Corbie
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
The Shape Of You starts by covering the basic shapes and slowly evolves into describing the shapes of more figurative things.
The text is wonderfully thought provoking for a child, but the artwork is also so beautiful that I personally had to go through it multiple times just to look at all the details in the textures used.
*ARC 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
If you've ever asked your parents a simple yes or no question and then gotten a long winded explanation that you didn't ask for, this is that in book form.
The story is simply the father explaining all types of things that people are afraid of and why people would fear this thing. The artwork is quite creative and detailed.
*ARC via Netgalley
In this short comic we find the main character and author attempting to find the story that they're supposed to be telling. It's a fourth wall breaking identity crisis. The illustrations are well detailed, but the story line is a little flat. A good read, but not one that would likely be reread much.
*ARC via Netgalley
In this Little People, Big Dreams book we follow as Farrokh Bulsara discovers his love for music, moves across the world and finds a band that would become Queen as well as his new identity as Freddie Mercury. It's brightly illustrated and makes for a great continuation for this series.
*ARC via Netgalley
I think book could be useful for anyone pushing past their mid 20s, as friend groups tend to start dwindling down. There are a good number of tips to maintaining your friendships and how to communicate grievances so that your needs in the relationship can also be met. Since the book is for making friends the author didn't delve into it, but it would have nice to have more discussion of when to call it quits in a friendship, since many of the tips came with thorough examples I just feel like this would have been a good opportunity to guide the reader through ending relationships that were not healthy for either party.
My only other gripe for the book is as the author mentions, the studies are often studies of small groups of white heterosexual American college students. So while the book is based in science, the science itself is not a good representation of the population.
*review copy via Netgalley
I feel like Heart of the Sun Warrior did a good job at concluding the romance storyline from the first book, but with that being one of the few things not wrapped up in Daughter of the Moon Goddess there wasn't much left to get this book rolling. As such takes about half of the book for it to feel like something's actually happening, but at the same time it was hard to put it down.
Despite the slow start, this book/duology is a great read for anyone interested in fantasy and Chinese mythology
Disclaimer: book received via Netgalley
This book is a collection of 12 stories from emerging African writers. The stories vary in genre and theme, which makes it easy to jump through and find a story to click with. Each writer did a wonderful job with their contributions to this anthology. I think this book could be a good introduction point to people who want to start reading from more African authors since you get a variety of stories that largely deviate from the narrative that large publishers tend to favor from African writers.
Copy received via Netgalley
First third of the book is good on it's own and would have been a great start for one of his other horror novels, but it didn't fit well with the story being told here. Too much of the book was dedicated to world building in the real world just to slip through a portal into a completely different world, this first section would be more suited if we had stayed in the real world.
Second third was an interesting introduction to the Fairy Tale world, but is where we get into King equating people with bodily issues as being scary? I believe the “King of Horror” could to do better than that this far into his career. Not to mention that the hero Empis needs is a blonde hair blue eyed white boy? Was he really going to be unable to help them if his hair stayed it's original color? Is there some unspoken fairy tale logic that prevents brown eyed men from being a prince? It's a fantasy world. It could have been literally anything that made him stand out, but King went for blue eyes and blonde hair.
And finally the third part was like reading a story that King was forced to write instead of a King wanted to tell. Like maybe he got bored of the idea part way through.
I feel like this is a 2.5 but I've decided to round down for the main character's appearance unnecessarily changing and for a bad guy that ended up not being as relevant as he should have been for all the hype at the beginning.
Victoria is stuck in the routine of a dysfunctional marriage with an airtight prenup and family expectations locking her in place. But one day she spots a man at her go-to cafe reading the same awful book as her (unnamed, but fairly well known) and she begins to fantasize about the various ways she could rid herself of her husband so that she can chase her happily-ever-after with this stranger. And some of the fantasies are a little too tempting.
I would say that all of the characters minus Luke were unlikeable, which surprisingly works perfectly for this book. And despite not being likeable it's easy to root for the MC as she slowly sets her plans into action (or inaction for some). It's a slow build and while the ending didn't disappoint it could have used an extra chapter in the resolution, a little extra time to unpack what happened.
ARC received via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
The opening was so good that I thought for sure I was going to love it, but unfortunately it did not hold up.
The chemistry is okay. It's not unbelievable at least, but both characters had pretty valid reasons for why they should not be together and they just threw all that out the window to rekindle their high school romance.
Also, HR would have a field day with this kind of thing. The premise of this book would likely result in an immediate firing of their supervisor and sexual harassment lawsuit against the company that's allowing this to happen. A friendly competition to see who gets to have their own column? Sure, that's fine. The things Lana has to do for the competition? Not okay. Even before Lana edits the list to be noticeable worse, it's not okay for a workplace to knowingly allow that kind of thing.
ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for honest review.
The Science of Witchcraft attempts to explain details of magical tales in terms of modern science. Overall it's a pretty good book and can be read through or used as reference if you wanted to read based on what stories you already know.
However, there are some chapters that are only vaguely connected to the story they're titled for. The chapters were still interesting explanations of some weird science, but they didn't quite connect back to the witchery they were supposedly trying to explain and instead felt like the book had jumped down a wikipedia rabbit hole and forgot to finish reading the original article.
ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for honest review.
(normal disclaimer: received free ARC, etc.)
We're still a year out from the anticipated release, so things may of course change between now and then so I don't want to go too deeply into this, but as of the current state:
The writing definitely gives both Sailor Moon and Cinder vibes without feeling like it was copying either story. We got magical girls, we got magical creatures, we got secret societies, we got several types of representation, we also got a group 7 boys who are definitely not inspired by any 7 real life boys and will hopefully hang around in the following books.
It's overall a promising start to the series. Here's to hoping that not too much changes between now and the final copy and that the cover art will do it justice when it is finally revealed.
The author discusses her experiences with her eating disorder and road to ‘recovery' while also discussing societal issues that play into eating disorders. I appreciated that the author took time throughout the book to note when her experience wasn't the norm for many people battling these disorders and address how difficult it can be for people with these issues to be taken seriously when seeking treatment or even just a diagnosis.
ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for honest review.
