ann zhao | Lost in a Good Book

13th Blogiversary (and Int Giveaway)!

I had to double check which anniversary I was up to because it feels high but thankfully I’m not quite that advanced just yet. But all the same, it has been a while. This is my 13^th year and as I reflect once again it’s amazing to think back on all those changes and experiences. Some cemented in my mind and could be a few years ago and not a decade past, others a blur of nothing from the last couple years. Weirdly, 13 feels like a nothing number. It’s not a nice round number like ten, or twelve where you get a decade or a dozen. It’s not fifteen or another solid number. Kinda like 9. It just is. But that’s ok.

I got an email from another blog I follow who was celebrating a huge visitor count after years of blogging and it still baffles me that there are the people I admired when I was a baby blogger still going alongside me. Who, even then, seeing them having five or ten year anniversaries was astounding. I was amazed at their endurance and commitment. Of course in that time I’ve also seen many blogs come and go, so it’s not always the same faces floating round.

Now, thirteen years later, I don’t know if I’m marvelling at my own endurance or mainly at the passage of time, and how, despite everything, I’m still loving doing this. I am loving sharing my thoughts on great and not so great books I’ve read. So much so it is hard to read a book and not want to review it. I don’t have to. No one is making me. But the compulsion to write some kind of thought down after finish a book is strong. What stops me usually is after the initial thoughts are out I forget to return and finish them. Or I move onto another book so quickly when I do want to review it we’re three books passed it and I can’t remember what it was about besides the vibes.

But thankfully something gets done or I wouldn’t be here all these years later! As a result we must celebrate my desire to share my love of books of all kinds – good, mediocre, and underwhelming. I have revisited my Top Five of last year and assessed whether they are giveaway worthy and I reckon they are. I have also tossed in a few other favourites from the year to make up the usual numbers. I looked at past years and realised why my list was short: a few pushed back releases threw off some usual suspects from certain authors or series which meant I didn’t have many heavy hitters. Given we’re three weeks into the year and I already have a few suspected top reads I have slightly higher hopes for my next list.

But that’s for next year. Today we are celebrating my blogiversary the only way I know how and that’s with an international giveaway! A slight snag in the plan is after 15 years Rafflecopter has shut down which I hadn’t realised, so the entry conditions will be changing slightly. Plus with the destruction of Twitter there’s more people spread out onto other platforms which makes sharing harder. But there will be a chance for everyone who wants to get an entry in to be counted. I hope for my next giveaway I will have found a more suitable solution, but for now they are limited.

The Selection

The Cousins by Karen M. McManus

Impossible Music by Sean Williams

Wrong Answers Only by Tobias Maddon

Because of You by Pip Harry

Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao

Tin Heart by Shivaun Plozza

The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde

Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

To enter: For a chance to win one of the pictured books comment below on your favourite book of 2025 and/or follow this blog. This will give you up to TWO entries into the giveaway.

Let me know in the comments which entries you are submitting. You can follow to gain an entry without submitting a book title and vice versa. If you are already following me you will automatically gain that entry just let me know in the comments!

Please note: This giveaway is international on the basis Blackwell’s ships to your country.

To see if you are eligible you can check their website.

Thank you for helping me celebrate thirteen wonderful years of blogging and if you enter the draw I wish you the best of luck!

Giveaway runs until midnight AEDT on Friday 20th February 2026

Dear Wendy by Ann Zhao

Published: 16 April 2024 (print)/16 April 2024 (audio)
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends/Books on Tape
Pages: 368/9 hrs and 28 mins
Narrator: Nicky Enders, Angel Pean, Natalie Naudus, Tara Sands, Ann Zhao, Daisy Guevara, Elaine Wang, Rebecca Wang
Format: Audiobook
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
★ ★ ★ ★ – 4 Stars

Sophie Chi is in her first year of college (though her parents wish she’d attend a “real” university rather than a liberal arts school) and has long accepted her aroace (aromantic and asexual) identity. She knows she’ll never fall in love, but she enjoys running an Instagram account that offers relationship advice to students at her school. No one except her roommate can know that she’s behind the incredibly popular “Dear Wendy” account.

When Joanna “Jo” Ephron (also a first-year aroace college student) created their “Sincerely Wanda” account, it wasn’t at all meant to take off or be taken seriously—not like Wendy’s. But now they might have a rivalry of sorts with Wendy’s account? Oops. As if Jo’s not busy enough having existential crises over gender identity, whether she’ll ever truly be loved, and the possibility of her few friends finding The One then forgetting her!

While tensions are rising online, Sophie and Jo grow closer in real life, especially once they realise their shared aroace identity and start a campus organization for other a-spec students. Will their friendship survive if they learn just who’s behind the Wendy and Wanda accounts?

I am so glad I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. I have been trying to diversify my diverse reads and this is such a rare identity in books I needed to read it and it turned into an amazing story! There are many asexual book lists (aromantic even rarer) and so often it’s vague, implied, a throwaway comment that people can hang their hopes on, but Zhao holds nothing back and makes it clear these girls are aroace and are proud of it.

Jo/Wanda is definitely the antagonist in starting the feud between the pair. She takes it as a joke then intentionally antagonises Sophie/Wendy. Publicly too which is poor form. But Zhao balances on the line because I was waiting for it to go too far and become the main conflict but Jo stops right before it becomes too hurtful. This self-awareness of intent with Jo is great too because she always tries to maintain the jest in her actions so having her change would be a bigger shift than a light hearted taunt. It is always light hearted to their credit, though I was waiting for someone to log into the wrong account and out themselves and mess it up. For all the different ways this could have played out I really enjoyed how Zhao works this storyline. There’s tension and suspense, while remaining heartfelt, honest, and wholesome.

I love having a book where there are set feelings/identity. The focus is then on a different story and not only on exploring character feelings. Not that having books only about that are bad, I have loved more than my fair share, but sometimes it is nice to have a plot with a diverse character and not have the diverse character be the plot. The aroace representation in books is so low (finding any openly or definitive asexual or aromantic rep in books is hard) and I am glad this one shines brightly with an amazing story and amazing set of characters.

I did enjoy the note from Zhao at the beginning about hoping this story helps people realise their identity or at least start to understand what it means, it is so often misunderstood and dismissed. It helps not having a non-fiction book or essays to gain understanding when you can see it play out in a storyline.

If anybody thinks there’s too much discussion about identity in this book and think people wouldn’t have these conversations obviously haven’t met the right people. Besides there are thousands of books discussing feelings and flutterings in stomachs and crushes that go on for entire books. Why can’t there be a few that talk about how it can be exhausting having none? Especially against a society that expects it. I loved how Zhao puts forward their own version of the Feelings Book by giving us one where the point is not having any.

I liked that the advice columns keep going, I like that there is no major incidents, I like that despite being in their heads and falling prey to overthinking there are real reactions and solutions. It’s a pain to keep saying it, but it is refreshing when people are sensible about things and storylines don’t go over the top for the drama in unrealistic ways. Why can’t we have two friends fighting who need to work it out? There is still a will/they won’t they element, especially since there is precedent for no they won’t already with a character. I’d rather have two friends look at whether they can forgive one another than have something be a drama that has no weight, sexuality expression aside.

400 pages/10 hours and 70+ chapters makes it feel like the book is slow and dragged out, and sometimes it does, but it is a medium paced story, a lot of little things happen and it fills a range of side elements like exploring characters, plus the culture and community at the school. The complexity of the book world and having each character have their own friends and family around them meant there was a lot to explore and Zhao gives everything the right pace and attention.

This is a great book that gives attention to a little know part of the diversity alphabet and hopefully it’s one people can fall in love with. If not for the refreshing identity exploration, than an amazing rivals plot and finding new intense friendships.

You can purchase Dear Wendy via the following

Booktopia

Blackwell’s | Angus & Robertson

Fishpond | Amazon | Amazon Aust