as told by zaheerah

B O O K S

For April, I ended up reading 4 novellas. I’ve mentioned multiple times before how finding a full-time job has been my priority for the last few months, which has left my blog quite lacking in content. (As you can see, my last post was my Monthly Rewind for March) I have quite a packed Netgalley TBR, and a few ARCs I had requested still need to be read and reviewed, so it made me really overwhelmed. Back when my blog was at its most active, I was actually working part-time, attending university, and blogging altogether. I thought with all this free time, I would be able to catch up, but it’s quite hard at the moment because I do this blog stuff as a side-project for fun; I’ve somehow internally convinced myself that I can’t do any “fun” stuff until I’ve got a steady job which has turned into this messy, horrible book slump right now. I’m trying really hard to get through this slump, but unemployment is beating my ass right now. So I thought reading Novellas would be a great way to ease myself back into the comfort of reading and blogging. And it’s kind of working? I’ve adored each and every book I’ve read this month.

• Artificial Condition/ Rogue Protocol/ Exit Strategy – I plan to write a more thorough review of myself gushing over the Murderbot Diaries because it’s so good. I did not think I would find myself relating to a hacked SecUnit, but here we are.
• The Lies of the Ajungo – I found this one by being nosy on Twitter and saw a mutual request for recommendations, and someone else suggested this. I will have to scour through my feed to see if I can find it again, but perhaps it has been lost to the Musk void. In such a short number of pages, the world-building was amazing. I thought I won the jackpot when I thought the sequel (set 100 years later) was already released, but then I realised I looked at the number wrong, and it was, in fact, slated for a 2024 release. OTL.

A R T

Update from Twitch: I’ve reached affiliate status! If you’re not aware of Twitch, it’s a streaming site that I’ve been on for the last few months, streaming while I play games like Genshin Impact and Horizon Zero Dawn. More recently, I’ve been playing Celeste and Honkai: Star Rail! The main appeal of getting an affiliate role is, essentially, streamers can earn a share of the revenue generated from any video ads played on their channel. I personally wanted the interactive aspects of having affiliate status, which were channel points. I’ve mentioned before that I used a PNG model to stream, and I use Channel Points as a way to allow anyone who watched me to redeem points (earned by watching) to redeem different outfits I’ve made.

One of the major parts of Twitch Affiliate is emotes! Any affiliate or partner on Twitch can essentially have their own personalised emotes, which can be used for those who subscribed to the channel. At the moment, I’m not interested in asking people to sub the channel; while it’s appreciated, I don’t want anyone to feel like they should give some of their money to me. This is why you can redeem any of my emotes for 24-hour use using channel points. The redemption amount is lower than usual because I want everyone to be able to use them! I drew my emotes on stream and using an emote base pack by miffurin. I did design the whole pack, but they’ll just be sitting in my Twitch inventory until I can unlock the rest.

If you happen to be reading this post on the date of its release (May 2nd), I’m going to live today at around 9PM UK time (BST) playing Genshin Impact and pulling for one of my long-awaited characters, Baizhu. (almost three years of waiting is finally over omggg) Come follow me on Twitch for some bad gameplay and good times.

• 13 Blogging Tools That Help Me Blog Better – sumedha @ the wordy habitat, the wordy habitat
• Review: The Faithless by C.L. Clark – Lili @ Utopia State of Mind
• If You Read These Books…Try These K-Dramas: Romance Edition Vol.3 – Rachel @ Life of a Female Bibliophile

That’s it for this month! Tell me what went on in YOUR life this month! What sort of things was important for you this month? New obsessions? New TV shows? Or book? Any new song recs (I’m always open to new music!)? Best books you read this month?

B O O K S

March was a busy month for me – turning 25, preparing for Ramadan, and the ever-so-tiring process of job hunting made it very difficult to really pick up many books this month. I managed to get 3 in and ended up enjoying all of them! Expect reviews for everything!

• Arthur and Teddy are Coming Out – Super wholesome and super sweet. It is a tale about a grandfather and grandson coming out simultaneously and learning to deal with the reactions of their community. Teddy was kind of an arsehole for most of the story, but his grandfather Arthur’s story was so good.
• All Systems Red – I looove finding books through my mutuals on Twitter, and the Murderbot Diaries just kept cropping up over the past few months, so I just knew I had to start this series. The hype was definitely worth it.
• Infinity Gate – I requested this ARC a while ago and never found the time to finish it. This one certainly surprised me and had me gasping at many moments as well.

A R T

March is also my birthday month, and since last year, I’ve made it an art tradition to make a birthday art piece with myself and Kamisato Ayato (from Genshin Impact) – since we share the same birthday! I drew this live on Twitch – I like doing art streams occasionally when Im not playing games – come check it out! I did draw a lot more, but I haven’t finished them yet since I tend

• Fevered Star by Rebecca Roanhorse Review by Lila!
• From the Drafts to Published: Interview with Lauren Thoman – Maddie’s interview!
• Webtoon Wednesday: My Husband, My Sister and I by Stitch (The ads for this webtoon have been relentless. I didn’t think I would enjoy it, but it’s a sort of story that is basically a trainwreck that you can’t keep your eyes off)

That’s it for this month! Tell me what went on in YOUR life this month! What sort of things was important for you this month? New obsessions? New TV shows? Or book? Any new song recs (I’m always open to new music!)? Best books you read this month?

B O O K S

• The Candles are Burning – I did a full review of the Amazon Into Shadow Kindle collection a few weeks ago. This was the final book I had got around to reading, and I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this one, considering that a lot of the short stories in this collection are disappointing. (Not you, Six Deaths, this isn’t about you)
• A Witch’s Guide to Fake Dating a Demon – We all need an Ozroth in our lives who is willing to fight our shitty family members. 8/10. Would’ve been 10/10 if it wasn’t for that annoying third-act miscommunication trope I hate. But I did draw fanart because Mariel is hilarious.
• Blink – A creepy graphic novel about a woman discovering a cryptic website streaming an abandoned house which reminds her of her forgotten past. It’s great, but the publisher did the book a huge disservice by marketing it as found footage when the art doesn’t present itself like that but rather what the main character discovers.
• The Moonlight Blade – I read this manuscript back when I was an intern at Entangled, and I love the newly edited version all the same! I’m a part of the blog tour later this month, so expect a review and fanart!!

A R T

Outside of my usual stream time, I like to also do impromptu drawing streams, which are usually a lot more low-key and low-energy. These streams are usually at around 11pm whenever I can’t sleep, so I draw until I feel sleepy. And during these streams, I work on fanart or new PNG outfits. My newest PNG model outfit was one I’d been planning for a long time, which was a clown outfit. Funnily enough, this is the first time I’m showing it since I’ll be using this outfit tomorrow (March 1st) for my Genshin stream while I pull for Dehya. (Yes, this is me shamelessly promoting my twitch – come over, it’s fun, and I’m usually live around 6pm GMT)

• Arc Review: Lies We Sing to the Sea – The only thing I know about this book is the author saying they’ve never read The Odyssey, which really soured my excitement for this book. But I really enjoyed Jordyn’s review!
• From the Drafts to Published: Interview with Tessa Barbosa, Author of The Moonlight Blade – As I mentioned, I’m currently working on my review and fan art for the blog tour, so check out Maddie’s interview in the meanwhile!

That’s it for this month! Tell me what went on in YOUR life this month! What sort of things was important for you this month? New obsessions? New TV shows? Or book? Any new song recs (I’m always open to new music!)? Best books you read this month?