Candy Bunny Reader

Yeah, I know I've gotten this habit of picking up manga series that are new to me on a whim when I already got a ton of other series going on. But it's worth it! In the Name of the Mermaid Princess by Yoshino Fumikawa and Miya Tashiro  is a shojo manga set in a world where people can be born with appearances and abilities of fantastical creatures. Unfortunately, these people are highly discriminated against, and they are called "Unhumans". Our MC Princess Mio was born a mermaid, but her father, the king, wants her to keep this a secret. That's because he wants her to marry the human prince of a neighboring kingdom, Prince Chika.  Mio is constantly given pills to temporarily turn her human.  Eventually, Mio gets a tutor named Yuri who helps educate her on Chika and his kingdom before she is set off to meet him. The two end up becoming friends as Yuri encourages Mio to be herself. He also supports her beliefs in making the kingdom a better place for "Unhumans...

Summer is almost ending and school might have started, but you are never to late to read a cute summer romance with Deaf representation! Give Me a Sign by Anna Sortino is about 17 year old Lilah, who has hearing loss (or as she will call it towards the end of the novel, "Deaf gain") and knows some sign language. She struggles a lot with lack of accommodations from her peers in the hearing world. The only place she's really felt like herself (although still feeling out of place sometimes) was at Camp Gray Wolf. It's a summer camp for kids and counselors with all sorts of disabilities.  Coincidentally, Lilah is trying to find a summer job, and she gets to be a junior camp counselor for Camp Gray Wolf. Being a camp counselor isn't easy, especially with the looming threat that their camp might get shut down due to lack of funding (they do start a fundraiser for it halfway through the book). But the highlight of her summer is Isaac--another counselor. As he tries to h...

Another manga that I just picked up on a whim! Eden of Witches Volume 1 by Yumeji is set in a world where witches live separately from humans (since humans fear them) and have a deep connection with nature. The main character, Pili, is an apprentice of an elderly witch name Toura. One day Toura gets sick and Pili tries to go to the nearby village for help. But she catches the attention of Zakum, a guy who wants to capture her and study her. Pili manages to fight off Zakum and his henchmen with the help of Oak--who was previously Toura's familiar. Pili and Oak set off to find Eden--which was Toura's dream.  So far their journey has been off to a rough start. Pili gets injured and gets help from a boy from another village named Bo. Bo and his uncle take care of Pili until she gets better (and she even helps them plant some seeds!), but the rest of the people in their village suspect she is a witch. They want to hand her over to the government so they can get a large reward to sa...

  The second literary fiction book I've read that was originally published in Japanese! The first one I read was Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa back in 2023. You can read that review here . We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida is one of those books where each chapter is its own story. They all follow the same formula: a person has a problem. They find themselves going to this mysterious psychiatric clinic where they get to keep a cat for about a week to help them with their problem. The problem is resolved, in an unusual way. The person found themselves very attached to their cat and end up keeping the cat.  It's a very heartwarming book, and it has great conversations about mental health! The book also has an overarching mystery with the clinic itself because it's so unusual. The last two chapters do answer some questions about the mysterious cat clinic, but a lot of it is still pretty open-ended and up for your interpretation. I won't get into it here b...

    This book is the third in the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers . The first two were A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit . Click on the titles to read my reviews! Record of a Spaceborn Few  follows five different Exodans (humans who have left Earth and are now living by wandering around space in big spaceships) aboard the ship Asteria . They are: Tessa, a working mom and sister of Ashby from the first book in this series Isabel, an elderly Archivist Kip, a teenager with growing pains Eyas, a caretaker who usually leads funerals Sawyer, originally from the planet Mushtello, looking for a job  While each of their stories seem separate at first, they eventually all come together towards the end. Like all of Becky Chambers's books, this story offers a lot of cool sci-fi worldbuilding and a lot of philosophy.  This book was so great! I just love cozy sci-fi. There's also good queer and disability representation as well. I gave thi...

  With an updated avatar since I got a haircut!  The very first post I posted was the Book Blog Newbie Tag, which you can view here . What has changed in the last year or so? I am close to graduating from my master's program! I hope I can find a job in a library soon. Thank you for sticking with me these past three years! 💜