Category Archives: Book Reviews

01Nov/16

Here’s the Thing by Emily O’Beirne, 3 stars

downloadHere’s the Thing has a lot of things I like in a book. Lesbians, duel time lines, and Australia. Okay, so Australia didn’t matter too much in this book, but I still enjoy it.

Half this book is about Zel finding and falling for Prim in NYC, while the other half is her recovering from a broken heart in Sydney after things don’t go so well with Prim and she has to move back to Australia with her parents. The two stories shift pretty much chapter by chapter. I generally love this in a book. This time, the Prim half of the story didn’t do it for me and it slowed my reading down. I don’t know if it’s because I pretty much knew their loved was doomed or what, but I just couldn’t get into that half.

Now, the part where Zel is finding her place in Sydney is great.  The author captured the stress of starting at a new school, making new friends, and hopefully meeting a new special someone perfectly. I sped through those chapters. I liked Zel, her family, and her friends. They all seemed much more real than Prim. Prim is basically that cool, angsty girl we’ve all fallen for, but she’s so closed off even from Zel that it takes a long time to care about her at all. By the time I cared, her part was basically over.

Overall this was a good read, but I would have preferred to read more about Zel falling for the next girl instead of reading about her falling for the last girl. Still, I’ll definitely be looking for more works by this author. I enjoyed her writing style.

02Nov/15

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, 5 stars

carry onFull disclosure that I am in love with Rainbow Rowell. Everything she writes is sheer perfection and this is no exception. I think you probably have to read Fangirl to really get it, but maybe I’m wrong.

Anyway, this fleshes out the world of mages that we are introduced to in Fangirl’s fanfiction. Now, the whole time I read that book I was wanting to know more about this world, so it’s pretty clear this book needed to exist, at least in my mind. Rowell did a good job writing what it supposed to be the end of a series (In the other world) and making it something easy to dive into. There was enough back story to make you feel like you knew the characters.

This next bit gets a touch spoilery

I loved that Baz was the one who had the long lingering feelings for Simon, it wasn’t the way I expected it to play out. They were adorable together. It does read a little bit like fanfiction in that these two were supposed to hate each other and kill one another, but wait the bad guy has been harboring a secret crush the whole time! But again, maybe this is because we aren’t getting the whole series. Maybe starting in book one we would have seen Baz dealing with these feelings. Clearly the big issue here is that Rowell didn’t set off to write the full six book series.

If she wants to go back at book one and start, I support her.

Seriously, the way Rowell builds people is just perfect, they never fail to feel real even when she is writing about a world that is so unreal.

Read everything she’s ever written.

21Oct/15

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume, 5 stars

I’m not one of thunlikelyose people who loved Judy Blume growing up. But I’ve read my fair share and this book caught my eye. I’m so happy I picked it up. It’s as near perfect as a book can be. I love books that feel like you’ve just slipped into someone’s skin and this has that feeling down to perfection for every character’s POV. And there are a lot of POVs in this!

For some people that gets too confusing, but it worked for me. Maybe that had to do with having the audio book, I’m not sure. This book still had a main character in Miri, and all the other POVs only serve to flesh out her story and demonstrate how tangled up our lives become with one another.

Miri herself is great. It’s a coming of age novel and she starts as your basic almost fifteen-year-old worried about nothing more than school and friends. The growth to her character and those around her over the course of the story was awesome. Having three real life plane crashes be the catalyst for the changes that occur was an interesting choice. I think it plays well because it is true and Blume lived where it happened and saw first hand what the fear did to people.

Not a book to read on a plane, but otherwise snatch it right up!

01Oct/15

The Dickens Mirror, by Ilsa J Bick 4 Stars

DickensGood, but not as good as the first. The first one had me thinking Stephen King all over the place. I think the setting of this one just didn’t work for me as well.

I think it picks up pretty much where the first one ended(it’s been a while) and I had little trouble getting back into the characters, but by half way through the book gets very confusing, especially on an audiobook since you can’t easily flip back to check stuff. My brain started to hurt thinking about how hard it must have been to write. It kind of made it hard to care about the characters too much because I was spending so much time trying to figure out what was even going on.

Once things got straightened out in my head I thought it ended strong. The ending totally makes you feel a little loopy like you aren’t sure what real is, and I’m pretty sure that was Bick’s goal.

Without a doubt worth a read, but I’d suggest skipping the audiobook! (Even though it is read really well!)