. :/