wickedjr89 book review, book thoughts

Two weeks Wednesday Wrap Up August 31st, 2022

What I Am Currently Reading

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Cannabis Pharmacy: The Practical Guide to Medical Marijuana by Michael Backes

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley – I finished the actual story last October but there’s extras I still need to read. And I love Frankenstein! It’s my favorite book <3.

Cannabis Pharmacy: The Practical Guide to Medical Marijuana by Michael Backes – I have recently gotten a medical marijuana card! So yea, I wanna learn things. I use it for chronic pain and stomach problems mostly. I also have anxiety, depression, ptsd, trouble sleeping .. Seriously, i’m a mess of issues. But cannabis is here to help.

What I’ve Recently Finished

BBC Science Focus Magazine by Immediate Media Company London Ltd – I gave it 4 stars. Science magazine. Had nothing to say.

Me and My Dysphoria Monster: An Empowering Story to Help Children Cope with Gender Dysphoria by Laura Kate Dale – I gave this 5 stars. I read it thanks to Netgalley and here was my review for it.

I wish i’d had this as a child. I would’ve had the words and known I wasn’t alone so much sooner.

There are some draft errors (like on one page it says missing words and later some sentences just stop in the middle) but I got this from Netgalley and it is an e-arc draft so i’m not holding that against it.

Nisha is a trans girl. She has a dysphoria monster that keeps getting bigger as she’s misgendered but then she comes out and has support and her monster gets smaller. At first she wanted her monster to just go away but with the help of an adult trans man learns what her monster was trying to tell her, and living as who she is makes her so much happier and confident. It’s a beautiful story and has information for adults wanting to support trans kids after the story. I highly recommend this book!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the e-arc.

Stinetinglers: All New Stories by the Master of Scary Tales by R.L. Stine – This is a collection of 10 stories and I also read it for Netgalley, here was my review.

I really enjoyed this collection over-all! It has 10 stories. I didn’t care for 2 of them personally (but I didn’t hate them or anything) and I really enjoyed the other 8! 3.65 average rounded up to 4
Welcome to the in-between 3.5
Our Little Monsters 2
Skin 3
The Ghost in the car 4
The boy who heard screams 5
Bugs 3.5
How to change your life 4
The bad side 4.5
The hole in the ground 5
The monster maker 2
These are obviously just my opinions, nothing more.
These stories are perfect for kids I think and they are certainly fun to read as an adult to. If you enjoy Goosebumps (or Goosebumps like books) definitely check this collection out. A few of them gave my spine a tingle!

Philosophy Now – Issue 150 by Anja Publications – Philosophy magazine. I gave it 3 stars. Didn’t care for parts of it, had some issues.

What Do I Think I’ll Read Next?

Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor -A Science Fiction, going to read this as it’s my book club pick for The eclecticist of eclectic book club. It’s set in Africa and has something to do with aliens. It sounds awesome!

Dracula by Bram Stoker – I read Dracula once years ago and didn’t like it but I think i’ll like it more now and have been wanting to give it another chance and it’s Georga’s pick for our book club, The eclecticist of eclectic book club. I also have borrowed this audible plus book that has a big cast of narrators, including Tim Curry, so I think that’ll help to!

Other Stuff – I don’t even know where to start, struggling to recover from surgery, i’m sick, Antibiotics don’t seem to be helping, my mom had/has the same cold crap but now has some sort of other bug. It’s my husband’s, who passed away Feb 16th 2021, birthday today so that’s making me sad and my period just started today (i’m a nonbinary trans guy btw) and it was a bit late so it’s like it waited for this day in particular and also I had a huge spider (daddy long legger) crawling on my arm earlier! Made me drop my switch (seems to be fine) and scream. And a Dr’s appointment keeps getting pushed back because I don’t drive and my mom’s been too sick to take me. I’m terrified i’m going to get this new bug on top of everything else and I can’t recover from what i’ve got and the surgery as it is!

Sorry it’s all over the place and might not make sense. It’s been a lot, still a lot. So much. I’m exhausted. Please make it stop, I need a break.

Sorry for complaining.

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wickedjr89 book review, book thoughts, Bookish

Me and My Dysphoria Monster: An Empowering Story to Help Children Cope with Gender Dysphoria by Laura Kate Dale and Hui Qing Ang Book Review

I wish i’d had this as a child. I would’ve had the words and known I wasn’t alone so much sooner.

There are some draft errors (like on one page it says missing words and later some sentences just stop in the middle) but I got this from Netgalley and it is an e-arc draft so i’m not holding that against it.

Nisha is a trans girl. She has a dysphoria monster that keeps getting bigger as she’s misgendered but then she comes out and has support and her monster gets smaller. At first she wanted her monster to just go away but with the help of an adult trans man learns what her monster was trying to tell her, and living as who she is makes her so much happier and confident. It’s a beautiful story and has information for adults wanting to support trans kids after the story. I highly recommend this book!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the e-arc.

Links to all my socials

wickedjr89 book thoughts, Bookish

WWW Wednesday June 8th, 2022

  1. What are you currently reading?

Exactly what I said last week. At the moment, nothing, but I expect that to change soon. Sorry I seem to finish a book Tuesday night and then have to write this before I start another book😂.

2. What did you recently finish?

Joyland by Stephen King, Garden Gnome Sex Party by Fannie Tucker, Cattywampus by Ash Van Otterloo

Please note if you are looking for Garden Gnome Sex Party on Goodreads you’ll need the original title, Garden Gnome Gangbang. Amazon didn’t like gangbang.

Joyland by Stephen King – 5 stars I loved this so much! I have a review on Here.

Garden Gnome Sex Party by Fannie Tucker – I liked this one but I won’t say more because a Taboo Thursday review is going up tomorrow for this.

CattyWampus by Ash Van Otterloo – 3 stars

I found some of it off and the religion aspect kinda weird. Also not sure if i’m supposed to be offended at part of it, but I digress. Listening to it instead of reading it with my eyeballs might be to blame.

I had some laughs and some feels. I was both annoyed with and felt for the characters at different times. I’d say over-all I liked it, it just wasn’t exactly my cup of tea and that’s ok. I loved the diversity. Katy, one of the MC’s, is intersex and has a deaf brother and another character has 2 mom’s.

I also watched Season 4 Episodes 1-4 of Stranger Things so far! I love Stranger Things!

3. What do you think you’ll read next?

Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus: An Adult Romance Novel by Chuck Tingle

Maybe? I’m not sure. I’ll find out later today hopefully what I ultimately decide on! You can always friend or follow me on Goodreads if you want to stay up-to-date with what i’m reading or you can just wait until next week on here when I do next weeks WWW Wednesday.

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wickedjr89 book thoughts, Bookish

My All Time Favorite Book: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley (and in particular the original 1818 version) is my TOP favorite book. I got really into reading near the end of 2015, and I had always wanted to read ‘Frankenstein’, so I did. I had no idea at the time there is more than one version so I ended up picking up the 1831, more conservative (because pressure apparently) version. Read it, enjoyed it. Later I heard about the different versions and I looked it up, realized I hadn’t read her original version, so I fixed that, and I fell in love!

Possible spoilers for the book down below.

I feel so much for the creature. As someone who has deformities (though not always obvious, because I have a hemangioma which is big and ugly but it’s on the back of my right leg, from my knee to my privates, yes on my right labia. I also have 9 fingers because of a hypoplastic left thumb at birth but had pollicization surgery at age 2 but even though that’s always visible, unlike the hemangioma because pants, people rarely notice that and I don’t even want to count the hand thing because it’s so minor but I guess technically it is? My left thumb now was my index finger originally and still looks exactly like my right index finger, it’s just in the thumb spot. I would get stares and questions, pity and disgust, when I wore shorts or skirts to school because of the hemangioma but I was never going to sweat to death because of it) and is disabled I felt like I related a lot to the creature.

People run from him because of how he looks. His own father abandoned him, because of how he looks. No matter how hard the creature tries, people can not get past how he looks. I understand his eventual anger and frustration, he was treated horribly and all he wanted was a friend. He deserved a friend, but people are so shallow. Am I excusing his eventual actions? Hell no! But none of it had to happen and I can understand his pain (to some degree at least). There’s a bit more to my story that i’m not currently sharing but suffice it to say I want to give the creature a hug and befriend him. My love for the book is why i’m scared to watch any movie “adaptation” because i’ve heard how they get the creature all wrong and everything. If anyone that also likes the book knows of a good adaptation (tv, movie, even another book/story) please let me know because I want to experience it all! I’ll even get around to the other movies at some point, just so I know.

I’ve read ‘Frankenstein’ 5 times, in different editions. I have multiple copies of ‘Frankenstein’. First read was the 1831 version before I knew it wasn’t the original. Then i’ve read a few different editions of the 1818 version where they had different essays/annotations etc. (and one had annotated all the differences between the 1818 and 1831 versions).

I hope to at some point re-read my different editions (and maybe more) taking notes on so many different things!! I’m positive this will be far from my last post about ‘Frankenstein’! Though don’t worry if you don’t care about ‘Frankenstein’, i’ll have plenty other things to post about as well and won’t post all the ‘Frankenstein’ stuff all at once! It’ll take awhile. 🙂 I also got obsessed with learning more about Mary Shelley and highly recommend the book ‘Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley’ by Charlotte Gordon if you want to know more about her and her mother, both amazing women!

Am I obsessed? Maybe. But it gives me such joy to think about!

I also feel a bit weird though that my favorite is a classic as I don’t want to seem snobby. I can certainly enjoy other classics too but I also read nearly everything under the sun. Horror, Contemporary, Romance, YA, Middle Grade, Children’s and more. ‘Frankenstein’ just happened to become my favorite, because of reasons. And no, I don’t think people who love classics are snobs, but I used to.

Honestly I started this post thinking it’d be a “My All Time Favorite Books (so far)” post but it seems better to leave it here. ‘Frankenstein’ is my number one. I’ll make other posts with more. And of course all this is just my personal thoughts and opinions.

Thank you for reading. Leave any thoughts down below!

The particular book above was bought at https://www.oldstyletales.com/ (I think that particular cover is gone now though)