12th (I am not tryna spell "twelth?f?”th, these stories deserve to be 13th, alas) book of 2024: “Magic for Beginners”, by Kelly Link ( https://kellylink.net/books/magic-for-beginners-old, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/66657.Magic_for_Beginners). Yep.

Goth surrealist tangential punny folklore ghost stories? Idk what the hell I just read and if it was a TV show I’d turn it off but I can read stuff like this all day long (and just did).

the paperback cover of “Magic for Beginners”, Stories by Kelly Link. An illustration of a woman with black hair parted down the middle, a long black doubled-over pearl necklace, and multiple rings and black wristbands in a black t-shirt holds a ferret? looking left (pretty goth imo), over a blue background. A sky blue rectangle with the corners clipped (as if it was a card tucked into cuts in the cover) is covered w/ the title in all caps sans, the authors name below in light blue over the blue background.Per Link’s website: The cover is modeled on Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Lady with an Ermine.”