Why Start a Book Blog?

 It seems strange in this day and age, when nearly everything has pivoted to audiovisual content platforms, to do something as seemingly backwards as starting a new blog. Who even reads blogs anymore, after all? Who would do that, when Tiktok and Youtube exist, to make content more easily consumed, digestible, and easy to create? Why bother starting an old-school book blog in 2026?

Maybe I'm just old-school.

After all, it's not like book blogs aren't still around. Lots of people have them. But most of the ones I encounter are run by people or groups of people and have been ongoing for years. They have an established place within a community. People know and trust them. But that's different from starting a new one and trying to carve out a space in that community, and in a way that's increasingly seen as behind the times.

But for me, blogging felt like the only way to go.

I read a lot. Not as much as I used to sometimes, thanks to my health not always cooperating (do you know how frustrating it can be to have such trouble concentrating that you can't even read a book you've read before and know the story of?), but still enough that it feels like a significant personality trait.

"What do you do?"
"Oh, well, I read a lot, you see."

I want to be able to connect with others like myself. I want to read a book and then write down my thoughts and find other people who liked the book for the same reasons I did. I want to find people with similar tastes who recommend books that I might have otherwise overlooked. I want to be part of that book-loving community.

I could do all that without doing it via a blog, though. Why not something like Youtube or Tiktok?

First, I hate how I look. Disability hasn't been kind to me, and I'm not even a little bit happy with my appearance anymore. I've grown self-conscious and very critical, and so even if I coaxed my aging phone to recording a video of myself talking about a good book, I'd hate every second of it. I don't want people seeing me. I don't want my image online, where, even if nobody mocked my appearance, I'd still feel awful about myself for knowing that somebody out there knows what I look like.

Second, I find it a lot easier to type than to talk. My disability comes with speech problems. Some days, I can talk well and be understood. Other days, my mouth and throat refuse to cooperate and I can't speak clearly at all. So I've also gotten very self-conscious about how I sound.

Writing is easier for me than being seen or being heard. So while it may seem like I'm under the delusion that it's 2006 instead of 2026, I know exactly what I'm doing.

I don't expect this blog to grow to be massive and influential. That's not my goal. I just want to be part of a community, however I can. Being disabled makes me feel like the world accessible to me shrinks a little bit smaller every day. I can't do a lot of the things I used to. I don't know where the progression of my illness will stop. So being part of a community is important. I felt like at least it couldn't hurt to try to put my thoughts out there and maybe find a place within a community of people who share one of my biggest interests.

Roses and Rot - Kat Howard

 

About the Book

Imogen and her sister Marin have escaped their cruel mother to attend a prestigious artists’ retreat, but soon learn that living in a fairy tale requires sacrifices, be it art or love.

What would you sacrifice in the name of success? How much does an artist need to give up to create great art?

Imogen has grown up reading fairy tales about mothers who die and make way for cruel stepmothers. As a child, she used to lie in bed wishing that her life would become one of these tragic fairy tales because she couldn’t imagine how a stepmother could be worse than her mother now. As adults, Imogen and her sister Marin are accepted to an elite post-grad arts program—Imogen as a writer and Marin as a dancer. Soon enough, though, they realize that there’s more to the school than meets the eye. Imogen might be living in the fairy tale she’s dreamed about as a child, but it’s one that will pit her against Marin if she decides to escape her past to find her heart’s desire.

268 pages
Published May 17, 2016

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This is a novel that, if you go into it expecting a happily-ever-after sort of fairy tale just because the story involves fairies, you're going to not only be disappointed, but absolutely gutted. The ending is a tremendously satisfying thing, don't get me wrong, but there's some bitter mixed in with the sweet, and it comes after a couple of hundred pages of trauma and stress and difficult circumstances that I feel readers might need some content warnings for.

Roses and Rot's story focuses on Imogen, a writer who, along with her sister Marin, gained entrance to a prestigious artist retreat, a place where they could spend months surrounded by beauty and creativity and be mentored as they try to push their art to a higher place. For many artists, this alone would be worth doing, even if they got nothing out of it beyond a few months with a strong mentor who helped them enhance their art. But the retreat, Melete, holds a strange secret, a fantastical element that will pit Imogen and Marin against each other in a struggle for a prize that both of them desperately crave.

As for content warnings... Imogen and Marin's mother abused them both, mentally and physically, though saved her worst punishments for Imogen because Imogen wrote and that wasn't seen as "good enough" by her mother. Too much potential for stories with bad mothers that made people ask questions. But she doted on Marin to a degree, always being supportive of her choice to dance... so long as she could shine the limelight on herself. "Look at me, I'm the mother of that prodigy onstage, it's all thanks to me than she's so talented." People with a history of parental abuse should be forewarned before reading Roses and Rot, as the back of the book saying, "she couldn’t imagine how a stepmother could be worse than her mother now," really doesn't convey just how terrible, how terrifying, their mother was to them. Reading what they went through, I felt such revulsion over that woman's actions to her children that I wanted to both praise the author for writing such horrors with the proper emotional flavour, and also to just put the book down and back away for a while. It's so well-done, but people with backgrounds filled with parental trauma might find it a bit too well-done.

That being said, sometimes people need to be aware that others, especially parents, are capable of that sort of behaviour. How many times have fellow child-free folks heard, "It's fine, you'll be a good parent when you have kids." Not everybody is a good parent. Nobody can guarantee that anyone will be a good parent. Some people are horrible, cruel and abusive, and while I'm more than passingly aware of how traumatic that could be for readers, I still have to commend the author for shining a light on an issue that many would prefer remained behind closed doors.

It's not what a lot of people would think of as a "modern fairy tale," but for me it checks the boxes. A character with a cruel mother figure. A place in the woods that feels like magic and salvation. A problem to be solved, taking the form of a quest. Fairy rules and bargains. Nearly everything you'd expect to see from a fairy tale is there, so long as you don't expect the whole thing to be about knights and princesses.

I was going to talk about how the main way it diverges from a lot of fairy tales is that it doesn't really have a moral message to give to readers. I was going to say that grey-and-grey morality is all over the place in Roses and Rot, with characters having to judge things for themselves and all coming to different understandings of the situation and no character is really portrayed as making "the right choice." Just the right choice for them. Sometimes even if it hurts others. But in writing that, I changed my mind. Roses and Rot does have a moral to it. The moral is, "Don't treat others like they're only here for your convenience."

It's clear to see how that connects to Imogen and Marin's mother seeing her daughters as either routes to her own fame and accolades, or nuisances to be disposed of when they become inconvenient. But that's not the only way this message appears in the novel. Helena's mother viewing her daughter as a stepping-stone to getting her old lover back. Evan letting his fame go to his head and doing whatever he wanted, heedless of who got hurt in the process.

It should be said that I don't think this is the same thing as, "Don't be selfish." Imogen is selfish in wanting to become to tithe to the fairies in exchange for success and thus being able to provide herself and Marin safety from their mother. Marin is selfish for wanting to become the tithe for very similar reasons. Gavin could be seen as selfish for wanting Marin to not become the tithe, because despite her wanting it, he thinks the risk to her would be too great and conspires to prevent her from attaining her goals. Even the concept of Melete itself is selfishly motivated, gaining a reputation for boosting artists so that it can attract the sort of person who can feed the fairies throughout the period of the tithe. Selfishness is all over the place here. But even most of the selfishness is cut heavily with being selfish for selfless reasons. (I think that makes sense.) Imogen and Marin both want success so they can help the other. Gavin doesn't want Marin to die. Melete still serves a wonderful purpose for helping artists with contacts and mentoring and everything else you typically get from a residency. The difference between the two concepts being how one treats others during this selfishness. 

It's fine to want things. It's fine to want things for yourself even if that means other people might not get those same things. That's not inherently wrong. What matters in the end is how you treat other people along the way. If you see your chance at success coming only at the cost of someone else's lack of success, and you think to yourself, "I could make myself look better by making them look worse," or, "I could pretend to help them while secretly sabotaging them," then you're a garbage person. "I do my absolute personal best to win this contest, even if that means someone else loses," is different. That doesn't mean it's not a painful choice to make, or doesn't mean there are no drawbacks to your success. But using others as stepping stones to your own greatness is where the line gets drawn. I think the novel is pretty clear about that, as the underlying morality.

Roses and Rot offers a wonderful look at the bonds of sisterhood, and how they can hold or break in dire circumstance. It asks readers to ponder what they themselves might trade in exchange for success and safety. It gives a classic fairy tale experience, the darker non-Disney kind of secret trades and the unknown in every shadow and the strange wonder of heartbreak and possibility. Imogen's perspective is raw and emotional, full of the kind of poetry you'd expect from a character who's literally spending a significant amount of the novel writing about fairy tales. You get a full physical sense of the scenery of Melete's grounds, and the emotional depth of Imogen's fears and hopes. Conflict and dreams tug at your heart with every turn of the page.

(I wrote more about this book than I expected to.)

Dragon Mage - ML Spencer

 

About the Book

Aram Raythe has the power to challenge the gods. He just doesn't know it yet.

Aram thinks he's nothing but a misfit from a small fishing village in a dark corner of the world. As far as Aram knows, he has nothing, with hardly a possession to his name other than a desire to make friends and be accepted by those around him, which is something he's never known. But Aram is more.

Much, much more.

Unknown to him, Aram bears within him a gift so old and rare that many people would kill him for it, and there are others who would twist him to use for their own sinister purposes. These magics are so potent that Aram earns a place at an academy for warrior mages training to earn for themselves the greatest place of honor among the armies of men: dragon riders.

Aram will have to fight for respect by becoming not just a dragon rider, but a Champion, the caliber of mage that hasn't existed in the world for hundreds of years. And the land needs a Champion. Because when a dark god out of ancient myth arises to threaten the world of magic, it is Aram the world will turn to in its hour of need.

828 pages
Published December 19, 2020

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I want to start off by saying that Dragon Mage surprised me in so many ways, all of them good. And it's rare to find a book which does that, especially a good solid old-fashioned coming-of-age fantasy story like this was. That's one of the points in its favour, I think. Dragon Mage was the start of an adventure that felt very similar to The Eye of the World (book 1 of the Wheel of Time series). You know, that way first books in a series do, with the adventure feeling fresh and new and there are all the wonders and perils of the world to experience, and even if there's danger involved, the story has become bloated or too dark. The characters haven't become so world-weary that their stories start to feel like a jade slog to get through. Dragon Mage captures that start-of-the-adventure feel perfectly, and I love it for that.

The second thing I love it for is that every time I thought I knew where the story was going, it shifted directions, keeping me on my toes the whole time. But it was never something that felt contrived. No plot twists for the sake of plot twists, but a proper tale with characters having multiple developmental arcs within it. First I thought the story was going to be about Aram and Markus being on the run from people who seek to drain Aram of all his magic, but no, then it switches to an uneasy alliance where Aram and Markus are semi-unwilling trainees in a place that would just as soon torture Aram as they would treat him decently. Then it switches again to that all going horribly wrong. Then another switch to another plane of reality, connected to the main world but separate from it, where Aram's quest changes entirely while Markus is still tied down to what he was doing before. And on and on. Just when I thought, "Surely most of the rest of the book will follow this storyline," it would change to something new, keeping the feeling of a new adventure even when there was no action to propel the plot forward. Characters are growing up, years are passing, and I ended the book feeling like everything was fresh throughout. Aram and Markus growing up from young lads to men could have resulted in them presenting world-weary faces to whatever came their way, a stolid stoic attitude of, "Well, guess I have to deal with this problem now."

But none of that happened. And it was incredibly refreshing to read an 800+ page book where it felt new and exciting throughout like that.

Markus and Aram even had occasional times where they fell out, one doing something the other disagreed with that strained their friendship. It wasn't some perfect unbreakable bond between them; neither character is infallible and they can and do make mistakes, lapses in judgment, even things they just felt was the right thing to do even if it was dangerous. Which brings me to another great thing about Dragon Mage: Markus and Aram's friendship was never in question, and they would always have each others' backs when push came to shove, but that didn't mean their relationship was absolutely perfect and nothing could ever come between them. Friendships are complicated. Sometimes the strength of a friendship isn't based on how little two people argue. Sometimes it's based on how willing a person is to stand by you even when they're angry at you. This is another thing that ML Spencer did really well when it came to characterization. Their friendship being strained at times, or even the two of them existing in different worlds, never felt like it was done just to increase tension in the story. I didn't get that feeling here. I got the feeling it was a complicated relationship between two people who, by necessity, had to walk parallel paths that sometimes diverged, but when they met up again, they would still be friends.

More of that in books, please. More representations of healthy friendships. I think we all need that in our lives now and again.

Speaking of representation, that brings me to my final point that I really loved about Dragon Mage. Aram isn't neurotypical. If I had to give it a name, I'd say he's somewhere on the autism spectrum. Some of that was behaviour based on the inherent traits that made him entirely different from Markus, so there was a touch of, "He's autistic because he's really magic," and that can be a harmful presentation, but despite knowing Aram could easily fall into that trope, I don't think it was done with any malice, nor even ignorance about autism. Some of Aram's neurodiverse traits had nothing to do with his connection to magic, after all, so his obsessive nature and tendency to hyperfocus when stressed may have come from his heritage, but him struggling to communicate and understand people, or being really socially awkward? Those are traits commonly connected to neurodiversity, which had nothing to do with Aram's heritage and everything to do with who he was as a person. So if you're looking for a good fantasy novel with neurodiverse representation, Dragon Mage is full of potential!

I want to gush more about the plot and how it had me hooked the whole way through, but I don't think I can do that without inadvertently spoiling anything for those who may read it later, and I don't want to ruin anyone's enjoyment of this novel. I already risked enough by talking about the way the story kept switching up what seemed like the main focus. Just know that I loved the story, loved how it progressed, loved the battle between what's good and what's corrupt, and the differentiation between what is corrupt and what has been corrupted. It's honestly fantastic, and I'm sorry I can't do it true justice here.

If, like me, you love the first books in a series because of how new the adventure feels, and if you love good neurodiverse representation in fantasy, and you're seeking a novel that will keep you engaged through the whole story, all the storms and calms, then I whole-heartedly recommend Dragon Mage. It was a true delight to read, the sort of book that has to be experienced rather than described, and the story will stick with you in the same way that great epic fantasy stories often do. Which, for my part, means that this book is a great epic fantasy, on par with some of the greats. ML Spencer is an author to keep an eye on. Like Aram, like Markus, I think she's going to do some more amazing things.

Among Others - Jo Walton

 

About the Book

Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left her crippled--and her twin sister dead.

Fleeing to her father whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England-a place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off...

298 pages
Published January 18, 2011

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If there's something I've learned about myself over the years, it's that I really enjoy stories that centre around the concept of magical realism. The smooth blending of mundane reality with the fantastical in such a way that the supernatural elements don't feel like invaders of realism's space, nor like some hidden subculture filled with vampires and werewolves and nightclubs where mages meet up or any such thing. When I encounter stories where people have to deal not only with the unreal but also keeping their grades up in school or managing to not get fired from their office job, it gets my attention.

I also have a weakness for stories involving boarding schools, and where characters love books as much as I do. So with all of that in mind, I was already prepared to really enjoy Among Others. It has all the right elements to make me love it.

While I can't say anything about the accuracy of the setting - I wasn't a teen in 1970s Wales, for a start - I can say that the way this story was told brought everything to life for me, and made me feel like I was looking at an actual snapshot in time. Among Others is told through Mori's journal entries, giving readers insight into not just her circumstances but also her inner monologue, without the awkwardness that I find often comes with first-person narratives. We don't have scenes of Mori describing her appearance while standing in front of a mirror, for instance, though we do get a sense of what she looks like when she muses on how she thinks others see her. Scenes aren't written in a way that would translate easily to a visual medium, but are just descriptions of what happens during her days, from the books she's reading to the magic she uses to keep herself safe to how uncomfortable she finds her family situation or her disability. It makes even the novel's few action scenes feel both subtle and understated while also being portentous. I really love the balance that was struck here.

I also really like the system of magic that Among Others employs. It's sympathetic magic in the way that it uses connections (turning the pages of books back into trees, as paper comes from wood and still holds the memory, so to speak, of being in that form), but it also employs chains of coincidence that transcend the linearity of time. Mori once gives the example of using magic to make a bus come a bit sooner, but hesitates because what seems like a small act could have ripple effects going back in time, changing the bus timetable, which might mean changing the comings and goings of who knows how many people since that timetable was established. It's a fantastic thought experiment even when you don't bring magic into the equation. Pick an event in your life, change one element of it, and try to figure out what else might have needed to change in order to bring about that difference. It's a system of magic that fits so well into the real world, because it's so easily deniable to anyone who doesn't want to see it, but also because it acts on reality itself, making small changes that bring about big changes, but everything is still so grounded in reality that it seems strange to think that this isn't how the world really works.

Good books get you thinking.

Mori isn't some perfect protagonist, either. True to the manner of most teens, she's startling ignorant about some things but believes herself to be right more often than not. She's arrogant, and sometimes that arrogance is earned, but other times it's just that she's convinced nobody could know something better than she does. I will give some leniency in this, since it's not like she could just hop online and learn about things, as we can today. Comparative ignorance is just part of historical fiction. Doesn't make it less frustrating to read, though, however realistic it may be.

I still can't fully get over how much I loved Among Others. It's so believable and tightly written that even Mori talking about things that happen in school or chatting with her father about books they both enjoy feels essential to the story. Nothing feels like filler. At worst, some more mundane bits feel like a short break from heavier story elements. It's a coming-of-age story mixed with historical fiction and magical realism, and it's absolutely brilliant. There's a magic to this story that makes me sad I hadn't read it before, because yes, it really is that good. No fan of speculative fiction should pass it by.