Lydia Schoch

February 12, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of Love Bug

Title: Love Bug (The Shrouded Isle Series) Book cover for Love Bug by Zoe Tasia. Image on cover is a drawing of three light brown envelopes that have been dropped in a snowbank and have a few red hearts floating out of them.

Publisher: Zoe Tasia

Publication Date: February 13, 2024

Genres: Young Adult, Holiday, Mystery, Fantasy, Contemporary

Length: About 47 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

It’s Valentine’s Day on the Shrouded Isle. Love is in the air! Unfortunately, love needs a compass, because Cupid keeps hitting the wrong targets. Join Becca Shaw and her daughters, Jessie and Tate as they solve the mystery!

Review:

Love is magical.

I enjoyed the school setting of this tale, especially considering how kind Becca’s teacher was not only to her but to all of the other students in the class as well. Too often school is a source of conflict in young adult novels. While that is in no way a bad thing, especially given how common it is for some kids to have conflicted feelings about school for a wide variety of completely understandable reasons, it was refreshing to read about a teen who genuinely likes going to class and learning new things.

The slow start to this tale made it difficult for me to remain focused on reading it at times. While the pacing did pick up about halfway through, I found myself wishing that it had remained steady from the first scene to the last one as I found the middle and ending much more enjoyable and would have given this a higher star rating if not for my struggles with this aspect of the writing. If other readers have this same problem, I definitely would recommend sticking it out as the final scene was delightful.

Marketing this tale to the young adult genre was a great decision. What would have been out of place for an adult protagonist ended up being perfect for someone Becca’s age given her limited experience with life, magic, and matters of the heart. I nodded as I read about the Valentine’s Day cards she made as an extra credit assignment for one of her classes and wondered when the magical elements of the storyline were going to kick in. Obviously, I can’t share any details about exactly how that panned out for spoiler reasons, but I hope other readers have as much fun figuring it out as I did.

Love Bug piqued my curiosity.

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: My Favourite Song Lyrics

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

I have a document with a list of my favourite modern songs in it, so this was an incredibly easy post to write. There are many older songs I enjoy as well, but I thought it would be a little more challenging to stick to the contemporary stuff (more or less) as I find it a bit harder to find good music these days.

(This is something I may or may not be grumbling about a little next week. Ha!)

You can be amazing
You can turn a phrase into a weapon or a drug
You can be the outcast
Or be the backlash of somebody’s lack of love
Or you can start speaking up

– Brave by Sarah Bareilles

Many mighty ships are sinking
Many stars are falling down
And I count it as a blessing
That you hold me up now

– Beautiful by Mali Music

We all talk having greens, but none of us own acres
If none of us own acres, and none of us grow wheat
Then who will feed our people when our people need to eat?

– Reagan by Killer Mike

Fortune’s flame will never dim
Treasure stokes the fire within
Bring on hell or waters high
We will sail against the tide

– Against the Tide (The Captain’s Tarantella) by Sail North

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Tagged as Lyrics, Music, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

February 10, 2026 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Pets Are Family, Too

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Since I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day, it’s always interesting to see what I can come up with that fits this theme for Top Ten Tuesday. My previous posts have included Romantic Quotes, Conversation Hearts, Helpful Nonfiction Books About Relationships, Asexual Characters, Platonic Relationships, and Chocolate.

I’m not feeling particularly creative this year, so I’m going to keep it simple and share ten quotes about the joys of having a pet. If platonic love can also be celebrated among friends and family for Valentine’s Day, I’d argue that pets should be included as well.

If not for my allergies, I’d want to have a couple of pet rabbits hopping around my apartment!

Two baby bunnies eating a row of daisies that have been picked and placed in front of them. Behind the rabbits you see a large expanse of short grass. 1. “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.”
― Anatole France

2. “My philosophy when it came to pets was much like that of having children: You got what you got, and you loved them unconditionally regardless of whatever their personalities or flaws turned out to be. ”
― Gwen Cooper, Homer’s Odyssey

3. “Perhaps the greatest gift an animal has to offer is a permanent reminder of who we really are.”
― Nick Trout, Love Is the Best Medicine: What Two Dogs Taught One Veterinarian about Hope, Humility, and Everyday Miracles

4. “Anyone who thinks money can’t buy happiness has never owned a cat [or any pet].”
― Arya Riverdale

5. “Our pets are our family.”
― Ana Monnar

6. Dogs teach us the true meaning of unconditional love and loyalty. In their eyes, we find a reflection of our best selves.”
― Uma Sajit

7. “Our pet are our babies. We’re not rational about them. Feathers or furs or scales, they’re the center of entire worlds.”
― Nicole Snow, No Good Doctor

8.“Some things about being human can’t be learned from your own kind..”
― Rona Maynard, Starter Dog: My Path to Joy, Belonging and Loving This World

9. “A pet and a book and a bar of chocolate – what more could one want?”
― Michelle Granas, Amadea: One Spring in France

10. “We are very fond of books. You can learn nearly everything from them that rabbits can’t teach you.”
― Alan Snow, Here Be Monsters! (1)

Happy Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate it! If you have a cute story about your pet(s), I’d love to hear it.

60 Comments

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Tagged as Animals, Top Ten Tuesday

February 5, 2026 · 1:00 am

Bittersweet Valentine’s Day: A Review of Forget February

Title: Forget February Book cover for Forget February by Holly Schindler. Image on cover shows a red heart that’s been broken into a dozen or more pieces and lies shattered on a black surface.

Author: Holly Schindler

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: December 7, 2022

Genres: Holiday, Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal, Contemporary

Length: 17 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Forever Finley Episode / Short Story #3: A tale of happy accidents, mystical events, and the beautiful things that can happen after (or even as the result of) a broken heart. The legend of Amos Hargrove is nothing more than a silly fairy tale, according to the two people who are arguably the most broken-hearted in the entire town of Finley. His spirit does not still exist, and he does not play matchmaker or bring luck to those who need it…or does he?

Forget February is the third installment of Forever Finley, a series of episodes or stand-alone stories that released once a month throughout 2016. Read together, the stories work like chapters in a novel. Previous releases in the series include Come December and January Thaw. Subsequent releases include Dearest March…, April’s Promise, Mayday Mayday Mayday, Chasing June, A Hundred Julys, Under the August Moon, Song for September, October Omen, and the Forever Finley Finale (Pale November / December Bells). Stories can be purchased individually, or readers can purchase all installments in Forever Finley: An Episodic Novel.

Content Warning: Death from pleurisy. Drunkenness. Brief references to war. A character accidentally breaks their leg.

Review:

February isn’t a trustworthy month, but it is a memorable one.

I loved the romantic paranormal elements of this story. The myths surrounding Amos Hargrove and his sweetheart Finley provided the perfect backdrop for contemporary life as the protagonists struggled with their own broken hearts along with other misfortunes that found them in this month. The willingness of the author to show why some characters find certain holidays difficult has consistently been one of the things I enjoyed about this series the most. There is definitely something to be said for holding space for both celebration and grief depending on how one reacts to a specific special day, and it worked even better given the tragic backstory of the spirits who protect the town of Finley.

Some of the quieter scenes that described how cold, stormy, unpredictable, and slippery the weather can be in February turned out to be my favorite moments so far while reading these books. Not only did they provide some interesting foreshadowing, they also set the scene for part of the reason why certain characters were struggling and explained why foul moods and foul weather are never a good match. This is something I hope to find more of when I return to this world this spring as it added another layer of meaning to everything that was happening.

The romance between the two living characters was handled sweetly and delicately. Obviously, given that this is part of a series, there was plenty left to the imagination as the year wears on, but this was a cute introduction to one of the many ways that love can begin to shape two people in new and refreshing ways. I’ve already read other instalments in their adventures at this point, and so I know things about them that a brand new reader will not. Still, these stories were meant to be started at any point, and I can confirm that this works perfectly well even if readers who have already visited this world before might get a little something extra out of it.

Forget February was heartwarming and just a little bittersweet.

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Will You Watch the Super Bowl? Why or Why Not?

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Drawing of a football lying on a white surface. Well, that depends on your definition of the term watch.

Will I watch the game?

No offence intended to people who do enjoy such things, but I’m not interested in playing sports myself, much less watching strangers do so on TV or in real life.

Will I watch the halftime show?

Maybe. Kendrick Lamar’s performance was fantastic last year. Bad Bunny isn’t an artist I follow, but I’m willing to check out what he puts together if I hear plenty of good things about it.

Will I eat some classic Super Bowl food?

If they involve brownies or loaded nachos sans olives, I will be quite tempted to say yes. (I’d have to make them at home, of course, so I could keep them dairy-free).

Will I watch some Super Bowl commercials?

Yes, they’re the best part of this day for me.

Is that succinct enough for you? 😉

13 Comments

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Tagged as Bad Bunny, Football, Kendrick Lamar, Sports, Super Bowl, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

February 3, 2026 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Book Covers Featuring Unique Typography

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

I like the typography of all of these covers.

Book cover for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Image on cover is a red handprint that has the title and author’s name written in white ink on all five fingers and on the palm of the hand. Very creative!

1. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Book cover for In the Woods by Tana French. Image on cover shows the title and author’s name drawn to look like branches in a tree. There are dozens of tiny branches sprouting from every letter which makes a marvelous effect. It’s like visiting a bush or tree in winter and seeing just how many branches they have with their leaves shed.

2. In the Woods by Tana French

Book cover for Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) by Ernest Cline. The font of the title and author looks like it was made in the 1970s or early 1980s due to how it straddles the line between orange, red, and yellow. In the letter O, there is a tiny white key hidden.

3. Ready Player One (Ready Player One, #1) by Ernest Cline

Book cover for The Anatomical Shape of a Heart by Jenn Bennett. Image on cover shows the red words in the title stretched out a little and formed into the shape of a heart.

4. The Anatomical Shape of a Heart by Jenn Bennett

Book cover for Dust (Dust, #1) by Joan Frances Turner. The word dust in the title has been typographically designed to look like dust that has temporarily clumped together. There are still little green and yellow particles of dust flowing away from the word Dust, though.

5. Dust (Dust, #1) by Joan Frances Turner

Book cover for Oil: Anatomy of an industry by Matthew Yeomans. The word oil is written to look like drops of oil that have spilled onto an off-white surface on this book cover.

6. Oil: Anatomy of an Industry (Bazaar Book) by matthew yeomans

Book cover for Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer . Image on cover shows the title and author’s name written on a white background that is filled with with what looks like dozens of either smudged human fingerprints or little black oblong objects that are roughly that size and shape.

7. Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer

Book cover for Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1) by Toni Morrison. The word Beloved is written in an elegant gold font against a red background.

8. Beloved (Beloved Trilogy, #1) by Toni Morrison

Book cover for Bult by Marieke De Maré. Image on cover shows the word Bult written in a large, plain font that’s so tall and straight it almost looks like the walls of a building. There is a scraggly black line waving up and down below this word.

9. Bult by Marieke De Maré

Book cover for The Color Master: Stories by Aimee Bender. The title and author of this book are written in a beautiful cursive font that gradually shift colour from green to blue to purple to red to pink as one’s eye scrolls down the cover.

10. The Color Master: Stories by Aimee Bender

50 Comments

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Tagged as Book Covers, Top Ten Tuesday, Typography

January 29, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of Gods Don’t Sleep

Title: Gods Don’t Sleep

Author: TheRizzX (Rishi Raagav)

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: June 20, 2025

Genres: Fantasy

Length: 10 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author

Rating: 3 stars

Blurb:

Mr.Or was an famous singer, sings like an angel, but suddenly he gets into a weird obsession that makes him to go insane and paranoia with the three friends called Fates.

Content Warning: Insomnia and threats of bodily harm.

Review:

Some challenges should never be taken.

The fantasy elements of the plot were interesting and made me want to keep reading. The blurb doesn’t really do this part of the storyline justice, so this is a word of encouragement to keep reading if the blurb or the beginning doesn’t necessarily speak to you. Things change later on in the plot in ways that I thought were good for nearly everyone involved, and they made me wish for a sequel.

I struggled to understand the main character’s motivation for purposefully not sleeping for several days in a row. Sleep deprivation is such a miserable experience, at least for me, that I didn’t think the explanation that was given for his decision was sufficient. If I had more information about his personality and backstory, it would have made it easier for me to understand why he was drawn to this experience and what he hoped to glean from it.

While I’ve never gone five days without sleep, the descriptions of what it feels like to go more than a day without sleep felt pretty accurate to me early on this tale. I especially liked how the author emphasized how dreamlike the world can eventually feel when one has gone that long without getting any rest. It really does feel like a lucid dream in some respects, and not in a fun way. Time can feel like it speeds up or slows down and even ordinary experiences like trying to have a conversation can feel monumentally challenging.

Gods Don’t Sleep was intriguing.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2020s, Book Reviews, Fantasy, Rishi Raagav, Self-Published, Short Story, TheRizzX

January 28, 2026 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

There are so many books I wish I could read again for the first time! I decided to narrow down the list to titles that were published sometime this century.

Book cover for The Deep by Rivers Solomon. Image on cover is a drawing of a black mermaid with long hair swimming up to the top of the ocean as a whale dives deeply into the water behind her.

1. The Deep by Rivers Solomon

There were a few amazing plot twists in this tale that were well done, including one that I originally thought of as a flaw in the plot. It would be a joy to discover them again.

Book cover for The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey. Image on cover is a drawing of a young girl, about 10 years old, who is wearing a dress and standing with her arms outstretched. Only the silhouette of her body can be seen due to how bright the setting is.

2. The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

Once again, there was a creative plot twist that kept me hooked. While I did figure it out in advance due to how often I’ve read stories in this sub-genre, it was still executed nicely and set up everything nicely for how this duology would pan out. It wasn’t until the final scene in the second instalment that a few last things gelled together which was incredibly satisfying for me as a reader.

3. A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1) by Becky Chamber

Yes, I know I’ve gushed about this duology before, but it really is the perfect world to step into if you’re dreaming of a peaceful solarpunk future.

Book cover for A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard. Image on cover is a photo of a shepherd herding his sheep while they stand on a mountain. There are much larger, snowier mountains in the background.

4. A Short History of the World According to Sheep by Sally Coulthard

This is the sort of history I love to read! Sheep changed the destinies of the humans who cared for them in so many different ways.

5. Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor

This novella had a mysterious and exciting ending that other readers should discover for themselves. I reread it a few times just to see how many different interpretations I could come up with about what happened next.

Book cover for Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. Image on cover is a drawing of an astronaut falling through space with a large yellow planet in the background. The astronaut is stilll tethered to something just out of sight by a white cord attached to their space suit, but their limbs are flailing as they are unable to grasp onto anything in the vacuum of space.

6. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

The film version of this story is finally coming out this spring! I can’t wait. Once again, the plot twists were exciting and the ending left so much scope for the imagination as Anne Shirley would say if she lived in our era.

14 Comments

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Tagged as Books, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

January 27, 2026 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Discoveries I Made in 2025

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Drawning of four hardback books stacked on top of each other neatly. There is a spigot attached to the top novel, and little lightbulbs glowing of light are gently falling out of it like large drops of water. This is going to be a hodgepodge of a post as I attempt to get as close as possible to the full ten answers over the next two months. (I started compiling this list back in November).

1. Hospitals Have Libraries.

Or at least the ones in my area do! I didn’t have a lot of time to browse through them while dealing with various medical stuff for myself and my family last year, but they seem like great places to not only find something interesting to read but also to enjoy some peace and quiet and maybe learn some more about the illnesses or other conditions that have lead you to spend time there.

While I hope that no one reading this post ends up needing this knowledge in 2026, please visit your hospital’s library if you do end up spending time there and need a restful place to unwind. I can’t recommend this resource highly enough.

2. Many People Still Die of Tuberculosis

“Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection” by John Green dove into why this happens and what we can do to stop it. I knew this disease still killed some people, but I didn’t realize how large that number is or how cruelly unnecessary the vast majority of those deaths are.

It some ways it reminds of how people living with HIV in wealthy, developed countries now have life spans that are nearly as long as those of us who are HIV-negative while those who are HIV positive and living in developing nations generally have much shorter lifespans.

Learning stuff like this is why I love reading nonfiction.

3. Sometimes I Like Literary Fiction

After many false starts, I now enjoy this genre on occasion. It simply takes the right plot twist for me to settle into the slower pace of these stories. This isn’t something that will ever be a regular part of my reading habits, but I’m proud of myself of continuing to try every so often until I found a few titles that work for my tastes.

4. BookTok Isn’t for Me

I’m sorry to say that I’ve loathed every BookTok book I’ve tried and at this point I don’t know that I’ll try again because I don’t seem to fit into that demographic group at all. Kudos to those of you who do, of course!

5. I Love the Idea of Silent Book Clubs

A Silent Book Club is a group of people who agree to meet up somewhere like a bookstore, library, or coffee shop and read silently with each other.

This is exactly the sort of reading environment that I crave more of because you can pick any genre you like and bounce among them as often as you’d prefer. I just need to find one reasonably close to home and join in.

6. Bookstodon Is Essential

If you have a Mastodon account, I strongly recommend getting to know the @bookstodon@fedigroups.social community. There are readers of every genre there, and I’ve read and participated in so many wonderfully nuanced conversations about books with various folks there.

(My account is @lydiaschoch@mastodon.social if anyone wants to be buddies there!)

64 Comments

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Tagged as Top Ten Tuesday

January 22, 2026 · 1:00 am

A Review of What Do We Afford

Title: What Do We Afford

Author: Eyal Avissar

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: June 22, 2025

Genres: Science Fiction

Length: about 42 pages

Source: I receive a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

What do we afford—and what affords us? A button invites a press. A screen beckons a swipe. A silence, a gaze, a gesture—they all offer something. But what happens when the tools begin to want? When systems record our rhythms, adapt to our emotions, and wait for our hands like patient familiars? What Do We Afford is a speculative field manual of human and nonhuman use—told through eerie reports, dreamlike system logs, and the quiet mutiny of the everyday. A subway drips with spores that remember longing. A phone glows warm with affection training. A dog learns to speak regret. A therapist becomes a corridor. Written in fragments, forums, and false diagnostics, this book asks not only what we do with objects—but what they do with us. For readers of speculative fiction, poetic systems theory, and those who have ever wondered if the smart device on their nightstand dreams of being needed.

Content Warning:

Review:

Everything can be catalogued and understood under the right circumstances.

Figuring out who or what the narrator was made it impossible for me to stop reading this piece. While it didn’t otherwise come across as a mystery, this element of the plot certainly wasn’t easy to puzzle out due to the limited number of clues that were provided and how uninterested that individual was in explaining anything that it didn’t already understand. Other readers should come to their own conclusions about what the answer is to this riddle, but I certainly had a wonderful time organizing my own thoughts about it and testing my theories as new information was revealed.

There were times when I struggled to understand what the narrator was saying due to the differences between them and humans and other living beings. Their thought processes rarely if ever overlapped with how a person would explain the same event even when they were attempting to put things into terms that our species would understand. This was true even for something as simple as a cow deciding where to graze next or a small child trying to figure out how to get someone’s attention so she could have a snack, so the more complicated stuff sometimes made me frown and reread a passage.

With that being said, I must commend Mr. Avissar for writing a main character that was this unique. Had I encountered this tale under other circumstances and been told it was written by a sentient robot, alien, or other intelligent being that shared no human presuppositions about anything, I might have believed it to be the case. That speaks to how creative this piece was as well as how much effort the author put into imagining something that is all but completely outside of human understanding.

What Do We Afford would make an amazing film.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2020s, Book Reviews, Eyal Avissar, Science Fiction, Self-Published, Short Story

Lydia Schoch

A Review of Love Bug

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: My Favourite Song Lyrics

Top Ten Tuesday: Pets Are Family, Too

Bittersweet Valentine’s Day: A Review of Forget February

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Will You Watch the Super Bowl? Why or Why Not?

Top Ten Tuesday: Book Covers Featuring Unique Typography

A Review of Gods Don’t Sleep

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Books I Wish I Could Read Again for the First Time

Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Discoveries I Made in 2025

A Review of What Do We Afford

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