about me

Hi!

You’ve reached bookycnidaria, a cranky little book blog staffed by an opinionated talking dictionary and her cat. There’s a million things I haven’t read, but just you wait.

Way More Than You Need to Know

I’m Carolyn, First of My Name, Queen of the Layout and the Paragraph Styles, Hugger of Pikachus, Breaker of Typos, and Mother of Mad Characters. I’m a novel-writing graphic designer and book blogger with way too much time on my hands. Special skills include technical editing, drawing, and spontaneously reciting Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I’ve been book blogging (read: spewing book opinions on the internet) on and off since about 2016, but all my blogs sank into the swamp until I founded WyrdGurls with two friends in 2019. In 2020 I started a bookgram named bookycnidaria ~~because I take too many damn photos of my books~~ to connect with the reading community on Instagram, and, though I wasn’t originally planning to create a separate book blog, clearly I’ve changed my mind. This blog is the aftermath of my TBR, a unique palimpsest of memes, book-hurling, and spicy ramen. I’ll probably also be ranting about The Handmaid’s Tale whenever that comes back. As for WyrdGurls, it burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp.

General Warning: Posts will contain profanity and spoilers.
And, no, I’m not interested in taking them out.

Posting Schedule

I post every Saturday. Sometimes I post on a Friday if I know I’ll be out of the house on Saturday, and sometimes I hop on for an unscheduled rage post. This typically happens during Handmaid’s Tale season, but has recently extended to House of the Dragon.

Reading Habits

I usually read contemporary fiction, historical fiction, nonfiction, and fantasy, though I occasionally venture into mystery and YA, albeit with mixed results. I used to try to read 100+ pages a day, but I’ve given up on that.

Rating Scale

Wish I could give it zero.

Really bad.

Not bad, but not amazing. I also use this for books that are well done, but aren’t really my cup of tea.

Really good, but there’s a few things I would change.

I will try to force my friends to read this.

Current Goals

I’ve set a token goal of 60 books to appease the goodreads and StoryGraph gods, but 2025 is going to be the year of the series catch-up, assuming I cooperate with my own TBR. As ever, still making diverse reads a priority, which seems particularly relevant at the moment. If you’re looking to diversify your own reading, I keep a running list of works by BIPOC writers here (currently 507 strong and counting)*. I vet every entry very carefully, so if I were you I’d take my word for it.

* Because people are people and people are stupid, I also have a fake BIPOC list here.

Bookshop

I have a bookstore! If you’ve ever wanted to get your hands on my books while supporting local bookstores, now you can. As a side note, I am currently advised by a team of wombats, who tell me I have to make it clear that I am an affiliate and will receive a small commission on books purchased through my store.

Random Goodies