We are behind on comments – catching up this week!
Olivia Update 🐾
October is Olivia’s favourite time of year. She has a few orange/black/white collars for her, but we reserve her Bat collar for the 1st and 31st of October!
Olivia’s Bat Collar, positioned to demonstrate the bat!
Olivia may need a bit of a bib trim since the collar, when positioned properly, is simply covered by fluff. But! For the majority of the month, she will be wearing her candy corn/pumpkin collar since that one is her purrsonal favourite. Super cozy and fashionable.
Life Update
Physiotherapy has been going well! My back pain is nearly gone and the exercises I’ve been doing have now incorporated some resistance training. It’s been easy for me adhere to doing my exercises daily, I just need to be more consistent with walking so I’ll look for some good audiobooks and podcasts. If you have any recs, let me know!
Witches of Brooklyn by Sophie Escabasse. So cute! This graphic novel was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the concept and am looking forward to reading book two!
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. Wow, was this ever an amazing book. Definitely check out my book review and see if it’s a book you’d like to add to your TBR!
Apologies, Olivia and I have missed the last couple of Sunday link ups, but we are happy to join again this week. Thank you for visiting!
Olivia Update 🐾
Olivia is very excited to share how she’s been the last couple of weeks! While I’ve been recovering from my back injury (yes, still!), Olivia has been a constant companion. She supervises my physiotherapy exercises, cuddles during reading time, and makes sure I rest. For her extraordinary efforts, I have happily provided her with extra squeezie treats, catnip, and have ensured that her catnip toys are available for her playtime (they can be challenging to find after an active play session!) Unfortunately, Olivia has developed an aversion to some of her other toys. I think they spook her out a bit and thus will not remain in circulation for now – but, speaking of spooky things, she cannot wait for Halloween! We have her halloween collar ready to go!
Life Update
Ah, still dealing with that back injury! But there’s been lots of improvements! Physiotherapy has been so helpful. It’s remarkable how long it takes to heal. I hope everyone is staying safe where they are – the weather has been awful in eastern parts of Canada and other countries as well. Wishing you and my family/friends all well!
Shows We’ve Been Watching:
Rings of Power
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 5
Sandman
Reading Update
We recently hosted the Hello Autumn/Spring readathon, and it was a blast! Thank you to all the participants and cohosts for making this 48 hour readathon so much fun. I cannot wait until December!
Olivia has had quite the week! She’s enjoying her hammock, cat food pizzas, and tuna squeezie treats. A new phenomenon I’ve been noticing is her night-time “skittles.” Now, when I refer to “the skittles,” this means that during the evening, Olivia will chase her toys (especially her soft blue ball) and dash like a bolt of lightning across the room! When this happens, I can hear feet as they scamper about – I call these frantic episodes “the skittles.”
In other news, Olivia has been an excellent reading companion. I’m so grateful for this little bean!
Life Update
I’ve been so inspired by all of the Fall bookstagram vibes lately! It makes me want to:
Immediately stock up on all Autumn drink ingredients.
Decorate my home with Fall candles, autumn leaves, and tiny pumpkins
Read all of the cozy and spooky books.
Olivia has a collection of seasonal collars and sweaters. One collar is black, orange, and yellow Halloween-themed. I’m saving that one for October!
Unfortunately, I had another back injury this week, but luckily, it has mostly improved. I’ve been trying to heal as best as possible; however, an area of personal growth for me is understanding my limitations. I tend to overestimate my recovery and take on physical tasks when I’m not ready to (e.g., heavy lifting). I need to be a bit more patient with myself. One day at a time!
Reading Update
Check out our August Wrap-Up for an update on how the month went for Olivia and I! We read 12 books in total. Here is our mini reading vlog for Lore by Alexandra Bracken.
Let me know if you’ve read any of the books from our haul!
With another season ahead of us, we are running the Hello Autumn / Spring Readathon from September 17th-18th! I host the readathon along with several of my friends. To learn more about the readathon and our cohosts, here is our bookstagram post. We’d love it if you could participate with us!
Very brief post today! Resting and recovering from a busy weekend. Thank you for stopping by!
Olivia Update 🐾
Olivia had another wonderful week! She enjoyed spending lots of time with my partner and myself, as we were on staycation. We still have another couple of days off, and Olivia is excited for even more cuddle time.
Life Update
Today is the first day I’ve felt relatively okay since my back injury. It’s been rough, but I’m happy to have spent time resting and recovering. That said, energy is a bit low today, but I’m sure it will return this upcoming week!
Reading Update
For a video recap of our week, and our progress on the ARCathon readathon please check out our youtube video! ARCathon is hosted by Marti and Britt!
Details are in our Friday Reads post below. We also added The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell to our virtual library shelf. Expect a library haul next week!
Olivia’s had a great week. She was eagerly awaiting and preparing for the arrival of one of our close friends who she hasn’t seen in about a year or so! He used to cat-sit for my partner and I and so they are good friends.
We have also given Olivia a bib-trim. Her mane was getting a little bit too long and was starting to cause a bit of trouble while eating and drinking. Now that she’s had the trim, it’s a bit easier for her. And I’m sure it may help with cooling her down during the hot summer.
Life Update
I am recovering right now from a back injury so today’s update will be short.
In better news, we’ve started a TikTok! Let me know your thoughts – I may try to do mini reviews and share them here when I upload my ARC reviews. I like this challenge because it gives me an opportunity to enhance my verbal review skills.
Linking you to my Friday Reads post for the books Olivia and I have read this week. We finished reading 8 books. With my back injury, it’s been nice to cuddle with her and get some reading in.
We’re still working through Lore and The Nine: Origins. Unfortunately, there have been a few issues with The Nine: Origins I’ve encountered – perhaps it would have benefitted from more feedback from others with different experiences. Of course, I’ll share my honest opinions when I’ve finished but may review this as part of my August wrap up instead of a full feature post.
We are in a bit of a sticky situation right now – from our Libby app, we’ve signed out The Family Remains – one of our most anticipated reads of the year! But we have SO many books to read, so perhaps we’ll read this next month. But gosh, we’re so excited to read it.
Olivia has been doing very well – such a big appetite and lots of books to read! And we did read two cat books which she and I absolutely loved (more below).
Last night, however, Olivia became quite concerned – somehow, a moth flew into our apartment! Olivia was not impressed. Whatsoever. In fact, it made her so anxious that she was yelling at this moth for quite some time. In an attempt to assist her, we were about to evacuate said moth; however, by the time we went to the lamp where it was situated, the moth had already flown away, nowhere to be found. Because Olivia is terrified of insects (as am I), we snuggled for quite some time afterwards, consoling both her and I. The location of the moth is still unknown, but we’d like to think it happily flew away sometime last evening or this morning. Now our Olivia is all settled – with a little bit of extra catnip to pep her step.
Life Update
A few highlights:
My partner and I went for a long walk a few days ago and found a really cool area in the city nearby that we had not visited before! There were lots of stores and even a new bistro that we will visit in the future.
We finished Netflix: Keep Breathing. Although I did enjoy some episodes, overall I would rate it around a 6/10. I enjoyed: the survival aspect, the main character, and how the story was revealed. Being from Northern British Columbia, I liked that this was filmed BC and gave an insight into the beauty we are fortunate to be surrounded by in Canada. I did not enjoy: the constant flashbacks, some plot and emotional mechanics used, the romantic element, and some of the overall plot points. I would recommend giving the first 2-3 episodes a shot, and if you like them, it gives a pretty clear indication if you may enjoy the rest of the show. I will say I thought that Yellowjackets was my favourite survival-type show watched this year (also filmed in BC).
Keep Breathing Trailer:
Yellowjackets Trailer:
Reading Update
We are doing the ARCathon, hosted by Marti and Britt! And we are reading our TBR game picks, which overlap. Our NetGalley feedback ratio is something we have been working on and we are happy to say it is currently at 94%.
In general, we’re very conservative with requests, opting to read and review many “read now” titles that we simply don’t want to wait for and get to reading them immediately! We have found so many amazing books this way. Although sometimes the request bug does bite, too!
We currently have two requests pending. A book we’ve requested is A Cat Cafe Christmas – if we receive an eGalley, Olivia and I will be so happy! But we will also happily request from the library if it doesn’t come our way – it looks absolutely purrfect! And I’d love to give our insight from a feline and cat lover purr-spective.
The second book we’ve requested is Hungry Ghostby Victoria Ying. It is a YA graphic novel, and it just looks and sounds stunning. It discusses difficult topics, such as disordered eating and mental health. Again, I will need to read this book, regardless of my pending request – very much looking forward to reading and reviewing this one.
Recently Finished
We’ve finished several books this week from NetGalley (see below, thank you to NetGalley for providing review copies). I will discuss these more in future reviews and/or wrap ups; however I do want to say that the manga for Anne of Green Gables, Baker And Tale and the Mystery Cats, A Treacherous Tale, and The Ghosts of Rose Hill were just great! You can see reviews for Anne of Green Gables and The Ghosts of Rose Hill below.
Currently Reading:
We are enjoying and finishing The Kindest Lie tonight and continuing Lore forward!
Olivia had a wonderful week! One evening, I decided to give her a little treat. So I created a little triangle out of her cat food and called it a “cat food pizza.” There is no pizza – it’s just her soft food that I shape into a triangle. But she really likes it! Somehow, perhaps this makes it more exciting for her.
Life Update
It’s been super busy this week. But here are a few highlights:
Went out to eat with my partner last night. It’s a 20 minute walk away, so we decided to get some exercise by walking to and from dinner. I think the walking was super useful!
The weather has been cooling. We’ve had some rain, which I adore.
Watching a show on Netflix called “Keep Breathing.” Enjoying it so far – have you seen it?
In our August TBR game, you can see which ARCs we are reading this month.
New to our shelf: We were approved this week for an ARC we are looking forward to! It is a YA thriller. Thank you to author Robin Roe, NetGalley, and HarperTeen/HarperCollins Children’s Books.
This past week really got away from us and we are now trying our best to catch up, alas The Sunday Post is being posted on a Monday. Hope you enjoy it!
Olivia Update 🐾
A major update of our week is reading the book, “I am a Cat” by Sōseki Natsume. When we started the book, she was very happy to have found a feline protagonist. As the book went on, unfortunately, there was less and less cat in the book and she had quite a few issues with that. The book instead started to revolve around our cat’s owner and his friends, at times with very little cat insights thrown in.
While we certainly agree that Sōseki is a great writer, we are highly conflicted about this one due to the lack of cat content in the book. We also found the book difficult to read because of some of the content warnings which we should have read beforehand – there was a whole lot of body shaming and misogyny in the book (while we understand that this book was written over a century ago, we were very alarmed by the high volume of this sort of content). Most alarmingly, there was animal cruelty, so you can imagine my dismay reading these portions with Olivia (I was at a loss of how to comfort her – all I could do was provide her with her favourite tuna squeezie treat while I skipped these parts.) The plot was very minimal as well and it could be a bit tiresome to read at times. However, it is not all bad – Sōseki is able to blend silliness with beautifully analytical and philosophical writing. We laughed out loud so many times during this book that we made a thread of some of our favourite quotes!
— Sara’s Reading Nook ☆ 🇨🇦🇵🇹 (@sarasrdngnook) July 25, 2022
As well, some of the philosophical questions had Olivia and I deeply invested. Through both our nameless feline protagonist and the various characters, the book discusses a wide range of topics: God, creation, death, Westernization, and existence, to name a few. So I will sit with our thoughts on the book for some before committing to a review and star rating. We are comfortable saying that this book is not for who are looking for cat content since it’s so sparse, or for those who have a difficult time reading literature with any of the issues mentioned above.
In other news, Olivia also had a good time being on bird watch this week! There were quite a few spottings, which she alerted me of with a few cackles and chirps to sound the alarm.
Life Update
What a busy week this was! Our entire week of blogging and booktube went straight out the window, but for a good reason. This month we had a family member visit us so we had a marvellous time eating at cafés, attending some highly important events, visiting the ice cream shop (they have some vegan flavours!), and exploring the city together. With work thrown into the mix, all of our days were full with varying degrees of business. We are so happy to have hosted our family member and the outdoor plants have really enjoyed the sun! Temperatures should be a bit cooler this week – I hope they are going to drop for you all in the hot destinations as well.
A major help this week was ordering some vegan salads from a local shop nearby. Here you can see a few of them: Kale Tabouli Salad, Summer “Pasta” Salad, and Beet Poke Salad. Of these, the Summer Pasta Salad was such a win! And the selection really inspired us to get creative with our salad combinations moving forward.
Reading Update
Recently Finished
As you can see from the Olivia Update, we read I am a Cat by Sōseki Natsume and had a very conflicted feel about the book.
I finished Always Never by Jordi Lafebre, read via my Hoopla app. Last week, I mentioned that I was very lukewarm about this read, and that feeling never went away. My biggest issue with the book again lies within the content warnings (I’m starting to think that I really need to pay a bit more attention to those moving forward) and the illustration style. However, my opinions are not necessarily what the majority of readers thought as the book is very highly rated on Goodreads and Storygraph, so don’t let my review throw you off too much!
We started A Lot Like Adiós by Alexis Daria and we are enjoying it so far! It is a second chance romance and is book #2 in the Primas of Power series. I’ve only read the first chapter, but have found it intriguing so far and can’t wait to learn more about Michelle and Gabe.
We are so happy we were approved for A Treacherous Tale by Elizabeth Penney! This is book #2 of the Cambridge Bookshop Series and it follows our protagonist Molly Kimball who runs a bookshop in England. Thrilled because we very much enjoyed book #1, Chapter and Curse. We’ve only read the first chapter but are loving it so far. Olivia especially loves cats Puck and Clarence!
Immediately next, we want to finally start Lore by Alexandra Bracken! Our TBR game has been difficult to complete this month, and we are afraid that some books will have to be read in the month of August. We will be doing a TBR game in August as well! Haha but at least it should be fairly quiet this month and so we hope to finish all of our books – crossovers and new additions, alike!
We’ll see … but The Daughter of Doctor Moreau is looking pretty enticing right about now … how can I possibly focus when there are so many great books to read? I supposed you could say we’re overbooked 😹. We are so happy we received this gorgeous book mail earlier this week!
Olivia had a wonderful week! We recently purchased some tuna Smooth & Savory squeezies, which are her absolute favourite treats.
The image above provides evidence of a very rare spontaneous hammock spotting – Olivia has started to spend time on her hammock! I couldn’t believe my eyes but I really did spot her enjoying her hammock two days ago when I came home from work. I was shocked and I very quickly rushed to take a photo, which is not of very good quality. But, I’m so happy I now have some photographic evidence that she, indeed, is enjoying her hammock. Encouraging!
LifeUpdate
Fresh salad with beautiful veggies.Avocado sushi roll – yum!Cucumber rolls.
This week was a lot of fun. I spent time with family and even had some delicious sushi and salad. My partner’s family lives close to the Farmer’s Market and so all of the veggies are super fresh and very delicious. The sushi rolls were from a local sushi factory and I have to say – the avocado rolls were some of the best I’ve had in a long time!
This weekend I was able to watch my partner play his tennis tournament and sneak in a bit of reading at the same time. The matches were quite long and challenging, and the weather was very hot, but it was just wonderful to watch him have some great tennis this season. He loves the sport and I know it’s a highlight of his to play every summer in the beautiful weather.
ReadingUpdate
Here is where we will insert our stacking the shelves and reading updates!
Yesterday I finished reading A History of Women in the World by Marilyn French via my Libby app. It was a fascinating read about women and their roles in society throughout history as well as various religions and female roles within them. I thought it was just a marvellous book and I learned so much from it that it was difficult to put down – to be honest, this book wasn’t even on my radar until I saw an interview by Margaret Atwood in which she referenced it. I wanted to read it because I thought, well if Margaret Atwood is referencing this novel then I want a bit of an inside look into reference material she may have drawn inspiration from – and I was pleasantly surprised to see that she had actually provided Forwards for each of the various volumes.
The book can be a bit dense at times, and I think there is still a lot of various issues to cover, so I’m looking forward to reading further volumes. I also want to read more recently published material and see a more expansive and extensive approach that reflects feminism today and how the definition is constantly evolving.
I am still reading Always Never by Jordi Lafebre via my Hoopla app. Still feeling a bit lukewarm about this read, but I’m hoping to finish it today since I have some time to read this afternoon and evening. It’s a love story of 40 years told in reverse, and I think the art style is just not my favourite – not sure, but I’m hoping it will grow on me and I will just love the book. It does have high ratings, so I hope that is the trajectory moving forward.
I am a Cat by Sōseki Natsume. This is a three volume translated collection of work written from the perspective of a cat – a dialogue on human nature. I’ve heard a lot about Sōseki’s writing and can’t to dig in! Olivia, especially.
A Lot Like Adiós by Alexis Daria. We have mentioned this book before – it is a second chance romance and we think it will be just perfect to read this week.
Lore by Alexandra Bracken. Finally, we can’t wait to finish Lore by Alexandria Bracken! Greek mythology is something we’re especially looking forward to after reading Marilyn French’s book, mentioned earlier, in which she discusses women’s roles in ancient greece as well as after the common era. Note: all three books were independently purchased via Indigo, Chapters.
New Arrivals
Unfortunately, we have not added anything to our physical or library shelves this week as we’re still chugging along, finishing up our July TBR books. However, I’ll add a few books here we’ve added to our Goodreads and Storygraph TBR shelves recently!
Tuesday: Top Ten Tuesday: Books From My Past Seasonal TBR Posts I STILL Haven’t Read
Friday: Let’s Talk Bookish – Topic TBD
Friday: Reading Sprints Invitation for Saturday Sprints
Saturday/Sunday: Stacking the Shelves, The Sunday Post, The Sunday Salon
Bookstagram
We have been having some fun making reels lately! Here are our latest bookstagram posts:
Booktube
Latest Booktube Videos
Alas! We still have not made all of our mid year booktube videos, but these are to come. Potentials include the mid-year freakout tag, mid-year bookish wrap up OR favourites, and a mid-year reading journal flip through.
QOTD: What are you looking forward to reading this week? Let us know!
