About

Hello! My name is Jenna. My pronouns are she/her/hers. I’m a 30-something year old from the Canadian prairies. I studied children’s literature at university and completed an MLIS program in 2019. I worked as a children’s librarian in British Columbia and then in my prairie hometown. I love travelling (I have WWOOFed in Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, and British Columbia; holidayed in Oxford, Lisbon, and Bangkok; and taught English in Japan), but recently I have settled down for the time being to enjoy more time with my family.

I have been blogging since 2006. I turned my focus to book blogging in April 2014. For me, reviews are the heart of blogging and that’s mostly what you’ll find here. I have five years experience as a Cybils judge (three years as a second round judge for middle grade speculative fiction, and one year each as a first round judge for middle grade fiction and middle grade speculative fiction).

What I usually like to read: Genre-defying literary fiction for children or adults, including magical realism/faublism, fantasy with a twist a la Gaiman, dark and gothic and creepy with a touch of terror (but less horror), or just straight up literary fiction with moving prose and thoughtful characters. Favourite include The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Kafka on the Shore, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, In the Night Garden, Inkspell, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Peter Pan, White is for Witching,The Haunting of Hill House, Never Let Me Go and Middlegame. Non-fiction related to anything current or historical that grabs my interest, including religion (especially Zen Buddhism), food (especially where it comes from), Tolkien, and language/books/reading (any aspects). My non-fiction TBR list grows easily… Favourites include Hitching Rides with Buddha, Schott’s Food and Drink Miscellany, The History of the Hobbit, Time Was Soft There, and The 1918 Shikoku Pilgrimage of Takamure Itsue.

What I don’t usually like to read: High fantasy a la Tolkien (Tolkien is my favourite, none can match him), urban fantasy, straight up detective/mystery novels, romance-centric tales

Review Policy

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Please read if you have specific requirements that must be met by a blogger’s review. Do not request more than once for me to review a book. Feel free to e-mail me (seventy two days @ gmail .com) about anything you see here, though I will only respond to review requests that interest me.

  • Currently considering traditionally published books (print or digital) in which I have an interest.
    • If you would like to me to review your book, please check that it fits one of my ‘what I like to read’ parameters (as described above) or that it’s on my GoodReads to-read shelf.
    • I do not review picture books.
    • I do not review self-published or vanity press books.
    • Reviews will state if a book was received to review.
  • Reviews may be short or long, positive or negative. On the rare occasion that I do not finish a book, I will not post a review and will instead inform the book’s provider as to the reason why.
  • Reviews are posted here on Falling Letters, GoodReads, Twitter, and Bluesky.
    • Abbreviated reviews may be posted to Indigo and StoryGraph if requested.
  • Reviews will be posted when I have the time to complete them
    • This often means near the book’s publication date, OR within two weeks of my completing the book, OR when the provider of the book requests
      • Please allow three weeks for me to read a book
  • Sample reviews: non-fiction, fiction (positive), fiction (negative).

Privacy Policy

My website address is https://fallingletters.ca. I do not share personal information with third-parties nor do I store information I collect about your visit to this blog for use other than to analyze content performance through the use of cookies to provide anonymized tracking data (via Google Analytics), which you can turn off at anytime by modifying your Internet browser’s settings. I am not responsible for the republishing of the content found on this blog on other Web sites or media without my permission. Engaging with third-parties such as MailChimp (via subscribing), or Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest (via social media sharing) requires the provision of personal information in compliance with those parties’ privacy policies (links to each). Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website. This privacy policy is subject to change without notice.

The Old Falling Letters – September 2010 to January 2013

1. To keep a proper record of the books I read, and what I
think of them, and how they make feel, and so on. I read voraciously,
but I rarely write down my thoughts on what I’ve read and when I do it’s
little more than ‘this book was heartbreaking/exciting/boring/etc.’. I
read a book, I think about it for awhile, and then I move on. Books are
important to me, more important than a lot of things. I want to remember how a book inspired or disgusted me, how a book shaped me into who I am, how a book taught me things I won’t ever want to forget. I want to remember why I read.

***While what I write is probably
technically a ‘review’, it is a review meant to help me reflect on what I
read. These ‘reviews’ aren’t written with the intent of helping someone
decide if a book is worth reading, so please use caution when judging a
book based on what I’ve written about it.

While exploring this site, you may come across some remnants from the original Falling Letters. Active primarily from September 2010 to January 2013, I ran this blog in a more personal, reflective manner. I wrote about how a book affected me, why I loved a music album, and shared my writing. Above is my original statement of purpose for writing about books. I wrote posts labelled ‘book friday archive‘ and ‘more books archive‘ during this era. I also preserved my introductory posts to the original Falling Letters blog as well as my year-end wrap up posts.

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