januaries is atlas six series sensation, olivie blake's latest anthology of collection of short stories, each unique in it's own way, differing from eachother in pov style, narration, and insanely unique plots and ideas, but tied together with olivie blake's distinct commentary, and voice on all things life, capitalism, love, death, morality and every topic you could think of under the sun.

blake's book have always sort of felt like light in a cramped space, giving words to feelings we couldn't explain and opening portal to a world we could easily escape into. you sort of feel breathless as long as you're in her world created by her intelligence and voice. she is the master, the creator, and the wise one we all draw lessons and inspiration from.

while one of my best reads this year, my biggest complaint was how some of these stories should have been a full length novel, such as animation games and sucker for pain, while some could even be a even more fleshed out series, like chaos theory short story.

I loved this collection of short stories! I’m an Olivie Blake fan for sure. The way that she conveyed so many deep emotions and character traits in such a short amount of time was impeccable! They were all so real and relatable. These stories filled me with hope, and some with dread. Olivie was a true master with these because I am typically not a short story fan because I find myself wanting more, but this collection was just what I needed. She gave me all the feels. I will definitely be purchasing this upon release.

Januaries is a dazzling and eclectic collection that showcases her unique ability to blend whimsy, magic, and existential musings. Each short story offers a different, imaginative twist—from a burned-out wish-granting spirit to a banished fairy answering a Craigslist ad, every tale feels both fresh and deeply reflective. The author's writing is as enchanting as ever, with sharp humor and poignant insights woven through each piece. While some stories hit harder than others, the overall collection is a delightful escape into the author's boundless creativity. Perfect for fans of her previous work and those who love a good mix of magical realism and thought-provoking fiction.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Short stories are often a hit or miss for me. I think it is harder to write a good short story than a good book. You have fewer words to let the reader in, you can only give them a glimpse into the characters' nature, so it is harder to get readers hooked on the story.

Olivie Blake writes fantastic short stories! She can create worlds and characters out of nowhere and I will get attached to them in just a few pages. Some of these stories I loved more than others, some I wished were longer, because I needed more. Some made me wonder, and some others made me reflect. And then there was the story with a cat's POV. That made me laugh so much because it felt very accurate😆

I received an ARC of Januaries by Olivie Blake and trust me, this is a read you do not want to miss. Januaries is a book of compelling short stories with very insightful and meaningful metaphors behind each tale. Each story was so good that I found myself wishing that there was a full length book for each of them! Definitely 5 ⭐'s from me.

Januaries will hit book store shelves on the 17th of October!

Overall rating: 4.5 stars

Fav Stories: The Animation Games, To Make A Man, and A Year in January

Overall thoughts: I flewwww through these stories. I’ve read a few short story compilations and when they’re written well, I find them really fun, and this one was really fun. A little hard to review, so I broke it down to each of the Seasons and then each story within the seasons. Some thoughts but mostly questions 😂

Thank you Tor Books, Coloured Pages Book Tours, and the author for this eARC and physical ARC!

Spring

The Wish Bridge - 4.5 stars

"I was born with a vastness inside me, and sometimes I feel it will swallow me up."

Okay, what? That was so beautiful. 😭 I turned the page and there was no more and I needed more wandering. More wishes. More full moons and bread and sin and forgiveness. More Nile and Lila.

The Audit - 4 stars

"I wonder what makes me so valuable when I am unquestionably the most boring person in my life."

This was an exercise in patience. On my end. Because the main character was annoying 😂

This was about living life to the fullest - but maybe not the way you imagined. It was about choices and bad decisions and being unprepared for, well, life. Sometimes the easy decision isn’t the smart one. Or is it?

"What do I want? What do I want? Time feels like it’s slipping away from me. It’s already been five days. I can’t breathe."

Sucker for Pain - 4.75 stars

"To be wealthy, to be powerful, was to bleed. She would later find this observation to be both very correct and hugely mistaken."

Witches and vampires. Magic and murder. Captivity and freedom. Love, betrayal, and heartbreak. This one had it all. And what an ending, full circle and all that.

“Because I hardly know what I am without you,” he replied. “If there was ever a time I existed without you, it is long gone now. In a different world, or a different life. As if the universe itself rearranged to fill the gaps, and before you, there was no me at all.”

Summer

The Animation Games - 5 stars

"Sometimes the end is just the beginning."

When the story starts with death, you know you’re in for a rollercoaster of a ride. An emotional rollercoaster with no seatbelt and you're hanging on for dear life.

"There is part of me that knows I am ending even as I am so filled with beginnings, and I don’t suffer any pain; I only feel numbness, and then an abject chill."

If you want to read about two people falling in love and living happily ever after, don’t read this. Or maybe do?

If you want to read about a game of two people who seem to hate and love each other, who can’t stop hurting each other, killing each other, destroying each other, then read this. Or maybe it's not about that at all?

“I think,” he murmured, taking a step toward her, “that we have had so many lives together, Rhosyn, we may very well be soulmates.”

The House - No rating, it was 3 pages 😂

Step 1: Get married
Rule 1: Marriage is a house you build together
Step 2: Maybe don’t get married

To Make a Man - 5 stars

“Just keep your head down, be good. Get out of this neighborhood and make something of yourself before it’s too late.”

What would you do if a stranger walked up to you and said “One year from today, you’ll be dead in this spot, everyone watching, but no one helping”?

And what would happen if you added in fate, gods, and unrelenting heartbreak and sadness?

You cry.

Well, I cried.

"She wondered how to tell him that he was a deck consisting entirely of aces. Arrange his features any way you liked and he was still a winning hand."

Preexisting Condition - 4 stars

"The best parts are always fleeting. Love is never true. Men are mostly garbage fuckers. Women are deceitful and envious. Every day is hot as seven hells. Every waking morning is somehow worse and more despairing than the last.” She is pounding the cassava roughly but then looks up for a moment, as if she forgot something.
“Life is a gift.”

I have no words for this story, what the fuck did I just read lmao

I guess this story is about lovers, enemies, death, magic, and the power of revenge reparations.

Autumn

Monsterlove - 4.5 stars

"A howl escapes and it is pain. The pain takes off its mask, aha it has been anger this whole time! The anger hurts because—a dramatic reveal—it is actually guilt in disguise!"

Well, this was a depressing take on being a mother but it might be fulfilling to those who are new moms or just bone-dead exhausted moms.

"I mean, if you weren’t willing to retain the metaphysical walls of this form permanently, why did you even have a child?"

Or just women who are sick of the comments telling them that no matter what we do, we’ll never win.

"Actually she can see now that the Good One is always holding a knife, only it’s shoved into her own chest, and the Anti-Self is guiding it in, and it is the monsterlove, and her other forms splinter upward from around its center, and it is the most alive she knows how to feel."

How to Dispel Friends and Cure People - 4.5 stars

"So I think what you meant to say was
Come in
But seeing as you are out of practice I’ll just wait here
Until you inevitably realize
You used the wrong words"

A love poem. Um, of a sort. But cute.

"I would dig up bodies for you if you needed it
I think maybe that’s a bad sign
I think maybe that might be love?
You might remember
I mentioned that briefly
My affections et cetera et cetera
And you sighed
And turned me into a beetle"

Fates and Consequences -3.75 stars

"ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD TIMES. DO NOT ENJOY THIS AUDIT.
SIGNED, MANAGEMENT

NO EXERTING OF EFFORT TO MAKE THINGS EASIER. SUFFERING ONLY!
SIGNED, MANAGEMENT"

What happens when Fate cuts the wrong thread?

Guy Carrington ends up in Hell.

He has to attend brunch with his mother, get audited, make lemonade with papercuts, a prostate exam, a colonoscopy…you get the picture.

What happens when you have to live out your worst nightmares all day, every day? What happens when you deserve your fate?

Sous Vide - 3.5 stars, 3.75 stars?

"Because my whole life revolves around money. It has to! That’s the system I’m plugged into! You know? You can’t be happy without money, because in order to be happy you need choices, you need freedom, you need the ability to think and dream and wonder and you just simply cannot do that if you spend all day and night thinking about how you’ll pay your next bill. It’s unfair that people don’t do more to help each other. People shouldn’t let other people go hungry. It’s so cruel."

What do you do when you are desperate for money and are handed an opportunity of relief? Cook for someone? Cook for…something? Don’t break the rules but don’t worry, everyone breaks the rules.

This was a weird one. AND THE ENDING

Winter

Sensual Tales for Carnal Pleasures 3.25 stars

"I was born as much for love as I was made for destruction, and now, at last, I understand. There is always a price, my mother tells me sadly, for nothing beautiful is ever as it seems."

This one was a little confusing to me but it did have a “who did this to you” from her to him so that was nice 😂 but it was a magical castle? I dunno, I was confused. It’s about actions and consequences, costs, benefits, and losses. AND THE REVEAL! I gasped😯

"He is a beautiful, dangerous thing."

Chaos Theory - 4.5 stars

"Maybe the truth is that I am a vessel of chaos. Touch me and I will explode."

Um, so yeah, this was chaos and I don’t even know what to say? There was a OMG 😂😂 moment, you’ll know it when you get to it, but this was…um…yeah, chaos? There’s literally nothing I can say that won’t spoil it completely 😂

A Year in January - 5 stars

"I am not very good at friendships. I find I have a tendency for devotion and therefore expect the same. When I do not receive it I become despondent, though not fruitfully so."

I think this main character has mania or depression/anxeity from the way things read, but it was a little hard to read because of that. She did mention mania at one point, but I don’t think that was all. But, yeah it was hard to read. Mainly because it was described, or not described, so well. I understood what she was saying. I felt seen.

It was really sad.

“Does everyone take sabbaticals?”
“No. But I think most people are better at it than me.”
“Better at what?”
“All of it,” I said, but what I meant was existing.

A beautiful anthology of short stories by Blake. Full of magic, whimsy, and sometimes brutally honest takes. Unique and magical.

To preface, I have really loved some of Olivie Blake's work and not loved others. My reaction to this collection of short stories is the same.
She has a wonderful sense of the timeless fairy tale, and some of the stories perfectly captured that. Others were not so much to my taste.
The collection is a bit uneven for me because of that. Still, I love that she is willing to take literary risks and create new and different work. Not many writers are willing to do that, and I applaud her for her fearlessness and creativity.

This was fantasy anthology perfection! Never thought I’d write something like that. Each story got better and better. I highly recommend picking this up and read the stories at your leisure. Get lost in the fantasy, romance, and emotions of them all!

As promised, we’re back with round two of my foray into short story collections this week! My first few experiences with this author were incredibly positive, but as I’ve read more and more, I’ve found myself struggling to connect with her writing style and becoming frustrated with what feels like a lack of substance in service of style. That being the case, I was curious to see what a short story collection by this author would look like. Would be more of the former or the latter?

Unfortunately, I have to report that this one fell largely in the latter category. However, one of the benefits of short story collections is that there are multiple options of stories with which to connect. So while the novel as a whole fell flat, I did have a few favorites that I’d like to dive into before getting into the rest of it. One of my favorite stories was one that showed up early in the collection. It told of a magical bridge and its watcher who was obligated to offer and grant certain types of wishes to any who found it. Over the course of the story, we see the young woman who is this guardian slowly become disillusioned to the sorts of wishes many people are asking for (there’s a recurring group of people who get into a lot of trouble with contradictory wishes). She also slowly begins to fall in love with a young man who, against all odds, continues to find the bridge over and over again, even though it always changes locations. It’s a sweet story and it played well with the tried and true fairytale concept of “wishes gone bad.”

However, even here, this story illustrated one of my recurring frustrations with this collection. By the end, it just sort of…well…ends. More over, the way the ending for this one is written, it comes across as ambiguous with the intent to be “deep,” which, instead, just leaves it actually feeling frustrating and pretentious. Over and over, throughout this book, there were stories that had interesting worlds and characters, but there was something about either A.) the style of writing or B.) the way the themes were presented (often in this ambiguous, quasi-intellectual manner) that made them read as, again, pretentious. And too often, the stories would end abruptly, and I was left wondering what the point of it all was.

Writing short stories is incredibly hard. Not only is it such a short length within which to work, but I do think there is this false idea floating around out there that these sorts of tales must be “artsy” and “deep” and “say things.” Here, we see this author fall into this trap. Instead of simply telling good stories, she seems to get bogged down in these secondary concerns. There would be small nuggets within most of the stories, but too often these were lost in the mess of everything else. There was another interesting one early in the book that dealt with a character essentially getting paid their entire life’s earnings early in life, and then be obligated to “work it off” from age 30 on. This was such an interesting concept, especially as it played out by increasing the main character’s anxiety rather than offering the promised freedom. But then, again, there were a bunch of other themes jammed in there, added characters who felt like they should be more important than they were, and an ending where it felt like the entire exercise was rather meaningless and a waste of a good concept. It’s hard to really describe, but these were the sorts of problems that plagued most of the book.

Overall, I think this collection was solidly just ok. None of the stories were outright bad, and a few of them I enjoyed for the most part. However, I think the author’s writing and approach to story-telling left something to be desired, with “vibes” and “style” too often taking precedent over simply writing a good story. If you’re a big fan of this author’s work, this still might be worth checking out. But if you’re only mildly interested in short story collections (like me), than this one may end up feeling lackluster.

Rating 7: Too heavy on the quasi-intellectual vibes to be a truly enjoyable read. Though there were still a few gems hidden away within.

Link will go live on The Library Ladies on Sept. 27

This collection had a few major hits for me but the main takeaway for me is I just don’t think I am a short story gal. At least not Olivia’s short stories. I liked the more whimsical and paranormal ones but the others that were more mundane felt odd sandwiched in between. I think I am just not the right audience! And that’s okay. I appreciate the arc copy and I’m glad I tried them out :)

If Olivie Blake writes it, I'll read it. Loved this collection of short stories. It was perfect in every way. Cannot wait to reread this already.

Some of these short stories were amazing (and I loved), others... not so much. I loved that each of them had some sort of fantasy element included, however sometimes the stories were so short it became nonsensical? I don't know that may just be me, usually I love Olivie Blake's writing so I don't know what went wrong in my head here. Many of these short stories have the potential to become full on novels and I think for most of them, they'd be better as a full novel instead of a short story. All in all, I did enjoy a bunch of them.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this as an arc.

A collection of short fantasies that transform you to another world.
Some are much more engaging than others. There was one short story I skipped because it didn’t make any sense, and had no plot. Otherwise loved the book.

This was such a great read. The reimagining of classic fairy tales is always fun, and his went above and beyond. Definitely a must read if you're a fan of retellings with a twist.

I’d like to thank Tor and Netgalley for letting me read this ahead of its release, I had a magical time with each of the short stories.

I rarely want to read short story collection books because they’re so short I can’t fully get into them, but when I do, I take 30 minutes every other week to read one story, dragging out the time till I finish the whole book. After I started Januaries, I had to force myself to stop after each one and tell myself to wait until the next morning to continue in order to savour the book.

Each story was so different, I enjoyed them all in different ways. The writing had me enchanted and I don’t think I’ve read a short story book before with just one writer that has managed to be so full of variation without it being messy.

Blake really delivered an excellent book and I cannot wait to reread it in the future.

I'm not the biggest fan of short stories, but what can I say when I have the oportunity to read an ARC written by Olivie Blake?

In general I've enjoyed this stories, but I felt like some of them are really short and in the need of more development and had the chance to become full books.

There are no conexions between the stories but all of them have some kind of fantasy element which didn't bother me but usually I conect more when are some kind of bridge between them.

My favourite was "The Audit" following "The Wishing Bridge" and "The Animation Games" right behind.

I love Olivie Blake and I knew going into Januaries that I was going to love it. This set of short stories ranged from whimsical to haunting, and were all so immersive and beautifully written.

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC. 3.5. I enjoyed these short stories. There are some I would LOVE to read as full books. Some that I thought could have been longer. I just love her writing style.

There were some short stories I feel could have been omitted like the essay about marriage. I also felt like a lot of these stories, you don’t really understand what’s happening until more than halfway through it. Like “to Make a man” or “animation games”. But there are stories here that stay with you.

I would recommend. It’s a fun ride. Chaos Theory was my favorite and it should be a book. I also enjoyed the sprinkling of magic in all stories.

Ps. “I am very extroverted even if I am deeply antisocial.”

At the beginning it says “this is my mixtape for you” and that’s exactly what this felt like.
It felt like taking a look into Olivie Blake’s mind and I enjoyed every second. I loved some stories more than others but all in all this was a great mix. I think my favorite was The Wish Bridge, it left me staring at a wall for an hour afterwards just contemplating everything lol. As always the writing is incredible, the stories are unique, and I loved the chaos. Can’t wait to read anything and everything she writes next!