Reading

Entry tags:

type: review

Book review: Martyr!

Title: Martyr!
Author: Kaveh Akbar
Genre: Fiction, literary

It took over a month for my hold on this book to come up, but Friday night I finished Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. If you look into online book recommendations like on New York Times or NPR, you've probably seen this title come up. This book is about a young poet who sobers up after years of severe addiction and is now looking for meaning and purpose.

Martyr! is a beautiful book about the very human search for meaning in our lives, but it also is not afraid to shy away from the ugliness of that search. It juxtaposes eloquently-worded paragraphs of generational grief with Cyrus waking up having pissed the bed because he went to sleep so drunk the night before. Neither of these things cancels the other out.

Everyone in Martyr! is flawed, often deeply, but they're all also very real, and they're trying their best; they aren't trying to hurt anyone, but they cause hurt anyway, and then they and those around them just have to deal with that. Martyr! weighs the search for personal meaning against the duty owed to others and doesn't come up with a clean answer. What responsibility did Orkideh have to her family as opposed to herself? What responsibility did Ali have to Cyrus as opposed to himself? What responsibility does Cyrus have to Zee, as opposed to his search for a meaningful death?

Cyrus' story is mainly the post-sobriety story: He's doing what he's supposed to, he's not drinking or doing drugs, he's going to his AA meetings, he's working (after a fashion)...and what's the reward? He still can't sleep at night and he feels directionless and alone and now he doesn't even have the ecstasy of a good high to look forward to. This is the "so what now?" part of the sobriety journey.

It's also in many ways a family story. Cyrus lost his mother when he was young and his father shortly after he left for college, and he spends the book trying to reckon with these things and with the people his parents were. Roya is the mother Cyrus never knew, whose shape he could only vaguely sketch out from his father's grief and his unstable uncle's recollections. Ali is the father who supported Cyrus in all practical ways, and sacrificed mightily to do it, but did not really have the emotional bandwidth to be there for his son. And there are parallels between Cyrus and Roya arising later in the book that tugged quite hard on my heartstrings, but I won't spoil anything here.

Cyrus wants to find meaning, but seems only able to grasp it in the idea of a meaningful death--hence his obsession with martyrs. The idea of a life with meaning seems beyond him. He struggles throughout the book with this and with the people trying to suggest that dying is not the only way to have lived.

I really enjoyed this book and I think it deserves the praise it's gotten. I've tried to sum up here what the book is "about," but it's a story driven by emotion more than plot. It's Cyrus' journey and his steps and stumbles along the way, and I think Akbar did a wonderful job with it.

(no subject)

Me:

Comet, or Ju, 27, Brazilian, but I only post in English.

I mostly post about:

I like posting about things I may be into at the moment, like a game I played or something I’ve found interesting, and some basic thoughts about them. Mostly I have been logging in my Solo TTRPG plays, my Doronai Nui adventures mainly. Sometimes a post about real life, but not much. The plan is to just blog about anything I feel like sharing.

My hobbies are:

I play video games, I solo TTRPGs, I draw, I drabble, some fandoming, and some light toy collecting. Want to read more.

My fandoms are:

My main fandoms are Bionicle (G1) and Transformers (G1, Beast Wars, Skybound, Prime, and some IDW), I also like No Man’s sky, and have been getting into The Dark Crystal. And a little bit of many things. I have been playing a lot of Vintage Story.

My posting schedule tends to be:

Sporadic. I’ve made an effort to post more frequently, but it’s more interesting when I actually have something that has been on my mind.

I'm looking to meet people who:

Post similar things or may like similar things. I’m not around all the time, and I’m a bit quiet, so I don’t mind people who are similar.

The Friday Five for 12 December 2025

1. Did you get an allowance as a kid, and if so, how much was it?

2. How old were you when you had your first job, and what was it?

3. Which do you do better: save money or spend money?

4. Are people more likely to borrow money from you, or are you more likely to borrow from them?

5. What's the most expensive thing you've ever bought?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

New to Dreamwidth

Hey everyone! My name is Leslie but I'm usually called Lilith online. Either works. I used to be on LiveJournal for years then fell away once Facebook became a thing. I am venturing back to LJ and I will also be posting here as well. I remember having really great connections on LJ and I am hoping to find that again.

Name:

Leslie aka Lilith. Either is fine.

Age:

45. I've always been an old soul and now my body is catching up.

I mostly post about:

I don't know yet. I think it's going to be mostly a diary kind of thing where I talk about my life and thoughts and dreams and goals and the nice stuff and the bad stuff. A little bit of everything that makes me ... me.

My hobbies are:

theater, acting, directing, doing tech, art, singing, writing, photography, anything NASA (I go to the Space Center a lot), thrifting, true crime, documentaries

My fandoms are:

Anything Broadway, Marvel, Wicked, paranormal shows, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, Taylor Swift, etc

I'm looking to meet people who:

Are chill. Some things should be serious about some things, but also a sense of humor is great. I am very "woke" though. Please be aware I am "woke". I am also disabled and will talk about my illness and disability issues. And I am mom of an nonverbal son who is autistic and those subjects will come up. I am adult too so I'll bring up adult issues as well, like sex.

My posting schedule tends to be: daily/weekly/monthly/sporadic/etc

My goal is to post at least weekly, maybe twice a week. My illness can throw me for a loop and suddenly I can't sit up some days. So, it depends on my spoons.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are:

If you are conservative. We just won't connect or agree on things, and I am at the point in my life that I want peace. It's better to just move along. I'm also not Christian but I do have Christian friends, but I am not into Christian Nationalism. If you are, we won't be a good fit. I identify as pagan/witch. I'm also LGBTQIA+ and have a trans son.

Before adding me, you should know: I am unapologetically myself. I can be a strong personality and I will always say if I disagree with someone, but I won't be rude about it unless I am needing to match energy being thrown at me.

Entry tags:

type: meme

RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

It's Wednesday in some localised linear timelines (more or less). What are you reading?

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: The sofa
Current Music: A very large fan

What's up?

Hi folks, I hope you all are doing well. Not good at doing these intro things, but I'll give it a try. I'm Lesley. I'm in my late thirties, happily married and I have one cat child. I love books of all types, I'm currently making my way through the Dungeon Crawler Carl books, Tv shows including The Golden girls, How I met your Mother, Grace and Frankie and others. I love all kinds of music, and I enjoy baking. I welcome people of all backgrounds and stuff, I'm a Christian myself. as for what I write about in here, To be honest, there's only one entry in here, but I plan on changing that. I will most likely write about daily life things, and sometimes about what I'm watching/reading/listening to as well as mental and physical health stuff. I am totally blind, so sometimes I will write about that. If there is anything else you wanna know, feel free to take a peak at the profile. I will be writing in here probably every few days to every week. Depends on the mood I'm in. I hope all of you have a good day, and if you celebrate them, happy holidays

Seeking New Friends

Name: Georgiana or Georgie. Neither is my legal name, but they are what I use here and in most situations.

Age: Forty-two.

I mostly post about: Entries may consist of anything from short summaries of my day, to surveys, to essays on various topics, to interesting links and quotes that I find, along with my commentary on them. Lately, I have been writing reviews of opera recordings from the 1950's and earlier. I have no interest in politics and modern celebrities. I wish to keep my journal light and happy as much as possible.

My hobbies are: studying dandyism, Received Pronunciation, the Regency, and the Italian language, reading, writing, cooking, baking, playing cards and dice, and enjoying warm weather.

My Other Interests include: coffees, teas, antique menswear and accessories (usually Edwardian), chamber and classical music, old opera singers, plants and gardening, crafts, and history and nature documentaries. I love wit, wordplay, and sarcastic humour without vulgarity. I also love cats.

My fandoms are: I don't have any.

I'm looking to meet people who: are positive, who share my interests and can introduce me to some new ones, and who enjoy at least some elements of high culture. While the minimum age I will add is twenty-one, I tend to get along with those who are older than I, particularly seniors. I am also single and searching, but since this isn't a dating community, I'll just say that you can find more about that in one of the sticky entries in my journal. You can also find my Mastodon and Escargot.chat information there.

My posting schedule tends to be: It varies, from a few posts in a given week to a few in a single day. Often, I post what I call filler entries toward the end of the month. These are entries posted on one date but for another. I try to post a few entries per week.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: minors (I prefer at least over twenty-one), depression and/or anxiety (posted regularly), bad self-esteem, life drama, recreational drugs, religion or politics (posted regularly), a lot of bad grammar and spelling (unless you're learning English), and frequent obscenities. Please note that I am totally blind, so if you mostly post images, I won't be able to comment on them, as I cannot see them.

Before adding me, you should know: I have no time for political correctness, lies, or drama. While I always try to be civil during discussions, I share my opinion without reservations. If you are easily offended, please do not add me. I have a very dry and witty sense of humour. Otherwise, feel free to read my profile and/or posts and add me if you wish. I will most likely reciprocate. I also comment when I have something to say, but there are times when I don't read my friends' page for awhile, and I am trying to change that.

Entry tags:

Book Review: Brahma's Dream

Title: Brahma's Dream
Author: Shree Ghatage
Genre: Fiction, historical fiction, family drama

Brahma's Dream by Shree Ghatage was a book I snatched out of a pile of stuff my sister was giving away last year, but she'd never gotten around to reading it herself, so she couldn't give me a preview. Brahma's Dream is set in India just before it gains self-rule, and concerns the family of Mohini, a child whose serious illness dominates her life.

This is one of those middle-of-the-road books that was neither amazingly good nor offensively bad, and therefore I struggle to come up with much to say about it. That makes it sound bad, but it isn't--I enjoyed my time with it. I thought Ghatage did a good job with exploring life on the precipice of great political change, although the history and politics of 1940s India is more backdrop to the family drama than central to the story. I liked Mohini and her family; because the nature of her illness necessitates a lot of rest and down time, Mohini is naturally a thoughtful child, as her thoughts are sometimes all she has to amuse herself. However, she never crosses the line into being precocious, which was a relief.

Neither did I feel like the book leaned too hard on Mohini's illness to elicit sentimentality from the reader. Obviously, an illness like hers is the biggest influence on her life, and on the lives of her immediate family, and there are many moments you sympathize with her because she can't just be a child the way she wants to be, but I didn't feel like Ghatage was plucking heartstrings just for the sake of it.

Reading the relationships between Mohini and her family was heartwarming, especially with her grandfather, who takes great joy in Mohini's intellect and is often there to discuss the import of various societal events with her.

Ghatage's descriptive writing really brings to life the India of the time, with the colors, smells, sounds, and sights that are a part of Mohini's every day.

It reminded me of another book I read about a significant event in Indian history (the separation of India and Pakistan) told through the perspective of a young ill girl, Cracking India.

On the whole, this was a sweet, heartfelt book. It's not heavy on plot, but if you enjoy watching the story of a family unfold and the little dramas that play out, it's enjoyable.

Current Mood: excited

Entry tags:

mood themes

Big News at Mood Theme in a Year

Interested in creating your own custom mood theme, but unable to afford a paid account? Well, do I have some fantastic news for you:

Members of

moodthemeinayear are now being awarded paid time or Dreamwidth points for creating custom mood themes!

You can learn about all the details here; the next full round of the Minimum, Medium, and Maximum Tracks starts January 1st, but if you're looking for the perfect creative project to speed run before then, there's also Mood Theme in a Month calendars and some Bingo cards to work with.

Come check it out and stretch your creative muscles!

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Book Review: The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp

Title: The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp
Author: Leonie Swann (trans: Amy Bojang)
Genre: Fiction, mystery, murder mystery, crime thriller

Book # (checks notes) 13! From the "Women in Translation" rec list has been The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann, translated from German by Amy Bojang. This book concerns a house full of elderly retirees who end up investigating a series of murders in their sleepy English town.

This book was truly a delight from start to finish. I loved Swann's quirky senior cast; they were both entertaining and raised valid and very human questions about what aging with dignity means. It did a fabulous job scratching my itch for an exciting novel with no twenty-somethings to be seen. Now Agnes, the protagonist, and her friends are quite old, which impacts their lives in significant ways. However, I felt Swann did a good job of showing the limitations of an aging body--unless she's really in a hurry, Agnes will usually opt to take the stair lift down from the second floor, for instance--without sacrificing the depth and complexity of her characters, or relegating such things merely to the youth of their pasts.

The premise of this book caught my attention immediately, but after a lifetime of books with riveting premises that dismally fail to deliver, I was still wary. I'm happy to report that The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp fully delivers on its promise! Swann makes ample and engaging use of her premise.

The story itself is not especially surprising; if you're looking for a real brain-bender of a mystery or a book of shocking plot twists, this is not it. But I enjoyed it, and I thought Swann walked an enjoyable line between laying down enough clues that I could see the writing on the wall at some point, without giving the game away too quickly. There are no last-minute ass-pulls of heretofore unmentioned characters suddenly confessing to the crime here! The main red herring that gets tossed in the reader is likely to see for what it is very quickly, but for plot-relevant reasons I won't mention here, it's very believable that Agnes does not see that.

Agnes herself was a wonderful protagonist; I really enjoyed getting to go along on this adventure with her. She had a hard enough time wrangling her household of easily-distracted seniors even before the murders started! But the whole cast was endearing, if also all obnoxious in their own way after decades of settling on their own way of getting through life.

Bojang does a flawless job with the translation; she really captures various English voices both in the dialogue and in Agnes' narration. The writing flows naturally without ever coming off stilted or awkward.

I really had fun with this one, and I'm delighted to here there's apparently a sequel--Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime--which I will definitely be checking out.

The Friday Five for 5 December 2025

1. If you had to participate in one Olympic event, what would it be and why?

2. What is the one song you always sing along to?

3. Do you wear a seatbelt in the car?

4. Car, SUV or truck and why?

5. Are you a good/bad driver? Explain.

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted. Comments re: the spelling and grammatical nature of the questions are not necessary. Honestly, any hostile, rude, petty, or unnecessary comments need not be posted, either.**

Entry tags:

Once a fan, always a fan

Name: Mistee
Age group: 40's
Country: USA
Subscription/Access Policy: Feel free, however I am mostly going to be posting fandom stuff and icons/graphics. I don't really have a journal for personal stuff. I do have Discord if you'd like to chat.

Main Fandoms: Teen Wolf, Trigun Anime/Manga, Windbreaker.
Other Fandoms:Supernatural, JJK, MHA, Natsume Yuujinchi, Katekyo Hitman Reborn, Bleach, Sailor Moon, Bungo Stray Dogs, and many, many Yaoi/BL anime/manga.
Fannish Interests: Roleplaying, reading fanfics, reading anime/watching manga.
OTPs and Ships: Derek/Stiles, Peter/Stiles, Stiles/Malia; VashWood, PlantWood; Suo/Sakura, Togame/Sakura; Gojo/Yuuji, Nanami/Yuuji, Gojo/Sugaru; Ichigo/Renji, Ichigo/Aizen, Ichigo/Byakuya; Tsunayoshi/ANY of the Guardians lol; Dazai/Atsushi; Usagi/Seiya, Usagi/Haruka, Haruka/Michiru.

Favourite Movies: Labyrinth, Secret of NIMH, The Craft, The Crow (original), Legally Blonde, American Assassin (Dylan O'Brien).
TV Shows: Teen Wolf, Criminal Minds, White Collar, NCIS, Supernatural
Music: 70's/80's Classic Rock, The Eagles, Matchbox Twenty, Journey, various other artists/bands
Games: World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XIV, Palworld, Palia, Once Human
Comics/Anime/Misc: Marvel Comics, various other mainstream and yaoi/bl manga. Too many to list, honestly, I can probably just give you my completed list from MyAnimeList. xD

(no subject)

Name: Mistee

Age: 45

I mostly post about: I don't use it to post anything right now, I forgot I had this journal to be honest lol. I am going to turn it into a fandom/graphics blog though, with some other stuff sprinkled in probably. I don't usually post personal stuff online but have no problem discussing it with people in PM/DM if they're interested learning about me, etc..

My hobbies are: Fandom roleplaying (I only play fandom characters, but will rp with fandom or oc characters), gaming (mostly MMO's), reading manga or fanfics, watching anime or anything that catches my interest, getting back into icon/graphic making cuz I miss it, listening to music, watching movies.

My fandoms are: Teen Wolf (MTV show), Trigun Manga/Anime, and various others I'm trying to keep up with lol but those two are my biggest fixations right now.

I'm looking to meet people who: Have the same interests, being near or the same age is not necessary. I have friends from all different age ranges/walks of life.

My posting schedule tends to be: Whenever I have the energy. I work from home due to medical problems, so my hours are roughly 8am-630pm Central Standard time, Mon-Fri. Though I am mostly around a lot of the time.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: Discrimination, ableism, racism, animal cruelty, transphobia, gay-phobia, bigotry, speaking negatively about LGBTQ+, honestly any of the bad shit lol.

Before adding me, you should know: I am chronically online due to medical issues/being disabled so I am around a LOT. Going to be around even more so due to our work's reduction of hours they're putting into place soon so I'm going to have a LOT of free time coming up to work with lol. I also mostly connect through either Discord or Plurk.

A fun fact about me is that I have a Guinness World Record and a star named after me. :)

Entry tags:

type: meme

RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

It's Wednesday! What are you reading?

Current Mood: busy

Entry tags:

Self-Care Wednesday

I checked for a Wednesday-after-Thanksgiving holiday and didn't find any. So I'm declaring this Self-Care Wednesday. You've done all the things. You've done Thanksgiving, Buy Nothing Day, Small Business Saturday, Shop for Good Sunday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday. And now you're tired. You deserve a break! Take care of yourself today.

Self-Care Wednesday text with reading nook.

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(no subject)

Name: Sam

Age: 30's

I mostly post about:

I write about my learning journey from zero (not really) to masters in Computer Science, with the goal of getting formal admissions into a program under 2 years. I have a lot of IT applied experience, but now I want to be able to master the material and also for myself learn as much as I can about the topics of programming systems, Linux, and math. For math, I really do know very little. I would very much like to improve that.

My hobbies are:

I like to play video games, take walks, and exercise. My favorite games right now are Lord of the Rings Online and Guild Wars. I also play retro games and am going through the Harvest Moon series on the original DS.

My fandoms are:

I don't invest a lot of energy into fandoms. But I like Linux. I think that counts.

I'm looking to meet people who:

Journals about goals, dreams, and ideas. I do enjoy reading about criticisms, first draft essays, and general naval gazing.

My posting schedule tends to be: daily/weekly/monthly/sporadic/etc

Sporadic with a weekly update on what I'm learning.

When I add people, my dealbreakers are:

I want to avoid negative spaces, so if you are constantly ranting about how terrible things are, I understand. I'm going to put a positive energy in my journal.

Current Mood: busy

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Giving Tuesday

Today is Giving Tuesday. This holiday is about charity in all its forms. You can give money, time, goods or services, whatever you have to share.

Giving Tuesday banner with hands holding a heart

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Current Mood: busy

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Call for Prompts

dialecticdreamer is running a prompt call all month in December! Leave prompts, get ficlets. \o/ MOAR GOODEEZ for everyone! If you're looking for fun activities, or a new writer to follow, this is worth exploring.

This whole month I hope to fill with prompted stories, to celebrate my lovely readers and surviving the first quarter of the twenty-first century. It’s been jam-packed with crises and chaos, hasn’t it? Time to take a story break… or thirty.

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Reading Wrap-up 11/25

In hindsight, it seems my November was horror-reading month. I swear, I hadn't planned it this way, but I won't complain.

Purcell, Laura: Bone China. Bloomsbury. 2019.
I've been reading her books for a few years now, picking one up every autumn. She's a contemporary author, but she writes in the vein of gothic fiction - there are a lot of remote mansions and haunted castles in her books. Bone China features a remote manor on a cliff, an unreliable narrator and the question of what is truly happening and what is actually only taking place in the protagonist's head. Purcell is really good with the psychological horror. If that's your kind of thing you should definitely check her out.

Moreno-Garcia, Silvia: Mexican Gothic. Del Rey. 2020.
This was my first time with a novel by Moreno-Garcia. I felt that thematically, this was all over the place. Apart from the fact that it's horror it also tried to tackle themes like racism, classism, eugenics and mysoginy, but it didn't spend enough time on any of these themes to make it worthwhile. Additionally, this has a historical setting (the 1950/1960s) even though this is never fully realised and you wonder why the author chose to take this route (probably only to constantly talk about the dress the protagonist was wearing, I don't know). And when we got to the bottom of why the house was "haunted" I basically got off the plane - this is a personal thing of course, but I found this rather silly instead of terrifying. What I really liked was the gothic vibes she managed to evoke while describing the house. The atmosphere and the creepy dreams (that only get creepier as the story progresses) were my highlights.

Tremblay, Paul: Horror Movie. HarperAudio. 2024.
Tremblay simply has the best audiobook productions and this was top-notch as well. If you want to give this novel a try, do yourself a favour and consider the audiobook! I can't say that I fully bought into the "haunted set" idea and most of the characters felt flat and hardly realised, but Tremblay is really good with mixed media. There are several POVs and a screenplay in this. But the novel wasn't overly scary or frightening.

Feito, Virginia: Victorian Psycho. Audible Audio. 2025.
As a project this is very well done and successful, but as a book on its own I find it forgettable. As the title says this marries American Psycho to a Jane Eyre-like plot. The language was the most interesting thing about this, because just like in American Psycho the narration starts off very tame and proper only to get more unhinged as the story progresses. I think that progression was the highlight of the novel and very well done. On the other hand, it was riffing off what Ellis has already done decades ago, so I'm not sure how much of the credit (besides the idea of the Victorian setting) can really go to Feito. In the end, mostly a fanfiction remix even if it's executed extremely well.

Kröger, Lisa & Anderson, Melanie R.: Monster, She wrote! The Women Who Prioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction. Quirk Books. 2018.
Let's start this by saying that this is a beautifully done book. It was quite obviously typeset before the pandemic and before paper became scarce and expensive - there's a lot of free and waste of space here and it's wonderful to see a book "breathe" like that. Happens rarely enough. Sadly, this nonfiction read didn't fully give me what I had expected. Yes, I filled up my TBR because the authors truly manage to find a lot of hidden gems. But I had definitely expected more literary criticism, more in-depth analysis. In the end, this was pretty much snorkeling just below the surface.

Doerr, Anthony: Cloud Cuckoo Land. Scribner. 2021.
I only read this because Ben from Ben reads good gave this a glowing review. Half an hour into the (German) audiobook of 16 hours I thought this would be 16 hours of pure torture. In the end, it wasn't quite that bad, but I can't say that the book and I had a successful time with each other. The "hook" - the Greek epic connecting all the different timelines was as silly as the title suggests and had I known that this would fully be shouldered by kid and teenage protagonists I would have opted out before I even started. I just didn't care for any of it. Okay, that's not true. I cared for the poor beasts of burden who died somewhere in the middle - but even that was mostly the author emotionally manipulating the reader, so I don't know what to make of this.

Current Mood: busy

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Cyber Monday

Today is Cyber Monday. This holiday focuses on shopping online. It has surpassed Black Friday as the biggest shopping day of the year! \o/

Cyber Monday banner

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