Books Necessary Whimsy Finding Joy with Jimothy, Genre Hijinks, and Pushing Daisies Clever books, delightful comics, and the best TV show ever will always be here for you! By Lish McBride | Published on July 22, 2026 Witchlings cover art by Lissy Marlin Comment 1 Share New Share Witchlings cover art by Lissy Marlin I love the days where finding whimsy feels easy—where my curiosity is in the driver seat, steering me to the funny, weird things our world is full of. That doesn’t mean I’m doggedly looking for the bright side on those days or running around like a Disney princess singing to forest creatures or anything; I still see the bad stuff. I just see the wonder, too. Then there are the hard days, where I feel like a starving person licking the plate of whimsy for any stray crumb of joy or dollop of humor. The days where I’m overloaded and the world is a whole heck of a lot. Lately, it’s been a lot of “licking the empty plate” days. The humor has been on the darker edge of things. I mean, it’s really difficult not to make jokes when your headlines are almost entirely about diarrhea lettuce. You resort to gallows humor because otherwise you’re just thinking about how awful it must be for the people dealing with it and how it could have easily been avoided if the proper systems and protections had been left in place. And then there are the things that whimsy can’t touch. The grief tied to the constant news of people senselessly dying. The sudden loss of people who brought joy to so many, like Sam Neill. There’s been a lot of loss in my household this year and to see that pattern repeating in the outside world has felt like too much sometimes. So, I have to look to the small things. Literal crumbs of joy. Like a friend introducing you to a new kind of animal you’ve never heard of because they know it will fill you with delight. (Did the rest of you know that there is such a thing called a Grasshopper mouse, aka a werewolf mouse, that kills scorpions and howls?!?) Or like taking a walk after dinner and following the cheep cheep cheep noises until you spy a nest full of baby birds. It might be your DMs full of fan art and memes of Jimothy, your new local hometown folk hero. (Jimothy is a raccoon.) Even slipping into old, well-worn joys, like taking a moment to sit in a bookstore and read the first few pages of a new book. Licking the plate won’t fill your belly, but it will keep you going until you can, and sometimes, that’s enough. Here are some whimsical, delectable morsels that will see you through the week. If Books Could Kill by Kate Eberle I got to read this book early, so I’ve been sitting on this whimsy for months. The speculative element to this one is relatively small—Roxie makes an offhand wish to live in the next book of her favorite romcom writer, Anna Matthews. Roxie gets her wish, but unfortunately for her, Anna Matthews isn’t writing a romcom, she’s writing a thriller. Which Roxie quickly discovers when the handsome mystery man she has a date with tries to kill her. Had this been a romance novel, Roxie would have known what to do, but she has no idea how to navigate the tropes and structure of a thriller. She’s very lucky then that she accidentally kidnaps a professor who knows all about the genre. What follows is a delightfully funny madcap—and occasionally meta—adventure that lovingly plays with romance and thriller tropes alike. The House Saphir by Marissa Meyer I always want to be transparent and warn you when I’m horribly biased toward an author, and Marissa is one of them—we’ve known each other almost since we debuted. (I can’t really avoid authors I know at this point. I’ve been in the industry too long.) Okay, warning done, let’s talk about The House Saphir. Meyer’s style of whimsy isn’t the gag-a-minute type. Oh, there’s humor—in this one, which is a Bluebeard retelling, the ghosts of the murdered wives cracked me up a whole lot. I love the concept of a hypochondriac ghost. Mallory, the main character of our story, also has a lot of humor to her voice, mostly when she runs across a fact that she doesn’t find convenient and so discards it accordingly. However, the majority of the whimsy here comes from the world itself. The fanciful, fairytale landscape of strange magics, elaborate manors, and the charmingly handsome heir to a haunted estate. Meyer is often referred to as the “queen of fairytale retellings”, and it’s a crown that fits. She weaves a story together like a fairy godmother magicking up a carriage out of a pumpkin, so that even the darker elements have a sparkle to them. Witchlings by Claribel A. Ortega One of the hills I will defend forever is things can be funny and have whimsy and still have a content warning. If ever there were characters that needed humor and joy, it would be characters who have trauma. Kids know that traumatic things happen. Kids experience traumatic things. What they need are books showing them that those things can be defeated. *Throws glitter* Okay, so there are piles of amazing reviews for Witchlings, but do you know what my test is for middle grade books? …Do children like them? That’s it. That’s the test. Witchlings passed with flying colors and is a fan favorite amongst my own nieces and my friends’ kids. And who can blame them? There’s magic! Mystery! Friendship! Toads! There’s also a wonderful, tension-filled premise—what happens to you if you’re a young witch and you’re not sorted into the coven of your dreams? If you are—gasp—a spare, a witch with no coven and less-than powers? Well, you try to make you own coven, that’s what. And if that doesn’t work? You band together to take on an impossible task like defeating the Nightbeast, even if it means you all might end up being turned into toads. FOREVER. For a bonus, not only is the cover magical, but every chapter has an adorable illustration at the top! Bloodlust & Bonnets by Emily McGovern I first discovered McGovern’s work through the My Life as a Background Slytherin comics many years ago. Since then, she’s been a creator I’ve followed on Patreon for years. Her comics range from pop culture mayhem to thoughtful, but funny, autobiographical pieces. I’m always amazed how much emotion she’s able to convey with a fairly pared-down style of illustration. Bloodlust & Bonnets is what would happen in a Regency romance if the heroine decided it would much more fun to go vampire hunting instead. At times it’s wonderfully absurd, with a psychic eagle named Napoleon, a sentient castle, and a vampire that keeps trying to invite the heroine into her immortal vampire cult, only to be repeatedly interrupted by Lord Byron (from books!). It’s a wonderfully chaotic adventure full of beheadings, explosions, and three characters whose romantic lives become increasingly entangled. Pushing Daisies You know how everyone has a show they would trade a pint of blood for just to get it to come back? No? Is the blood thing just me? Well, whatever you would trade, Pushing Daisies is, rather ironically, the show I’d bring back from the dead in a heartbeat. As a series, it really shouldn’t have worked. First there was the somewhat macabre premise of a man, Ned, who can bring people back from the dead with one touch and helps a detective, played by Chi McBride, to solve crimes. Ned also uses those powers to revive fruit and make delicious pies. It’s all going along fine until Ned revives a woman and realizes it’s Chuck, his childhood crush. The catch? He can never, ever touch her again or she’ll be dead forever. It sounds depressing, but it’s not. Add in elements like a narrator (Jim Dale!), quirky characters (like the aunts with their cheese fridge), musical numbers, a bright color palette, and a sweetheart of a love story, and it sounds over the top. And maybe it is, but in the best possible way. It always felt like every single element of the show was carefully curated. The cast? Perfect. (It took me years to stop calling Lee Pace “The Piemaker.”) The concept? A gem. And the writing? *Swoon* I often wonder if the show was just a little too unique and quirky for the mainstream. Would it do better now, with streaming services? Who knows. It was one of the many wonderful projects that Bryan Fuller came up with early on that didn’t get as far as they should have. (I will forever be salty that his reboot of The Munsters called Mockingbird Lane never made it past the pilot. We could have had Suzy Eddie Izzard as Grandpa Munster, you cowards!) If you’ve never seen Pushing Daisies, I highly recommend it. If you have, maybe it’s time for a rewatch.[end-mark] The post Finding Joy with Jimothy, Genre Hijinks, and <i>Pushing Daisies</i> appeared first on Reactor.