Recommended for those who like heartfelt dramas and romances. This contemporary novel is about a brave & determined woman searching for love, safety & closure. Don’t expect this to be a typical RomCom from Mrs. Hoover, this is a powerful & sweeping drama about love, forgiveness & surviving physical abuse that will totally suck you in. This novel is deeply moving, and hard to put down. It’s biggest drawback is that feels a bit contrived at times.
Recommended for those who want to read a book similar to The Hunger Games, Divergent, Shatter Me & The Red Queen series. The 1st book is brimming with magic & promise! It’s creative, captivating, full of action & quite epic! Complete with a snarky fierce heroine that’s full of spunk & is humble & kind.
Sadly, All of that disappears in the 2nd book. It’s about politics, world building & Meira’s inner indecisiveness & turmoil stuck on repeat. It’s monotonous & drags. Save yourself the time, read the 1st few chaps, then skip to the last 3 chapters. Luckily book 3 gets way better! The plot speeds up & Meira remembers how badass she used to be! (However the action sequences aren’t as engaging, because we’re stuck with her inner monologue over explaining those scenes.)
This was pretty much the Hunger games, but with magic instead of games. That being said, It can still be a very entertaining & fun adventure, if you can just ignore how cliche & unoriginal it can be. If you are looking for something new and different, then I recommend skipping this one.
(These are not my photo’s….. they belong to the mysterious & mystical entity known as the internet!!)
The Vanishing Season (also known as The Moment Collector)
Score 3.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Recommended for those who like contemporary romances & tragedies. This is not thriller or a creepy ghost story, (although there are ghosts in it.) It is instead a coming of age story, with beautifully written characters & atmospheric prose. It genuinely & successfully captures some of the most precious moments of youth. With first love, tragic heartbreak, cruel betrayals & a realistic love triangle. The beginning may be slow, but the 2nd half is engaging. In total, this novel is moving, sad & beautiful
Recommended for those who like short, imaginative & twisted fairytales, with bits of dark humor, fantasy & mystery. This evocative novella is creative, enchanting & nostalgic (in that it reminded me of the magic I once believed in as a child). The synopsis makes this sound like a thriller, but it’s not, it’s much more subtle than that. The book is based on the idea that there are hundreds of magical worlds, with secret doors that will only open for certain children and typically spit them back out after they’ve become “too old”.
It’s got a slow pace & the characters & worlds feel under developed. Also the characters are detached from reality some readers might not be able to connect.
(The kids seem detached because they no longer feel at home in this world, and spend most of their time wanting to find a way back in.)
However, the fact that it’s so whimsical, charming, weird, poetic & strange makes up for everything. With a rich prose, deep insights & fantastical magic, you will be desperate for more… long after you stumble down this rabbit hole.
-Keep in mind that this novel is quite short, and that it ends too soon. But on the bright side there are 2 more book in this series that will be coming out next over the next 2 years. One book is about Jacqueline and Jill’s trip to a wild and wicked world. And the other book doesn’t yet have a synopsis……….. I can’t wait!
First off, ignore the synopsis on the back of the book, It’s entirely misleading! This is not a thriller or an action packed rivalry. Instead it’s an enchanting story told in 3rd person omniscient about a traveling circus.
The simple, slow plot, & lack of character development, knocks this down 1 whole star. The romance was lackluster (until the very end) and so was the plot. Also the timeline and narration jumps were dizzying and so hard to keep straight!! 😕 I wanted this to be so much better!!
But nevertheless it still gets 4 stars simply because of how rich and enchanting the circus is. With such an ethereal and dreamlike quality, I often find myself daydreaming about this marvelous and magical circus. If it were real, I would lose myself there for an eternity and never wish for anything more.
Recommended for those who like spellbinding imagery and dream logic that captivates the imagination and stirs the senses. Night Circus is atmospheric, charismatic and brimming with descriptive and tantalizing magic.
Recommended for those who love the bizarre ramblings of Alice in Wonderland (the original books, not the movies). This novel is WEIRD, so if you love originality & total nonsense & want something unpredictable & unique, this book is for you!
It’s a dark, enchanting, outlandish & creative retelling of an old Russian fairytale about Baba Yaga & Vassilissa. However it’s a retelling in the vaguest sense of the word, as Sarah Porter only uses the characters from the Russian tale and deviates from there. Vassa and her magic doll Erg are totally lovable and well written, as they try to outwit Baba Yaga and bring back the sunlight to a dark and dreary Brooklyn.
The pace is a tad slow, but it’s full of creepy creatures, vivid imagery, mild gore & strange magic. This fantasy starts off a little odd, as it’s set in a magical version of Brooklyn NY. The plot is wholly unpredictable (and can be a little hard to follow at times) but is a fun, and wild adventure for those who love originality.
(Not recommended if you don’t like nonsense.)
….And yes, that is me in my Halloween costume as Ariel 🙂
This quirky, charming and lighthearted coming of age novel is Recommended if you want a contemporary novel that defies all rationality.
Let’s Get Lost centers around an upbeat vagabond girl traveling through the U.S. named Leila. (You can just refer to her as the typical “Manic Pixie Dream Girl” trope). More than a third of the book is told through the eyes of various teenagers that Leila meets. Who all almost instantly adore and admire Leila’s charm and wit. (Which to be honest, can be a bit annoying.) Also the fact that she somehow manages to get everyone to open up, so she can fix their lives (with insights that normal teenagers don’t typically posses) is a too big of a pill to swallow.
However, one could argue that these same reasons are exactly what makes this novel stand out.
The reader spends so much time admiring mysterious Leila, and watching how she affects the lives around her, it keeps the reader guessing, trying to unravel who she really is. It actually end up being pretty fun, trying to get to know this bubbly stranger. (As long as you don’t think about how unrealistic, cliche and cheesy everything is). As I read, I found myself wishing I could take a road trip like this, so I could make amazing connections because the world is a friendly, magical and safe to explore. (A girl can dream right?!)
So if you want to forget about real life for a while & imagine yourself on a road trip, where Insta-love is real, coincidences are normal, adventure waits around every corner & happy endings come easily to those who persevere…..Then you’ll (probably) love this heartwarming, cheesy & fun book.
This novel is historical fiction that is part romance, part fantasy, part adventure & totally ridiculous. Set in medieval times, this is the untold, untrue story of the 9 day Queen of England, Known as Lady Jane.
Imagine if The Princess Bride were mashed with Jane Austen and My Lady Jane is what you’ll get.
This unexpectedly amusing novel is hilarious in a subtle, quiet and weird way. And it’s full of wit, charm & outrageously silly dialogue. However the pacing is off, sometimes slowly dragging and other times speeding along. And while this may seem somewhat predictable and the plot is nothing new, it’s really recommended to those who don’t take things too seriously & those who adore lighthearted silly spoofs.
Recommended for those who like suspenseful murder mysteries with a frightening twist. This novel tells the intense story of 3 well written, believably selfish & totally screwed up women.
While this is creepier than Gone Girl, it’s not quite as good. So ignore the hype & lower your expectations and you will probably enjoy this page turner!
However if you’re more of a cynic (like me) then read on;
I personally found this novel to be dull, slow paced, easily predictable & really not that interesting.
Also all the male characters feel forced, unrealistic & unexplained. I mean really…. all the men in this book are portrayed as villainous and acting impulsive and irrational, treating others unfairly with little explanation as to why. And yet the women are written to be flawed, self absorbed assholes, and yet their behavior is constantly explained pr justified. That really irritated me.
I will admit the twist at the end, was surprising, thrilling and frightening, but is it really worth it to read a book where the 2/3rds of it are tediously boring, just for a shocking twist and hurried explanation at the end?
