Why, what, who?

 Hello fellow readers!

As you might have guessed, I am the author of this blog, and the more observant of you might have even gathered that I call myself Cyan (she/her). You would be right.

I have had many blogs before, most of them I myself have completely forgotten about after a post or two. Let’s hope this time is the charm!

Why are we here you ask? Well, I adore reading. Don’t have as much time for it as I’d like, which would be all the time, but I manage. And when I finish a book, I “review” it on storygraph, log it into my CAWPILE (link to the latest video on CAWPILE by it’s amazing creator, G of the Book roast YT channel!), maybe to some spreadsheet or graphic for a readathon and… nothing. Most of my friends have even less time for reading than me, or read very different works, so I can technically blabber _at_ them about my latest finished book (and trust me, I do!), but it is mostly met with some polite inquiry or, at best, an enthusiastic “Wow, I have to read that, when I have time!”

So I wanted to create a space where I could, metaphorically, scream into the abbys and maybe, one day, the abbys (or perhaps you, dear reader), might scream back. Wouldn’t that be lovely? But even if the abbys stays silent, one day I will get to maybe look back and enjoy the view of my outdated, cringe opinions I no longer stand behind and say “This whole blog was worth it. Good job me!”

Worst case scenario? I get to practice my English, as a non-native speaker. And that’s still pretty great.

Some reviews will be brief, no more than a slightly rewritten CAWPILE row. Because, as much as I hope this changes over time and with practice, I don’t always have deep and nuanced takes about my reads. And that’s still pretty is fine (I think). Those will still be published, maybe labeled as SR (short review), for the simple reason one of you might have questions about the book I might still be able to answer. Was the plot twisty? Was the murder brutal and gory? Was the main love interest _hot_???

Which leads me to another point. If that is something you would like, I can post your reviews here, too, either anonymously or under a nickname of your choosing. I do reserve the right to _not_ do this in case I find the review problematic and/or in violation of terms of service on this platform. Or, with equal reservations, I would be happy to share links to your work in relevant posts.

Now to the “who” part of this post’s title. As of writing this, I am a 27 year old female from central Europe, a teacher (though not of any language or literature), and a disorganised mess. What might be more appealing to a would-be-blog-reader, I’ve acted as a judge in a fantasy literary competition since 2018 (has it really been 6 years already?), so hopefully I have learned something about the critique of a text. And in case I have not, in fact, learned enough, as is fairly impossible to do, this blog, as well as you fellow readers, will help me get better.

Hopefully yours

Cyan

Links in this post:

Book roast YT - CAWPILE video: https://youtu.be/Z24ckUB-FY4?si=zMtwSc6RjHi4Mk9o