Tag: reading challenge

Book Review | The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

Posted January 10, 2026 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

The Turn of the Screw is an 1898 horror novella by Henry James that first appeared in serial format in Collier’s Weekly magazine (January 27 – April 16, 1898). In October 1898 it appeared in The Two Magics, a book published by Macmillan in New York City and Heinemann in London.

A very young woman’s first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate… An estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls. But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
The Classics Club
2026 52 Book Club Reading Challenge (Prompt #4: Has a dustjacket [my copy from the library had one!])

The Reason

I’ve been curious about this book for a while. It was available from my library and was relatively short, so I thought why not.

The Quotes

“Of course I was under the spell, and the wonderful part is that, even at the time, I perfectly knew I was.”

“To gaze into the depths of blue of the child’s eyes and pronounce their loveliness a trick of premature cunning was to be guilty of a cynicism in preference to which I naturally preferred to abjure my judgment and, so far as might be, my agitation.”

“An unknown man in a lonely place is a permitted object of fear to a young woman privately bred.”

The Narrator(s)

Simon Vance, and Vanessa Benjamin. Simon Vance does the prologue, and the rest of the story is predominantly narrated by Vanessa Benjamin. She was wonderful.

My Thoughts

I finished this book in one sitting because it was relatively short and it kept me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going on and what was going to happen. The story was very confusing, very ambiguous, you don’t get many questions answered, and in fact, the deeper in you go, the more questions you have that don’t get answered. But somehow it worked for me.

To be clear, I think I love the effect of this book more than I actually love the story, but I also think that’s by design. The phrase “the turn of the screw” meaning to add insult to injury, and/or to make something already bad even worse, I feel like James is playing with us. Getting us invested in the story, making us curious, bringing us on a journey, and then leading us to a non-destination that is absolutely dissatisfying and curse-worthy.

You end the book with more questions, in disbelief, wondering if that was it and why the hell you spend the last few hours reading the book at all. You question everything you read in the book, wondering what you missed, wondering what it meant, wondering if any of it was real or true or the ramblings of a madwoman. Well, at least I did. I am both pissed off I read the book and marveling at the brilliance of it, so as I said, I’m not as taken by the story as I am by what it’s doing to me. I feel like I’ve been punked and I kind of like it.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | Stoner by John Williams

Posted January 9, 2026 by Haze in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Stoner by John Williams

William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.

John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection. William Stoner emerges from it not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero, standing, like a figure in a painting by Edward Hopper, in stark relief against an unforgiving world.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
The Classics Club

The Reason

One of my in-person bookclub members praised this book very highly, and it became our December BOTM.

The Quotes

“In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.”

“A war doesn’t merely kill off a few thousand or a few hundred thousand young men. It kills off something in a people that can never be brought back. And if a people goes through enough wars, pretty soon all that’s left is the brute, the creature that we—you and I and others like us—have brought up from the slime.”

“In the University library he wandered through the stacks, among the thousands of books, inhaling the musty odor of leather, cloth, and drying page as if it were an exotic incense.”

The Narrator(s)

Robin Field. It was great, I was very much immersed in Stoner’s world and I thought the narration was perfect.

My Thoughts

I was surprised by how invested I got into Stoner’s life. He’s an ordinary person, not special at all, and he doesn’t do anything special either. He was the most passive person but there were occasional times when he fought hard, and then nothing again, it’s interesting and perhaps true to life. The book follows him throughout his life and we see him through all his ups and downs. There were times you think he might achieve great things or do something extraordinary, times when you hurt for him and celebrate with him, times when you wish you could reach into the book and shake him and tell him to make better choices. There was a lot to think about and I think the writing is absolutely beautiful.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Book Review | Emma by Jane Austen

Posted January 9, 2026 by Haze in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Emma by Jane Austen

‘I never have been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.’

Beautiful, clever, rich – and single – Emma Woodhouse is perfectly content with her life and sees no need for either love or marriage. Nothing, however, delights her more than interfering in the romantic lives of others. But when she ignores the warnings of her good friend Mr Knightley and attempts to arrange a suitable match for her protegee Harriet Smith, her carefully laid plans soon unravel and have consequences that she never expected. With its imperfect but charming heroine and its witty and subtle exploration of relationships, Emma is often seen as Jane Austen’s most flawless work.

For the Reading Challenge(s):
The Classics Club

The Reason

I wanted to try more of Austen’s works! And it was a buddy read.

The Quotes

“I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him.”

“Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.”

“I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other.”

“There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they will do for themselves.”

“Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.”

The Narrator(s)

Wanda McCaddon. I enjoyed the narration.

My Thoughts

Emma is my third Austen book, and I think while I can enjoy Austen’s books, I could also just take them or leave them. They are good, to be fair, and very reflective of the era they were written in, the social expectations, culture, and prejudices. I’d say Austen is quite progressive for her time, and I can enjoy her books as historical and cultural studies, but I can’t enjoy them as romances because it’s hard to accept the ways gender norms and cultural expectations were viewed at the time.

I do love Emma for what it was though. I didn’t find many of the characters in this book likeable, but I do find them interesting and funny, and somewhat relatable. I quite enjoyed the read and got really invested in the drama in a very gossip-y, low-stakes way. I think Austen’s books in general are very well-written and easy to read. It is a little difficult sometimes to ignore the classism, misogyny, issues with age difference, etc. but unfortunately, it’s accurate to the times and culture it was written in, and I try to take that into account and not judge the story based on that. These issues are probably the reason why I could take or leave Austen’s works though.

My Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 stars.

Have you read this book? Would you read this book? Did you like the book or do you think you would like it?

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Monthly Wrap Up | December 2025

Posted January 5, 2026 by Haze in Monthly Wrap Up / 1 Comment

Welcome to the Monthly Wrap Up hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction to share our monthly wrap-up posts that summarizes our month in books, our favorite books of the month, what we did on our blogs, and anything noteworthy we want to share.

December 2025 Wrap Up

Happy 2026, everyone!!

I had a busy, but good, December and I feel very happy and hopeful for the new year. I do feel like I’m constantly playing catch-up with my blog posts and book reviews though, and I am truly sorry for neglecting my blog and all of you who have been very patient with me.

My intention is to catch up with all my reviews for December, and I really want to participate in the Top Ten Tuesdays and Sunday Posts more regularly this year. I also really love the End of Year Book Surveys and booktag memes, and I’ll try to do them throughout this rest of this month.

I’m making new year resolutions for better time management and I’m going to do better in 2026!

My December 2025 TBR Intentions

I was trying to take it easy in December so I only had four books on my TBR intentions, and I cannot believe that I completely forgot to read one of them! I forgot I had it on my list! Oh well, I’ll read it this year. 😅

  1. Emma by Jane Austen
  2. Stoner by John Williams
  3. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
  4. My Friends by Fredrik Backman

Books Read in December 2025

  1. The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
  2. The Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal
  3. The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal
  4. The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal
  5. The Wedding People by Alison Espach
  6. Emma by Jane Austen
  7. Stoner by John Williams
  8. The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
  9. Starter Villain by John Scalzi
  10. Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller

Notable Books This Month

The Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal were really good! I didn’t expect them to be alternate history because the title made me think sci-fi, not history, but it made a whole lot of sense and I really like the stories that she told with each of the individual books.

Stoner was also another standout, and it’s interesting that it is because the MC is such an ordinary, unremarkable character, who’s just wanting to live a simple life. I love that we follow him throughout his life and see him through his ups and downs; the challenges that he faces, the good times he enjoys, his occasional bursts of brilliance, his passion about certain issues and then his passivity on other issues. It’s just such great writing.

January 2026 TBR Intentions

Other than BOTM obligations for January, I’m also wanting to get to some of the books on my TBR that I didn’t manage to get to last year.

  1. Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
  2. The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones
  3. The Women Are Not Fine by Hope Reese
  4. The Glass Château by Stephen P. Kiernan
  5. The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston
  6. The Will of the Many by James Islington
  7. The Strength of the Few by James Islington

How was your month in December? How was your year in 2025? What were your most memorable bookish moments? I hope you have a wonderful 2026 with lots of great books!

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2026 Reading Challenges

Posted December 29, 2025 by Haze in Reading Challenges / 3 Comments

These are all the reading challenges I’m participating in for 2026. Click on the links to find out more!

The 52 Book Club’s 2026 Reading Challenge
The 52 Book Club’s annual reading challenge is made up of 52 unique prompts. The goal is to match one book to each prompt, for a total of fifty-two books over the course of the year. Prompts are related to everything from specific titles, to cover designs, authors, genres, settings, themes, characters, etc. (Think of it like a giant bookish scavenger hunt!) We encourage participants to try books outside of their regular reading comfort zones and push themselves to read more, read differently, and get creative with it!

The Classics Club
The Classic Club is a community of Classics Lovers who are taking on the challenge of reading at least 50 classics in 5 years. It started when a blogger wanted to see more people discussing classic literature, and it has now grown to a huge community of classic readers and bloggers. I started this on Dec 1, 2023, and hope to finish my 50 classics by Dec 1, 2028.

The Stephen King Constant Reader Challenge
This is an informal challenge I have taken up for myself. I am a fan of the author but have not read many of his works yet, so this challenge is for me to read his full catalog, including rereads and any new books he releases while I’m completing the challenge. There is no time limit for this challenge. It is complete when I finish them.

2026 Nonfiction Reader Challenge
Hosted by Shelleyrae @ Book’d Out, it’s a nonfiction reading challenge for 2026. I signed up for it in 2024 and completed it but didn’t sign up in 2025 because I was feeling overwhelmed. I ended up really missing the challenge so I decided to sign up again for 2026!


I am also still looking for a couple more challenges for reading more bipoc books/authors, and for finishing series I’ve already started. If I don’t find any, I’ll probably just do them anyway, just more informally.

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