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The Review Marina

@bookphile / bookphile.tumblr.com

Marina. Americanized Russian. Book Dragon. Taco Addict. I am a conscientious reader and reviewer. I will criticize books I read, pointing out the good, the bad, and the ugly. Known to get salty.
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Welcome to Bookphile’s Blog!

Hello! My name’s Marina aka Bookphile or also sometimes known as The Review Marina elsewhere. I’ve gotten a lot of new followers lately and I wanted to introduce myself to you. I’m not always posting, but I do check in once in awhile to at least scroll through my dash. Though an influx of followers has prompted me to post more often! 

I post only about books here, or try to, occasionally I do post about current issues or world news. Mostly because this is specially a book blog and I’d like to keep it this way - I have not very active side blogs for other interests. 

Some of my favorite books include: 

  • The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden 
  • Deathless by Catherine M. Valente
  • The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
  • The Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
  • The Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao 
  • The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
  • Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett 
  • The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
  • Under the Painted Skies by Stacey Lee 
  • Chaos Walking by Patrick Ness

There are many more, but please refer to the following for more:

Favorite Authors (meaning I’ll read anything they print or their backlog):

Kate Quinn, N.K Jemisin, Stacey Lee, Terry Pratchett, Martha Wells, Emily Henry, Marie Lu, Seanan McGuirre, Silvia Mareno-Garcia, Ruta Sepetus, Madelline Miller, Lindsey Miller... and many more! 

Authors I avoid for various reasons: SJM, Jay Krisstoff, JKR, Rainbow Rowell, C. Clare. 

Feel free to send me messages or reply to my posts. I don’t mind, but it might take me awhile to respond because I’m easily distracted. I can also be reached on my twitter, dumping hot takes into the void: @thereviewmarina.

#Bookphile#about me#booklr#for my followers#don't ask me about the authors I dislike I feel like most people know why people dislike them anyway#Fun fact about me is that Patrick Ness blocked me on twitter over a negative wig comment about the CW movie#also I've been on tumblr for over 10 years lol
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I don't know who needs to hear this, but if you're looking for a job right now, here are the things to keep in mind (this is US centric only):

  • the market is really bad right now, and super competitive. If you're not hearing back, the problem isn't necessarily you.
  • on that note, if you're not hearing back at all, even once in a while consider redoing your resume and cover letter. you don't have to tailor it to every job post, but it does have to be relevant to each one.
  • most of the posts and videos about remote jobs that are hiring right now are fake. the few that aren't disappear really fast because so many people apply, so if you're not one of the first 10 people to see it and go to apply immediately, it's most likely gone if it existed at all.
  • the other thing is that a lot of those jobs do require experience and very few of them are entry level, they will require tests and assessments, and most don't offer more than $15.
  • use chat gpt to grade and make suggestions to your resume and cover letter, do not just have it write it and submit it. do read it over to make sure it didn't add fake information or make something up that's not relevant.
  • make sure to research certificates and classes and bootcamps for authenticity and actual need in the field, certain popular fields like product management, UX, and cyber security are over saturated and hard to get into, if not impossible, at entry level.
  • look into local resources in your town, like the library, to see if they have any job search programs. local facebook groups are great too to find part-time jobs and gigs that pay better than app gigs. or even just a community of other job seekers for emotional and job search support.
  • Things like doordash and other app delivery jobs are hard to do unless you're willing to drive long distances and be paid very little money for it. Consider wear and tear on your car, milage, and gas money before you jump into it. Also you need to set money aside for taxes.

If anyone has anything else to add, please do so.

#job search#gig work#fake jobs#advice#remote jobs
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Anonymous asked:

since you're an nk jemisin fan i wanted to suggest the splinter in the sky, you can really tell the broken earth trilogy was a big influence

Oooh thanks for the suggestion, I'll check it out!

#i haven't read a book in ages because my mental health is in the toilet#but I'm touched you remembered my preferences enough to make a rec T_T#also this was sent five days ago but I just saw it because I keep forgetting tumblr exists but also their new interface hides everything UG
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a-ramblinrose

 I hoped that he would love me,    And he has kissed my mouth,   But I am like a stricken bird    That cannot reach the south.

  For though I know he loves me,    To-night my heart is sad;   His kiss was not so wonderful    As all the dreams I had.

― Sara Teasdale, ‘The Kiss’          from Love Songs

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a-ramblinrose
One need not be a chamber – to be Haunted – One need not be a House – The Brain – has Corridors surpassing Material Place –

- Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them (via a-ramblinrose)

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Reading Bable for a book club, though I've had it on my TBR for awhile, and I think that I could write an entire essay on Chapter 2 alone. Because as an immigrant -- albeit white immigrant (and yes that distinction is very important) -- the conversation about learning the language of a country you immigrated to vs your native language is so relatable. Particularly around forgetting your native language if you don't practice it, about not being able to understand all the nuance of reading a text in a new language because you don't understand the context behind them. I'm both sad and excited about finding it so relatable.

#Bable#Language#R F Kuang#immigrant experience
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a-ramblinrose

“Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack, a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in.”

― Leonard Cohen, from ’Anthem’ Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs

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I'm reading The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes -- and btw, it's funny to me that everyone seems to like it now when everyone on booklr despised it when it came out -- but anyway... It's actually pretty fascinating to see the games at the beginning, when the war is still fresh but some people are already questioning the need for the games because it just keeps the war going. How no one watches them because even people at the Capitol find them barbaric and inhumane.

But also Coriolanus is just exhausting. He tries to be a friend to everyone and ends up being a real friend to no one. He constantly tries to please everyone and be on everyone's good side while thinking the worst about them. Even when it comes to Tigris -- to whom he owes everything and his grandmother to whom he has some familial loyalty and affection -- there's always some under current of judging them.

Like even when you want to admire him for trying to so hard to do whatever it takes to get his family out of poverty, you just can't because there's always an undercurrent of sliminess to him.

#when he felt jealous of all the attention Lucy was getting like boy please#Dr Gaul is at least just evil#the ballad of songbirds and snakes#bookphile opines
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readingrobin
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xiranjayzhao

A full explanation of #reviewbombgate, a major scandal that broke on Booktwt this week.

Please support the books and authors impacted the most:

Kamilah Cole - So Let Them Burn

Bethany Baptiste - The Poisons We Drink

Molly X Chang - To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods

Frances White - Voyage of the Damned

KM Enright - Mistress of Lies

RM Virtues - the Gods of Hunger series

(PS. I know people love to jump to "YA authors are always acting up" and assume any author with a femme-sounding name writes YA so lemme say right now that this author writes adult sci-fi.)

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sarahreesbrennan
  • Road to Ruin - Hana Lee
  • Wrath, Goddess, Sing - Maya Deane
  • The Hurricane Wars - Thea Guanzon

The above are more books and authors who were affected. I must say, this has been a strange thing to follow on twitter. Xiran Jay Zhao is an amazing author (their Iron Widow has a love triangle that goes the way I like em to go!) but clearly they could also be a detective.

I do feel oddly responsible - I was not involved in any way, but I was in the Harry Potter fandom once, then in YA publishing, and now with my adult book coming out 2024, this happens. Am I… the drama? Do I bring the cursed rain?

In all seriousness, what I mainly take away from this is how sorry I feel for the writers listed. If they’re anything like me, publishing was their dream. Having something come tarnish your dream—especially when it’s this new—makes me so sad.

Fellow writers are people who share your dream and love of story. I was just at a writing retreat in Italy where I shut up two different writers in their rooms and made them talk through their books with me as if we were at a story sleepover. It’s a unique kind of friendship, bonding over that love, investing in each others’ imaginations.

It’s a unique kind of heartbreak, when you realise some of those people aren’t your friends. That the bonds of imagination were imaginary to them, and they’ll drop you if you’re not useful anymore, or you get sick, or you’re too successful, or not successful enough. The vast majority you can love and trust, but when you can’t it’s so hard. I am so grieved this happened to these authors when they’re new and nervous and hopeful.

Let me add I’ve read an advance copy of, already blurbed and now highly recommend, Molly X Chang’s To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods. It has magic with a terrible cost, delves really thoughtfully into a legacy of pain and empire, and I love the heroine’s power. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of these writers.

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feywildfiction
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aroaessidhe

aro & ace book lists masterpost

#aspec books / aro & ace books database (tinyurl.com/aspecbooks)

A couple notes:

  • These are books I have read, with the occasional exception. I always state when I have not read a book I’m including in a post. May add to and edit posts when I read more relevant books.
  • I mostly include books I recommend, but to varying levels (and sometimes I'll include some I dislike but they might be worthwhile for someone else) There will of course be some of my personal bias to what I prefer (SFF, YA contemporary)
  • I prioritise books with aspec main characters. Will include the occasional side character if I have a gap to fill and it’s reasonably significant and/or the author is aspec. Like, would it be worth it to read the book just for this character?
  • The things I am choosing to group on are based on commonalities I’ve noticed. If I group by one thing but not something similar it's because there's not enough I've read to make a worthwhile post!
  • Most posts encompass ace & aro & the spectrums (because there's a lot of overlap in the books) but some are one or the other, and I've generally marked them as such here

under the cut, as I will be frequently updating as I post more

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