Tag: reads

Review: Ark

DeAnne1 Comment

On the eve of Earth’s destruction, a young scientist discovers something too precious to lose, in a story of cataclysm and hope by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Divergent trilogy.

It’s only two weeks before an asteroid turns home to dust. Though most of Earth has already been evacuated, it’s Samantha’s job to catalog plant samples for the survivors’ unknowable journey beyond.

Preparing to stay behind and watch the world end, she makes a final human connection. As certain doom hurtles nearer, the unexpected and beautiful potential for the future begins to flower.

Ark is another installment in Amazon’s Forward series where we’re facing the end of earth. In this one, a asteroid is about to hit earth and destroy life as we know it. Those that are left on earth are scientists who are frantically working to catalog as much flora and fauna as they can before they leave a couple days before it hits.

Since this is a really short story I’m not going to say much about it because pretty much anything would be a spoiler, but this is an interesting perspective on the different decisions people may make if they know the world is ending. The main character we follow is Samantha, whose perspective and feelings change based on things she discovers and people she talks to.

It’s a great look at what different people may do when facing the destruction of everything they know. I’m eager to read the rest of the collection and see what other stories these authors have come up with.

Happy reading!

Review: The Way You Make Me Feel

DeAnne1 Comment

Synopsis: Clara Shin lives for pranks and disruption. When she takes one joke too far, her dad sentences her to a summer working on his food truck, the KoBra, alongside her uptight classmate Rose Carver. Not the carefree summer Clara had imagined. But maybe Rose isn’t so bad. Maybe the boy named Hamlet (yes, Hamlet) crushing on her is pretty cute. Maybe Clara actually feels invested in her dad’s business. What if taking this summer seriously means that Clara has to leave her old self behind?

With Maurene Goo’s signature warmth and humor, The Way You Make Me Feel is a relatable story of falling in love and finding yourself in the places you’d never thought to look.

I’ve wanted to pick up one of Maurene Goo’s books for quite a while, so I was glad to finally get to this one. While it was often pitched as a contemporary romance, I feel it is so much more than that. It explores aspects of all different types of relationships whether they be friendships, romantic relationships or family relationships. The characters on the surface are simple, but Goo gives them depth and individuality that is refreshing. The way they play off each other and the ways that different characters grow and change, Clara especially.

Clara is a little unlikable at the beginning, but as the book progresses her motivations and reasons for her behavior become more apparent. She’s been very careful to distance herself from things to keep from truly getting hurt and watching as she slowly lets more people in and changes is wonderful.

There were a ton of moments that made me laugh and the banter between the characters were priceless. It’s own voices for Korean representation, which I love (my partner is Korean so anything featuring Korean characters, culture, history or mythology is pretty much auto-buy for me). Overall it’s a wonderful story that I thoroughly enjoyed. Also as a sidenote, how gorgeous is that cover? I’m in love with pretty much all her covers.

Happy reading!

Anticipated Releases for the Rest of the Year

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There aren’t a ton of books coming out in the next month and a half that I need to have, which my bank account thanks me for, but there are a few titles I’m hoping to pick up. Here’s what I’m looking forward to and their respective blurbs.

Eight Will Fall by Sarah Harian
Release Date: November 26, 2019

Pitched as Six of Crows meets Suicide Squad, this dark YA fantasy follows eight criminals as they battle their way through a subterranean realm of horrors and certain death.

In a world where magic is illegal, eight criminals led by rebellious Larkin are sent on a mission to rid their realm of an ancient evil lurking beneath the surface. Descending into a world full of unspeakable horrors, Larkin and her crew must use their forbidden magic to survive.

As they fight in the shadows, Larkin finds a light in Amias, a fellow outlaw with a notorious past. Soon, Larkin and Amias realize that their destinies are intertwined. The eight of them were chosen for a reason.

But as the beasts grow in number and her band is picked off one by one, Larkin is forced to confront a terrible truth: They were never meant to return.

Scared Little Rabbits by A.V. Geiger
Release Date: December 3, 2019

We stand in a tight cluster, high above the lake. One-by-one, we made our way up the narrow trail from the edge of campus. Now, we wait shoulder to shoulder behind the police tape. Nineteen summer students.
 
All but one.

When Nora gets accepted into her dream summer program at the prestigious Winthrop Academy, she jumps at the chance to put her coding skills to use. But then a fellow student goes missing—and the tech trail for the crime leads back to Nora. With no one else to trust, Nora must race to uncover the truth and clear her name…or she might be the next to disappear.

Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters
Release Date: December 3, 2019

In this charming, feel-good debut novel, a cynical assistant at a screenwriting agency must reenact the meet-cute scenes from classic romantic comedy movies in order to help her #1 client get his scriptwriting mojo back–but can a real-life meet-cute be in store for someone who doesn’t believe in happily ever after?

After seven years as an assistant, 29-year-old Evie Summers is ready to finally get the promotion she deserves. But now the TV and film agency she’s been running behind the scenes is in trouble, and Evie will lose her job unless she can convince the agency’s biggest and most arrogant client, Ezra Chester, to finish writing the script for a Hollywood romantic comedy.

The catch? Ezra is suffering from writer’s block–and he’ll only put pen to paper if singleton Evie can prove to him that you can fall in love like they do in the movies. With the future of the agency in jeopardy, Evie embarks on a mission to meet a man the way Sally met Harry or Hugh Grant met Julia Roberts.

But in the course of testing out the meet-cute scenes from classic romantic comedies IRL, not only will Evie encounter one humiliating situation after another, but she’ll have to confront the romantic past that soured her on love. In a novel as hilarious as it is heartwarming, debut author Rachel Winters proves that sometimes real life is better than the movies–and that the best kind of meet-cutes happen when you least expect them.

So, do any of these sound good to you? What are you looking forward to?

Happy reading!

Review: Build Yourself a Boat

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Build Yourself a Boat
2019 National Book Award Nominee

Synopsis: This is about what grows through the wreckage. This is an anthem of survival and a look at what might come after. A view of what floats and what, ultimately, sustains.

Build Yourself a Boat, an innovative debut by award-winning poet Camonghne Felix, interrogates generational trauma, the possibility of healing, and the messiness of survival.

Build Yourself a Boat redefines the language of collective and individual trauma through lyric and memory.

I picked this one up hoping that I would be able to find more contemporary poetry that I enjoyed and I was not disappointed. In this collection Felix explores a wide range of topics that could be very triggering or hard to read. Her writing is very raw and heavy, but in my opinion her voice is clear.

The styles of her poems do vary, but perfectly fit their subject matter and as you progress through the collection you can see the story that she weaves through her words. The content is very charged and speaks of pain and struggle, packed with so much emotion it will take your breath away.

If you’re sensitive to subjects such as sexual assault, self harm, suicide and harsh language, keep in mind that there’s definite trigger warnings for those subjects and more before picking this up. It can be difficult read, but there needs to be more literature and poetry that touches on the hard subjects because they shouldn’t be ignored.

Happy reading!

Review: Summer Frost

DeAnne1 Comment

A video game developer becomes obsessed with a willful character in her new project, in a mind-bending exploration of what it means to be human by the New York Times bestselling author of Recursion.

Maxine was made to do one thing: die. Except the minor non-player character in the world Riley is building makes her own impossible decision—veering wildly off course and exploring the boundaries of the map. When the curious Riley extracts her code for closer examination, an emotional relationship develops between them. Soon Riley has all new plans for her spontaneous AI, including bringing Max into the real world. But what if Max has real-world plans of her own?

Overall I really enjoyed this novella that is an interesting spin on the trope of AI becoming too sentient and evolved and wreaking havoc while they try to take over. It’s a constantly debated question as to how smart is too smart for technology.

This story follows Riley, a programmer and Max and AI that was originally an NPC in a video game that somehow changed the game and became their own entity. Riley is obsessed and constantly testing how Max can learn and just how much they can evolve. Her obsession is dangerous and drastically changes her life.

Part of me feels as if this could have been longer, but the rest of me feels it was the perfect length. It was a short, succinct tale that is cautionary in a lot of ways. Could the characters have had more backstory and development? Absolutely, but they didn’t necessarily always need it.

Even though it is short, Blake Crouch’s signature twists and turns are still there and there were definitely a few that kept me guessing. If you like his writing you will probably really enjoy this as well.

Happy reading!

Review: The Girl Who Drank the Moon

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Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in the forest. They hope this sacrifice will keep her from terrorizing their town. But the witch in the forest, Xan, is kind and gentle. She shares her home with a wise Swamp Monster named Glerk and a Perfectly Tiny Dragon, Fyrian. Xan rescues the abandoned children and deliver them to welcoming families on the other side of the forest, nourishing the babies with starlight on the journey. 

One year, Xan accidentally feeds a baby moonlight instead of starlight, filling the ordinary child with extraordinary magic. Xan decides she must raise this enmagicked girl, whom she calls Luna, as her own. To keep young Luna safe from her own unwieldy power, Xan locks her magic deep inside her. When Luna approaches her thirteenth birthday, her magic begins to emerge on schedule–but Xan is far away. Meanwhile, a young man from the Protectorate is determined to free his people by killing the witch. Soon, it is up to Luna to protect those who have protected her–even if it means the end of the loving, safe world she’s always known.

I was so pleasantly surprised by this story and it’s mixed cast of characters. We are following multiple perspectives in this story and the way Barnhill weaves each of those perspectives together is beautifully done. Each character has a purpose and a different journey that they must take which is leading them to the climax of the plot. All of the characters are wonderfully sketched out and easily recognized, at least when talking about the main characters.

The world building and backstory was revealed in bits and pieces, which at times could be frustrating, but in the end all came together. There were definitely points where I wanted a little more, but it’s a wonderful coming of age story that addresses many aspects of mob mentality, fear and other difficult topics. The fantastical setting helps to soften these subjects and make them more digestible to a younger audience.

Happy reading!

Review: Swipe Right For Murder

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Synopsis: On the run from the FBI.
Targeted by a murderous cult.
Labeled a cyber-terrorist by the media.
Irritated texts from his best friend.
Eye contact with a nice-looking guy on the train.
Aidan has a lot to deal with, and he’s not quite sure which takes top priority.

Finding himself alone in a posh New York City hotel room for the night, Aidan does what any red-blooded seventeen-year-old would do—he tries to hook up with someone new. But that lapse in judgement leads to him waking up next to a dead guy, which sparks an epic case of mistaken identity that puts Aidan on the run from everyone—faceless federal agents, his eccentric family, and, naturally, a cyber-terrorist group who will stop at nothing to find him.

He soon realizes the only way to stop the chase is to deliver the object everyone wants, before he gets caught or killed. But for Aidan, the hardest part is knowing who he can trust not to betray him—including himself.

I didn’t know what to expect with this book just picked it up based on premise alone. It was a fun and twisted ride of betrayal, mistaken identities and a deadly terrorist group which may have had a noble cause at one point early on, but has become twisted.

I loved the friend group in this book, everyone in Aidan’s inner circle truly cared about him and accepted him as he was. Those moments were some of my favorite in the book. I also truly enjoyed the fast paced nature of the book, it was almost non-stop and keeps you guessing the whole time. The author does a really good job of making you wonder if you can truly trust anyone.

You do have to suspend disbelief with this book, but that’s ok. If you’re looking for a sometimes sassy, sometimes hilarious crime adventure, you should definitely check this one out.

Happy reading!

Review: The Claiming

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A ghostly apparition appearing along a dark and lonely stretch of highway. A ritual bound in blood. A race against time against a deadly supernatural force.

Kendra Garrity’s twin brother, the only person she has ever loved, will be dead at dawn.

Gwydion has done the unthinkable. He has triggered The Claiming, an ancient ritual that can turn an ordinary person into a witch. But power comes with a terrible cost. Now he hovers in a state near death, trapped in the underworld. At sunrise, he’ll be lost forever. And something dark and unnatural will rise in his place.

Kendra is the only one who has any hope of saving the brother she loves, the brother who once gave up everything for her. But in order to rescue him, she must enter into a terrifying mirror world populated by nightmare creatures and controlled by demons. If she fails, she will be trapped there forever. And if she succeeds, it might mean giving up everything she has ever known.

This book definitely ticked all the boxes when it came to buzzwords that I would enjoy and general feel. It was definitely on the spookier side and the writing was beautiful in so many ways. The descriptions are rich and suit the story perfectly.

You spend the whole story wondering about people’s motivations and learning things little by little. Finding out some of the history of the town and just what lays beneath the surface was great and definitely makes me want to read more in this series.

I will say that woven in to this story there are definitely some trigger worthy topics, there’s talk about abuse, rape and more, so if those are subjects you can’t handle then this one may not be for you. All in all I really enjoyed this one and it definitely fit my craving for something darker and mystical.

The Claiming is out now if you want to pick up a copy. Happy reading!

Review: The Cold is in Her Bones

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When I first heard that this book was a take on Medusa, I was instantly intrigued and wanted to check it out. Things based on mythology always pique my interest as that’s one of my buzzwords/favorite concepts. This book did not disappoint on the Medusa aspect for sure.

After the prologue (which gives us a glimpse of events in the past) we follow Milla, who is sheltered and lives a quiet life outside of the village with her parents and brother. As the story unfolds we learn about the curse that the village lives under where young girls get afflicted by a “demon” and get taken away. We then continue to follow Milla as she does everything she can to learn more and to help those she cares about.

This book opens up great conversations about the extremes that some religious beliefs can go to and what happens when people react harshly out of their fear. In some ways you could draw some parallels to stories such as those written about the events that happened during the Salem witch hunts. There’s also a lot of talk about oppressing females if they don’t act the norm or perfectly obey. I felt that these concepts were subtle enough to not be overt, but still there.

Overall I really enjoyed this read and loved how the story unfolded. I would recommend picking it up if you’re looking for something mythology based or perfect for the spooky season.

Happy reading!

Review: The Babysitters Coven

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Title: The Babysitters Coven
Author: Kate Williams
Genre: YA, Paranormal
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: September 17th, 2019

When I first read the concept of this book, I wanted to read it immediately. Babysitter’s Club meets Buffy? Yes, please! While the book did meet that brief, there were some aspects that I didn’t love. I really enjoyed all of the great pop culture references (Labyrinth, Buffy, Harry Potter and more) as well as some of the discussion surrounding difficult issues such as Esme’s mom’s condition and how the town/school treated her because of it, as well as her internal dialogue about her worries and fears. Esme’s voice/point of view is rather harsh at times, which could be considered unlikable or polarizing, but for the age of the character it is understandable.

I do wish that some things had been a little more descriptive. At times the relationships between people didn’t seem to be as close as they were described. Also, a lot of the characters (granted, more minor characters) could have used more description to differentiate them from each other. That being said though, this was mostly with characters that only appeared a few times and I’m sure that if they show up in future books they will be fleshed out more.

The last half of the book was jam packed with action and went much faster than the 1st half, which I really enjoyed. There were definitely a lot of twists and turns that were surprising, but there were also many twists that were pretty predictable. There were times that I had a hard time liking Esme and Cassandra (mostly Cassandra) because of their decisions, but I could see some of those things being addressed in future books. In that respect this book set up future conflicts really well.

All in all I did enjoy this book and as I said the last half was really quick paced and enjoyable. If you’re looking for books that have great pop culture references, lots of mystical and paranormal content and babysitters who have to protect the world, then you’ll probably enjoy it. It was definitely a fun book with a lot of quirks and capers.

The Babysitters Coven is out now from Delacorte Press, so be sure to pick up a copy if it’s something that is up your alley, Happy reading!