It’s time again to ask ourselves the three W’s:
What if we found a magical item?
What if said item was cursed?
Would we end up dead? Or zombies? Or ghosts? Or zombie ghosts?

Wait, no, that’s not right. We ask these three W’s:
What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words.

       

The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal
★★★✩✩ || Goodreads
This felt a lot like your classic Cinderella story. Just with a little psycho thrown in. Pretty classic tale of a woman who’s poor and destined to be an old spinster because her collar bone broke when she was born and healed wrong, so it left her shoulder a bit deformed. Meets the rich guy, falls in love, is stalked by a crazy person who’s obsessed with her. You know, like you do. The part I loved most about this story was reading Silas’s perspective. He basically devolves from this slightly odd, yet harmless, character to something truly disgusting and warped. And It. Is. Fantastic. I was disappointed with a few things in this, like a spare third point of view that basically amounted to nothing in the grand scheme of things and probably could have been done away with. Plus, the ending was a little … sudden? I will say, though, that Macneal does a fabulous job of capturing the time period and not at all shying away from the ugly truths of it.

The Deaths and Afterlife of Aleister Crowley by Ian Thornton
DNF @ 6% || Goodreads
So … this was a bit disappointing, but I did say last week that I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a DNF. Well … surprise? From the prologue excerpt I read, I was expecting something more along the line of Kingsmen. You know, semi anti-heroes saving the world in secret. The part I read was essentially a fictional autobiography of Aleister Crowley, starting from when he was a kid. The tone was very matter-of-fact and dry, with no real personality, in my opinion. Plus, a lot of it focused on his very Christian upbringing, with long quotes from scripture, etc. Just not something I’m particularly interested in, personally.

When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back by Naja Marie Aidt
★★★✩✩ || Goodreads
Ooof, guys. I knew this one was going to break my feels, and it really did. As a parent, my heart breaks for the idea of any other parent losing their child. Aidt’s poetry is a little hit or miss for me, personally, though. The majority of it is prose poems, which I love, and I like how she plays with removing punctuation to create a sense of urgency and confusion in certain passages. Some parts of it were just so freaking spot on and heart-wrenching and just ugh. Words hurt sometimes. The only thing is that it was written sort of stream of conscious, so it jumped around in time and skipped and was a bit hard to follow. Also, Aidt quotes heavily from other writers, to the point where I think this book was 3/4 her and 1/4 other poets, which sort of irked me a little, because if I want to read what those people have to say about grief, I’ll go read them. I’m here for you, chica, not those other guys.

The Lady Rogue by Jenn Bennett
Status: 40%

Click For Goodreads Summary

Traveling with her treasure-hunting father has always been a dream for Theodora. She’s read every book in his library, has an impressive knowledge of the world’s most sought-after relics, and has all the ambition in the world. What she doesn’t have is her father’s permission. That honor goes to her father’s nineteen-year-old protégé—and once-upon-a-time love of Theodora’s life—Huck Gallagher, while Theodora is left to sit alone in her hotel in Istanbul.

Until Huck arrives from an expedition without her father and enlists Theodora’s help in rescuing him. Armed with her father’s travel journal, the reluctant duo learns that her father had been digging up information on a legendary and magical ring that once belonged to Vlad the Impaler—more widely known as Dracula—and that it just might be the key to finding him.

Journeying into Romania, Theodora and Huck embark on a captivating adventure through Gothic villages and dark castles in the misty Carpathian Mountains to recover the notorious ring. But they aren’t the only ones who are searching for it. A secretive and dangerous occult society with a powerful link to Vlad the Impaler himself is hunting for it, too. And they will go to any lengths—including murder—to possess it.

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I AM SO IN LOVE WITH THIS BOOK. Theo is a spitfire, guys. She lives in a time where she’s not allowed to do the same things as a man, and that is so frigging frustrating. Especially since she’s quite intelligent and knowledgeable and handy in situations that require a bit of brainpower. Also, her sarcasm game? On point.

Her counterpart, Huck, is disarmingly charming (and we’re told quite handsome, so I’ll take her word for it) and I can easily see him becoming the book crush for many a-person. I don’t fully trust him just yet, though. He’s got something up his sleeve, I’m sure of it. Hey, I’m watching you, bub. *side-eyes Huck*

       

I am still a little undecided on how much I’m going to like Pet. I read an excerpt, and it sounded like a really cute idea, but also the allegory is so obvious and pushing an agenda pretty hard. So we’ll see. But look at that cover! I’m excited that they’re actually starting to put little black girls on covers more and more now when the characters are, indeed, black. It does my cold little heart good.

The Ghost Collector is a pretty short read, but I’m loving all the supernatural things I’ve been reading lately. I need more of these vibes. It had me at “rooted in a Cree worldview.” More of this, please. I know this will probably destroy my feels, but it seems worth it.

Also, guys, IT’S TIIIIIIIME. I have been waiting FOREVER to read Gideon the Ninth and I have such high hopes for it. In a last-ditch hope to maybe get ahead of ARCs for a change (stop laughing, y’all, I can hear you), I’m trying to blast through some September ARCs so I can maybe get reviews out, like, before they release. Which means my wait is now over for this one, and I’m so freaking excited.

Chat With Me

What are you reading this week? Anything you’d recommend? Link to your WWW posts below so I can visit you!