Author: Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

An avid reader whose current interest lies in mysteries and thrillers. Line 'em up! Also personally love fantasies and any stories to do with magic, and a sucker for the occasional (good) romance.
anticipations

Anticipated Books Coming June 2022

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

Welcome to June everyone! Now that the weather is (too) rapidly warming up, it’s time for our next collection of anticipated reads coming up this month! We have tons of anticipated reads for you this month and as usual, I have linked their goodreads profile. Lucky for y’all, we also got a few of them ARC reviewed by Andge (also linked for you to check out!). Stay tuned for more, and happy June reading everyone!

June 7

This Place is Still Beautiful by Xixi Tian (ARC review here)
Forging Silver into Stars by Brigid Kemmerer
The Signs and Wonders of Tuna Rashad by Natasha Deen
Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White
We All Fall Down by Rose Szabo
Rise of the Snake Goddess (Samantha Knox #2) by Jenny Elder Moke

June 14

Rise of the Vicious Princess by C. J. Redwine (ARC Review here)
Love & Other Great Expectations by Becky Dean
The Silence that Binds Us by Joanna Ho

June 21

This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2) by Kalynn Bayron

June 28

The Song that Moves the Sun by Anna Bright
A Secret Princess by Margaret Stohl & Melissa De la Cruz
This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede
Blade Breaker (Realm Breaker #2) by Victoria Aveyard
Stealing Infinity by Alyson Noël
Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert
Ride With Me by Lucy Keating
The Black Girls Left Standing by Juliana Goodman
The Dream Runners by Shveta Thakrar

And that’s a wrap everyone! Woof at that June 28 load though eh? Let us know if we’re missing any, and which you are looking most forward to in the comments below!

discussion

Let’s Talk Bookish – Tracking Reading

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

Aria @ Book Nook Bits will be the new host for Let’s Talk Bookish! If you aren’t following her yet, good check out her blog and give her a follow!

May 27: Tracking reading (Aria)

Prompts: Do you keep track of the books you read? If so, do you use Goodreads? Storygraph? Another platform? Has the way you keep track of your reading changed since you started blogging? What are the pros and cons of tracking your reading?

Welcome back to another week of LTB here at DTRH! Today’s topic is suggested by our very own host, Aria. I have been wondering lately how people keep track of their reading, so this is the perfect time for this topic. Can’t wait to hear what you all do!

Personally, I use Goodreads and Storygraph. But I only minimally use it. I use them both to merely mark off what I have read, but not in particular to share with anyone or to provide a review. Goodreads because it is such a major platform, and I started doing Storygraph last year too because my friend and I thought that the little infographic they have was quite interesting to look at.

Do any of you know a different platform? I’d love to hear what else is out there. Though between the ones I already do and the blog, I do not really have time for another site, unless it is particularly convenient. Still, I think goodreads basically covers the gamut of what I need with my tracking so I haven’t been on the hunt for a new site.

I really only started keeping track because of blogging. For the most part I can just remember what book I’ve read, but with the start of blogging, so many more books have been floating around my periphery that it can definitely start to get confusing. Have you ever thought you read a book but actually hadn’t? Or the other way around? I definitely remember reading a book and then being like …oh I’ve read this before. Such an odd deja-vu moment.

Not sure if there are any cons to keeping track of your reading. It seems either like a pro to stay organized if you’re a blogger or like to look back through your reading list to suggest one to a friend. Or it’s possible that having this list doesn’t affect you at all. But I for one cannot think of why it might be bad to have a reading list. Perhaps it takes up too much of your time to keep track? If you have one, let me know!

How do you all keep track of your reading?

3.5 star, nonfiction

Review: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

An unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.

As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band–and meeting the man who would become her husband–her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.

My friends and I decided to do a bookclub on this book because as Asian Canadians, we thought we might relate. Each person had such a different relationship with their parents and I think that is what the core of this story came down to.

Crying in H Mart is about half-Korean half-white Michelle Zauner, as she gives her plain view on her grief and relationship with her mother and her mother’s death. The story revolves a lot around Korean food and the relationship they shared with food and the memories that created. A rough childhood with tough love quickly turns conflicted when her mother’s health takes a turn for the worse, bringing Michelle along an emotional journey where she is forced to confront her feelings for her mother.

Continue reading “Review: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner” →