Corbie

Has a decent collection of idioms, but needs major editing. The writer only tells you the pronunciation for some of the idioms and uses colons instead of commas and periods.

Emily and Wendell as well as a few new companions flee a faerie attack and head out to the Alps where it's easy to become trapped in the borderlands and maze of doors.
This book was hard to put down. It maintains the cozy atmosphere and fun banner from book 1 while adding in a new understanding of Faerie and the creatures that live there. This is a must read if you enjoyed book 1

ARC received via Netgalley Merged review:Emily and Wendell as well as a few new companions flee a faerie attack and head out to the Alps where it's easy to become trapped in the borderlands and maze of doors. This book was hard to put down. It maintains the cozy atmosphere and fun banner from book 1 while adding in a new understanding of Faerie and the creatures that live there. This is a must read if you enjoyed book 1ARC received via Netgalley

The ebook was six pages of scans of parts of pages of a physical book, stray pencil marks and all.

Just for the record if you can't cook like the MC, if a recipe tells you to add sugar to onions to make caramelised onions it's not a good recipe and you should find a different one.

I am intrigued, I am curious, I will need to read the next book. However, this book has major issues.

This city would have failed long before the events of this book, how can it even function if people are just constantly stealing each others bodies for extended periods of time when the only way to catch on to them is a change in eye color? There are millions upon millions of supposed people in this city, if you want to commit a crime there are going to be plenty of people with the same eye color as you to borrow for a few hours while you gave your fun. The other eye thing is also either a huge plot hole or a way to obvious hint to a plot point for a later book, but for the purpose of book one it looks like a very bad plot hole.


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This book is perfect for a child who is interested in animals. You get a cute chimpanzee introducing the daily life of a chinpanzee as well as the community structure they live in. It's quite informative while also being an easy read and also has fun facts, games, activities and a quiz at the end of the book that could also make it a good option for a classroom read.


*ARC via Netgalley

Our leading lady opens a business that is doomed to fail because she has no idea what she's doing, but meets a group, including our romantic interest, that continue to help her until she starts to figure it out. The relationship in this book felt extremely stagnant, it didn't really build up to anything and I don't think the book have been any different if they had just remained as friends the entire time. The story was okay, but I wouldn't consider this to be a romance so much as two awkward people figuring out how to make friends.


*ARC via Netgalley.

So many errors. Mostly editing errors, but at one point the author gives instructions for growing a plantain tree when they were introducing the common plantain... a small garden weed.

The book is written in perfectly normal English and the instructions are clear, leading me to believe that the other reviewer read a different book.

Features the phrase “whitish liquid drips from agyeman's penis” in the first chapter. That's the vibe of this book.

Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries is a cozy read in which you follow an academic as she goes to a small remote community and tries to navigate the intricacies of human relations while also trying to learn more about the Faeries that inhabit this region.
The coziness of the first half of the book made the final few chapters feel quite rushed, but still enjoyable. There are parts towards the end that sound much more like book 2 material instead of a book 1 conclusion, but overall definitely worth the read for anyone into cozy fantasies and faeries.

Song of Silver, Flame Like Night starts out strong, however starting a few chapters in the book becomes very similar to a slew of other books on the market. The magic system is interesting and probably is the thing that helps this stand out most, but the characters fell a bit flat which made it a bit harder to read through.

If you can push through it it picks back up enough by the end to leave you wanting the sequel.

This is one of those fun mysteries in which you're aware that everyone is capable of the crime, but never quite sure who did it. Unfortunately it‘s just a bit too long for the content and starts to feel like it's dragging around the halfway point.

It reads as though it could be easily adapted into a miniseries, which might be a better medium for this story to be through.

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It's a good book loosely based on events in The Odyssey, but takes place over a hundred years after The Odyssey and is not an Odyssey retelling. If the author had not done that interview I don't think it would have been obvious that she's never finished reading the Odyssey. Despite the numerous weird things the author said in that interview, the book is pretty good for a debut novel but doesn't really stand out against any other Greek myth based novel.

I liked this a lot more than I honestly thought I would. It's quite dense, but to the benefit of understanding. The author gives you the poems, a background to the poets life and what events likely inspired the poems as well as a deep analysis to the contents of each poem. You can tell through the writing that this author is passionate about the topic which makes it a lot easier to read through.

*Review copy via Netgalley

In this book we follow a stressed mother as she tries to navigate the chaos of evacuating ahead of a category 4 hurricane as her life seemingly comes crashing down around her. The writing in this book is chaotic, sometimes in a good way and sometimes not. The character growth is largely lacking, and many of the problems that Ramona stresses about have solutions that are so simple that it draws you out of the story. Put a diaper on your kid and go girl.

It's a short read with lots of humour added in, but it's not quite what was promised.

*Review copy via Netgalley

This book is another cute book for teaching children about opposites. There are 13 pairs in this book, each with adorable and goofy animal illustrations. It's very colorful, with the background color changing with each pair, easy to keep a young child's attention.

*ARC via Netgalley

This book serves as a great introduction to different kinds of animals that can be pets and some details about the care that they may need. I think it could have benefitted to have a few more details on some pages since some of these animals are given to children as ‘easy pets' even though they have quite specific care needs that often get overlooked, cage/tank size for example look quite small in the illustrations and could give a young reader the wrong impression.

That said, the book does well discussing different types of animals and I appreciate that they pointed out that some animals are shy and some do not like being handled.

ARC via Netgalley

In Penance you follow four girls as they try to live their lives after a finding the body of their friend murdered while out playing with them one day. Not only do they have to deal with survivors guilt they also have a threat from the girl's mother looming over their heads.

There are six chapters to this book, each chapter tells the story of one of the girls from the lead up to the murder and on to years later when the statute of limitations is about to run out, with the fifth chapter being dedicated to the dead girls mother and then finally the conclusion. You get to see how Emily's murder affected each of their lives and how each girl tries to fulfill the promise to Emily's mother to either find the murderer or complete an act of penance to her satisfaction.

Each girl offers a unique perspective to Emily and her murder and they all end up in drastically different situations, so it doesn't make the story feel repetitive even though they're technically all telling the same story.

This book teaches common shapes using fun animal scenes. It's something that small kids will adore. A few of the shapes seemed a little forced but that's more something that adults would take note of and wouldn't affect a child's enjoyment of the images.

ARC via Netgalley

Honestly I'd say it's a 4 star as far as memoirs go, but I'm bumping it up since so many people who haven't read it gave it 1 star.

Short chapters, but a lot of them.

The illustrations are that kind of busy that have you finding something new each time you go through the book. The text layout makes it easy for solo little readers to skip over parts of the text, so might be better as a read aloud book for the little ones.



*review copy via Netgalley

The illustrations are adorably done and it's packed with fun thing for the littles to do in the winter.

Having done many of these activities myself there's a bit of concern on the content:

‘ask for adults help' for the candy making. For process shown the child should not be helping at all, hot sugar burns are no joke. Since the child won't be much help here I don't think it should have been included. It'll be more frustrating than fun for them.

The compost bottle is a cute idea that lets your kid watch as the kitchen scraps break down, but soft plastics can make the worms sick and there's no mention of making sure it doesn't become acidic, which is especially important if they're getting citrus scraps from the recipes in this book. While it should be cute and educational it's just a torture chamber for the poor worms.

*Review copy via Netgalley

Before I Do follows Audrey as she prepares to marry her fiancé while the universe seems to be conspiring against her. It's a cute story, a bit cringe in some spots, more about self-discovery than romance. The topics covered are a little dark at times but the story stays lighthearted throughout. It takes a few chapters for the story to settle in, but end up being an easily bingeable book.

*review copy via Netgalley

Here we have a story of Donkey the cat having an existential crisis concerning whether or not he is actually a cat. He knew he was a cat because he had been told so, but somehow he doesn't feel like a cat.

The drawings and characterization of each cat is adorable and I think most young readers would enjoy the confusion Donkey experiences in this book.

*ARC via Netgalley