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Tag guide: Ash Reviews = og post that's a review. Ash Doesn't Even Read = books I didn't finish. Ash Doesn't Review = og post that isn't a review. Reviewer Responds = asks. Reviewless = off topic reblogs.

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The Wayfarers series was recommended to me by Anon, so I've been slowly working my way through it. This one took me ten days to finish. It was published in 2018. The genre is sci-fi. Is the way I say that I pirated things getting annoying yet? Because I'm probably gonna keep doing it. Anyway you still don't have any proof.

Main characters in most to least favorite: Eyas, Kip, Sawyer, Tessa, Isabel.

He didn't have time to process what death felt like.

- All of the food in the Fleet sounds so good. Reading this made me hungry. I really wish I could try a hopper.

- Eyas's job is really cool. I like the way it's described and the customs around it. She's so skillful and caring. I wish it didn't sorta make her forget herself beyond that, but it's also understandable and I like how she works through that.

- I kinda thought Kip and Ras were gonna end up together, with the whole "I need to find Something with my best friend" narrative, and as much as it sucks that Ras was an asshole and they're not friends anymore, I'm glad Kip found better friends.

- I of course loathe the ending, but I do like it the best out of the other endings in the Wayfarers series. It feels a lot more final and wraps things up better.

- I really like the way sex workers and sanitation workers are treated in the Fleet. It's genuinely very cool, I wish things were like that irl. However, I miss the word coupling ☝️ the other books I've read of this series mostly refer to sex as coupling and I don't think this one does it even once lol. Where'd my silly word go?

- Isabel and Tamsin are fun. I like them together, they're so silly and sweet. The amount of romance in this book is a little nausea inducing though lmao

- It's cool that Kip is apprenticing with Isabel. I think he'll do good there. Genuinely kicked my feet in glee when Isabel started explaining that she wanted him to work with her.

- More aromantic character(s)?! Eyas has-platonic-sex-on-the-regular romance-had-never-been-her-thing Parata I love you!! Also I choose to believe Sunny is aroace. I fully think Eyas is intentionally aromantic but Sunny is just because I said so (which I do to like every character that doesn't have canon romances).

- Now that I was prepared for the no-Wayfarers thing the book was more enjoyable. Thank you again to the person who told me that they're only the main focus of the first book, cause I was fully gonna reset and be just as confused as I was with the second book.

- Once again, so much fucking world building. And the way it's shown is always so creative. I love how much thought goes into this series. Chambers's writing style is so fun. It cannot be overstated how much I love the Wayfarers series.

- Sawyer's death fucking destroyed me. He's grappling with the fact that he's been tricked into stealing from dead people and then he's just gone. And the people who tricked him there threw his body away like he was nothing. And most people will judge him by an assumption of why he was there. And no one could claim his body. And the only people who came to his funeral that didn't have to be there were the caretaker's wife and a teen who accidentally overheard details of his death while high. And he didn't have time to process what death felt like.

- The A.I.s shouldn't have been put in archiving!! I get that there are definitive issues with the system, but there are ways to fix that without pushing a bunch of people out of their jobs. Tessa's anger was completely founded, I wouldn't have liked the Fleet anymore if they did that to me either. Ghuh'loloan was such a fun character up until then.

- The plot keeps sneaking up on me in this series. After I had recovered from Sawyer's death I was able to figure out that it'd probably connect a lot of the characters, which was right, but it didn't cross my mind that he was gonna be pretty much the focus of the book after that.

- There aren't any character's I don't like within the main characters, which is really cool because most of the time I hate someone lol.

- The scene where Ghuh'loloan has to move without her cart is completely ableist, no wiggle room. From the underlying How did Harmagians rule the galaxy if they can barely move without their carts? to the way it's poised as this absurd gross thing you can't look away from to the sensationalized way the crowd jumped at the chance to help. None of that was necessary. I thought this scene was gonna be about how mobility aids can be limiting (if she just couldn't go in due to it) or how mobility aids that aren't made for you are frustrating (if she transferred to a different cart, which the Fleet seems like it should have even if not made for her body), and as a disabled reader that was just a complete slap in the face.

- The way everyone overlooks Exodan culture and keeps trying to "help" by making them adapt to other cultures is just plain sad. The education center thing that Eyas, Sunny, and the others make to help outsiders learn about Exodans is so smart, I'm glad they did that. It makes sense as a conclusion and is clearly so needed.

- This might be mean but I was kinda hoping George and Tessa would break up the entire book. I'm sorry okay I just find the insistance that he wasn't what she wanted a little damning.

- When I first started doing reviews I was scared of extreme ratings, so I have edited the rating for The Long Way To A Small, Angry Planet to properly reflect my feelings on it. Which makes this book just slightly below that one.

For the tests, it passes most of them. It fails the sick dog test due to the way Ghuh'loloan + Ashby and Tessa's dad are treated. Once again the Ali Nahdee test depends on whether you'd count Exodans as indigenous in this universe.

Read this to my little siblings one chapter per day, but it took us about three weeks because my mentals have not been good so we missed a few days. It was published in 2014. I got it when I was in like third to fifth grade (not sure) and the author came to my school to talk about it and gave everyone a copy.

Some of the chapters felt empty, like they were only there to make the book longer. It was useful, though, it helped them understand timeskips and stuff like that better, and then I used it to break down metaphors for them. Both of my little siblings had extreme opinions on Paintbrush, my little brother hated him and my little sister loved him. They both liked the book overall though, since they like mysteries a lot.

Re-read it for the first time because I just got a physical copy, which took me nine days to read. It was published in 2023. It's a horror anthology.

Chapters listed in most to least favorite: All My Best Friends Are Dead, The Landscape Of Broken Things, Be Not Afraid, Lights, The Teeth Come Out At Night, Papa Pearlie, I Love Your Eyes, Mother Daughter And The Devil, No Harm Done, The Consumption Of Vienna Montrose.

"But," he begins. "But you are an angel." Her mouths open. She speaks her first words. "No," she says from her many throats. "You named me that."

- Anthologies are cool because you get to see so many different writing styles and how they contrast with and compliment each other.

- Devil as an allegory for abuser sometimes gets weird but it's done well in Mother, Daughter, And The Devil I think. I really like that Lily kills him.

- I like that most of the stories aren't romance focused and that in the ones that do include that, the romances are absolutely doomed.

- I love social commentary horror. Be Not Afraid is such a perfect story.

- I think The Landscape Of Broken Things and All My Best Friends Are Dead are the scariest to me, because they play on fears I have I guess lol. The Landscape Of Broken Things is so cool to me also because too often when psych wards and the like are involved in horror, the horror is based around the fact that mentally disabled people live there, and in this one the horror is directly tied to the loss of self and autonomy associated with being in one.

- It's so hard to pick a favorite. They're all so well written and there are a lot of really powerful stories in this. A lot of them are pretty relatable, too.

- I wish that Zeke would've killed Papa Pearlie instead of himself, or found a way to safely destroy the dolls or something, but it makes sense why he would do what he did.

- Lights does Not go how you think it would, or at least I didn't expect the twist the first time I read it. I really like the biased narrator trope, he's giving us hints at the danger and he's completely misinterpreting them.

- No Harm Done is just sad all over. The title is lying to you, there is very much harm afoot.

- Small pointless detail but I enjoy that more than one of the stories featured has a scene where characters eat soup.

- The cover art is so pretty, by the way. I don't normally mention the covers when reviewing them (never judge a book by its cover yk) but for this one I have to because I really really like it.

- The only chapter I don't like is The Consumption Of Vienna Montrose. It's gross to me lol, which I guess is the point but it makes me dislike it. The like, taken by/manipulated into loving a monster trope isn't fun for me.

- There's a lot of good foreshadowing in I Love Your Eyes, and reading that while knowing what's gonna happen is the best thing ever. The dialogue gets kind of eccentric after the masks are dropped but it's pretty fun.

- There's a nice balance of tragicness and creepiness throughout the book that I enjoy.

- This book introduced me to one of my favorite authors, Liselle Sambury. Her writing style is awesome. All My Best Friends Are Dead jumps from past to present, which was a little confusing the first time I read it, but it made reading it this time so fucking fun?? Books with shifting narrators and/or times are cool.

The book does really well on the tests, passing all of the ones it qualifies for (the only other one being the Ali Nahdee test). Whether or not the sick dog test is applicable depends on whether we're counting Clairvoyancy or persistant tooth pain as disabilities. If we are, then it passes.

Half because I didn't finish it. First time read because the neighbor gifted it to me after I told her I like books. The part that I did read took me like two and a half weeks to read. It was published in 2005 and the genre is mystery thriller.

A lot of the book (or what I read of it) is the main character's guilt over a former member of his team(?)'s death. It's very much presented in a "I got this poor little woman killed now I have to feel bad about it forever!!" way, with lines from other character's thrown in about how much she erm actually loved her job. Presumably Hannah was in previous books but in this one the mentions of her leave out any personality she may have had and only serve to make you feel bad for Dillon.

Every single time an African country is mentioned, the characters immediately mock it as gross and desolate. They're used as places to hide without any consideration or even mention of the people who actually live there.

Every woman character is sexualized and made out to be dumb and helpless. All women characters that aren't main antagonists (and even then they're on thin ice) are completely disposable.

It really is just boring overall. The plot is flat. Every character is bland. The antagonists have the same exact personality (or lack thereof) as the protagonists, and with the amount of times things like "the [protagonist] of the bunch" are said about them, I think it's intentional. No variety here.

It's part of a series aparently? Which explains why it was a little hard to follow. I really don't know how you could squeeze more than one book out of this though.

It was genuinely difficult to read just half of it. I have a rule with myself that I can't decide not to finish a book until I've read around half of it, and with this one I was telling myself it's almost over it's almost over the last dozen pages I had to read. Most of the time spent reading this is days where I literally couldn't make myself read it at all.

The only character confirmed to be Black (in the first half at least) is introduced as "very big and very Black", is pretty much only there to serve the president drinks, and barely speaks for the three seconds of page time he gets. First time reading anything from this author but I don't think I like you Mr. Higgins.

First time watch. It was released this year (2026). It's like an hour and two thirds long. I swear to god (haha) that I didn't pirate it. The genres are Southern Gothic revenge dark comedy thriller.

Main characters in most to least favorite: Anaia, Racine.

Anaia. Just Anaia. All by herself for the first time.

- Anaia not wanting to be violent and then getting pushed to that extreme is everything to me. I really love it when characters that are non- or less-violent have to anyway.

- Instant favorite, I love this movie so much. I'm gonna be rewatching it a bunch.

- It's such an incredibly well done movie. The premise itself is really intresting and there are so many cool details, it makes it really fucking cool. I know I've said that a lot but it's because it's true. The way they talk in third person with each other? The twin telepathy? The writing on the screen to show their thoughts? Chefs kiss chefs kiss.

- One of the only revenge trope movies where I can actually see how the pieces fell into play like that. Of course they want to kill him. Of course he hasn't changed. Of course his wife and other kids are like that.

- Really cool how the movie adds more emotion and suspense by not showing things, like their dad being faceless for most of the movie and their mom/God's legs not being shown, only the twin's reaction to seeing them.

- The ending destroyed me. What do you mean they don't get to both have a happy ending?? I'm glad that Anaia got one at least and I do like how it was done but holy fuck.

- Their siblinghood and trauma feels realistic, which seems simple but a lot of movies get it wrong. It's very nice.

For the tests, it passes all of them except the Kumbalangi test, and isn't applicable for the Ali Nahdee and Vito Russo tests.

(for context I read these to my little siblings before they go to sleep at night. it's the reviews that are speedy I actually read quite slow)

Frozen: Olaf's Job by Taryn Albright: Given to them by my grandma's friend. Published in 2021. My little sister pointed out that you'd be really overworked if you tried to get three jobs and do them all on the same day. 4/5

Toy Story: An Infinite Friendship by Bendon Publishing: Given to them by my grandma's friend. Published in 2019. Just a book version of the first movie, it's pretty alright. The way it's drawn is kinda scary lmao?? There's one page that's so cursed (↓) 4/5

Mickey & Friends The Three Musketeers by Bendon Publishing: Given to them by my grandma's friend. Published in 2019. Kinda boring. Pete as a character is fatphobic. 3/5

Mickey's Halloween Treat by Thea Feldman: Given to them by my grandma's friend. Published in 2008. Teaches about fractions/moon phases and friendship. 4/5

(for context I read these one day at a time to my little sibs before they go to bed)

Arthur Breaks The Bank by Marc Brown: Given to them by my grandma's friend. Published in 2004. Pretty much my entire family loves Arthur, so I don't think there could've been a fail here. Teaches about saving money and has relatable sibling stuff. 4/5

D.C. Super Friends: Battle Below by Steve Korté: Given to them by my grandma's friend. Published in 2024. Both of them like superheros a lot, but I don't lol. The way supergirl is drawn in this urks me. Also I thought it was superwoman, like superman? If the book is right on supergirl I feel like we should change that ☝️ 3/5

Mickey Campy Camper Day by Bill Scollon: Given to them by my grandma's friend. Published in 2021. Teaches about the importance of outdoor/no screen time, which they could definitely benefit from. 4/5

Spider-Man Dark Webs by Brandon T. Snider: Given to them by my grandma's friend. Published in 2022. Spidey And His Amazing Friends used to be both of their favorite show so ofc they like anything spiderman related. Miles is cool. 4/5

(for context, I read these to my little sibs before they go to sleep)

These are the rest of the Little Critter books by Mercer Mayer that my older brother bought them.

What A Good Kitty: Published in 2012. They both really like cats so ofc they liked it. 3/5

Snowball Soup: Published in 2007. Most of these books are a little bit boring but this one is fun bc the snowballs look appetizing. 4/5

To The Rescue: Published in 2012. Acab acab acab 1/5

Fall Festival: Published in 2009. They enjoy the fall aesthetic so fall themed books are cozy always. 3/5

Going To The Sea Park: Published in 2009. Apparently neither of them knew what a horseshoe crab was before this. 3/5

Rewatch on D.V.D. because my little sibs hadn't seen it, I don't remember where we got the D.V.D. or how many times I've seen it before. It's almost two hours long (probably took us longer bc my baby brother fell off the couch mid movie so there was a fiasco). It was released in 1995. The genre is road comedy-drama.

Main characters in most to least favorite: Noxeema, Vida, Chi-Chi, Beatrice, Carol Ann

Don't quote me on this but I think he's decease-ed.

- I actually really love the ending. Chi-Chi deserves that.

- I liveee for the scenes where Vida beats up Virgil + where Noxeema makes the boys be respectful. Best scenes in the movie.

- It's unfair that Chi-Chi had to give up Bobby Ray because she was """lying to him""", they could've been happy together.

- The movie doesn't take itself very seriously but it is a really sweet story, and also super silly. It's definitely one of my favorite movies. It was actually the first trans/G.N.C. movie I saw.

- Very nice sequence of events. They transform the town into an actual community, the community loves and protects them.

Of these tests, it passes all of which is qualifies for. The ones it doesn't qualify for are the Ali Nahdee test and sick dog test, due to no indigenous women characters and no disabled characters.

Sorta first time read, I read like half of it a couple years ago when my grandma bought me the book but I never finished it. I read it this time (took me a couple hours) because reading Solitaire got me back into it. It's a graphic novel that was published in 2018.

Main characters in most to least favorite: Charlie, Tao, Tara, Nick

"You know, you say sorry a lot." "..." "Don't say it!" "I kinda wanna say it."

- Deals with heavier topics in a way I like. The book is very lighthearted even though some of the stuff is pretty fucked up, but not in a way that takes away from how serious that is, which I think is a hard balance to find.

- I can't decide whether or not I want to read the rest of the books or watch the show first, but this definitely isn't the last Heartstopper thing I'm interacting with.

- I don't like the age gap between Charlie and Nick. I feel like fourteen and sixteen is a bit too much of a gap, like. lot of difference in maturity there. (As a sixteen year old, fourteen year olds are legitimately babies to me.) It doesn't even make sense in context, they feel much more like the same age.

- Nick and Charlie are very cute together. The feelings are pretty cozy even though I don't like romance.

- Nick beating up Ben is the best thing ever. I really like it when abusers get fought lmao.

I feel like it's a little unfair to judge a graphic novel series on one volume but nevertheless the results for the tests are that it only passes the Deggans, Kumbalangi, and Vito Russo tests.

These ones? (Link to post about them here)

(For context, I read these to my little siblings before they go to bed)

My older brother bought a collection of Little Critter (by Mercer Mayer) books for them off of Temu. Which, I am aware of the issues with Temu, apparently he was not. These are the ones we've read so far. All of them were published in 2010.

Just Critters Who Care: Silly little introduction. 3/5

Just Saving My Money: They liked this one the best. The dino toy at the end is cute. 3/5

Just Helping My Dad: Typical kid shenanigans. 3/5

A Green, Green Garden: This one is fun to read out loud and they said it was fun because we have a garden, too. 4/5

Just A Little Sick: I don't think either of them actually liked this one. I ask them how they felt about the book after reading them anything and for this one they had way more "I hated this part"s than "this was the best part"s. 3/5