Pumpkin by Julie Murphy is the grand finale Dumplinverse deserves. Being a big fan of both Murphy and the Clover City gang, I knew I’d not be let down by this conclusion to the series, but I never thought I could love it more than the previous two books. I was aggressively rooting for Waylon, the main character, throughout reading this novel. Or like Julie herself says in her Dear Reader letter, Waylon has “turned me into a stage mom.” About Pumpkin. Pumpkin is about Waylon Brewer, a fat gay teenager who lives in Clover City with his twin sister and parents. He’s obsessed with Fiercest of Th ..read more

I went into Prem Numbers by Suleikha Snyder extremely curious about the title of the book. Clearly a play on Prime Numbers, this one talks about Prem, the Hindi word for Love. Fellow Words People who failed Math in schoolTM, bear with me for a minute. If you think back, a prime number is any number that is divisible by 1 and itself. So 2, 3, 5, 7,…and so on. Every number that is not prime is a composite number. Made of more than one part. Doesn’t that make the life of a prime number immensely lonely? But then, there’s also the fact that the coming together of prime numbers can make a composite ..read more

It’s been exactly a month since I wrote my last article on here — also a wrap-up — and I’ve come to the sobering realisation that my blogging slump just might be a sign of burnout. A lot of it has to do with the state of my country right now. It feels truly dystopian to log on to work or on here and do my silly little tasks when I’m acutely aware of the mortality of the people I love. I’m finding it extremely difficult to do anything other than watch the news right now but blogging has always been my kind of self-care and a dear friend very kindly asked me to “STFU and do at least one thing yo ..read more

Well, hello there, nerds! It’s been a hot minute since I wrote something on here thanks to a festering sore of a blogging slump. In fact, I think I wrote just one article in March. Believe me, I have multiple drafts open but I just wasn’t able to edit and publish any of them. Sigh. Also, my 5th Blogiversary was in March but I just wasn’t able to bring myself to whip up a post for it. I’ve always done anniversary posts in the past but I unfortunately had to forego it this year. March may have been for Big Sad, but I’ve decided April is for comebacks. I’m going to speak my motivation to blog int ..read more

The most intense fat shaming I’ve faced was when I was a kid. Obviously, that also led to me carrying a lot of internalised fatphobia I had to work on. It was only in my early twenties that I even started putting in the work to overcome everything I’d internalised. My journey towards fat acceptance and liberation has been long and it grows as I learn. A big part of my learning and growing also involves talking about and boosting books with positive fat representation. And yet, I shy away from Middle Grade and stick to YA and Adult fiction. Why? Because I’ve been burned by KidLit with fat chara ..read more

The more serious you get with your blogging, the more you want to figure out all the ins and outs of web-based content creation. And one of the main things many a blogger would love more resources on is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If you’ve been following this blog for a while now, you’d remember my Wednesday Wisdom series around content marketing tips specifically for bloggers. Some of you personally mentioned that you had my SEO for Book Bloggers post bookmarked (this never gets less surprising to say, omg). Anywho, back then I was a baby marketer with an SEO team at my disposal so my ..read more

Welcome to part two of my chaotic reaction to and recap of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians books. A lot of you seemed to enjoy my recap of The Lightning Thief, going so far as to request more (???). I am but a vehicle to fulfil my followers’ every whim and fancy and the views help so here’s my recap of The Sea of Monsters. I know my previous post was just an elaborate ruse to cancel Algebra teachers but let’s see if I can summon the will to write a proper recap this time without going off on tangents. No promises, though! Also read: A Sassy Recap of The Lightning Thief. As always, major ..read more

Heya, nerds! How is January over already? It’s been a hot minute since 2020 — a festering sore of a year — ended and somehow we’re already approaching February? Time is weird, man. The only thing with any semblance of consistency in my life is the beginning-of-the-year Big Sad and it of course hit right on cue in 2021 as well. Add to that a hectic work schedule and my tenuous grasp on sanity and you’ve got yourself a terrible month in general. Despite all this, I managed to stay afloat thanks to books and some bandwagon jumping I did recently. Read on to find out what I read and loved in Janua ..read more

Heya, dreamboats! This is your resident lover of tropetastic romance novels reporting for duty. 2020 may have made me a hollow shell of my former self but it was these romance novels that emotionally stabilised me throughout. Another interest of mine is astrology. I don’t know if I believe in it but I’m a Scorpio and every horoscope always calls me powerful, alluring, and mysterious. Do you know what that does for the ego of someone who’s basically just three trashcans under a trench coat? Anyway, as a trope-lover who claims to not believe in astrology but liberally uses “ugh, you’re such a ..read more

Part 1: The Lightning Thief I, in my 26 years of existence on this cursed planet, never deigned to pick up Percy Jackson and the Olympians even once. Why, you ask? I was otherwise occupied with the magic school series that should not be named. I am embarrassed. Anyway, some of my closest friends are PJO fans and because I do not like them having inside jokes and conversations that do not involve me (I’m in therapy leave me alone), I decided to jump on the bandwagon as well. It’s definitely not because Charvi is scary when she wants me to read a book or anything HAHAHAHAHhelpHAHAH. Not only di ..read more