I was ready to write bad angsty poetry on my never-ending reading / blogging slump in the first half of 2025. But luckily, the second half got me out of slump valley in record time. Here’s a quick record of everything I read and (mostly) liked in the past year.
Wild Reverence by Rebecca Ross
This book reminded me a lot of Madeline Miller’s Circe, as if retelling a mix of Norse and Greek/ Roman mythologies. The lead character is Matilda, a messenger god who can travel across realms. She falls in love with a mortal, and that does not sit well with a trickster crafty god who hungers for more power and dominion. The story reads like a folktale about how a puny messenger god defeated the crafty god, won a mortal’s heart, saved several people, and learnt the surprising truth of her own heritage. The plot seems strangely familiar and also sometimes a little predictable. But I am a huge fan of the exquisite writing style, intriguing characterizations and the truly stellar world-building.
