Hello, first of all I wanted to share an update about my baby boy, Mr. Erasmus Flattery. He had his surgery last Friday, and we picked him up from surgery that evening. The surgery was extensive and, frankly, horrifying to hear about. They quite literally made him a new urethra and the vet said he will essentially “pee like a girl” now. But the vet said the surgery went very well. He woke up from the anesthesia just fine, purring and being his adorable self, and all the vet techs were enamored with him (as they well should be! He’s the sweetest thing!).

The real trick is going to be the next 2 weeks. We have to keep a cone on him for 2 whole weeks (cat owners will know how difficult this is!) and keep him from running around too much (we have a large crate for him for at least the first few days). It is vital that he not have any infection or pull his stitches. If he licks his stitches it could cause an infection or cause the new urethra to close up, which would be almost certainly life-threatening. So the next 2 weeks are going to be stressful. But if we get him safely past the next 2 weeks he should be totally fine, excepting for a permanent diet change to a prescription urinary health food.

My mother and I crunched the numbers, and we figure that between the two of us, with three cats with various medical issues, we have paid the vet approximately $10k in the last month. So, budgets are very very tight right now.

I won’t harp on it much more, I promise, but I would like to share my new kofi again, just in case. If you can spare even a couple bucks toward the care and feeding of 12 cats, including several sick kitties, it would be greatly appreciated. My kofi is at https://ko-fi.com/nightforestbooks

In other news, I’m in a bit of a reading slump right now. I’m still reading, but it is going very slowly right now, and I’m also doing a lot of RE-reading. When my stress and anxiety levels are really bad, re-reading all my comforting favorites is about all I can handle. So I will definitely still have posts up the next couple weeks, but they will probably not be for new and upcoming releases. In the works, I have a book review of a few middle-grade graphic novels by Ethan M. Aldridge, a reminiscence about reading Tamora Pierce’s Immortals Quartet, and perhaps a discussion of some romance novels I’ve been devouring the last year or so.

I also wanted to hear everyone’s thoughts on something I’m planning on: I’ve been thinking about doing a big read-though and discussion for The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir in preparation for the release of Nona the Ninth in September. I’ve already read Gideon, so that would be a re-read for me, but I had not yet gotten to Harrow so that would be new for me. So my thought is that I would re-read and discuss Gideon the Ninth throughout the month of July, and then Harrow the Ninth in August, and finally jump into Nona when it is released in mid-September. I would invite people to read along with me and split each book into about fourths (a fourth for each week of the month), and then I would do some in-depth discussion and some guesses for what might be coming in Nona. Is this something anyone would be interested in? Would people like to join me on a read-through?

Relatedly, have you seen the full Nona the Ninth poem that Tor.com revealed? Here it is:

One of my best friends (who first badgered me into reading The Locked Tomb books) and I were freaking out over this poem, trying to figure out what it MEANS, what clues are in it, or what clues are in the previous books that might explain it! Our reactions pretty much looked like this:

If you had any reactions to the poem, please feel free to share! I’d love to know we’re not the only ones freaking out. Also, any thoughts on the possibility of a Locked Tomb read-through? Let me know!