a blog all about thrifting
Book shopping adventures, plus book reviews of kid lit, literary fiction, and more.
Plant Kween, AKA Christopher Griffin, is easily one of my favorite plant personalities. They’re so joyful and warm and playful; their personality pops off the screen and instantly brightens up my Instagram feed with each post. Not only do they bring plant care back to self and community care, but they’re also a creative and … Read more
Hi, it’s been a long time since I’ve properly updated this blog (other than the Junji Ito blog post!) — I’ve been reading a ton of great books lately, and I think you should check them out. Outside of work, I’ve been taking things slow but devouring books like a little Junji Ito nematode demon. … Read more
Despite being a huge Junji Ito fan, I put off reading Tomie because I wasn’t quite sure if I’d like it. Would it just be a concrete block’s worth of gratuitous gendered violence and a tired femme fatale trope? (It’s a giant book.) After working through this collection, I think that might be a limited … Read more
Rachel Cohn and David Levithan’s Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares is a charming YA rom-com steeped in yuletide cheer. I’ve hopped back onto the YA novel train, my friends. On the second week of November, I developed an obsession with a cute Netflix show called Dash & Lily. OK. Obsessed doesn’t even begin to describe … Read more
I finally finished all 600+ whopping pages of Junji Ito’s Uzumaki, and I spiraled into love with it, y’all! It’s really more a collection of short stories about how the spiral (yes, the spiral as a *concept*) takes over the town of Kurozu. While Ito’s Smashed and Frankenstein immediately gave me the creeps page by page, Uzumaki’s horror operated in … Read more
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up Is Only Moderately Life-Changing. Well, it’s been not a minute, but several minutes! Y’all, I finally made my way through The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up! And while it wasn’t magical, I did find myself drawn to KonMari’s brute cleaning philosophy — my main takeaway from this handy little book … Read more
An honest and morally clear collection of essays, Zadie Smith’s Intimations grasps at how this unprecedented moment in time peels back the layers to reveal our relationships to the world around us. Happy autumn, fell book lovers! My latest read, Zadie Smith’s Intimations, is one of my favorite quarantine books so far. “Intimations” is quite apt … Read more
Elizabeth Acevedo serves up a tender and warm story in With the Fire on High. Hello, book friends! This week I picked up a sizzling hot read: Elizabeth Acevedo’s With the Fire on High. I adored Acevedo’s The Poet X and how it creatively formed a narrative through poetry. So I’ve been jonesing to pick up … Read more
Laced with fantasy and folklore, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior is a surreal tribute to storytelling through the memoir form. Hey, y’all! I’m back with a review of The Woman Warrior. Maybe five years ago, my adviser recommended me this book when I was working on a thesis re: Vietnamese American literature, but I hadn’t gotten around … Read more
Beyond fun rom-com movies and shows, I also enjoy the occasional romance novel. In fact, I’ve been reading much more romance since quarantine started! My favorite romance authors include Helen Hoang, Josie Silver, and Anne Tyler (though Tyler focuses more on the family unit). Of all the romance writers I’ve picked up so far, Jasmine … Read more
