Friday, December 29, 2017

Favourite Reads of 2017


Today I will be sharing my top ten favourite books that I read in 2017. So far I read 86 books and I enjoyed the majority of them. In fact I struggled making this list so I do have honorable mentions at the end. I tried to make this list in some kind of order from my least favourite of the favourites to my absolute favourite. I also cheated a little and if I read more than one book in a particular series I grouped them together. We are also not including rereads on this list which is why Harry Potter is not on it.



#10 The Thousandth Floor and The Dazzling Heights by Katharine McGee

The Thousandth Floor (The Thousandth Floor, #1)
I read both of these books this year and loved them! The Thousandth Floor is actually my first read of the year. This book takes place in New York in the future. In New York there is a building that has 1,000 floors and we follow 5 characters who live in that building. I don't want to say much about it but yes you need to read this book. I will say this trilogy won't be for everyone. There is a lot of drama in it and some of the characters can be annoying at times but the books are addictive and very entertaining and I loved it!


#9 Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Salt to the Sea I was the biggest fan of historical fiction till recently and part of the reason was because of the Author Ruta Sepetys. I love her writing and her other book Between Shades of Grey and yes I loved this one even more. Salt to Sea follows 4 different character during World War II. This book taught me about events that I never knew happened during the war. It is also obvious that Sepetys did research before writing this book and I really appreciated that fact. This is by far my favourite historical fiction read ever and I cannot wait for her next book. If you love historical fiction you need to read this book or any Ruta Sepetys book.


#8 The Darkest Magic by Morgan Rhodes

The Darkest Magic (Spirits and Thieves, #2) I read the A Book of Spirits and Thieves last year and I really loved it. I finally decided to pick this book up and I think I love it even more than the first book! The Darkest Magic is the second book in the A Book of Spirits and Thieves trilogy. I think it is a trilogy correct me if I am wrong. Due to the fact that it is a second book in a series I can't really give a synopsis of the book. If you were wondering whether or not you can read this series before or after the Falling Kingdoms series it doesn't matter. You can read this series without even reading the Falling Kingdoms series but both are amazing and you should read both of them. The Darkest Magic easily got a spot on this list. I love the characters and the world basically everything about it. 


#7 A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas

A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2)I read both ACOTAR and ACOMAF this year however ACOTAR did not make it onto this list. Sarah J. Maas is one of my favourite authors so I am not surprised that ACOMAF made it on the list. This is the second book in the ACOTAR trilogy following Rhysand and Feyre. Fun fact Rhysand is not on my top ten favourite male characters of all time he is though on my 11th favourite. I know an unpopular opinion. I enjoyed this book so much more than the first one though. The Night Court and the Inner circle are absolutely amazing. I am excited to continue on with the series. The second half of the book though was just wow.


#6 Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson

Second Chance Summer I absolutely love Morgan Matson's books and when I saw that this book was available on Overdrive I had to pick it up and it became and instant favourite. Second Chance Summer follows a girl name Taylor Edwards and her dad receives terrible news and her parents decide that they would spend the summer at their lake house one last time as a whole family. It is a cute summer contemporary book that has some romance in it as well as family. Yes family plays a big part of this book and I think that is one of the reasons why I love this book so much. The characters were also amazing and I really loved this book and I remembered after I finished it I literally recommended it to all my book loving friends. I also read The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson and I did enjoying it just didn't make the list.


#5 Crystal Storm by Morgan Rhodes 

Crystal Storm (Falling Kingdoms, #5)Yes another Morgan Rhodes book made it on my list. I can't give much of a synopsis for this book because it is a sequel (5th in the series). The Falling Kingdoms series is known to be the YA version of Game of Thrones so for you Game of Throne lovers you may want to check this series out. The first four books are on my all time favourite books list for there is no surprise that this one also made it on the list. The world of Mytica is amazing and the characters are phenomenal. I also need more Magnus and Cleo in my life. I cannot recommend this series enough and cannot wait for Immortal Reign to come out. Also have you seen that cover! I am fangirling so hard right now.


#4 Warcross by Marie Lu 

Warcross (Warcross, #1)Yes I still haven't read the Young Elites trilogy yet but I just had to pick up Warcross. I heard so many good things about it and had high expectations going into it and I was absolutely blown away. When you have high expectations going into a book and those expectations were exceeded, you know you read a good book. Also note that the author said this book takes place ten years from now. I am still not over it. Basically Warcross is a virtual reality world. Emika Chen is struggling to pay rent and is a bounty hunter trying tracking those who use the game illegally. When Emika is is need to make money fast and accidentally glitches herself into the Warcross opening game. Instead of getting arrested, she is contacted by the creator game to spy in the tournament to fix a security problem. If that does not sound interesting I don't know what is. I loved this book so much and cannot wait for the next book 


#3 Stalking Jack the Ripper and Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco

Stalking Jack the Ripper (Stalking Jack the Ripper, #1)Stalking Jack the Ripper was a surprise favourite. I read this book around the beginning of the year and I read Hunting Prince Dracula around October. I loved both of them instantly. I cannot decide which one I loved more. Stalking Jack the Ripper follows a girl name Audrey Rose Wadsworth and she lived in London during the time of Jack the Ripper and gets very interested in the cases. One thing I love about her is that she is a strong character and she works in her uncle's laboratory to practice forensic medicine even though it wasn't considered lady like. She didn't care what others thought and I really liked that. Also Thomas Cresswell is definitely one of the most swoon worthy guys I read about in a very long time. I highly recommend this book especially during the Halloween time.


#2 A Darker Shade of Magic and A Gathering Shadows by V.E. Schwab

A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1) I heard so many amazing things about this series and I knew A Darker Shade of Magic would become and instant favourite but I didn't expect to love it as much as I did. In this world there are parallel Londons which are named after colors. Black, Red, White, and Grey. Kell is from Red London where magic and society is flourishing. He is one of the last remaining Antaris who can travel between Londons. There is also another character named Lila Bard and I love Lila so freaking much. I also love Kell and Rhy and basically I love all the characters. I haven't read the last book yet because I don't want the trilogy to end. Of course I know that V.E. Schwab is writing some sort of spin off series and I am super excited for that and I cannot wait to read the last book even though I am so nervous to read.


#1 Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare 

Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2)If you have been following me on Instagram (@andreasbookishthoughts) you probably know I love Lord of Shadows. This book had all the feels. Yes you do need to read The Infernal Devices, The Mortal Instruments, and Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy first. Lord of Shadows may also be my second favourite Cassandra Clare book! I love the characters especially Kit. I wasn't a fan of him in the first book but now I freaking love him and he may be my favourite character in this series. It keeps changing. The ending though. I won't say too much but as soon as I finished this book I knew this book was going to by my favourite of the year.


Honorable Mentions

This section is in no particular order

1) Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
2) Simon vs. The Homo sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
3) Geekerella by Ashley Poston
4) The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
5) Wires and Nerves by Marissa Meyer


So those are my favourite reads of the year 2017. I already posted my most disappointing reads of the year which you can find here. I still have a few other end of the year posts coming. What are some of your favourite reads this year? Hope to see you in my next post! 

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Invictus Review

InvictusTitle: Invictus
Author: Ryan Graudin
My rating: 4/5 stars
Date Read: 12/18/17

Invictus is the first Ryan Graudin book I read and I loved it. I am not a big fan of of time travel books as I didn't enjoy most of the ones that I have read. I actually haven't heard a lot about this book and I don't think a lot of people read it. Definitely an under hyped book.

Invictus is kind of hard to explain without spoiling it but it is best to go into this book without knowing too much but here is a small synopsis. We follow four different characters who are aboard a ship called the Invictus. The main character is Farway and he is born outside of time and is the son of a time traveler. He fails his entrance exam into the governments program and ends up taking a job in the black market stealing valuables from the past.

This book is very unique or at least I found it very different from the other books I have read in the past. Maybe it is because I am not a fan of time travel books and don't read them often.

I absolutely love the characters. I love how all the characters are close and work so well together. All of them are unique and have there own special talent. Imogen (I think) has a pet red panda. I repeat pet red panda. That made the book twenty times better. I also really liked Imogen. Gram is one of my favourites in this book for some reason. I think it is because he can solve Rubik's cubes. For those of you who never tried to solve a Rubik's cube, they are extremely hard to solve. About three years ago I finally learned to solve it and now it is very easy and I can solve it under 3 minutes. I never read a book with a character that also liked to solve Rubik's cubes so I found that very unique.

The missions were very interesting. I would say that I enjoyed both halves of the book, though I did like the second half a lot more. I found the very beginning of the books slow and a bit confusing. It took me a couple chapters to fully understand the world and how everything works but once I understood it I fell in love with the story. The time travel element is so cool and the other thing that I can not say due to spoilers is amazing.

Overall I do recommend this book and more people need to read it!

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Sunday, December 24, 2017

The Upside of Unrequited Review

The Upside of UnrequitedTitle: The Upside of Unrequited
Author:Becky Albertalli
My rating: 4 /5 stars
Date Read:12/13/17
I read Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda in very early this year and loved it. When I heard Becky Albertalli was coming out with a new book I had to read it and I finally picked it up and I really enjoyed it. I didn't like it as much as Simon but I still liked it. Also I do recommend reading Simon before this book because there is a character from Simon that appears in The Upside of Unrequited unless it is just a coincidence that a character has the same first and last name.

The Upside of Unrequited has a lot of diversity in it. I won't be listing everything but I will talk about some of the diversity elements that the book contains. First off the main character has two moms. I have never read a book that any character has two moms. The main characters family is Jewish as well. Some more of the representation will be mentioned later in this review.

The main character in this book is Molly. Molly is very close to her twin sister Cassie. They share everything together. Yes we have siblings who are literally best friends in this book and it plays a very important role in this book. I am actually an only child so I don't exactly have a relationship with siblings because I obviously don't have any but I still love this element of the story. Molly had 26 crushes in her lifetime but she never told a single one of her crushes that she likes him.

Molly is also insecure about her body as she is fat. She also has/had anxiety and takes medication for it. I like how this book doesn't shy away from it. One thing I also appreciated is that the characters are realistic and very believable.

A better review of this books is Cece from ProblemsOfaBookNerd so here is the link to her review if you would like to read this. She also has the list of the representation. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Overall I did really enjoy this book and highly recommend it.



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Saturday, December 23, 2017

Most Disappointing Reads of 2017

Today I will be talking about my least favourite/most disappointing reads of 2017. I read 84 books this year so far and I am so happy with that number. There is still a few more days till the new year so that number may go up. Please note it is okay to love the books on this list. Everyone has their own opinions and please respect mine. I will also be doing a favourite reads of the year of the year soon.

First lets talk about the DNFs. I DNFed three books this year. These do not include the books that I plan on going back to.

Ever the Hunted (Clash of Kingdoms, #1)
The first book I DNFed is Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill. I wanted to love this book so badly but I could not stand it. I didn't like the characters and I wasn't invested in the story. I stopped reading around page 90. I just couldn't finish it. The premise of the book sounded interesting and I heard good things about it. I am very sad that I didn't enjoy it. This book just wasn't for me and I hope those who read it enjoyed it more.



Three Dark Crowns (Three Dark Crowns, #1)The next book that I really really wanted to enjoy was Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake. I heard so many good things about this book and the synopsis sounded so good. I love fantasy books and I thought I would love this book but I could not finish it. I was really bored while reading it and also I could not get past the writing style. I tried so hard to ignore it and enjoy the the story but it annoyed me so much. This book is just not for me but so many people love it and I really wish I could of been one of them. Also the cover is gorgeous. I do plan on reading Blake's other books in the future and I would hopefully like it more.

UprootedThe final book I DNFed this year I was so sad to DNF. I heard so many good things about it and I wanted to love it so much and the book is Uprooted by Naomi Novik. I wanted to read this book ever since I first heard about it but I was so bored while reading it. Nothing happened and I didn't care about the characters. I tried so hard to keep pushing myself to finish it but honestly I gave up. Overall this book is just not for me.



So those are the three books I DNFed this year. I hope that one day I will have the motivation to pick these books up again but at the moment I plan on just leaving them unfinished. Onto my most disappointing reads that I finished.



A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy, #1)The first book on my list is a Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I gave this book 1/5 stars. I am so surprised I finished it. So many people love this series and I wanted to be one of them. When I heard this book was becoming a TV show I just had to read the books and this book wasn't what I expected. A Discovery of Witches is very romance heavy and doesn't have a lot of action. I also thought it could of been  lot shorter. I wish I loved it just like most people but it wasn't for me.



Passenger (Passenger, #1)The next book is Passenger by Alexandra Bracken which I gave 2/5 stars. I enjoyed her book The Darkest Minds and I still need to finish that series but I was very disappointed when I read this one. My friend read and loved this book and overall I was disappointed. I didn't hate it I only thought it was okay. It could of been a lot better. I have not decided whether or not I will be reading the second book yet. I may since it is only a duology.




Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of VillainyThe last book on my list is Because You Love to Hate Me by many authors and booktubers. I found this anthology extremely disappointing. I enjoyed about half of them and hated the rest. I had high expectations going into this book. It features some of my favourite authors and some of my favourite booktubers but ultimately it let me down. I used a calculator and this book gets a 3.1/5 stars which isn't bad it just wasn't as good as I wanted it to be.





And those were my most disappointing reads of 2017. I hope you enjoyed this post and if you read any of these books I hope you liked them more than I did. Keep an eye out for my favourite reads of 2017 because I read so many good book this year and it will be a lot longer than this one. My average rating was a 3.8 this year. Hope to see you in my next post!

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Shatter Me Spoiler Free Review

Shatter Me (Shatter Me, #1)Title: Shatter Me
Author: Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me #1
My rating: 2.5/ 5 stars
Date Read: 12/9/17

I want to give this book 2 or 3 stars but can't decide which so I will give it 2.5 stars for now.

I really enjoyed Shatter Me but I absolutely hated it at the same time. It is so hard to explain but I will do my best.

First off the writing style is not for everyone. I heard the author's writing style was very poetic but I did not expect it be be that poetic. She used a lot of metaphors and had crossed out text and some parts felt like I was reading a poem. At first I didn't really like the writing, but as the story continued I actually came to tolerate it and by the end of the story, I actually found myself enjoying it which was surprising since I usually don't like books that are written with that particular writing style.

My biggest problem was that I hated almost all the characters. I hated Adam, Juliette, AND Warner. Yes I heard Warner is amazing and I honestly didn't like him at all. First Adam felt to overprotective of Juliette and Juliette I thought was too needy at times. I mean Juliette has her strong moments but sometimes I thought she was a weak character. Warner is a creep. I do like him slightly more than Adam for some reason but honestly I don't like both of of the love interests. Yep, our good friend that we hate in most books is back, LOVE TRIANGLE. I honestly don't mind love triangles if they are done right but this love triangle I don't like and I will explain later. The only characters I really liked was Kenji. He is hardly in this book till like the last forth which is really disappointing because is is definitely my favorite character. James is also an okay character. I liked him but I didn't love him. He is defiantly better than the main 3 characters though.

Despite hating all three main character, I found myself interested in the story. I mean yes it is predictable and I did manage to predict certain things however I still wanted to know what would happen and I also wanted to know if my predictions were correct. I mean many things that happened in the story I wasn't a fan of but for some reason it was very entertaining. I don't know why I want to continue with the series but I do. Is that a good thing I don't know.

Shatter Me is a dystopia and back in 2014 is what I really loved reading. Now I am not a huge fan of dystopias but I do still enjoy them. I feel like if I read it a few years ago I would of probably enjoyed it more than I did now, but I still am very glad I read it and will be giving the second book a chance.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

The thing I absolutely hated is that Juliette can touch both Adam and Warner the two love interests. Very convenient in my opinion, in fact too convenient. The story could of been so much better and interesting if Juliette could not touch both of them like she cannot touch anyone else I mean what makes those two special 



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Monday, December 18, 2017

Dorothy Must Die (Spoiler Free) Review

Dorothy Must Die (Dorothy Must Die, #1)Title: Dorothy Must Die
Author: Danielle Paige
Series: Dorothy Must Die #1
My rating: 4/5 stars
Date Read: 12/6/17

*My schools book club pick for December

Story time. More like a confession. I never watched The Wizard of Oz before. I watched part of it a long time ago but I never seen the whole movie. I do know what the Wizard of Oz is about. Time to watch the movie and read the books now!

To the actual review.

I heard very mixed things about this book and I didn't really want to read it. The only reason why I did read it is because it is my school's book club book of the month. Since I am a good member I read it and I surprisingly really enjoyed it.

I had no idea what this book is about when I first picked it up and the first thing I want to say is that Dorothy is not the main character. We follow a girl named Amy Gumm and she lives in Kansas with her mom. Amy one day swept to Oz. She had heard of Oz before. Oz is not what she expected. Dorothy apparently returned to Oz and is now in charge of the ones who live there. Of course we know she is an awful ruler because the title says Dorothy Must Die. This book takes place after the events of the Wizard of Oz.

If I were to be honest I didn't love any of the characters in this book. I was never really attached to them at any point, but I didn't hate most of them as well. They were just Neutral. Sometimes I didn't agree with Amy's decisions as well but she wasn't annoying. At some parts yes she could of been annoying but I didn't hate her. I guess you could say my favorite character is Gert or Glamora. I really liked both of them. Especially Gert.

I really like the world of Oz but I didn't like the state it was in. I if you read this book you probably know what I am talking about. It was so interesting to see what happened to the characters in the Wizard of Oz even though I haven't read the book or watched the movie and I think the author took an interesting take on the world and I actually enjoyed it

I wasn't a huge fan of how things ended in this story. I wished it ended slightly differently. This series has 4 books and to be honest I think this can be a duology based on what happens in this book. But I do plan on reading the second book. I did hear the series gets worse at it goes on but I want to know what happens next.

Overall I really did enjoy it and would recommend it however this book is not for everyone.



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Friday, December 15, 2017

Cinder (Spoiler Free) Review

Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles, #1)Title: Cinder
Author: Marissa Meyer
Series: The Lunar Chronicles #1
My rating: 5/5 stars
Date Reread: 11/21


Reread review because I read this book before I actually wrote full reviews.

The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer is one of my all time favorite series. If you didn't all the books in the series are fairytale retellings. Cinder is obviously a Cinderella retelling and I absolutely love it. If you have read Cinder and didn't really enjoy it, I would recommend picking up the second book Scarlet because I know a lot of people really enjoyed that one even when they didn't enjoy this one.

Cinder follows a girl name Cinder and she is a mechanic who lives in New Beijing. She is a cyborg and lives with her stepmother and two stepsisters. There are also a disease spreading around the world and there are Lunars (moon people) who live on the moon. This is also a science fiction book that takes place in the future and that is all you need to know when reading this book because you can figure out what is going on quickly when you read it.

I love all the main characters but Levana. Iko is definitely my favorite in this book. I love her personality and she is such a good friend.

I think the main reason I love the Lunar Chronicles so much is the uniqueness of the books. Yes it is a Cinderella retelling but it has so many unique elements in it.

Rereading this book I noticed some things I haven't noticed the first time I read and I absolutely love that. The new things that I noticed added a lot to the story and I loved it.

Overall highly recommend you read this book if you haven't yet because it is amazing and everyone should read it.

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Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Festive Christmas Book Tag

Today I will be doing the Festive Christmas Book Tag. I believe this tag is created by GirlReading. I was not tagged by anyone to do this but I really wanted to do a holiday tag.

1) A fictional family you would like to spend Christmas dinner with?
I would love to spend Christmas dinner with the Weasleys. They are one of my all time favorite fictional families. I also have a feeling I would love Mrs. Weasley's cooking.

2) A bookish item you would like to receive as a gift?
Other than books I would love to receive bookmarks or bookish prints. they always look so beautiful.

3) A fictional character you think would make a perfect Christmas elf?
Can I say Dobby the House Elf for this question? Dobby technically is an elf. Dobby is different from the other House Elves and I feel like he is the perfect answer for this question. Minor Harry Potter spoilers coming so if you don't want to be spoiled skip to the next question (up to book 4). When Dobby gives Harry the socks that he made for Christmas was one of my favorite moments in the books and that was the particular seen that made me want to say Dobby for this question.

4) Match a book to it's perfect Christmas song. 
All I want for Christmas is you. -Shatter Me

5) Bah Humbug. A book or fictional character you've been disappointed in and should be put on the naughty list?
Other than Umbridge because lets be honest she should always be on the naughty list I would have to say Zara from Lord of Shadows. I hated Zara so freaking much and she id definitely one of my least favorite characters in the book. She isn't really the main villain of the story, just some of her actions irritated me.

6) A book or a fictional character you think deserves more love and appreciation and deserve to be put on the nice list?
Tonks from the Harry Potter series is definitely an underrated character. She is one of my favorite and she is such a good person and helps protect Harry. I really like Tonks as a character and feel like she deserves more appreciation.

7) Red, Gold and Green. A book cover that has a wonderfully Christmas feel to it.
My True Love Gave to be Edited by Stephanie Perkins. I mean it is a holiday book so it works for this question perfectly. The cover also has some holiday vibes.


8) A book or series you love so much, you want everyone to find under their Christmas tree this year so they can read it and love it too?
The Infernal Devices Trilogy is definitely a series I want everyone to read. The books are so good and the characters are amazing and yep if you haven't read it , you have to read this series. Even if you read City of Bones and didn't like it, give this trilogy a chance it is so much better.

That is the Festive Christmas Book Tag. I hope you enjoy this post and I will hopefully see you in my next post!

Sunday, December 10, 2017

Night Film Review

Night FilmTitle:Night Film
Author: Marisha Pessl
My rating: 3.5/5 stars
Date Read: 11/5/17


I really enjoyed most of the book meaning the middle of it. I didn't enjoy the beginning or the end which is weird since I usually enjoy the ending of books.

Night Film is a thriller novel and we follow investigative journalist Scott McGrath and he investigates the suicide of Ashley Cordova. He does not think it is a suicide. Ashley is the daughter of Stanislas Cordova a film director known for his horror films. He hasn't been seen in public for a very long time.

This book was interesting and I really enjoyed it. This book is long and it is almost 600 pages. Since Tome Topple is starting soon it is a perfect time to pick it up. I will say this book is not for everyone. It is a slow read and it is a dense book. I had to read more slowly than usually to understand what was happening which is also why it took a long time for me to read.

Night Film is also my first adult thriller book. Maybe even my first thriller. This book in other words is completely out of my comfort zone. I didn't know whether I would like it or not though I heard good things about it. I feel like I could of enjoyed it more if it wasn't the first adult thriller book I read. I don't think this book is a good place to start if I were to be honest.

I loved the mixed media parts of the story it added a lot to it. Note that not the entire book is told in mixed media format, but some part were, like when McGrath visits a website we will see the website and it also features some photographs which I feel like add more to the story.

Overall I do recommend this book. If you are a scaredy cat like me I think you this book is still okay to read.

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Thursday, December 7, 2017

Meddling Kids (Spoiler Free) Review

Meddling KidsTitle: Meddling Kids
Author: Edgar Cantero
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Date Read: 10/25


I saw this book in a few bookstagram photos and book hauls before but I never actually heard much about it. The only thing I knew going into it is that it reminded people of Scooby Doo. After reading it I can confirm that it did remind me of Scooby Doo so if you love Scooby Doo you will probably like this book. Now here is the thing, this book is not for everyone. I will say that right now. In the middle of chapters sometimes we would switch to a play format than back to third person. Sometimes it only changes for one line before going back. It may annoy some people when reading it.

I did enjoy Meddling Kids although it is not my favourite book. It felt average. We follow a group of kids and a dog and when they were younger solved the mystery of Sleepy Hallow. Many years later they grew up and no longer talk to each other. One day one of the characters feels like something was wrong with the case and they still think the creature of Sleepy Hallow still exist. That person recruits the group as adults.

For those people who are sensitive to language, this book has a lot of swears in it. The characters swear a lot. If you do not like books like that you my want to stay away as well.

Speaking of characters I liked the friendship element of the book but I felt like it could of been better. I also wanted more character development and world building as well.

Meddling Kids is a short book. It seems long when you are looking at it but it is about 320 pages. It is a very fast read and enjoyable and overall I do recommend it.


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Saturday, December 2, 2017

Winter Book Recommendations

Since it is winter time I thought I would share some books that I think are perfect to read during this season. In the winter time I personally tend to read more fantasy books than the other genres. I do find that I enjoy reading historical fiction books more in the winter time. Ido recommend Harry Potter but I won't talk about it in this post because most of you probably already read it.


Falling Kingdoms  (Falling Kingdoms, #1)The first book series I have to recommend is the Falling Kingdoms series by Morgan Rhodes. This series is a high fantasy series. It is often compared and said to be the YA version of Game of Thrones and I do see the comparison. Falling Kingdoms is the first book in this series and it takes place in Mytica where there are 3 kingdoms. we follow the point of view of several of the characters who live in the kingdoms. The last book, Immortal Reign, comes out in February. If you do like this series Rhodes also has another series out called the Book of Spirits and Thieves and it also takes place in the world of Mytica. It also doesn't matter which series you read first.


A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1)
The next book or trilogy that I recommend I have only read the first two book but I really enjoyed them and that is A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab. This is an adult fantasy novel where there are basically parallel Londons. We have Grey London, Red London, White London, and Black London. People called Antari are able to travel between Londons and our main character Kell is one of them. Kell is from Red London and he smuggles things between Londons. We also have another character named Lila who is from Grey London and she is one of my all time favorite characters ever. As I said in the winter time I prefer to read fantasy books in the winter time so you will probably notice most of the books will be fantasy books.


Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles, #1)
The next series is a series that I am currently rereading, or at least when I am writing this review and that is Cinder by Marissa Meyer which is the first book in the Lunar Chronicles series. Cinder is a fairytale retelling of Cinderella and it is also a science fiction book. In the world there is a deadly disease with no cure spreading, there are Lunars (moon people) who live on the moon, and people who are cyborgs and our main character Cinder is one of them. Cinder is New Beijing's best mechanic. That is all you need to know before reading this book. I love this series so much and it is one of my all time favorites.



Frostblood (Frostblood Saga, #1)The Next book I have to recommend is Frostblood by Elly Blake. The second book Fireblood also recently came out but I haven't read it yet. The reason why I feel like Frostblood is the perfect winter read is because it takes place during the winter time and also most of the characters in this book are frostbloods. And the cover also looks wintery. We follow Ruby who is a fireblood living in a world ruled by frostbloods. Her mother is killed (says in synopsis so it is not a spoiler and it also happens in the very very beginning) and she decides to agree with a group of rebel frostblood to help overthrow the king. This book does have some tropes in it, however I still really enjoyed it and I feel like many people would too.


Salt to the Sea
Another book I have to share is Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys. I also do recommend her other book Between Shades of Grey but honestly I liked this one slightly more. This book is so hard to explain but basically it is a historical fiction that takes place during World War II. It follows many different character POV. Each character is from a different country. If I were to be completely honest Salt to the Sea is probably my all time favorite historical fiction book. Yes I like it more than The Book Thief. I love Sepetys' writing style and the way the story was told is so beautiful and I highly recommend this book and I feel like more people need to read it.



The Orphan Queen (The Orphan Queen, #1)Overall I recommend this book to most people. The final book I am recommending is The Orphan Queen by Jodi Meadows. In my opinion this is an underrated duology. Yes it is a fantasy duology! Personally I found some parts of the book predictable but it didn't impact my reading experience at all. This book is about a girl named Wilhelmina and she is an orphan. Her parents were murdered and she grew up living with the Ospreys. They plan on taking her kingdom back and to do this, she and her best friend Melanie must go into the Indigo kingdom and spy on the King's plans. I haven't seen this book being talk about on booktube or seeing it in bookstagram photos. Again it is a fantasy book and I love reading fantasy in the winter time so it is the perfect time to pick it up.

And that is my winter book recommendations. I hope you find some new books to add do your TBR or maybe motivate you to read one of these that are already on your TBR. Hope to see you in my next post.