Sandra

Sadly I dnf'ed this book. The book feel short for me. Just not my cup of tea.

Cute, quick, easy. Perfect for a 3-year-old with a short attention span.

I honestly do not know. I don't know if it is because I have grown as a reader, if I am bored with these type of books or something.
To me, it felt like something was missing. Not bad, i guess it was just not my cup of tea.

I have never finished this book. I have attempted to read this book so many times since it was turned into a movie. I always end at the last few chapters due to me being personally bored. I never understood the hype around the book or the movie, but that is just my opinion. Take it with a grain of salt. If you like the book or want to read it. Then do so. Do not let my opinion stop you from reading this book or any book.

Not bad but after being in the military. I see where the present day military's took some ideas and methods from.

*Edit 2024:
I guess not having a star rating on a book means that others send aggressive DMs.

So my overall rating is 1.5/2 stars.

Initial review from 2023:

Let me first start with this:

1) I will not leave a star rating mark on Goodreads. But... If I were to give this book a rating it would be a low rating, but since it is a debut novel/indie published. The highest and lowest rating I will give is 3 stars.

2) I was recommended this book by a mutual friend in the book community because she saw it on TikTok and wanted my thoughts about it. Now, I do have to say that I have a thing about reading TikTok books because 90% of the time they are over-promoted and horrible in some way, shape, or form. Then there is that 10% chance that a TikTok book is a hidden gem.
However, with this book, This was not one of those hidden gems, but... It was not the worst TikTok book I have picked up.

3) If one is easily offended by negative reviews or low ratings then ignore this review. This is not for those people.

Let us finally begin the review.

The Vivian Priestess by Katrina Calandra

Worldbuilding:

sigh

When it comes to books with 350–400 pages, I do expect the said book to have a good amount of quality world-building. In my opinion, the world-building for The Vivian Priestess is lacking immensely. We have three worlds. Three... Yet, all the information we have about these three worlds is surface-level

I do understand that this is a debut book, and a second book is on its way. But... the lack of world-building almost made me DNF this book before 20%.

The pacing of the book/characters:

This is 100% a slow burn. It was so slow that it took me months to finish this book. However, when it came to the pacing of the characters and the relationships between them, it was rushed. This was confusing and almost gave me whiplash.

I also hate to say this, but every character was... forgettable. For me, I need my characters to have depth. And these characters didn't have much of that.
I could not connect to any of the characters on an emotional level. At times, I even found myself skimming an area of pointless monologue or speaking out loud for Ferren to shut up. However, the overall interactions between characters were okay.

As for growth and development, it was almost nonexistent, but I also did not expect this book to have it because, well... TikTok “romance” books. That is why I mentioned something about TikTok books earlier.

Writing:

I don't like criticizing this area because... Well. I stink in the grammar, spelling, and sentence structure areas. However, the writing reminded me of a rough draft before you send it to an editor. However, this is not the worst writing I have seen. The worst writing I have seen comes from a traditionally published book.

Smut:

sigh

Stuff starts to happen sometime around the 62%–70% mark for like 6–10 pages. It was very vanilla and boring. However, this could be a personal issue because I come from a place that reads dark romance.

There is an audience for this book, but I am not that audience.

... I read this for the book of the month for the book club and I actually disliked this book.

It was extremely boring. Like... I it was so boring that I was falling asleep during the reading sprints.

I love this book.
The illustrations are stunning.
The story and message are beautiful but in certain parts, it does feel rushed/forgotten. I wish there was more to this story.
Overall, it is a great story for young children and reminds them to keep trying even if they have failed. Failure is a part of the process of learning.

I was finally able to get around to reading the ARC that I was provided with.
Overview:

We encounter an 18-year-old girl named Dylan that wakes up in an apartment that is unrecognizable to her. She is greeted by other people. However, she has no idea who they are. Dylan can get her hands on a phone to call home. This is when she learns that she has been missing for a few days. On top of that, Dylan has no recollection. Eventually, she is diagnosed with DID.
Throughout the book. She learns more about herself, how to stand up to her abuser, and how to work together with her system.

Be mindful when you read this. This is marketed towards YA but it is on the border between adults and YA. There is some material within this book that is not suitable for everyone. Pieces of Me contains mature content that relates to the following:

Sexual Assult

Self-harm

Substance abuse

Trauma/Mental health

This is the first book by Kate McLaughlin that I have read and I can say that it was enjoyable. Since I am no expert on DID I can not tell you if Dylan's experience is true or not. However, Kate McLaughlin researched this topic (I appreciate seeing all the material she looked at to create this story). She did a great job with how she handed DID within this story. It did not feel rushed, stereotypical, or demonized. However, I do wish there was more about the disorder within the book.

I have recommended this book with caution to several of my friends who have Dissociative identity disorder to see their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and perspectives. This is a fascinating book that is worth reading.

This is a fantastic graphic novel for middle-grade readers. The illustrations are large, clean, and easy to read. This graphic novel has a storyline that can. I will let my kid read this when he is older.

Why is this book as adorable as it is? It is a picture book that has verses that follow the boy around who has lost his teddy bear. The little boy is trying to find that lost bear in the middle of the night. During his quest to find this bear he meets new and unexpected companions. Monsters have been found but they are not those scary monsters that are under the bed. They are monsters that want to help find the teddy bear and understand that no one will have a comfortable sleeping without their teddy bear. So, they help look as well.


Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of Where Is my Bear?

In my opinion, I don't understand the “hype” aka love this gets. For years, people have always told me to “read the Iliad. It's amazing”. And... I have put it off until this month.
There are parts I enjoyed but that was limited. Most of the time was spent bored reading. And... I'm going to say that the reason why I didn't fully like Iliad was because I'm not a Greek mythology person.

Thank you to Quarto Publishing Group – Frances Lincoln Children's Books and NetGalley for providing me with a copy to read.
Overall the book is adorable. June and her family moved into a new place and one night she discovers the Lucky cat and the secret magic it possesses. Both of them try to get everything ready to open but they soon realize that things did not always go according to plan. That plot is repeated several times because that family overcomes a lot on their journey to opening a family business. Eventaully, they do fine their way.

My 2 year old love it (it is his current phase). He did destroy the book after he was done coloring in it (scribbling aggressively). It took him about a month to scribble on all the pages and less than a week to destroy it lol.
Overall good coloring book because of how “big” it is compared to other coloring books. Tips do not give to a toddler that loves to be destructive with paper lol.

Decent

It's cute and has nice illustrations for kids under 2.

sigh

Every time I read this for class I become more annoyed. sigh

My child got this from the library. We read it and the kid enjoyed it.
It's a typical children's book nice art work with few words on the actual pages. The plot is okay nothing bad or positive, just... okay.
Would I read this again? Depends if my child wants to read it again and so far the kid says... No. I've asked several times over the last 7 days.

Not bad for a three year old or younger but... It felt like pages are missing or ideas are missing.
First, it talks about a science fair coming up and the little kid has never won one. Then it quickly goes into “trying to trap a dinosaur”. The dinosaur avoids the first trap then by the second trap the story feels off or missing. This continues until the very end.
Decent though, needs work.

For some reason, I enjoyed this book for class. It provided a different view when observing Psychopaths. Still a mundane class read but it was interesting.

I do not like leaving negative reviews for books that I do not personally like an I have been having a hard to to effectively communicate my thoughts on this book.

So, i will just say this book does have an audience that will find this enjoyable. This book was not for me.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance copy of the audiobook!! I am sorry this took me so long to review.
I DNF'ed this around 70% because I found it to be slow and with little character development. The plot of the book is the saving grace. However, it was not enough for me to complete this read. I did love the first book but I struggled with this one.

Thank you, NetGalley for allowing me to review this book.

I remember reading the book The Rainbow Fish a long time ago and I enjoyed it. This book however has several other Rainbow Fish stories within this one book. This is a beautiful book with illustrations that provides good life lessons for young children.


Stories within:
The Rainbow fish
Rainbow Fish and The Big Blue Whale
Rainbow Fish Discovers The Deep Sea
You Can't Win Them All, Rainbow Fish
Good Night, Little Rainbow Fish

There is a section called Fun And Games for children and adults to do together. This also provides a references list.

Since the majority of the population knows the story of The rainbow fish I will not touch on that story.

Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale:

Rainbow Fish and his friends encounter a whale while they were eating krill. The fish hurt the whale's feelings so the whale becomes angry. The Rainbow fish eventually finds the courage to speak to the whale to resolve the conflict.

Rainbow Fish Discovers the Deep sea:

Rainbow Fish had one of its shiny scales fall off and it fell into the deep sea. A place where no fish go. Due to determination Rainbow fish went after it until he lost sight of scale. He meets and works with other animals that reside within the sea for him to find the missing scale.

You Can't Win Them All, Rainbow fish:
This story has Rainbow Fish playing a child's game with his friends. He got mad during the game and thought it was unfair. One of his friends explains that he is being a poor sport and should change.

Good night, little Rainbow Fish:

This story talks about being afraid to sleep so he seeks comfort from his parent until he falls asleep.

This book is absolutely adorable for children to be entertained with. This is a silly book for kids to enjoy reading or having it be read to them by someone else. The illustrations are funny.