Shavi S
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purelyromantic.bsky.social
Shavi S
@purelyromantic.bsky.social
43 followers 48 following 15 posts
She/her. Lit scholar by day, unhinged romance reader by night. Raging Brown feminist, South Asian, anti-colonialist, queer- & fat-positive account!

https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/purely_romantic
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purelyromantic.bsky.social
These are my June Faves!

Tied to Hell - Vee Debras
Aurethia Rising - Atlas Laika
Pucked Up - @emlindsey.bsky.social
The Emperor’s Wrath - Kai Butler

#booksky
July 4, 2025 at 6:56 AM
purelyromantic.bsky.social
Vee Debras is quickly becoming a favourite and I loved the second book in the Monsters of Brimrey Island series which comes out tomorrow. Full review at the link below or on Goodreads and Instagram.

app.thestorygraph.com/reviews/e337...
June 26, 2025 at 9:37 AM
purelyromantic.bsky.social
Here are four ARCs I read recently and loved! Full reviews on IG, Goodreads and StoryGraph! #Booksky
May 27, 2025 at 6:53 AM
purelyromantic.bsky.social
This was really beautiful and I can’t even say 5 stars because this is just too special for a star rating.

#booksky #bookreview #afrofuturism
A blue background of below the water in the ocean. Title reads: Review: The Deep by Rivers Solomon. An image of the cover is below. The same background in other images. Text reads: “Part of our rejection of first-person perspective is also a rejection of the authoritative position that the notion of a canon assumes” (clipping.). This quote by the band clipping. in the afterword to Rivers Solomons’ book The Deep is a fitting descriptor of what the whole project attempts to create. Even writing a review or trying to analyse it feels inadequate because this piece of art defies being categorized and penned into a specific genre. Initially imagined by the electric duo Drexciya, then given lyrics and added dimension by the hip-hop band clipping. and finally turned into novel from by Rivers Solomons, all these artists have built and created and borrowed from and inspired each other. I appreciated how the afterword implied that none of these works should be necessarily considered in a linear fashion or as if one improved the other, but that they all exist in and of each other. This is a fitting way to both create and for us engaging with this art that transcends one type of medium or genre to think about the narrative that it is presenting and challenging–one in which the pregnant women of the Middle Passage in some utopian retelling, may have birthed a whole new underwater population. Text reads: The Deep allows us to think more about the weight of inherited trauma and memory. How does a society flourish despite this trauma? Should it be forgotten in order to survive, or remembered also in order to survive? What is the balance and is it is even possible to create one? In Solomons’ imagining of this story, Yetu is this generations’ Historian, the sole member of the wajinru–this underwater community whose ancestors were the pregnant women thrown overboard from slave ships–who bears the burden of remembering their history. For Yetu this is not an honour or even a duty, but something viscerally painful, a burden that she wishes to be rid of. We follow her journey in reconciling her role amongst her community and how she attempts to find a balance both for herself and for everyone she loves. Interspersed with her journey, the reader also gets to experience some of their history from their beginnings to living amongst the whales and the water, to the various skirmishes with two-legs. Text reads: There is both a heaviness and a liquidity to the language Solomon uses and I appreciated how much it reflected both the sense of the underwater utopia that existed for most of the wajinru, as well as the weight of History. I don’t think the novel necessarily provides answers to these large questions of what we must do with our history, and how we choose to remember it, but it does make the reader think about our own responsibility when it comes to memory. What do we gain and what is the cost of shared memory, particularly when it involves a collective pain? If the novel provides any conclusion at all it is that we must also collectively bear the weight of such memory. This is one of those works that needs to be read multiple times and contains a kind of layered storytelling and reflection that will resonate in different ways each time. I also highly recommend listening to clipping.’s song The Deep as well as the other media that is in conversation with Solomons’ novel. A beautiful and deeply though-provoking work that I encourage everyone to read.
February 26, 2025 at 6:45 PM
purelyromantic.bsky.social
Current read: Fate of the Stars by SD Simper.

This is so good and I’m utterly sucked in!
Cover of SD Simper’s Fate of the Stars. Shows a mermaid attempting to rescue a human woman from underwater. Mermaid is white, with white hair and a pink tail. The human woman has a long braid and is dressed in pants and a shirt.
February 13, 2025 at 6:30 AM
purelyromantic.bsky.social
January Wrap-Up!

Total books read: 9
Rereads: 6
New: 3
ARCs: 1

Faves:
The Deep by Rivers Solomon
A Circle of Stars by Craig Montgomery

What was your fave January read?
A blue starry sky background. Title is January Faves with the covers for The Deep by Rivers Solomon and A Circle of Stars by Craig Montgomery below. Same background as previous. Title is January Stats. On the left is a StoryGraph image of my January reads featuring 9 books. On the left is a text box that has the same stats from my caption. Below that is another image from StoryGraph showing my January TBR challenge progress where I’ve read 63% (5 books out of 8).
February 3, 2025 at 7:48 PM