Last weekend, I mentioned that I recently read two books that got me out of the massive reading slump I’ve had for weeks.. Maybe months? Well, Maud & Addie was one of these books, and it’s unforgettable. It’s just one of those stories that when you delve into it, you’re quite likely to just spend the whole night reading, nevermind…
Continue Reading→Category: Fiction
Mini-review for A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus One of the 5-stars that helped me break my reading slump
So this weekend, I finally read a couple middle grade books that broke my huge reading slump. I was incredibly lucky, cause two out of three were 5 stars – and A Place to Hang the Moon was one of them. The book immediately drew me in – it had a pleasant tone and felt natural, and I could instantly feel…
Continue Reading→A Story About Growing Up With Doomsday In Your Back Yard Prepped by Bethany Mangle
You guys (and gals, and enbies), this book was so good!!! I don’t even know where to start. When I accepted the review copy, something made me think the book would be much more lighthearted than it was. I didn’t expect Prepped to be so serious and kind of heart-breaking. I thought it would be an adventure, but it’s so…
Continue Reading→A New, Unexpected But Very Heart-Warming Story From Catherine Ryan Hyde My Name is Anton: A Novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Writing yet another review for a book by Catherine Ryan Hyde makes me feel dejavu. Every couple of months a new book of hers comes out, I instantly grab it despite any other review commitments, and I never regret it. So far, all her books have just been so good that I can’t resist reading them as soon as possible.…
Continue Reading→Disinherited, Cut Off… Reinvited? A Story About A Summer When Past Secrets Come Back The Cousins by Karen M. McManus
Today I’m happy to be part of The WriteReads blog tour for The Cousins by Karen McManus! I don’t often read thrillers, but when I do, I make a point to choose good ones. The Cousins was a good twisty mystery of sins done in the past and family grudges still running strong – it wasn’t one of those stories…
Continue Reading→A Story Of The Most Unusual Friendship And Lots Of Adventuring Harpyness is Only Skin Deep and Finding Your Harpy Place by D.H. Willison
Well, this was one hell of a story! Today I’m going to tell you about two books in a series called The Tales of Arvia, and it’s just about the most unusual set of books I’ve ever read. Harpyness is Only Skin Deep and Finding Your Harpy Place should really work for someone who’s into fantasy and RPGs – it’s…
Continue Reading→A Tale Of Bravery In A Seemingly Impossible Battle Skyhunter (Skyhunter #1) by Marie Lu
I couldn’t be more surprised about falling head over heels for Skyhunter – me, who is always cautious of YA – but I did. It’s really good! I was initially suspicious – I started it through an excerpt on NetGalley – and rated it 3 stars cause it failed to draw me in. But I still grabbed the audiobook review…
Continue Reading→Book Club Questions for Anxious People by Fredrik Backman + Review & Discussion This Story Was Everything – Basically My Winner Of 2020, ★★★★★ 5 stars
You can now download printable book club questions for Anxious People by Fredrik Backman in this review! Scroll further for a PDF book club questions list + notes, as well as everything else you need to prepare for your book club discussion of Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. I am also including my full review of Anxious People to help facilitate…
Continue Reading→A Book About Finding Yourself And Belonging – And So Many Other Themes The Royal Abduls by Ramiza Shamoun Koya
I feel like if I wanted to give The Royal Abduls a proper review, I’d have to write a whole other book about it – I just can’t see how I would put it all into a single-post review. This story was great, and it’s just so full of everything – it covers a large variety of topics, but the…
Continue Reading→A Truly Otherworldly Story Of Secrets, Growing Up And The Magic Of Woods Otherwood by Pete Hautman
Otherwood was a brilliant story, and I loved it – but I also sort of don’t know what to make of it? It’s one of those stories that you understand more subconsciously rather than in a straight-forward manner. When I got the review copy, I expected it to be a fantasy woodsy tale, but it’s nothing like that – it…
Continue Reading→Imagine Stepping From The 19th Century Straight Into The 21st The Lost Shtetl by Max Gross
When I saw the blurb of The Lost Shtetl, I was immediately drawn in. It sounded like an absurdly ridiculous, yet mesmerizing concept – a Jewish town in the Polish woods so remote it gets overlooked for more than a hundred years, so much so that it is even missed by the Holocaust. The people living there go around their…
Continue Reading→Practical Magic Concludes, Or Rather Begins, With An Amazing Prequel Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0) by Alice Hoffman
Being kind of a fan of Alice Hoffman’s, I loved Magic Lessons from the very start! I didn’t even doubt I would. I have loved the entire Practical Magic series, as spaced out over the decades as it was, but I think I loved Magic Lessons by far the most. I got immediately attached to the main character, Maria, and…
Continue Reading→A Quick Scifi Noir That Packs A Punch And Makes You Laugh Red Dust by Yoss
For the past week or two, I have been hearing about this new novel by a scifi author Yoss that’s gaining traction, and I mean I’ve been hearing about it EVERYWHERE. It’s been appearing on all sorts of articles and what not, and at that point, my conscience about having downloaded one from Edelweiss for free several months ago broke…
Continue Reading→One Hell Of A Ride, Riddle And Love Triangle In This YA Novel The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
The Inheritance Games is so good I just don’t know where to begin! I started reading it on a rainy day during my vacation, and it’s a good thing the weather was crap too, because otherwise I would have lost a particularly good day of being out, unable to unglue myself from the book and look at any of my…
Continue Reading→A Cozy Wind In The Willows Type Of Read! Skunk and Badger by Amy Timberlake and Jon Klassen
Skunk and Badger was such a delightful read – right from the very first pages. If you were at all a fan of the The Wind in the Willows, you will love Skunk and Badger. It is definitely different, but there is something in the vibe, something I can’t pinpoint – that they have in common (apart from the obvious…
Continue Reading→Are You Ready For Good Halloween Stories Yet? The Dead World of Lanthorne Ghules by Gerald Killingworth, ★★★★☆ 4 stars
If you’re looking for a rather quick, but very engrossing read, The Dead World of Lanthorne Ghules is definitely the book for you. It’s a middle grade adventure that will appeal to kids, teens and adults alike – it was a read of two evenings for me, and it really did leave an impression! The book has a very specific…
Continue Reading→A Tour Of A Forgotten Age Through This Amazing Historical Novel Villa of Delirium by Adrien Goetz, ★★★★✬ 4.5 stars
When I started reading Villa of Delirium, I didn’t know for sure what it was about – I often start novels without looking into it much – I’d rather the book tell me the story than the blurb. And the blurb told me it was set in a beautiful Greek villa, built based on ancient styles. That’s something I’ll always…
Continue Reading→The Most Magical, Empowering Voyage Over Stormy Seas The Ship of Shadows by Maria Kuzniar
Okay, so what have we got here? Magic, pirate women, in fact – a pirate ship with an all-women crew (well, aside from a ghost and an owl), a brilliant library within said pirate ship, adventure and hidden mysterious treasures!! And a girl who gets told that “girls don’t go on adventures” and “girls can’t do anything”, when it’s painfully…
Continue Reading→A Series To Soothe Your Soul In This Tough Year Of 2020 A Summoning of Souls (Spectral City #3) by Leanna Renee Hieber
Today I want to share a book series that’s been really warming me up in the past half a year or so. A Summoning of Souls is book 3 in the Spectral City series, a story about the living working with the dead on a common goal – ensuring the safety of New York. The books focus on the first Ghost…
Continue Reading→The Lady Astronaut’s Saga Continues The Relentless Moon (Lady Astronaut #3) by Mary Robinette Kowal, ★★★★☆ 4 stars
A few years ago, when I read the first book of The Lady Astronaut series, I fell in love. The initial story was wrapped up with the first two books, so I didn’t really think there would be a sequel. To my big (and pleasant) surprise, 2020 saw at least one good thing happen (okay, one more good thing besides…
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