MELISSA BRINKS

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MELISSA BRINKS

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Written by Melissa Brinks February 22, 2017 Comments Off on Email Verification

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"[Food] is how we care for and nourish ourselves,

"[Food] is how we care for and nourish ourselves, each other, and our communities."

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There are many terrible things about this pandemic. One of the ones I'm struggling with the most is that it's not safe for me to see friends, and therefore it's not safe for me to cook for them or eat with them. Going out for coffee or dinner is one of my favorite things to do with friends, along with cooking and playing games in person. We're staying connected as best we can, but eating chips and salsa over Discord just isn't the same as eating them together.

The Corners of Their Mouth is a queer food zine, exploring some of the relationships queer folks have with food. It begins with a question: what is the queerest food? Many answers are provided by a variety of people, including nachos, cocoa, figs, pancakes and honey, and rainbow goldfish. I think mango is my answer, but "queer food," to me, is anything cooked by or for my friends. Queer food is us gathered in the kitchen, me cussing as I screw up our Friendsgiving turkey for the sixth year in a row. Queer food is us dropping spinach dip all over my Gloom cards. Queer food is the ramen we made the last time we hung out together before the pandemic, when I was sick and we all hoped it wouldn't be the last time this year we'd get to interact in person.

But right, the zine. It's very good. The Corners of Their Mouth Press do a wonderful job of putting together thought-provoking content on queerness and living with great sensitivity. It's not just about showcasing queer life; it's about caring for it, nurturing it, letting it blossom in its own unique way. If you come upon one of their zines, pick them up, read them. They're lovely and strong things.

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#thecornersoftheirmouthpress #thecornersoftheirmouth #zine #booksofinstagram #readwhatyouown #bookstagrammerlife #booksandchill #moodreader #booknerdlife

“I hate you,” I breathe into his mouth. “I h

“I hate you,” I breathe into his mouth. “I hate you so much that sometimes I can’t think of anything else.”

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The Wicked King didn't grab me as much as The Cruel Prince, but the development of Jude and Cardan's love-hate relationship is DELICIOUS. Jude quickly became one of my favorite YA characters in the first book for her intensity and dedication to staying alive despite the cruelty that surrounded her. This middle stage, where she learns to put that cruelty to her own use, was a necessary one, though not as interesting to me.

Still! Holly Black writes some of my favorite (and some of the most impactful on me) YA fiction—she isn't afraid to dabble in darkness, and as a kid who was drawn to dark things but not at all interested in trying them in real life, her Modern Faerie Tales series really got its hooks into me. What can I say? I'm a girl who loves a self-destructing protagonist with a taste for all the things that harm them. This series, set in the same universe but with a new human protagonist raised in Faerie, flips what I loved so much about the first books on its head in a cunning and horrific way. It's fun! It's disturbing! I love to read about things I would never want to do in real life!

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#hollyblack #thewickedking #booksofinstagram #bookstagrammerlife #booksandchill #moodreaders #booknerdlife #fictionreads #booksaremagic

"One's ideas are just as crucial to magic as one's

"One's ideas are just as crucial to magic as one's skill with the pen. Let's make sure that your mind continues to flourish along with your hands."

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Witch Hat Atelier was exactly the read I needed in the early quarantine times. This delightful manga by Kamome Shirahama follows Coco, a young girl who accidentally finds herself brought into the world of witchcraft after an accidental spell that transformers her mother into a statue. But the world of magic isn't necessarily a safe place—according to the laws, she ought to have her memory erased. Instead, she's brought under the wing of Qifrey, an accomplished witch who takes her on as an apprentice.

I'm not a huge manga reader (no particular hesitation, there's just a lot of it and I don't know where to begin), but Witch Hat Atelier immediately captured my attention thanks to beautiful art and the relentless do-gooder joy that is Coco. Back in March, I needed books that would let me dive into them and feel something other than fear for a bit, and that's precisely what Witch Hat Atelier allowed me to do. That's not to say the series is without fear or stress—as mentioned, the world of magic isn't always safe—but Coco's attitude and earnestness make everything feel good nonetheless.

My favorite thing about it, though, is how it treats magic as an art form, as a thing done through instruments and work. It's reciprocal—magic is art, therefore art is magic. It's a lovely sentiment that echoes throughout, treating magic and art as something achieved through work and effort, not just a talent that springs from some unknown source.

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#kamomeshirahama #witchhatatelier #booksofinstagram #bookstagrammerlife #booksandchill #moodreader #booknerdlife #fictionreads #booksaremagic

“But Gideon was experiencing one powerful emotio

“But Gideon was experiencing one powerful emotion: being sick of everyone’s shit.”

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Some books take a bit to fall in love with. For me, Gideon the Ninth was one of those—I struggle a bit with books that have a lot of intensive worldbuilding, and though I was immediately drawn to Gideon's irreverent, mouthy character, I couldn't quite follow the plot at first. Muir's writing is a lovely mixture of low-down grimy humor and delicate, deftly wielded figurative language, so I found myself entranced even if I wasn't fully hooked by the plot.

But suddenly, somewhere toward the middle, I fell hard in love. Not like a gentle caress, but like a punch in the teeth. It's a haunting but delightful gothic mystery, a mess of bones and violence and love that goes for the jugular. Surely that's enough to convince you it's worth reading?

#tamsynmuir #gideontheninth #booksofinstagram #readwhatyouown #bookstagrammerlife #booksandchill #moodreader #booknerdlife #fictionreads

"The most powerful spell you can have in your arse

"The most powerful spell you can have in your arsenal is an easy phrase.

I can."

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I picked up Hazel volume III at GeekGirlCon, a lovely little local convention. I finally got around to reading it late last year, right around the time that I decided I really, really needed to get myself into therapy. Now that I am in therapy and working with things like positive mantras and mood tracking and forcing myself to write variations on a theme every day as a means of forgiveness, I keep returning to this zine as a point of warm comfort.

A lot of the things that are magic are also the things I do in therapy. That doesn't mean that they are the same—nor does it make me feel any better about a past therapist who handed me crystals on our first meeting (she was, actually, a good therapist, but not the one I needed at that time)—but rather that these rituals of care are another tool in the toolbox. Maybe the way I stir my morning tea doesn't have any effect on my day. Maybe the mantras my therapist and I came up with won't change the way I think about myself. But I do them anyway, because there is sense to me that the only way I can change the negative messages I tell myself is by filling the empty space with positive messages instead.

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Anyway, the Hazel series is an adorable little zine of comics, art, and prose about coziness, self-care, and magic. Pick it up if you get the chance!

In extra exciting news, I actually have a poem in the next volume of Hazel! Keep an eye out for the Kickstarter - it's going to be a beautiful book.

#hazel #booksofinstagram #readwhatyouown #bookstagrammerlife #booksandchill #moodreader #booknerdlife #fictionreads

"Video game history is fascinating, a mixture of t

"Video game history is fascinating, a mixture of technological achievement and deeply human tales of passion, curiosity, and betrayal, often as exciting as the sword-slinging adventures of Link or the terrifying journey of Harry Mason."

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Hello! Today, my second book—The Little Book of Video Games—is out! It's a fun and adorable look at games that shaped the video gaming industry, not because they were the most popular or the most technologically advanced, but because they did something unique to jam a wrench into gaming's trajectory. With absolutely adorable illustrations by Paulina Ganucheau (@paulinaganucheau) , The Little Book of Video Games really stands out among other gaming history books, and I can say that with honesty because a) I read a bunch of gaming history books while researching and b) I didn't illustrate it, and Paulina is objectively incredible.

Check out the link in my bio to pick up your copy! And let me know what your favorite video game is! Which one had the biggest impact on you? I'd love to hear about it!

#thelittlebookofvideogames #booksofinstagram #bookstagrammerlife #booksandchill #moodreader #booknerdlife #bookpeople #booksaremagic #videogames #gaminglife #instagaming

“Real magic can never be made by offering someon

“Real magic can never be made by offering someone else's liver. You must tear out your own, and not expect to get it back.” -

I skipped right on by Peter S. Beagle for most of my life, but when I finally saw the movie and read the book of The Last Unicorn, I realized I had been missing out on something special. Beagles' prose is some of my favorite in existence; he has such a light and witty hand and tosses out philosophical questions so delicately that you don't even realize you're dealing with quite heavy questions about truth and beauty and life. He's truly a master. -
Also, this cover! I'm never tired of looking at it. It's an older edition (1968, in fact) and has the absolutely perfect old book smell. -
#petersbeagle #thelastunicorn #booksofinstagram #readwhatyouown #bookstagrammerlife #booksandchill #moodreader #booknerdlife #fictionreads

"Death might appear to destroy the meaning in our

"Death might appear to destroy the meaning in our lives, but in fact it is the very source of our creativity. As Kafka said, 'The meaning of life is that it ends.' Death is the engine that keeps us running, giving us the motivation to achieve, learn, love, and create." .
When something scares me, I try to learn everything that I can about it. Enter Caitlin Doughty, the face of The Order of the Good Death, an organization dedicated to promoting death positivity, or an understanding that death is a natural part of life, something we can and should speak openly and honestly about. Her first book, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, is part memoir, part introduction to death positivity, infusing the philosophy with science and personality. It may not cure your fears of death (good luck with that!) but it's a wonderful, approachable way to ease yourself into thinking about death differently through humor, demystification, and utter honesty. .
The illustration in the background is by the incredible @wastedwings! It was inspired by the Greek goddess Persephone, queen of the the underworld. It's a beautiful illustration deserving a beautiful frame, and despite having picked it up several years ago I still haven't gotten around to putting it in one yet. .
Here's a gross little behind-the-scenes info for you: we used to feed my cat on top of a stack of books with this one on the top, and that's why there's little flecks of something on the cover. She's a sloppy eater.
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#caitlindoughty #smokegetsinyoureyes #bookpeople #booksaremagic #readergram #bookwormlife #booktography #bookaesthetic #bookishcommunity #bookishfeed

"I love you, and I love you, and I want to find ou

"I love you, and I love you, and I want to find out what that means together."
.
In Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone's time-travel epistolary novel, two people on either side of an intergalactic war through time and space write taunting letters to one another, entangling them in brilliant puzzles for the other to solve. Except as time goes forward (and backward and sideways and inside out), their feelings begin to shift. With the war raging on, Red and Blue on opposing sides, they must navigate the complexity of their feelings, their place in the chaos, and whether two people unstuck in time, stuck in war, can have a future.
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This book is a perfect storm of things I adore. I LOVE epistolary fiction. It's so intimate, like you're getting a peek at something you shouldn't. A good enemies-to-lovers story is a truly wonderful thing; the texture! The banter! The witticisms! And El-Mohtar and Gladstone's use of time travel is irresistible—it's a puzzle, a complication, a beautiful mess to be picked apart and marveled at. It doesn't hurt that both authors have some of the greatest mastery of prose and description I've ever been privileged enough to read. I want to shove this book into my mouth and chew on it, it's that delicious.
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(Fun fact: the fabric the book is sitting on is red on the reverse side.)
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#amalelmohtar #maxgladstone #thisishowyoulosethetimewar #bookpeople #booksaremagic #readergram #bookwormlife #booktography #bookaesthetic #bookishcommunity

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