Shannon
Enchanted to Meet You by Meg Cabot was a funny and enjoyable fantasy romantic comedy with excellent fall vibes in a cozy small town, perfect for the Halloween season. Enchanted to Meet You stars a witch named Jessica who lives in a small Connecticut town and owns a cute clothing boutique. The fun begins shortly before Halloween when Derrick comes into her shop and tells her about a prophecy that might involve her. This book had delightful main characters as well as great side character friends. It also has some flashbacks to events from Jessica's high school days, and has chapters from the perspectives of both Jessica and Derrick. Meg Cabot's narrative style is friendly, light, and funny. If you're looking for a fun romantic comedy to read this fall, Enchanted to Meet You is a great choice. Tropes/themes: fake dating, witches, small town in peril, Halloween season, forced proximity, mid-2000s high school flashbacks, dual timeline, multiple POVs, romantic comedy Thank you to NetGalley and @Avonbooks for my digital Advance Reader Copy in exchange for my honest review.
The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty is a great historical fantasy adventure. Amina Al-Sirafi is a middle-aged piratey sea captain who is persuaded out of retirement and away from her daughter. What she thinks will be a fact finding and rescue mission to recover the daughter of a former crewman turns into a full scale supernatural adventure. This book had a lovely, satisfying ending. Open ended with room for more stories, but not in a cliffhanger way. I got my book from Book of the Month Club and read it in hardcover, as well as listening to the audiobook for some of it.
I never marked this book as “reading”. My bad.
This has nothing to do with how good the book was, but this is the second time I've been reading a Riordan book thinking that it was the last in a series only to realize near the end of the book that it's clearly not the end of the series.
I enjoy this series, and liked this book too.
Fourth Wing was a wild ride. I enjoyed the dragon-centered fantasy adventure and the romance. The narrative style is a bit more crass and profane* than I prefer, but I was easily pulled in by the world, story, and characters. And, of course, the dragons! I think I hit the point of “can't put it down” at about the 60% mark. I flew through it and preordered the sequel.
It feels like the entire internet is reading Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros this summer, which is definitely part of the fun.
*The narrative style was a big contrast to the book that I read before this, The Secret Book of Flora Lee, which is more of a lyrical, atmospheric prose style of book.
This is the second graphic novel memoir that I've read. The other was George Takei's They Called Us Enemy. Some thoughts about Persepolis • A story of something in the historically recent past that I knew very little about • Told from a unique perspective • The graphic novel format is interesting and tells the story at a fast pace • A sad, difficult story with violence discussed • A cautionary tale about fundamentalism • Builds empathy for the people inside countries with oppressive governments who are engagedin war I started reading Persepolis when there was a discussion about it among our district's school board. The book had been approved by our literature review committee and gone to a test class. The last step was for the board to give final approval, but some school board members expressed concern about derogatory language toward women. In the end, they approved the book. I'm glad that this book will be part of core curriculum for 11th grade students. The derogatory language? This happened maybe three times and always from the “bad guys”.
This book feels like hanging out with an old friend. It's so funny and relatable. It's kind of therapeutic. .
I enjoy a book that's a bit later in a series where basically the “romance” plot has already happened and the couple you've been following is married. It's really nice to check in on them a couple years later. Other stuff happens, but there's no relationship drama. They're just doing regular married people stuff.
The only real downside is that it kind of ends as if the pandemic was over after a year, when here we are three years later, with COVID not “over”.
Another great read from Rick Riordan. The Apollo POV was so funny! Answered a couple questions left at the end of Blood of Olympus too. I'll have to look back at the quotes I highlighted. I look forward to the next installment!
Christian POV note: This book also reminded me of how awesome Jesus is. Though He was God, He humbled himself as a human by choice, served, and gave His life for us willingly.
I have that feeling you get at the end of a long series. It's strange that it's over!
I made a point to reread the whole Heroes of Olympus series before this book. I was trying to do it before the final book came out, but I was still 1.5 books behind when release day came. I managed to keep myself rereading before diving into the new book, and I'm glad I did. I didn't remember the first couple of books very well and I felt like I really knew the characters much better.
SpoilerI think it's interesting that there were no chapters from Percy or Annabeth's POVs, but the first book in this series didn't have Percy in it at all, so maybe it was a bookending thing. I did feel like, after a book full of scenes with Percy/Annabeth alone together in House of Hades, there wasn't enough resolution for them without any of their POVs.
I'm really glad that Leo ended up with Calypso after he “died”
Rick Riordan announced a series called “Magnus Chase and the gods of Asgard” which is obviously Norse mythology, but people also wondered if he's related to Annabeth Chase. There was a throwaway comment made by Annabeth about an uncle and cousin in Boston that she hasn't seen in a long time. I'm guessing that's the tie-in.
Last night, I read a short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery(author of Anne of Green Gables) from 1903 called The Strike at Putney.
It's about a group of church ladies who are told by their church elders and minister that a missionary woman cannot speak in the church, because a woman cannot preach from the pulpit.
So they go on strike. They stop organizing socials to raise money, don't set fresh flowers out in the church, or clean and dust the church. The organist doesn't play, and no women sing in the choir. “You know if a woman isn't fit to speak in the church she can't be fit to sing in it either.” The Strike at Putney by L. M. Montgomery The men last two weeks.
I was delighted to read this story from 120 years ago about women opposing patriarchalism in church.
A delightful collection of short stories by Rainbow Rowell. A few that I had already read. • Midnights - New Years Eve story. Have already read and loved. Also in My True Love Gave To Me. • Kindred Spirits - Previously published, but I hadn't read it yet. About a girl waiting in line for Star Wars The Force Awakens in 2015. Really cute. • Winter Songs for Summer - Set in what must be, like, 1999/2000ish on a college campus. Really cute story featuring mix CDs. • The Snow Ball - (skipped because it seemed Christmassy and I wanted to save it until after Thanksgiving) Cute. I like the weird best friends and Star Trek is obviously better than Prom. True Story: The day of my senior prom, I was at a theatre festival. • If the Fates Allow - Read last year and loved. About Christmas 2020. • The Prince and the Troll - Weird and fun. A sort of fantasy story about a bridge troll who I think turned out to be a mermaid, but her river had dried up. Because of the road. • Mixed Messages - I decided to read this, even though I haven't read Attachments. It was an enjoyable story that was mostly a text message conversation between two friends who are women nearing their fifties. • *Snow for Christmas - the Simon Snow story. Haven't read those books, but have read Fangirl. I skipped this one. • In Waiting - This was like being inside of Rainbow Rowell's head. It was really funny at the beginning. It was really interesting and reflective as it progressed.
There was a big gap between when I actually started this book and finishing it. I kind of abandoned it over the holidays. By the time I had recovered from said holidays and realized I haven't finished this book I was pretty close to the end. The end definitely grabbed me though and things were clicking into place about the story even though it had been over a month since I had read most of it. If you liked the Percy Jackson series, this is worth reading.
It was nostalgic, with depth. I appreciate the themes of video games and theatre, and the friendship love story. I actually related to a lot of things in this book.I married a game developer. I loved doing theatre in high school and college. I'm 9-10 years younger than the main characters, so their childhood and college years were a different timeframe, technologically, but most were timeframes that I remembered nostalgically. I don't know what the overlap is between those who have read this book and those who have participated in game development, but most of the reviews I'm seeing are from people who say they don't know too much about games. That's fine, but I'm just curious. Like, how many other people have read this book that have also, for example, opened Unreal Engine? Is it just me?
Book Lovers was an ideal summer read. My favorite part of Book Lovers was the many excellent book references and book loving quotes. Books are the best, aren't they? The funny writing in Book Lovers hooked me from the beginning, and I loved the characters and sister relationship. This book gave love to both small towns and big cities, and had a satisfying frenemies-to-lovers type romance.