Chasing Perfect by Susan Mallery Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ I got the book for $1 from Winners after seeing that it had not one, not two, not three, but FOUR red clearance stickers attached to it. What kind of book deserves a 1/5? An offensively bad one. I was two-thirds through Chasing Perfect when I started this review. I just couldn’t take any more of this. The premise is slightly interesting on the surface level.

Understanding Autism: Discover the many ways autistic minds work Rating: ★★☆☆☆ This newsstand magazine (it’s vaguely book-shaped, so it’s a BOOK and so this is a valid BOOK REVIEW) was solidly a 2/5 at the beginning. I felt obliged to give it a 3/5 by the end. It’s still a 2/5 in my heart. [One-month-later update: Nope, frick that. If 21 Things is getting a 2/5, this is getting a 2/5 too.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir Rating ★★★★★ Spoiler warning, although knowing what happens won’t ruin your enjoyment. I knew there’d be an alien, I knew he’d save the world, and I still enjoyed the book. I read The Martian back when it was popular, after watching the movie. These books are about as mainstream as it gets. I figured I deserved one after Quantitative Trading and A Room of One’s Own.

Quantitative Trading: How to build your own algorithmic trading business by Ernest P. Chan Rating: ★★★★☆ So I find the idea of quantitative trading pretty romantic, and I’m surely not the only one. Meritocracy! Antisocial! Morally questionable! Exceptionally high pay, to the point where you can buy basically whatever you want! High risk/high reward, constantly shifting, and oh-so-mysteeeeeerious. You get it. What I liked: It assumes competence. Like, of course you know how to code.

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf Rating: 3/5 This review sucks. But here, take an image, it makes up for it. We are visual creatures after all. Some of my many thoughts while reading: Why is it copyrighted? What’s up with that, Sirius Publishing? Is it just because you wrote the introduction? Hm. Does feminism necessarily have to be intersectional? Does a feminist necessarily have to stand up for all of pro-choice, for men’s rights, for all colors, for veganism, and perhaps Palestine and Ukraine too?

Artemis Blu and the Solarium Multiversity by Shanna Dobson Rating: 2/5 I found this book from a Youtube review: Infinity Unicorn Book Gives Me Infinite Pain. I like trainwreck-style book reviews, perhaps more than normal ones. A Quora answer led to me reading the infamous Empress Theresa back in the day. That book, for all its plot holes, had zero mistakes in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. I cannot say the same about this one.

Circe by Madeline Miller Rating : 4/5 I got A Song of Achilles years ago back when Costco still had books. That was a 5/5 book for me, I think I read it three times. Miller has a very distinct writing style. So you can imagine Circe has been on my to read list for a while. I was very pleased to find it in hardcover at my local library. Libraries are amazing, libraries are wonderful, libraries deserve more funding.

A Year of Ravens by many authors I got this book on clearance for $5 from Winners. Actually, it was the most expensive book I had picked up that day, but I was oddly compelled by the back summary. Published in 2014. Rating: 5/5 If SA as a major driving force is a problem for you, you would not enjoy this book. But it would be strange if a book centered on Boudica’s rebellion didn’t have it.

MACAWS: A Complete Guide by Rosemary Low This was the first book I finished in 2026. BOOKBLOG - Macaws A Complete Guide Rosemary Low I rate it as 4 / 5 It was published in 1990. I picked it up used on Amazon as a continuation of my macaw obsession, which has in no part been hindered by the gorgeous animal calmly perched next to me as I type this.

Can I do this? Cool beans.