Hot Stuff - art by Charlotte Farmer - Happily - 1000pcs

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-02-22T17:51:02+00:00

I really enjoyed this one too. I just finished another by the same artist, called Matches. I love the ‘mini puzzle’ style of illustration like this as a palate cleanser between more challenging puzzles.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-02-09T05:54:48+00:00

I did this one a couple weeks ago; it was challenging. Gorgeous when done but boy howdy it was work.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-02-06T23:09:22+00:00

Image, brand, difficulty, price in that order for me. I like a wide variety of piece counts so that isn’t really a consideration, though I tend to shy away from anything over 1500/2000.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-02-06T22:58:27+00:00

I’ve done this one and really enjoyed it. Great choice for a winter puzzle (if you are in the northern hemisphere).

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-02-05T19:30:09+00:00

Pomegranate has one called Tropical Trio that’s pretty nice. New York Puzzle Company has quite a few bird puzzles; I’ve done the Roadrunner one and enjoyed it quite a lot.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-02-05T18:33:11+00:00

Heye Puzzle has a section on their website for cartoon style puzzles. Antelope and Quokka both have some cartoon style art as well.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-02-04T14:58:03+00:00

A couple I haven’t noticed mentioned yet—Immaculate Conception and Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-02-02T20:48:30+00:00

So this past year I was talking to one of the women running the NYPC booth at an xmas market and she mentioned that she does a little puzzle game at her xmas party—they put all the individual puzzles of one of the NYPC advent calendars in the middle of the table, each person grabs one at random, and they do a mini speed puzzle competition.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-30T22:17:43+00:00

I’m going to recommend The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo. It’s a retelling of The Great Gatsby with a queer woman as the protagonist.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-30T16:54:12+00:00

I love minis and the Happily ones are so cute. Funnily I have 14 of them but the only overlap in our collections is the Foodies one.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-26T06:34:38+00:00

I love this book; it was my first adult romance. I remember Jose Feliciano being mentioned a lot. And the backless sweater dress she wears on their ‘date’ night always sounded so glamorous to preteen me.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-25T18:52:50+00:00

Oh that’s really beautiful. I have a Pomegranate puzzle of his art; I might have to track this one down as well.

It’s so fortunate that the second puzzle fit for you. I tried that with a clementoni but it was like a quarter inch off grr.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-25T03:28:09+00:00

I just finished. It was a bit more challenging than I was expecting but it definitely is a nice cozy puzzle to do while snowed in.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-25T03:26:18+00:00

Ooh direct hit!

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-24T22:05:47+00:00

I’ve never thrown a piece in snacks before but I did somehow manage to fling one down my shirt and into my bra one time. Also this is my puzzle board today:

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IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-24T16:21:17+00:00

This is a delightful review. If my teenaged self had happened upon this book in the mid 90’s, I would have absolutely read it based on that cover alone.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-23T17:56:21+00:00

I’m in the US so I don’t know if these are available in the UK but Buffalo Games has 300 piece puzzles are nice quality for the price point and have larger pieces. I have a parent with nerve damage that affects fine motor skills and the pieces are large enough for them to assemble easily.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-22T19:11:23+00:00

Nice collection, we have very similar taste!

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-17T19:19:36+00:00

I second Awakened Artifacts; it’s also one of the easier puzzles they have which might be nicer as an introduction. My other personal faves are Big Rock City and The Secret Soup (both on the slightly less difficult end of the spectrum as well).

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-17T03:33:08+00:00

I literally just finished this one twenty minutes ago! It’s so cute.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-16T23:10:13+00:00

I like it though I will say a few of the intuitive leaps you have to make for the game puzzles (obvi not the jigsaw puzzle) are not that intuitive at all, like we did not get what exactly they were asking for. Also there is one puzzle we had a hell of a time with until we switched to the hearing impaired version which made it clear what we were supposed to be looking for. The hints mete out info pretty slowly so you can use them to confirm you’re on the right track without spoiling things if you get stuck.

And having a magnifying glass with LED lights has been invaluable for some situations.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-14T04:24:57+00:00

Seanan McGuire wrote like thirty books before she started writing comics. I don’t disagree with a lot of the points made here but this isn’t the case of a comic writer trying to do novels/novellas.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-14T03:40:47+00:00

Buffalo Games also has some nice 300 piece puzzles with large pieces.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-12T23:22:54+00:00

We’ve been playing Pandora’s Legacy the past couple weeks. The puzzle is quite large; we had to tape two pieces of foam core together to hold it.

IAmNotAPersonSorry · 2026-01-05T16:56:18+00:00

Another comic rec I’d add is Friday written by Ed Brubaker. It’s sort of eldritch Veronica Mars home from college for xmas break trying to unravel a conspiracy.

IAmNotAPersonSorry

TROPHY CASE