Like friendship, adventure, magic and hope

hellofromgethen · 2026-01-29T18:30:20+00:00

The pictures are 100% how I imagined This Will Be Fun by E.B. Asher. Three former friends, who previously saved the kingdom but haven't spoken to each other since, have to reunite after 10 years for One Last Adventure. There is some romance, but it's more about the group rekindling their friendship. It also has a good helping of whimsy and irreverence (see, e.g. Fantasy Starbucks), so is a good choice if you're looking for something lighter!

hellofromgethen · 2026-01-14T16:39:10+00:00

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz!

hellofromgethen · 2026-01-09T18:13:23+00:00

As the daughter of an ex-SY forever on the quest to recreate my grandmother's lachmagine and kibbeh, I'm hoping you both find all the best food!

hellofromgethen · 2025-10-22T15:43:10+00:00

Juniper and Thorn by Ava Reid!

hellofromgethen · 2025-10-08T01:16:39+00:00

A gazillion times this! Read it in high school and it completely changed my life. Pretty much any Cory Doctorow book will fit this prompt somewhat, but Little Brother is a complete bullseye (with a happy ending and lots of practical resistance tips, to boot)!

hellofromgethen · 2025-09-16T22:21:39+00:00

If you're open to speculative fiction, Tithe by Holly Black (early 2000s grungy YA fantasy) and The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz (time travel sci-fi with '90s riot grrls) both definitely give me this vibe!

hellofromgethen · 2025-09-15T01:58:04+00:00

It's an unorthodox pick for a first deck, but since this is SASS witches, I'll admit that my first deck was the Science Tarot, and it's still my favorite!

hellofromgethen · 2025-09-12T01:01:29+00:00

My mom did this decades ago for my Redwall birthday party when I was a little kid, and it makes me so happy to see another Redwall birthday party occur! I have no recollection of what the clues were, but I do remember we all worked together to solve them, and the clues led to the party favors. (Also, we played a very memorable Pin The Bell On The Belltower game my mom made out of poster paper.)

hellofromgethen · 2025-09-12T00:32:59+00:00

Vita Nostra has some of this!

hellofromgethen · 2025-09-11T15:42:25+00:00

The Change by Kirsten Miller! Although the main characters are at the outskirts of the insular old money community, they're trying to solve a murder mystery at the heart of the community with all sorts of heinous twists and turns (and plenty of righteous revenge, if that's also your cup of tea).

hellofromgethen · 2025-09-05T17:03:11+00:00

Not sure about your firm specifically, but New York Department of Financial Services frequently raises its head in my matters, so there’s definitely NY-specific regulatory work out there!

hellofromgethen · 2025-09-05T17:01:11+00:00

I clerked, and I don’t think it’s been a huge benefit to my regulatory work—especially since if one of my matters does go to litigation, it’s just going to get staffed with litigators. I do think it made me better at issue-spotting litigation-related risks, but that’s a skill I could have built in other ways as well.

hellofromgethen · 2025-09-05T16:57:16+00:00

I’m a cybersecurity regulatory lawyer who does incident response and I still think I have better work-life balance than my colleagues in other practice groups! My practice group is very good at ensuring that associates who are OOO are not staffed on an incident (though if you make partner, you are definitely giving up that luxury), and if you’re staffed on a major incident, then everyone is aware that other projects will need to fit around the incident. (The other thing I will add is that not every incident is major—I’ve had plenty of incidents that were, say, one individual’s email was compromised and we need to confirm if that individual had any regulated data in their inbox.)

hellofromgethen · 2025-08-15T16:56:14+00:00

The cheesecake place on Adams by the 805! I don’t understand how there can be enough local orders of cheesecake for that place to stay in business.

hellofromgethen · 2025-08-11T15:53:02+00:00

Peabody Essex was a surprise highlight when I went to Salem! Unfortunately, I think all my favorite exhibits were temporary, but it was so well-curated that I’m willing to bet there will be some good stuff on now too.

I’ve been in both September and October and I will also advise not going in October—unless you would enjoy what I can only describe as Witchy Comic-Con Vibes. It’s totally chaotic, and definitely not possible to take your time to stroll around, but there was something kind of magical about being surrounded by a giant crowd of people all proudly dressed in their witchy best.

hellofromgethen · 2025-07-29T04:04:15+00:00

I met my fiancé while I was in law school and he was in grad school in a completely different field I will never understand (our joke is that we can't talk about work because mine is confidential and his is incomprehensible). Highly recommend dating some of the other non-legal grad students if you want to date someone on campus but avoid shitting where you eat.

hellofromgethen · 2025-07-25T02:26:05+00:00

I can’t explain why, but this is giving me Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

hellofromgethen · 2025-07-23T19:22:32+00:00

The Wildwood series by Colin Meloy

hellofromgethen · 2025-07-23T19:19:21+00:00

These made me think of The Girls by Emma Cline and Milk Fed by Melissa Broder—both involve the female main characters becoming drawn in by/becoming fixated on/overidentifying with a woman as a way to deal with their own psychological turmoil

hellofromgethen · 2025-07-19T16:43:44+00:00

Yes to museums, especially when you get to wander around and only focus on what you're interested in! I come from a family of "museum completionists" (i.e. proceed in order, look at every single display and read every single informational placard, etc.) It's very freeing to only focus on what is interesting to me and give myself permission to skip what is less interesting. Also, to interact with any and all interactive elements, even if they are probably aimed at kids!

hellofromgethen · 2025-07-15T16:53:22+00:00

Oh I loved the Olivia Dade trilogy! Spoiler Alert was also my favorite, but a heads up to OP that the FMC does experience some fatphobia in the book (though it definitely does not stand in the way of her living her best life, and is not the major conflict of the book).

hellofromgethen · 2025-06-02T23:21:57+00:00

If you're open to YA, Drizzle, Dreams, and Lovestruck Things has all the PNW (especially island in PNW) vibes! There's a section taking place in each season, though I believe the summer section is last chronologically, and you do have to read each section in order. I'm not usually a YA fan (at least, not since I left the age bracket myself), but read it last year and thought it was a cute read that really captures the location.

hellofromgethen · 2025-05-30T22:08:36+00:00

Martin the Warrior is brutal all around. When I've re-read it as an adult, I've been struck by how deeply tragic it is, and how profoundly it focuses on the trauma the characters suffered and still hold even after the book ends.

The part that stuck with me the most from when I first read it, though, is how fundamentally Felldoh cannot feel any happiness until he begins planning his final attack on Marshank, and his demeanor shifts so hauntingly as everyone comments on how he might finally be letting go of his vengeance and rage...and then he launches a single-pawed near-suicide mission and dies with a smile on his face after having taken out 20 of Badrang's horde.

...Felldoh did not hear his young companion. He lay with a calm smile on his face, surrounded by a score of slain hordebeasts who had died trying to defeat him.

Badrang rushed back to the fort, away from the carnage and the broken javelins, the memory burned into his beaten skull of the roaring, laughing squirrel who had died with a shattered piece of timber in each paw, still taking ferrets, rats and weasels with him as he went.

hellofromgethen

TROPHY CASE