@verecunda kindly tagged me in the following meme (thanks dear! <3):
1. Best book you have read in 2021 so far? It has to be Dominion by Tom Holland; it’s about how Latin Christianity and the West have shaped each other over two thousand years, to the point where our values and our understanding are inescapably Christian at the root, no matter how secular you are.
I don’t think any work of Tom Holland’s will ever top Rubicon (that book’s verve! its pizzazz! how much it taught me! I owe it such a debt); but I have to bow down to the sheer amount of research involved in condensing over 2,000 years of Western history into 600 pages, and to how revelatory and transformative an argument it is. Once you’ve heard it, you’ll see it everywhere, not least in how strange, fascinating and terrible the classical world now seems to us, following such a radical shift in morals.
2. Best sequel you have read in 2021 so far? I’ve only read two sequels in 2021 so far! I am as ever astonishingly bad at continuing series.
The best is Lustrum, where all I can say is thank you Robert Harris for my life. I knew late Roman republican politics was wild, but I’d forgotten it was this gloriously entertaining. Harris is clearly such a political and parliamentary geek; someone who delights in the theatricality of public life, the alliances and compromises that lie behind it, and the shifts in power and influence expressed and created by debates and legislation.
But more than that, the book is so good because the people in it feel so real. I love his Lucullus (disdainful, feline, magnificent, I’m), love his hot bullheaded Metellus Celer to absolute bits, and I even really like Harris’s Catilina, for his charisma and ruined nobility—he feels like a tragic figure, someone who should have been using his qualities in service of the state, not trying to destroy it.
The most tragic figure in it, though, is Cicero, whose moment of glory is also the seed of his destruction. (and it never occurred to me before that his harping on about having saved the Republic might be in part displaced guilt over ordering executions without trial.) Tiro’s portrait of him is clearly rooted in long-standing familiarity and tender affection, the sort of love which embraces the whole of the other person, flaws and weaknesses included, and reading it you get the same sense as you do in the letters, of how much Cicero depended on those close to him for support. but more than that, you also get a sense of the kind of person Tiro must have been, to serve Cicero so well - intelligent and observant and sensitive and devoted.
I could wish for a little more depth in the portrayal of the female characters - though it shows the extent of the misogyny they had to fight against - but otherwise this book is an absolute riot. I can’t wait to get on to the next one and yet I can’t bear the thought of Cicero dying. (his going into exile nearly made me cry.)
3. A new release you want to check out? Elodie Harper’s The Wolf Den, a story about the lives of slaves in a brothel in Pompeii. I’ve seen a lupanar in documentaries about Pompeii before, and even through a TV screen and across 2,000 years you can feel the misery and despair. So a character-driven novel which looks unflinchingly at the slaves’ experiences, and also focuses on the ways they find to survive, the friendship and sisterhood between them, sounds like a tough read but a really interesting and worthwhile one.
4. Most anticipated book release of the second half of the year? A lot of the books I was looking forward to this year have already come out, so I’m going to go for Jessie Burton’s Medusa, just because I can never get enough of myth retellings.
5. Biggest surprise? Natalie Haynes is a TREASURE. I went to an online talk about her book Pandora’s Jar, and I wasn’t expecting her to be so funny nor to have so much fangirlish enthusiasm when talking about Greek myths; think of the best Tumblr classics posts you’ve seen, with their mix of erudition and articulacy and affectionate teasing, and it was just like that. I really really recommend her podcast, Natalie Haynes Stands Up For The Classics; I’ve listened to a few episodes and it’s such a gem.
Pandora’s Jar itself is a bit more serious, but also something I would definitely recommend to people on here; it’s about how our common perceptions of Greek myths often marginalise or demean or vilify the women in them, and looks at ancient variants and modern retellings to consider alternative perspectives, ones with more sympathy for the women involved and why they do what they do.
6. Biggest disappointment? Nghi Vo’s The Empress of Salt and Fortune; it was pitched to me as a sharp, incisive novella about historiography and the exercise of female power. But its plotting made no sense, and I didn’t know enough about the characters or their world to care about or support the revolution being incited—swapping one ruler for another makes no difference to me when I haven’t been told much about either. It wasn’t rich and complex, it was shallow and unthinking.
7. Favourite new author (either new to you or debut)? Melissa Scott. A Choice of Destinies is all about what might have happened if Alexander had turned west after conquering Persia, and headed for Rome instead. (she thinks the Romans would have been folded into Alexander’s empire, and I have to say the same, sorry Livy!) What I love about this book is its wealth of immersive detail, and its characters: firstly the Companions (in particular its steady, intelligent Ptolemy, and its sardonic, amused, sandy-haired, lounging Perdiccas—a different characterisation than I’ve seen elsewhere, however I have one (1) favourite Companion and it’s always this guy), but also its Alexander and Hephaistion, and the ever-present, unspoken trust and support and care and affection running between them. The book never makes a big thing of it, but it’s clear how much they love each other.
There’s not much plot per se; instead it’s the kind of book which lets you escape into another world for a while. The quietly sad thing about it is not only that it didn’t happen but that it wouldn’t have happened; the choice the real Alexander made was the one that was truest to himself, no matter how tragically it ended.
8. Favourite new fictional crush? Edmund Ruthven from Strange Practice—a cultured, refined vampire with matinée idol good looks, a commanding presence and a tendency towards ennui. But beyond these typical vampire tropes, he’s also a connoisseur of modern technology as much as silk dressing gowns, someone with a passion for learning, and a serious, thoughtful and caring person who staves off said ennui by acting as guardian and protector in the monster community.
9. Newest favourite character? Red from This Is How You Lose The Time War; it was love from “and our glorious crystal future is looking so bright I gotta wear shades, as the prophets say”. I adore her terrible jokes and her boyish sense of mischief.
10. A book that made you happy? Vivian Shaw’s Strange Practice, an urban fantasy novel about Greta Helsing, who runs a Harley Street clinic where she takes care of London’s monsters, e.g. a mummy who needs a replacement bone in his foot or a ghoul chieftain with depression, and who solves mysterious murders with her vampire/vampyre (they’re different things!) friends.
I expected a light bit of fun; but I wasn’t expecting it to feel so comforting, or to vibe so deeply with its interior landscape—its wry humour and tea and rain and trips to the British Museum and references to Gothic literature. It’s a steadily kind and nurturing book, with a commitment to found family and to finding humanity in unlikely places, and I can’t wait to read the others in the series.
11. A book that made you cry? Nadia Bolz-Weber’s Accidental Saints; she used to be the pastor at House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, and these are her community’s stories (and some of her own), loosely structured around the liturgical calendar.
Reading it I did feel that there was no way I would ever be cool enough for her, but her catechism places a huge emphasis on redemption and unconditional love and the idea that everyone we see is a child of God, that we are all messy, imperfect sinners who can only keep trying, and all these things are deeply moving to me. (the chapter on the Beatitudes is worth it alone; she, more than other teachers I’ve seen, really really gets it.)
12. Most beautiful book you have bought or received this year? The Puffin reissue of Susan Cooper’s Over Sea Under Stone — the cover artwork is gorgeous and slightly woodcut-esque, and exactly the right blend of folkloric and timeless for this series. (also, I flipped through and stumbled across the lines about how Barney had been longing to go to the West Country, because as someone who loved King Arthur, it would feel strangely like coming home. beginning to see now why so many people have recommended these books to me!)
Rachel Hickman’s One Silver Summer also has a very pretty cover - its dreamy romanticism feels just right for a story about horses and Cornwall and first love.
13. What book do you need to read by the end of the year? Apart from maybe finishing Robert Harris’s Cicero novels, I’d like to read AJ Pollard’s biography of Warwick - he’s one of my favourite historical figures, and it seems a shame to leave an entire book about him just sitting on my shelf!
14. What book do you need to re-read by the end of the year? I’d like to have another go at the Silmarillion; it’s been a really long time since I’ve read it (longer still since I read it completely—the last time I tried, I got bogged down in the long march to Valinor) and everything after Fëanor’s rebellion is incredibly hazy.
This Is How You Lose The Time War should have been everything - it’s a sapphic enemies to lovers epistolary novella - and yet I was a tiny bit disappointed.
it does a lot of things really well—in particular I love Red and Blue and the interplay between them. Red, impulsive and emotional and talkative and playful; Blue, the precise, controlled sensualist; both of them lonely for all the cloud/hive intimacy of their societies, and finding connection and completion in each other.
I also really love how this book conceptualises a war in time - that history forks constantly with our lives and choices, roads taken and not, so each side is trying to braid those strands to make the future where they exist inevitable - and the eras and places, alternate and familiar, that we visit as a result.
in fact, the book’s real power is how it makes Red and Blue’s lives as time-travelling spies, and falling in love, metaphors for each other: the letters hidden all around, just as everything speaks of the beloved to a lover; the idea of ‘infiltrating’ each other’s hearts and thoughts; the way that love spreads back through time, so that who you were before that person feels like another life entirely, almost impossible to imagine.
the love letters themselves are Gladstone and El-Mohtar at their most poetic, delighting in the sound and feel of language for its own sake; as grand and savage and strange as beings with all of time and space at their command would be. (also, 95% of the lines which are sending the Tumblr tag absolutely feral come from Max Gladstone and I am yelling. “how do you write like that”, they ask. I know! this is what I’ve been saying! please read his other books. and also subscribe to his Substack, because he’s smart and thoughtful and funny as well as a good writer.)
the trouble I had with the book, however, was firstly that I found it much harder to grasp how Garden worked than I did the Agency; but more importantly, that Red and Blue fell in love much too quickly.
the appeal of enemies to lovers is that wary alliance, that slow building of trust; the recalibration of your understanding of the world as you come to care about and value someone from the ‘other side’. and if there is any writer out there who’s deeply concerned about and interested in that sort of radical, courageous emotional generosity, it’s Max Gladstone! not to mention that Amal too greatly values open-hearted connection and conversation! but somehow it just wasn’t there. apart from some initial curiosity about how the other side worked, and the occasional suspicion that it was a honeytrap, the characters went ahead and dived right in.
it’s as if the two authors wanted to write about being in love, not falling in love. (and yet I find the middle section, where Red and Blue have declared themselves to each other but before we start playing with time, the slowest; in particular, the recommendation of Travel Light feels like El-Mohtar talking to Gladstone, not the characters.)
nonetheless, it has a lot to offer, and I’m very glad it won a Hugo; because they deserve all the awards always, and because of the loveliness of both of their responses. Amal was astonished and pleased, but Max genuinely humbled to think that he was now officially a part of the history of his chosen genre, and his name inscribed in its annals.
Hi hello good afternoon I am supplying you with wlw book recs because we all deserve them. Please reblog with your own recs because I’ve only been reading sapphic books for a few months so haven’t covered loads of amazing ones, and hopefully this can become a massive rec list of wlw books :)
Also please please please check the TWs for all of these so that you can stay happy, healthy and safe .
Fantasy:
-The Priory of the Orange Tree: [“We may be small, and we may be young, but we will shake the world for our beliefs”] Look I know you’ve all heard of it. Now read it. Swords. Queer women. Queer women with swords. Dragons. Castles. Battles. Many many many pages of beautiful words. There is nothing missing from this book.
-Cinderella is Dead: [“I don’t want to be saved by some knight in shining armour. I’d like to be the one in the armour, and I’d like to be the one doing the saving.”] Fuck the patriarchy. Dystpian. Gay. Fantasy. Cinderella is dead (wow). Badass main character. Fighting for rights and fighting for eachother. ❤️
-Girls of Paper and Fire: [“Instead of disappearing, she makes me feel reappeared. Reimagined. Her touch shapes me, draws out the boldness that had been hiding in my core.”] We said learning to heal! We said finding safety in eachothers arms! We said fighting the oppressive government! We said fuck the patriarchy! We said fantasy women with swords! We said (kinda) enemies to lovers! We said please check the trigger warnings for this book!
- A Dark and Hollow Star: [“The number one law of the universe is choice, after all — bad things happen to the people who take that option away from you.”] Fantasy that actually uses the words bisexual and lesbian and gay and genderfluid!!! Urban fantasy. Four main characters: two mlm, two wlw. Swords and monsters and fae and powers and tension and fate. Read for the pretty cover, stay for the characters.
-Gideon the Ninth: [“I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it”] This book is dark and horror-y and gory and weird as fuck. This book has skeletons and necromancy and a huge weird haunted house and everyone dying under mysterious circumstances. This book has enemies to i-dont-even-know-what. You will not know what is happening in this book but you will love it. Trust me.
Dystopian:
-We Set the Dark on Fire: [“Maybe this was trust … Giving someone the power to ruin you, betting your life on the belief that they wouldn’t.”] once again, repeat after me: fuck the patriarchy. Rebellion. Enemies to lovers. Dystopian world where every man gets two wives. Guess what happens
Contemporary:
-The Henna Wars: [“I’ve never really thought about having a type. I guess my type is….beautiful girl. Which is a lot of them. Most of them? Pretty much all girls”]. Girl dealing with the aftermath of coming out to her parents has a crush on a girl who is competing against her in a school competition. Main character is muslim, bangladeshi and lesbian and love interest is black, brazilian and bisexual. Just read it. Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself. You deserve to smile.
-Her Royal Highness: [“PERRY I’VE FOUND AN AMERICAN!”] Look this book may be cliche and predictable and a little ridiculous at times but it made me unfathomably happy so I don’t care. Scottish boarding school+royalty+an american. Enemies to lovers but not im-gonna-stab-you enemies to lovers (which ive read my fair share of truet me), more like why-are-you-so-unbearably-irritating enemies to lovers you know?
-Written in the Stars: [“I’ll break into your apartment and move everything three inches to the left and fuck with your flow, okay?”] Good, solid contemporary new adult romance. Enemies to lovers. Grump x sunshine. Actually has a sex scene (this might not be everyones thing i just noticed wlw books often skirt around them so thought id point it out). Ugh its just so cute.
-You Should See Me In a Crown: [“When I open my mouth, everything happens so fast—the way I can feel her everywhere, the way my hands steady instead of shake where they tangle in her hair because I’ve maybe never felt so grounded before, so rooted in a moment”] What happens when a black queer girl tries for prom queen in a weird, cliquey prom-obsessed school? What happens when one of the other competitors is the unabashedly gay cute new girl? This is what happens. Guys. Guys. Guys. Read this one oh my god. I say this about every book but seriously READ THIS ONE. So so so so so good. Everything you could ever want in a queer coming of age book.
-The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: [“You do not know how fast you have been running, how hard you have been working, how truly exhausted you are, until someone stands behind you and says, “It’s OK, you can fall down now. I’ll catch you.”] I know you’ve all heard this but you’re about to hear it again. Queer women in the 50s? Sign me up! Sign yourself up! Buy this book and then read this book! Freak out about this book! Cry about this book! Tell everyone you’ve ever met to read this book! Cry some more about this book! Make this book your whole personality!
Thriller(?):
-The Girls I’ve Been: [“There is no normal. There is just a bunch of people pretending there is. There’s just different levels of pain. Different stages of safe. The biggest con of all is that there’s a normal.”] Thriller. Guns. Menstrual cups. Con artists. That awkward moment when you’re stuck in a bank robbery with two murderous men, a child, your ex boyfriend and your current girlfriend. Not romance but has romantic themes (established relationship). Coming to terms with childhood trauma and abuse. This book is short but deceptively heavy with the themes it deals with so, again, please check the TWs.
Ones on my TBR:
- Last Night at the Telegraph Club
- The Miseducation of Cameron Post
- A Memory Called Empire
- This Is How You Lose the Time War
- Girl, Serpent, Thorn
- This Poison Heart
- One Last Stop
- She Who Became The Sun (omg i want to read this so so so badly)
- The Weight of the Stars
- These Feathered Flames
- Honey Girl
- The Chosen and the Beautiful
- She Drives Me Crazy
Okay I’ve read another one:
-Last Night at the Telegraph Club: [“Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to have nothing keeping you attached to the ground?”] Lesbian club!! Space nerd x aeroplane nerd!! 1950s San Francisco China Town!! Friends to lovers!! Coming to terms with your sexuality!! Drag kings!! Please!! Read!! It!! (Note: this book has some pretty heavy homophobia, especially the parental type and this is never really resolved so please take that into account)
ATTENTION!!! I HAVE MORE!
-Afterlove: [Not everyone knows how to say I love you so learn to hear the different ways they tell you. They say it all the time.] Okay…so I want you to imagine two girls. They’re teenagers. They’re lesbians. They’re in love. They go on dates. They drink too much. They laugh and smile and cry. They get shouted at by their parents. Just normal, teenager things. Now, imagine one of them is dead. And becomes this crazy, badass reaper girl. And is absolutely not prepared to let her girlfriend go (despite, you know, being literally dead). That is this book. And it is GOOD.
-Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake-Dating: [Gathered up in her arms with the beat of Bollywood music all around me, everything feels strangely right. Like none of the bad stuff even matters any more. Because as long as Hani and I are side-by-side, everything will be all right]. Two bengali sapphic grumpy x sunshine girls fake date. That should literally be enough for you to find this book and read it right now. One word to describe it would just be wonderful.Its incredibly joyful, while also discussing things like homophobia, islamaphobia, racism and biphobia. Discusses coming out but isn’t completely focused on it. Also includes at least one set of accepting, loving and supporting parents! Just go to a bookshop or pick up your kindle and READ THIS BOOK. It just made me so…happy.
MORE
-The Midnight Lie: [I love everything more when I leave it. Maybe, then, it’s the most I’ll ever love it.] Magic, magic, magic + lesbians + crime. Honestly, I can’t really remember much about the plot but I do remember that the writing was absolutely GORGEOUS and it was very atmospheric. Basically: good vibes.
Hi hello good afternoon I am supplying you with wlw book recs because we all deserve them. Please reblog with your own recs because I’ve only been reading sapphic books for a few months so haven’t covered loads of amazing ones, and hopefully this can become a massive rec list of wlw books :)
Also please please please check the TWs for all of these so that you can stay happy, healthy and safe .
Fantasy:
-The Priory of the Orange Tree: [“We may be small, and we may be young, but we will shake the world for our beliefs”] Look I know you’ve all heard of it. Now read it. Swords. Queer women. Queer women with swords. Dragons. Castles. Battles. Many many many pages of beautiful words. There is nothing missing from this book.
-Cinderella is Dead: [“I don’t want to be saved by some knight in shining armour. I’d like to be the one in the armour, and I’d like to be the one doing the saving.”] Fuck the patriarchy. Dystpian. Gay. Fantasy. Cinderella is dead (wow). Badass main character. Fighting for rights and fighting for eachother. ❤️
-Girls of Paper and Fire: [“Instead of disappearing, she makes me feel reappeared. Reimagined. Her touch shapes me, draws out the boldness that had been hiding in my core.”] We said learning to heal! We said finding safety in eachothers arms! We said fighting the oppressive government! We said fuck the patriarchy! We said fantasy women with swords! We said (kinda) enemies to lovers! We said please check the trigger warnings for this book!
- A Dark and Hollow Star: [“The number one law of the universe is choice, after all — bad things happen to the people who take that option away from you.”] Fantasy that actually uses the words bisexual and lesbian and gay and genderfluid!!! Urban fantasy. Four main characters: two mlm, two wlw. Swords and monsters and fae and powers and tension and fate. Read for the pretty cover, stay for the characters.
-Gideon the Ninth: [“I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it”] This book is dark and horror-y and gory and weird as fuck. This book has skeletons and necromancy and a huge weird haunted house and everyone dying under mysterious circumstances. This book has enemies to i-dont-even-know-what. You will not know what is happening in this book but you will love it. Trust me.
Dystopian:
-We Set the Dark on Fire: [“Maybe this was trust … Giving someone the power to ruin you, betting your life on the belief that they wouldn’t.”] once again, repeat after me: fuck the patriarchy. Rebellion. Enemies to lovers. Dystopian world where every man gets two wives. Guess what happens
Contemporary:
-The Henna Wars: [“I’ve never really thought about having a type. I guess my type is….beautiful girl. Which is a lot of them. Most of them? Pretty much all girls”]. Girl dealing with the aftermath of coming out to her parents has a crush on a girl who is competing against her in a school competition. Main character is muslim, bangladeshi and lesbian and love interest is black, brazilian and bisexual. Just read it. Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself. You deserve to smile.
-Her Royal Highness: [“PERRY I’VE FOUND AN AMERICAN!”] Look this book may be cliche and predictable and a little ridiculous at times but it made me unfathomably happy so I don’t care. Scottish boarding school+royalty+an american. Enemies to lovers but not im-gonna-stab-you enemies to lovers (which ive read my fair share of truet me), more like why-are-you-so-unbearably-irritating enemies to lovers you know?
-Written in the Stars: [“I’ll break into your apartment and move everything three inches to the left and fuck with your flow, okay?”] Good, solid contemporary new adult romance. Enemies to lovers. Grump x sunshine. Actually has a sex scene (this might not be everyones thing i just noticed wlw books often skirt around them so thought id point it out). Ugh its just so cute.
-You Should See Me In a Crown: [“When I open my mouth, everything happens so fast—the way I can feel her everywhere, the way my hands steady instead of shake where they tangle in her hair because I’ve maybe never felt so grounded before, so rooted in a moment”] What happens when a black queer girl tries for prom queen in a weird, cliquey prom-obsessed school? What happens when one of the other competitors is the unabashedly gay cute new girl? This is what happens. Guys. Guys. Guys. Read this one oh my god. I say this about every book but seriously READ THIS ONE. So so so so so good. Everything you could ever want in a queer coming of age book.
-The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: [“You do not know how fast you have been running, how hard you have been working, how truly exhausted you are, until someone stands behind you and says, “It’s OK, you can fall down now. I’ll catch you.”] I know you’ve all heard this but you’re about to hear it again. Queer women in the 50s? Sign me up! Sign yourself up! Buy this book and then read this book! Freak out about this book! Cry about this book! Tell everyone you’ve ever met to read this book! Cry some more about this book! Make this book your whole personality!
Thriller(?):
-The Girls I’ve Been: [“There is no normal. There is just a bunch of people pretending there is. There’s just different levels of pain. Different stages of safe. The biggest con of all is that there’s a normal.”] Thriller. Guns. Menstrual cups. Con artists. That awkward moment when you’re stuck in a bank robbery with two murderous men, a child, your ex boyfriend and your current girlfriend. Not romance but has romantic themes (established relationship). Coming to terms with childhood trauma and abuse. This book is short but deceptively heavy with the themes it deals with so, again, please check the TWs.
Ones on my TBR:
- Last Night at the Telegraph Club
- The Miseducation of Cameron Post
- A Memory Called Empire
- This Is How You Lose the Time War
- Girl, Serpent, Thorn
- This Poison Heart
- One Last Stop
- She Who Became The Sun (omg i want to read this so so so badly)
- The Weight of the Stars
- These Feathered Flames
- Honey Girl
- The Chosen and the Beautiful
- She Drives Me Crazy
Okay I’ve read another one:
-Last Night at the Telegraph Club: [“Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to have nothing keeping you attached to the ground?”] Lesbian club!! Space nerd x aeroplane nerd!! 1950s San Francisco China Town!! Friends to lovers!! Coming to terms with your sexuality!! Drag kings!! Please!! Read!! It!! (Note: this book has some pretty heavy homophobia, especially the parental type and this is never really resolved so please take that into account)
ATTENTION!!! I HAVE MORE!
-Afterlove: [Not everyone knows how to say I love you so learn to hear the different ways they tell you. They say it all the time.] Okay…so I want you to imagine two girls. They’re teenagers. They’re lesbians. They’re in love. They go on dates. They drink too much. They laugh and smile and cry. They get shouted at by their parents. Just normal, teenager things. Now, imagine one of them is dead. And becomes this crazy, badass reaper girl. And is absolutely not prepared to let her girlfriend go (despite, you know, being literally dead). That is this book. And it is GOOD.
-Hani and Ishu’s Guide to Fake-Dating: [Gathered up in her arms with the beat of Bollywood music all around me, everything feels strangely right. Like none of the bad stuff even matters any more. Because as long as Hani and I are side-by-side, everything will be all right]. Two bengali sapphic grumpy x sunshine girls fake date. That should literally be enough for you to find this book and read it right now. One word to describe it would just be wonderful.Its incredibly joyful, while also discussing things like homophobia, islamaphobia, racism and biphobia. Discusses coming out but isn’t completely focused on it. Also includes at least one set of accepting, loving and supporting parents! Just go to a bookshop or pick up your kindle and READ THIS BOOK. It just made me so…happy.
back again with the time war art, but a little more monstery this time! I realised the rest of my art is mostly human versions (because they were stylised or sketchy) so,,
