Sarakas
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sarakas.bsky.social
Sarakas
@sarakas.bsky.social
53 followers 85 following 230 posts
[she/her/dude] gay & tired. reading/watching/playing 🏳️‍🌈 stuff. trying to write 🏳️‍🌈 stuff. & also Birdie🐶 might show up sometimes
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sarakas.bsky.social
My google alerts are working just about as well as Harrow’s lobotomy 😭 #tlt #thelockedtomb
A screenshot of a Google Alerts email with the subject line “Alecto the Ninth” A screenshot of the title of the article that was linked in the aforementioned email. It reads “Not There Yet: 7 More Exciting SFF Books Coming in 2026” A screenshot of the second paragraph of the article with a portion of sentence highlighted that reads “And also, none of the books below are Alecto the Ninth”
September 9, 2025 at 11:38 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 28 of ‘25: Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval. What if you moved to a new country for university and experienced a sexual awakening (in a very gay way) with your older roommate and the converted warehouse you lived in had no real interior walls and things got weeeeiiiirrrrddddd??
In colorful sans serif font, the book title and author’s name sit on top of a close up portion of a leafy and flowery plant.
August 6, 2025 at 2:03 AM
sarakas.bsky.social
My stack of translated books I haven’t gotten around to reading yet. Gonna try and make a bit of a dent this month but as a slow reader I’ll be happy if I get through like three of these in the next few weeks. #WITMonth
A stack of books sitting on a fireplace mantle. From top to bottom the books are: Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata, trans. Ginny Tapley Takemori Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, trans. Megan McDowell Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval, trans. Marjam Idriss There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, trans. Keith Gessen & Anna Summers Notes of a Crocodile by Qiu Miaojin, trans. Bonnie Huie Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica trans. Sarah Moses Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird by Agustina Bazterrica, trans. Sarah Moses I Who Have Never Known Men by Jaqueline Harpman, trans. Ros Schwartz The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, trans. Megan McDowell If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho by Sappho, trans. Anne Carson Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk, trans. Heather Cleary Butter by Asako Yuzuki, trans. Polly Barton
August 3, 2025 at 11:01 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 27 of ‘25: Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon. A transfemme & sapphic sci-fi revenge story! An account of the violent oppression of marginalized people under fascist/capitalist/colonial corporations! Cool mask tech! Second person narration! A sequel forthcoming! (I think!)
A gilded hawk mask is split in half vertically showing a woman’s face inside the mask. The woman’s face is also split in half vertically showing a black hole-like singularity inside the woman that is emitting bright light. The background is navy blue and is decorated with pinpricks of stars as well as a handful of planets. At the bottom in gradient blue to yellow font is the book title and the author’s name.
August 3, 2025 at 6:43 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Happy Bird Day, everyone! 🐶🥳
Birdie, a yellow lab, is sitting in the grass with a chicken plushie toy at her feet. She is wearing a neckerchief that is patterned with birds in flight. She’s looking at the camera with a smile and her tongue lolling out of her open mouth. Birdie is now standing and licking a green rubber toy that has a tasty treat hidden inside and is completely ignoring the cute chicken toy, which has fallen lopsided in the grass beside her. Birdie from a different angle. Still standing up and focused entirely on the green toy with the treat hidden inside. She now has her whole mouth around the toy. The chicken plushie, which I picked out from the store just for her after agonizing over what to get for many long minutes, is nowhere to be seen. Happy birthday, Birdie!
July 28, 2025 at 10:33 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 26 of ‘25: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab. It’s a story about toxic vampire yuri. It’s a story about women only being able to express their rage/desire/love by becoming monstrous. It’s also, sneakily, a story about sisters. It made me cry. 🌕🥀
The book title in yellow serif font and the author’s name in white serif font sit on top of a bed of stemmed and thorny roses in black and blue evoking the cooler shades of moonlight as opposed to the yellow and gold of sunlight.
July 27, 2025 at 12:04 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
I have finished reading Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil.
That one meme of the lil hand drawn guy lying on their back staring upward expressionless but with tears streaming out of their eyes in such a large volume that they’ve formed a large blue puddle in which the dude is lying
July 23, 2025 at 2:29 AM
sarakas.bsky.social
Like come on….
The VAR image showing that Cascarino was offside literally by a toe, thereby nullifying her dope-ass backheel goal that would have put France 2-1 up over Germany.
July 19, 2025 at 8:04 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 25 of ‘25: The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White. This book was harrowing as fuck I’m ngl. What happy endings & schadenfreude we got did not quite balance the scales of suffering imo. I know that’s not the point of the book but my poor heart could’ve done w/ more righteous justice.
Silas is front and center, in profile, holding a shard of glass in one hand. He is framed by an oval mirror frame and writhin the frame is a sprawling landscape of flat land and open cloudy sky with a black orb above hanging just behind Silas’ head. Without and behind the mirror frame are various medical/scientific drawings of eyes from many different angles. The colors are all light and dark purple, gold, and black.
July 12, 2025 at 9:18 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 24 of ‘25: Artificial Condition by Martha Wells. Murderbot & ART, new favorite odd couple. Gotta love how Murderbot continues to come to love its human clients contrary to its assertion that it doesn’t care for humans. Looking forward to more of that!
Murderbot, in full armor, stands atop an industrial type platform while a large ship is in flight above its head. The sky or air around Murderbot is very cloudy or smoky and the light shining through gives the sky a yellow glow.
July 6, 2025 at 9:25 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 23 of ‘25: We Used To Live Here by Marcus Kliewer. The scares were very scary but between the map & the Morse code, I thought this was gonna be a labyrinthine puzzle for both the reader & the MC to solve & then it just…wasn’t. It was quite disappointing. Also, lesbians lost. 😢👎
A photograph of a Victorian style home angles upward so that the ground floor of the home is not seen. The house is painted a green-blue color with white trim. A mostly cloudy grey-blue sky covers the top half of the photo and there are a couple of leafless tree branches framing the house. The photo is distorted vertically in several places so that the roof angles and the corners of the house do not match up.
July 3, 2025 at 2:09 AM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 22 of ‘25: All Systems Red by Martha Wells. Ok, all my friends & all you internet strangers, you were right! Murderbot very good! I had a great time reading this, Murderbot’s narrative voice is so fun. And then the final paragraph went & made me cry! 😅 Already put #2 on hold @ the library. 😘🤖
Murderbot stands front and center on the cover, in full armor and its visor opaqued. A landscape of tall skinny trees is in the backround, with a starry sky above. The sky is also prominently decorated with a ringed meteor belt positioned in an arc above the tree canopy like a rainbow. The colors are all in white, grays, and gray-greens. The book title is in red.
June 29, 2025 at 4:32 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Also lol that the only two books I’ve given five stars this year (so far) are both religious horror/fantasy.
A screenshot from my Storygraph profile showing the books I have rated five stars so far this year. There are only two of them and they are The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling and The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica.
June 25, 2025 at 10:40 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 21 of ‘25: The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling. I really took my time to savor this one (as the Constant Lady would want me to) & I wish I had more coherent thoughts but…OMG HOLY SHIT YESSS! THIS IS THE EXACT TYPE OF WEIRD SHIT I’VE BEEN CRAVING!!! So have some memes instead of words. 🥩🐝🔪🧎‍♀️
The book cover for The Starving Saints by Caitlin Starling. A metallic gold sun with accompanying radial sunbeams stands against a solid black background. A humanoid figure dressed in a nun’s habit stands in front of the sun so that it frames her head like a halo. Within the cowl of the habit is not a human face but three painted cherubic faces all mashed into the space underneath the cowl together. Their facial expressions all convey distress of some kind. The humanoid figure holds a wooden frame in front of her chest with both hands. The wooden frame is filled with honeycomb. There are a handful of honeybees flitting around both the honeycomb and the head of the humanoid figure in a nun’s habit. The title of the book is partially superimposed on top of the disc of the sun in pink stylized font. The author’s name is at the bottom in white in the same stylized font. The whole is framed in a thin metallic gold border the same color as the sun and it thickens momentarily on the left border so that “A Novel” can be written vertically in black font in the same style as the title. Gob Bluth from Arrested Development lounges on a couch in a bathrobe with a confused look on his face. The text at the bottom of the image reads “Bees?!” Various stick figures are drawn along the top and bottom borders of a white space. Each figure or figures is in some state of distress or anger or violence. The top left figure has an open mouth full of red sharp teeth. The top middle figure is bent fully over so that its hands and feet both stand on the floor and it is expelling a thin red line from its mouth. The top right figure seems to be chewing on the side of a second prone figure and they are both surrounded by a big blotch of red. The bottom left figure is holding and possibly shaking the shoulders of a second figure. Its face clearly indicated distress and its fingers are clearly digging in hard to the second figure’s shoulders. The bottom middle figure is bent partially over with its hands on its knees spewing tears from its eyes with the intensity of a fire hose. The bottom right figure is on its knees straddling a second figure. The first figure has a crazed expression on its face and is punching or scratching or tearing the skin of the second figure. (Poster’s addendum: at least two or three of these scenes were literally depicted in The Starving Saints, I kid you not.) A square grid of three images from the same video meme. The top image shows a young boy running barefoot outside around the side of an above ground pool. The text on that image reads “Let me see what you have.” The bottom left image shows the same boy now brandishing something in his hand and responding to the question with a gleeful smile on his face. The text on that image reads “A knife!” The bottom right image still shows the same boy, still running, still with a gleeful, and now a bit mischievous, smile on his face. The text on that image reads “NO!”
June 25, 2025 at 6:20 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Eivor (or, Gayvor, if you will) says Happy Pride! 🪓🌈🐦‍⬛
Eivor from Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, in full Celtic armor, with short-cropped hair, and an axe at her hip, stands on an outcropping of rock with both sunshine and rain falling on her. Behind her is the lush green countryside of Ireland and a full rainbow arches over her. Her raven, Sýnin, is in flight above the top right part of the rainbow.
June 22, 2025 at 3:50 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 20 of ‘25: Brighter Than Scale, Swifter Than Flame by Neon Yang. This was a fun little novella but by virtue of its brevity, I felt it lacked some depth of character & world that I would have loved to see more of tbh. It felt just a little too rushed to me, but like I said: still fun!
A knight stands with her gloved hands gripping the hilt of a long sword that is placed point downward. Her armor is black with an intricate gold dragon design. Behind her stands a woman with her chin resting on the knight’s shoulder. One of her hands holds the blade of the sword and the other had delicately holds the knight’s shoulder pauldron. The woman’s hair is very long and it is draped over both the knight’s shoulders. The woman has a red dragon tattoo on her face.
June 5, 2025 at 12:19 AM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 19 of ‘25: Eat The Ones You Love by Sarah Maria Griffin. The suburban ennui of late stage capitalism mixes with botanical & body horror, plus some toxic/doomed yuri as a treat! The creeping dread is really great! The dialogue is delightful! This book made me cry but I still loved it anyway!
Plant stalks, vines, an open orchid flower, and a Venus fly trap sit against a black back ground. One closed flower bud and the Venus fly trap each have a human eye in their midst. The book title traverses the entire cover and intermingles with the plants.
May 25, 2025 at 10:28 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 18 of ‘25: Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera. Described as a millennia-spanning, reincarnating, 2-souls-entangled epic, it definitely delivers, but not at all in the way you expect. A book that begs you to engage your whole mind while reading. I loved it even when I didn’t fully understand it.
A rabbit skull with earthworms crawling out of its eye sockets sits atop a pink background with a purple kaleidoscopic design. Also woven within the purple design are yellow hibiscus flowers and their green leaves and branches which also have earthworms crawling through them. The book title and author’s name are in stylized white serif font.
May 14, 2025 at 5:34 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Me reading Annihilation and feeling a kinship with the biologist (i have a BS in Environmental Science that i DEFINITELY use):
A still of Willem Defoe as Norman Osborne in one of the Spider-Man films (I don’t remember which one). The text at the bottom reads “You know, I’m something of a scientist myself.”
April 27, 2025 at 12:43 AM
sarakas.bsky.social
(Omg i forgot to Annihilation post)
Book 17 of ‘25: Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer. Fuck yeah, dude. This book definitely lived up to the hype imo. Loved the biologist & her voice in the narration. Loved the underlying disquiet of Area X as well as the more in your face horror elements.
A boar in profile is set against a solid black background. The boar is distorted in places: it’s legs, it’s side and back, and its head are all stretched and warped. There are plants, flowers, and mushrooms sprouting from the boat’s body. The boar has mostly brown fur, but the things growing on it provide splashes of various colors, as does the metallic reflective effect interspersed within its fur. In the top left in large font, the book title and author name are printed in the same reflective metallic effect as on the boar’s body. In the top right in much smaller, plain font is: 10th Anniversary Edition; A Novel; Book 1 of the Southern Reach Series
April 27, 2025 at 12:26 AM
sarakas.bsky.social
just got a notification that my book delivery has been delayed by a few days…
Kermit the frog stares out a blurry, rain soaked window, one hand resting on the glass, evoking melancholic yearning
April 24, 2025 at 12:24 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 16 of ‘25: Faithbreaker by Hannah Kaner. A very fun (& sad!) fast paced, high adrenaline, highly emotional, lil bit spicy conclusion to the Fallen Gods trilogy. I really loved experiencing this world, the story, & most of all, the characters. Kissen has my heart foreverrrrrr. 🌀🩵
Ok, I’m gonna to my best to describe this cover bc it’s very beautiful. Skediceth, the god of white lies, who manifests as a hare with stag antlers on his head and owl wings on his back, is the main focus of the cover he is presented in profile and his fur, feathers, and antlers are colored in purplish- and orange-ish browns. There are a couple of trinkets dangling from his antlers. He hovers above a rocky sea: the rocks jut up from the water and are carved with strange symbols and are illuminated by a few glowing orbs. The water stretches out flat beyond them glowing with sunrise or sunset. The sky is cloudy and the sun itself is obfuscated by a large moon-like orb so that the light shines out from behind the orb in golden rays. Within the orb, written in an arc to match the circular shape of the orb is the book title: “Faithbreaker” and the author’s name: Hannah Kaner. The color palette ranges from light purple to dark blue-purple and burnished gold, orange-ish gold, and pink-ish gold.
April 14, 2025 at 5:31 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 15 of ‘25: Faebound by Saara El-Arifi.
✅: the lesbian enemies-to-lovers & their spicy scenes; the obeah; the magic
❌: the hetero romance (sorry, I really tried to care about them); I wish there had been more depth & weight to the lore, the political machinations, & the war
The cover for “Faebound” by Saara El-Arifi. In black, red, and gold, the cover depicts a rolling, nearly liquid landscape with two trees breaking up from the ground. A ribbon of cloud also curves up from the ground and into the black sky. Golden leaves drift to the ground and a golden crescent moon and stars occupy the upper right corner.
April 12, 2025 at 12:24 AM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 14 of ‘25: It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken. A zombie woman has an undead existential crisis. Humor & grief are well balanced. I was having a fun time riding along until the existentialism jumped off the page & grabbed me 😅 but it was still an overall enjoyable read.
The cover for “It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over” by Anne de Marcken. The silhouette of a black crow lies against a solid yellow-green background. Within the body of the crow, from its head down most of its body, are the words “It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over.” Along its tail feathers are the words “Anne de Marcken.”
April 5, 2025 at 1:20 PM
sarakas.bsky.social
Book 13 of ‘25: Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. A very short quick read but it packs a punch. There is a depth and breadth of humanity within these pages that astonished me considering how short this book is. Would love to know how Keegan did that.
The cover for “Small Things Like These” by Claire Keegan. The cover depicts a pastoral, small town scene. In the foreground are a few houses, some trees, a cart, and a handful of people on the slope of a hill. In the background the landscape continues in rolling hills until they become a mountain that touches the blue sky. Everything is covered in a blanket of white snow. On the left is a winding river. At the top of the cover a black bird is in flight.
April 5, 2025 at 1:13 PM