Trigger Warning: Rape
Sep17
Aug12
Review: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
Overall Rating: ★★★★
This seems to be one of the most polarizing tales in this universe. You will notice I do not say novel, because what some people seem to forget is that this is NOT a novel. It is the script of a play which, let’s face it, most of us will be unable to see as it seems to be sold out for the next two year.
Cut due to spoilers.
Aug11
Review: The Orange Cat and Other Cainsville Tales by Kelley Armstrong
Overall Rating: ★★★★
I love Liv. I really love Liv and so I was glad to be able to get a sneak peak at her life as she travels through Cape Breton with Ricky (who I also love, but maybe not as much as Gabriel). The two of them of course find trouble, because what does Liv do except find trouble?
The chemistry between the two is there, the sex scenes are something I kind of skimmed past because it’s not really my thing though I hear they’re excellent and the games the two play are amusing. This is a lovely little addition to the Cainsville world.
Aug10
Review: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
Overall rating: ★★★
I would love to be one of those people who judges the main character for being vapid, silly and a little bit stupid but in all honesty I cannot because I, in a way, was that girl. Though I never harboured feelings for my sister’s bf. Partly because she’s 9 yrs older than me and partly because our tastes are so, so different.
This book is a long book, but yet a quick read. It’s easy to feel sympathy for Laura Jean, while bashing your head off your ereader wishing she would just learn how to be honest out loud instead of just in letter form.
There is no ending to this novel, so reader be warned you will want to own the sequel before reading this. That being said, let go of expectations and just let the words roll over you and realize that the best love you can have in life is that of your family, or at least that’s how this made me feel.
Aug9
Rapid Reviews: Stephanie Plum 7-9
Overall rating: ★★★ and 1/2
Rapid review 1: Seven Up by Janet Evanovich
This book is a quick fun read, and perhaps contains some of the menacing air of the first novel as Decooch is a sick old man. I loved the return of Mooner. Lula remains a disappointing almost racist caricature and there is no real character development.
Rapid review 2: Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich
This book returns to how ridiculous the Stephanie Plum novels to get, full of explosions and people dressed as rabbits. It’s tons of fun, and a really quick read. Though some people might be upset about the way relationships happen in this novel I kind of wish Stephanie would be single for a while.
Rapid review 3: Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich
This is a silly little Christmas story, which is just what I wanted it to be, and Diesel is definitely a new entertaining character though does Stephanie have to want every guy she meets? Control yourself girl.
Rapid review 4: To the Nines by Janet Evanovich
Stephanie is one of the worst bounty hunters ever with the worst luck. This book contained a little bit more of a menacing air, though I did enjoy that. Mystery abounded…until I figured out exactly whodunnit very quickly I enjoyed the characters and the plot of this, though again the way Lula is treated still annoys me.
Aug8
Review: Dispatches from the Edge by Anderson Cooper
Overall rating: ★★★★★
This books is so well written that I wasn’t surprised to find myself crying quite frequently while reading it. It is a very honest view of how bad the world can be, and yet shows the slightest little glimmer of hope. It is easy to feel how Anderson Cooper changed, the more he saw, but refreshing to know that he recognized it and stopped himself from going too far.
The stories of him searching for the truth, and wanting to report it were interspersed with very derisive opinions of himself, and the bitter memories of having lost his brother. This is an eye opening must-read.
Aug7
Nostalgia Reads: Goodnight Kiss 1 & 2 by R.L. Stine
Oh good lord. Oh good lord how ridiculous and fun are these two novels? These are not the Twilight vampires of todays age, nor are they the Buffy the Vampire style vampires of the 90s and early 00s.
That being said, the vampires in this novel seemed to be parodies of the monstrous characters. Vampires who are teenagers, and who are so teenager-like that they’re hard to take seriously. It’s brilliant in its simplicity and almost as though RL Stine knew that there would be more ridiculous vampires to follow.
These are two quick reads and so very nineties. I just couldn’t help but love them.
Aug6
Review: Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
Overall Rating: ★★★
This version of the Bennet family—and Mr. Darcy—is one that you have and haven’t met before: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help—and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray.
Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master’s degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won’t discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane’s fortieth birthday fast approaches.
Enter Chip Bingley, a handsome new-in-town doctor who recently appeared on the juggernaut reality TV dating show Eligible. At a Fourth of July barbecue, Chip takes an immediate interest in Jane, but Chip’s friend neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy reveals himself to Liz to be much less charming. . . .
And yet, first impressions can be deceiving.
Jul8
The best book I will read in 2016
This is the best book I am going to read this year. It’s a good thing I love to read or otherwise I would just stop now.
Gloria Vanderbilt is an amazing woman, and one who I think needed to have her story told, or at the very least she is someone I needed to know more about. One of the reasons, I think, that this book is so good is because it is just an honest, candid, and sometimes brutal conversation via email and letters between a mother and son who have lost so much. Yet they still have each other, and even though they are equally similar and dissimilar it does not tarnish their relationship, in fact it seems to enrich it.
The reality of their lives is not as blessed as some might think, and they have endured their hardships but all in all the way they have done so is overall inspiring. Their failings are admitted readily, and accepted, and moved on from. This is not a book I will forget anytime soon.
My rating: ★★★★★
Jun26
Nostalgiac Reads 1: Hear No Evil by Kate Chester
When I was much younger than I am now, a heroine by the name of Sara Howell was brought to my attention, and I was told that she was awesome because she too was a “little bit different.”
Sara Howell is the teen protagonist in Kate Chester’s Hear No Evil series, and she is deaf. She speaks verbally, reads lips and signs. She is an orphan, with only a brother to care for her, but has some really great friends.
When I was younger I wanted to be her. Or at the very least be friends with her. She was/is feisty, and determined and not someone to trifle with.
I embarked on my re-read with this series with trepidation because well, not everything 90s holds up so well. And this book is dated, but not in a way that is bad by any means. Spanning six novels, and many adventures Sara’s tales are awesome, as she uses her Nancy Drew-like intellect to solve crimes, frequently exasperating her friends, brother and then boyfriend. She is a literary friend who I’m glad to have had in my life, because maybe when I question something without just following orders it’s because it’s something she would do.
That being said, I will definitely leave the investigating to the professionals.
