book lover

Stoked For This: February 2025

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment

Alright, alright, I know I’m late again! This time, it really was NOT my fault, I tried to get this done last night and my oldest cat, Mushi, was not having it. She was smacking at my iPad’s screen, which kept reacting to her little kitty paws – and every time I tried to type anything, she’d start smacking my hands! I don’t know what she had against me finishing it this, but she was on one!

This month there’s seventeen titles I’m stoked to be released, two of which I’ve already read and reviewed 🙂 There’s quite a few novel in verse titles as well as some silly ones (three novels deal with aliens in someway form or another).

Are you excited for any of these titles??

February 4, 2025

A sci-fi where two men protect a special little girl at all cost – written by one of my favorite authors of all time.

The Bones Beneath My Skin

By: TJ Klune

*This was my first book of 2025 and I absolutely loved it!! Read my review here 🙂

An anthology about the “The Event” – the night the runaway alien posing as Hollywood star, Max Spencer’s rescue turns into an unintentional invasion. 

Why on Earth: An Alien Invasion Anthology

Edited By: Rosiee Thor and Vania Stoyanova

A historical fiction meets mystery in both multi-POV and multi-timeline (1940s & 1980s Germany and 2020 New York) YA filled with rebellion and sacrifices.

Under the Same Stars

By: Libba Bray

In this newly Japanese translated novel, a restaurant’s resident cat will transport you back in time to reunite with a departed loved one. Cue the tears and the tissues.

The Curious Kitten at the Chibineko Kitchen

By: Yuta Takahashi

An action-packed, unflinching examination of the impacts of transphobia adventure intertwined with elements of Jewish mythology. 

A World Worth Saving

By: Kyle Lukoff

A memoir about the love of reading and writing and the relationship between the books that shaped us – aka a book I’m probably going to see myself in within so many pages.

Bibliophobia

By: Sarah Chihaya

February 11, 2025

A novel in verse about a young girl finding her way back after a life changing accident.

It’s All or Nothing, Vale

By: Andrea Beatriz Arango

A novel in verse based on Caribbean folklore with inherited magic and the price we pay for the life we desire.

(S)Kin

By: Ibi Zoboi

Gothic horror novella with sapphic monster romance – only 160 pages!!

But Not Too Bold

By: Hache Pueyo

A companion novel to the ah-mazing novel in verse, Alone, where we’re following kids from their homes into the evacuation camp.

Away

By: Megan E. Freeman

*This was my second book of 2025, you can read my steller review here.

A novel with neurodivergent characters, quirky friendships that explores identity, belonging, and the wonder of being different.

Life Hacks for a Little Alien

By: Alice Franklin

February 18, 2025

A book for nature lovers to meditate on the impact trees have on our lives.

Treenotes: A Year in the Company of Trees

By: Nalini Nadkarni

This book needs no other introduction other than it’s title: I Got Abducted By Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com

I Got Abducted By Aliens and Now I’m Trapped in a Rom-Com

By: Kimberly Lemming

A historical novel that follows a homeless teenage girl as she struggles to survive during the Great Depression.

A Tiny Piece of Blue

By: Charlotte Whitney

A young adult debut novel about a young woman’s journey to heal from the trauma of trying “to be fixed”.

I Am the Cage

By: Allison Sweet Grant

With elements from The Little Mermaid and Cinderella, this historical fantasy is about one young woman’s love for the sea.

Upon a Starlit Tide

By: Kell Woods

February 25, 2025

A lake monster bands together with a human after the witch is thrown into her lake by her village.

Greenteeth

By: Molly O’Neill

My Week Late, Stoked For This: January 2025

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment

I know I’m a week (and a day) late in this, and there will be loads of books already out – but that means there’s loads more books already out (Trying to be a bit more positive this year)! I tried to get this done yesterday, but stuff happened and I couldn’t get back to this.

I’m also going to try something new with my formatting of this series. Let me know what you think! Do you like the new way? Prefer the old way? Have no comments or concerns?

January 7, 2025

Amber arrives home one spring afternoon on her bike. As soon as her mother sees her, she screams. Why? Because Amber’s been dead seven years – hit by a car on the very bike she pulled up to the house in.

After Life

By: Gayle Forman

Bletchley Park. London. 1923. Dragons soar through the skies, but Vivian Featherswallow isn’t worried, she’s going to study the dragon language and make sure her little sister doesn’t have to grow up in Third Class. But by midnight, civil war has started. Viv is recruited for a codebreaker job to save her family – but the more she learns, the harder it is for her to distinguish what what war she’s actually fighting.

A Language of Dragons

By: S.F. Williamson

A dystopian, water covered world where a family tries to save the history of humans while creating a settlement on top of New York City’s National History Museum.

All the Water in the World

By: Eiren Caffall

A sapphic YA debut novel that follows two girls has they fall in love, fighting for survival in an abandoned bookstore.

The Last Bookstore on Earth

By: Lily Braun-Arnold

January 14, 2025

Written in prose and verse, this YA novel following sixteen-year-old Carmela as she’s finally able to help in her mother’s apothecary in the Campo Marzio neighborhood of Rome. But the workroom is no simple place, for every simple ingredient, there is else even less pleasant, and Carmela begins to find out the secrets she never bargained for.

Everything Is Poison

By: Joy McCullough

What would you do if you found a magical bookstore that transports you back through time to be face-to-face with your teenage self?

The In-Between Bookstore

By: Edward Underhill

A multi-level, page turning murder novel about pyramid schemes.

Death in the Downline

By: Maria Abrams

January 21, 2025

Ex-Chicago detective Carrie Starr is now at the reservation where her father grew up: they need a new tribal marshal to help with the women who have disappeared from the rez. Now, local college student is missing and Starr begins drown in memories of her own daughter’s murder. As she works on the cases, Starr can’t shake the feeling of a fearsome spirit watching her, one of a woman with antlers of a deer.

Mask of the Deer Woman

By: Laurie L. Dove

Have 3 Reviews: Two Cat Manga and a Cat Novel

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment

Is the plural of manga “manga” or “mangas”? Does anyone know? I feel like “manga” is to be used as both singular and plural buy my brain is arguing with me about it. Please comment if you totally know the answer!

I’m dropping 3 Reviews in one here. Mostly to finish up my end of the year books (finally) as well as not flood anyone’s inboxes with the very short reviews that you’ll see below.

Now, it’s on to write my week late STOKED FOR THIS post 🙂

Cat + Gamer (Volume 6)
By: Wataru Nadatani
Genre: Manga
Number of Pages: 168
Published: October 29, 2024 (1st Published May 18, 2021)
Publisher: Dark Horse Manga
Dates Read: December 31, 2024
Format: Library Book / eBook

Musubi and Soboro continue to team up with Riko, “leveling up” in everyday life.

Oh my goodness, I so very much love this series. Especially as a (small) gamer with two cats. 

I love the small snippets from the cat’s points of view at the end of each chapter. It makes them even cuter.

Cat Companions Maruru and Hachi (Volume 2)
By:Yuri Sonoda
Genre: Manga
Number of Pages: 168
Published: December 17, 2024
Publisher: Seven Seas
Dates Read: December 31, 2024
Format: Library Book / Paperback

When the older lady who fed the cats in the park stops coming, Maruru and Hachi must find food elsewhere. While in the search, Hachi gets gravely injured – to ensure their survival, he makes a surprising decision.

Cats.

Animal rescue.

Grumpy accepting help.

That’s all you need to know.

It was beautiful.

I gasped, “Oh no”ed, and goofy smiled about 1,000 times.

Meow
By: Sam Austen
Genre: Fiction, Humor
Number of Pages: 346
Published: June 24, 2023
Publisher: Meow Library
Dates Read: December 31, 2024
Format: Library / Paperback

A book written for your cat in their language.

My favorite part was when they said,

“Meow?”

“Meow meow meow.”

“Meow meow.”

If you can’t tell, it’s an entire book written with just the word “Meow”.

I’m so far behind!!

/ Alisha Helms / Leave a comment

I’ve got 8 book reviews to post from the end of the year and then I’ve got my January Stoked for this as well. The holidays put me back, and I was reading everything I could get my hands on to move my Read Total up to 130 (which I made).

I wanted to share my “List Nobody Asked for But Got Anyway” aka My 2024 Books Read List that I share to my Instagram and Facebook every year on New Years Eve. It’s nothing fancy, but I always have fun making it – I even found out how to do it on Canva this year, and Canva and I have beef because they don’t make scaling covers easy!

“The List Nobody Asked For But Got Anyway” aka My 2024 Books Read List

This year, I journeyed through 35,307 pages across 130 books (10 more over my goal this year!).

I read ACTUAL nonfiction books, one of which solidified my favorite aquatic animal 🐙. I fell in love with a bakery dragon, a wild robot, magical children (again), and so many cats… I also found a love for audiobooks and their allowance of escapism while doing chores and errands 🥰

My average star rating is a 4, but I had 27 five star ratings, so I decided to share those with everyone. These are all titles that, if I don’t already own them, are books I’ll be keeping my eye out for.

Thank you everyone who followed along on my journey this year on my website, where I post all my reviews. I love talking books and I’m always happy to share them.

Now let’s see how much of a dent I can make in my TBR list this coming year!!

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