Reading the Room

My plan for completing my to-be-read list

I’ve always felt like there’s no such thing as too many books. I reassure myself that it isn’t the number of books I own, instead the problem is the limited amount of shelf space in our house. I haven’t set a resolution or any reading goals – that is a sure path to failure in my opinion (and based on prior experience). Instead, I’m rewarding myself with reading time instead of doom-scrolling social media. Also, I’m trying to read with a focus on the writing and come away from each novel with something useful I can apply to my own work.

I started off the year with The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer. This is a portal fantasy that features a cozy queer (M/M) romance. The author captured the characters so well I became invested in the love story between Rafe and Jeremy.

Although I did enjoy this book, it fell short in some places. It is a portal fantasy, and there are chapters written in the point of view of an omniscient “storyteller” that give the novel the feel of a fairy tale, but at times this feels a bit intrusive and like an unnecessary explanation of events and how we as readers should interpret things.
There are three main characters – Emilie, Jeremy, and Rafe. Emilie is searching for her sister who went missing years ago, and she enlists Jeremy to help in the search. He, in turn, gets Rafe to lead them to the portal.
The world building is fair, but for this length of a novel it seemed to take too long for them to get to Shanandoah, the fantasy land where most of the action takes place.
Although Emilie’s search is the reason they venture to Shanandoah, not very much of the story is given to develop either Emilie or her sister.
The romance portion is very well done and the characters of Jeremy and Rafe are both well drawn, but so much of the story is given over to them and not enough, in my opinion, to the fantasy portion of the story. This makes the ending feel a little too convenient and easy.
Overall though I’d recommend this book because the style of writing drew me in and I was invested in the characters and wanted them to succeed.

What I learned from this book: I think if you go to the trouble to create a character, that character deserves time on the page. And I really don’t like the omniscient narrator.

This is the second fantasy book I read last month. I enjoyed the characters and in general I love overall vibe of TJ Klune’s books. The story centers around an orphanage for magical children and the adults who care for them. There are themes of found family, overcoming prejudice, and being true to oneself.

My takeaway: Good example of close third person point of view, giving the reader an intimate look into the emotions and perceptions of the POV characters.

This is the first book in a series. I bought the second book, The Rookery, at Dollar Tree, without realizing until later that I needed to read The Nightjar first. Oh woe! Tragedy! I had to buy another book in order to read the one I bought.

This is another portal fantasy, with a magical world existing alongside the real world London. I love that concept, that there might be a secret, alternate universe existing right alongside ours. (I’m still looking for the entrance)

The magic system in this story is one I haven’t seen before – every person has an invisible bird guarding their soul. The main character, Alice, has the ability to see those birds, and an evil faction wants to make her use that ability to hunt down the people with magical talent. There’s a romance subplot that doesn’t get very far in this book, but maybe the characters get together in the sequel.

The lesson here: Nail down the details of any magic system in your writing. Try a new spin on the old tropes.

This was almost my first DNF (did not finish) for 2026. I ended up skimming through the chapters to get to the end. And I still don’t know what happened to everyone at the conclusion. It was a confusing and slow read, probably because the main viewpoint character had lost most of her childhood memories around being on the show Mr. Magic. She had only a vague understanding of the events in the past and the details about the weird and ominous show were revealed through the perception of other characters. I felt this isolated me from the tension and horror. This book could be enjoyed by readers who liked House of Leaves or Head Full of Ghosts, another two books I just couldn’t get into.

I loved this book. The cover is deceptive – I went into it thinking it might be a mild mystery story and instead got full blown horror with demon possession. Nice! Parts were so scary I had to put the book aside after dark. Plus there was an ending so messed up it made me smile with appreciation. This is toxic family drama to the ninth degree.

Lessons: Build up the characters first, and then let really horrible things happen to them. Drop hints about the ending long before the last chapter, so that when everything wraps up the reader is left smiling because it all makes sense.

I finished up the month with another two books in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series by Matt Dinniman. These books are the perfect escape from the craziness going on in the outside world. I’d much rather experience the trials of Carl and Princess Donut as they fight their way through the alien dungeon, battling monsters and dodging deadly traps. However, in the midst of the escapism there are lessons on perseverance.