Stephanie

I don't know what I was expecting from this book, but I certainly it wasn't the line, “We're unwilling cogs in a brutal capitalist machine that's slowly grinding everyone to dust.”

This is a really good reference book for people with ADHD. I think it would especially be helpful for adults who were recently diagnosed. I read this book straight from the first to the last page, but a person could just jump around different chapters that they needed. The only downside to this book is that the font is small and it is very easy to loose your place. It this book has a same or similar to How to Keep House While Drowning I would of given it 5 stars.

As a history nerd this book nice that it got a lot of the details right. And it was interesting seeing how McIntyre weaved historical aspects with fantasy. McIntyre does a good job of explaining the customs at court and the relationship the charters have with each other. However, for those who don't know much about the history of Versailles, it can be hard to follow. (My advice is to think about the court of Versailles like the Greek Pantheon; everyone is related and they're all trying to have sex with each other.)
The two biggest complaints I have are the main character and the ending. The main character, Maire-Josephe was raised in a convent before being a lady in waiting at Versailles. As a result, she is VERY innocent and naive which gets annoying. Luckily she gains knowledge as the story continues.
The ending is a bit frustrating because throughout the book there has been a sense of the story being grounded in reality. The ending is not completely out of the realm of possibility it just seems very strange the actions that some of the characters choose in order to rap up this story.

Really good! There are a lot of interesting facts about the founding fathers both known and somewhat unknown. You get to quick bio of there lives and it's written like they are really people and not putting them up on some pedestal. The only problem I have is the title. It makes it seem as if the book is mainly going to be about Hamilton when it's really about all the founding fathers. It's using the popularity to sell which bothers me a bit. But despite that it is still a great book if you want to know more about the founding fathers.

Summery: A plunge doctor and a mermaid go on a journey together to escape there past. Along the way they come across a cult of children living in the woods.

This book is more about two main characters and prose then having a plot. Which I don't think is bad it was just that a lot of this book was extremally gory to the point that I became desensitized to all the violence. Though it did not make it easier to read.
The prose are the best part of this book especially for the parts of the mermaid talking about her former life. The relationship between the mermaid and the plunge doctor was the driver force and was want kept be from not DNF-ing it.

The gore was all lot and it just felt pointless. This is suppose to be a horror novel, but honestly there was really nothing that scary. There were a few thing that were eerily like the cult of children.
Overall I mainly read this book because of the mermaid and those parts I was satisfied with. The rest of the book felt like it was trying to scare you by being violent, which failed.

I have been watching BFU since it started. I loved Ryan's and Shane's antics and as soon as they left to do there own YouTube channel I continued to follow them there.

So when I saw that they had book coming out I immediately pr-ordered a copy. Then it finally came in the mail and I was kind of disappointed. I even got the audio book to see if it was any better, which was a little bit.

The Good
This book has a combination of places that Ryan and Shane had episodes on and including some that they have didn't have episodes. So it was fun to have there comments on new place.
If you get the audiobook they have a different narrator for the telling the story of the location. And a few times the narrator seem to indirectly acknowledge Shane and Ryan comments and response with a very dry humor.
There are also so very funny parts where they talk about how popular thing became or how something became a meme. The best is when they get to the Moth Man and jokes about how everyone is horny for him.

Bad
Though the idea of going back and forth between Shane, Ryan, and the narrator is funny it doesn't really happen as much as it could. Then each of the sections are somewhere between a 1 to 2 pages long. So basically you are getting a condensed of an episode which where already short to begin with.
I really wished they had talked about some behind the scenes, like what it takes to create an episode. Something like the ‘Unsolved Almost 70th Episode Retrospective'.

Theory One (and only theory)
I would not be at all surprised if this was just Buzzfeed's attempt to squeezes every last dime the can make out of Shane and Ryan. And I'm sure that The Ghoul Boys get some cut of the profit.

Overall if you like the show I think you'll enjoy it okay.

Literal fish out of waters story. Three mermaid decide to turn into human so they can get alcohol. Honestly that seem like the only good reason for wanting to become human. Unfortunately, they don't know how to turn back into mermaids, so until they can figure how to change back they are stuck as humans. Luckily for them one of the bartenders takes pity on then and lets them stay at her place, help them find jobs, and kind of just roll with the whole they are mermaids. And of course hilarity and misunderstands ensue.
The artwork it not really my style, but I do appreciate the different body types. The whole trope of the “fish out of water” can get really annoying quickly. Luckily in this there are spins on most of the tropes so there is something new. The funniest thing is how gross and prevented these mermaids are, as apposed to what we usually see mermaids as young, thin, and beautiful. But overall this story is just a fun romp, with a bit of world building.

This book is a dark retelling of The Nutcracker. Though you do not have to know anything about the ballet or the story to enjoy this book.

Natasha and Clara are twins who where cursed by mysterious sorcerer Drosselmeyer. Clara, is blessed with beauty and grace. Everyone she meets loves her. Natasha is cursed to live in her sister's shadow, being feared by everyone she meets. Then one Christmas Eve, Natasha finally breaks and wants revenge on Drosselmeyer and her sister. Drosselmeyer has brought the Nutcracker, an enchanted present that offers entry into a deceptively beautiful world: the Kingdom of Sweets.

The beginning of the story starts slow, but picks up. There were parts that I found that were interesting. The idea of the Sugar Plum Fairy being some sort of dark creature that manipulates human is a great concept. At first I thought that the Sugar Plum Fairy was going to be like The Other Mother from Coraline.

The story just starts to go on and on, repeating the same ideas, but with no resolution. I kept reading hoping at the end there would be some sort of conclusion that would tie everything together. But in the end it never really gave any answer or if it did they were very general and vague. My first though when I finished the book was “what was even the point?”

At the end Natasha and Clara are supposed to have forgiven each other, but it just felt kind of contrived as the last time we see them together they basically just express indifference to each other at best.

Overall, this book has a really interesting concept, but fails to tell a coherent story.

I would describe this as a Magical Creature Wiki in book format. There are several creatures that are missing that I think should be in the book such as Draugen. I mainly got this as a reference book for magical creatures. It is a decent start for research as there will be a decent description of the creature and in the back, there is a bibliography of more text. It can be very fun just to flip through and read random entries.

I knew what was going to happen, but how it happen was interesting. Connor (main character) acts like a real kid and so I can sympathies for him. I don't want to say any more without spoiling a lot. So the last think I'll say is that even knowing the ending I was still crying at the end.

This is a modern retelling of the Christmas Classic “It's a Wonderful Life”.

I would not say that this movie is one of my all time favorite, but I still will sit down to watch it when it is on TV. I wanted to read this book because I thought that a modern, queer , gender bent retelling of this story would be interesting.

I really appreciated the modern updates. Personal I liked that the love intrastate, Maria was a librarian as in the movie that was her horrible fate if George had never been born. And I absolutely loved the magical drag queen angles. It was fun to see them more within the story.

But for me this retelling didn't hit the mark. If you have never seem or even know about “IAWL” I think you will fine that this book is fine. But for those who seen and love the movie I think they will be disappointed overall.

Let me say that this is a very difficult story to adapt. Most of us have seen or know the basic storyline of “IAWL”. But if you really think about it, it is kind of a weird story. So I have to give props to the author for the attempt.

Personally the best Christmas stories have a good balance of light/cheerful and dark/despair. “IAWL” did a great job of balancing the two. You have these joyful moments, but the movie goes to very dark places. This is a story that really NEEDS to have that balance, and this adaptation did not do that well. The happy and cheerful parts felt so cheerful, like every Hallmark Christmas movie that you see on TV now a days. Not to say it's bad, but in a story like this it is a happiness that doesn't feel real. As a result I don't really care too much about the good stuff that happens to the charters.

With the dark stuff it never went too dark. In “IAWL” George is about to kill himself because he truly feels as if there was no hope. With this story I was never afraid or concern that Bailey would do anything like that. Because for her she still has some hope. She has a job offer where she can move away from the town. With George he has a wife and kids, plus he is wanted by the police. He literally is trapped, wail Bailey only feels trapped.

Finally the big ‘here is what life would have been like if you were never born' feels almost the same as the Hallmark movies. It is way over the top and it feels less like Bailey made a difference and more of just Potter is an a-hole that no one would stand up to. Plus these scenes felt really short. I don't think those scenes where that long in the movie, but that is a movie that has a certain run time and this book is 304 pages.

Because the dark and light parts of this story seem fake the ending doesn't make an impact. When “IAWL” George's brother Harry makes a toast “To my brother George. The richest man in town.” I get teary eye. But when the same scene happens in this book, I just thought “ Oh this scene. We should be close to the end.”

So as stated before those who like the movie “IAWL” I wouldn't really bother with this book. But if the Hallmark stuff doesn't bother you or you really like that Christmas Hallmark vibe I think this would be okay.

This book, like a lot of YA Fantasy graphic novels, seem to have the problem of giving too much information and not enough. We are kind of thrown into this fantasy word without much explanation of what this world is like or how it works. That is not the major problem, because as the story does on we start to figure out all of that. With this book we are basically in a world where humans and witches are fighting each other. And if a witch kills you then you basically become a zombie that they can control and use to kill other humans. Evony is this child adopted by this royal family and has been trained to fight witches along side Prince Ammon, who of course she has a crush on. Through a series of events the Princes heart gets stolen by a witch and Evony goes on a quest to return the Princes's heart. Then instead of learning more about the world Evony just comes across a witch that is willing to help her for vague reasons, so the we are just given a big info dump so the main charters and successfully and quickly complete the quest. All of this accumulates to the second problem that I have with YA Fantasy graphic novels is that they are too short. The plot are usually good, but there is not enough time to develop the characters, the world, or much else. As a result we get get a very rushed story with a hit of something more. Though that question I have is that if readers don't really care about the first part of the story, then why would readers want to pick up the next part?

Well, I'm a shell of a person now. The one thing that I think people should try is to read this book with have a physical copy wail listening to to audio. With the book there are some really interesting ways that the poems are layout that you would miss just listening to the audio. A few examples, there is a poem written on an image of a mask, there is another poem shaded into a whale, and a poem that starts on a black page and keeps getting lighter as you read on. However, if you just read the physical copy you loose the rhythm of the poems. Amanda Gorman does reads the audio book. Though if for some reason that you rather just pick audio OR physical, I would defiantly have to choose the audio.

I know a little about the Shadow and Bones series. I read the first book around the time it came out but wasn't really interested in reading the rest of the series. Last year I read Six of Crows and of course I watched the show on Netflix. Basically, I came into this book knowing a little bit about the Grishaverse. The illustrations are absolutely beautiful that it is almost a shame that they are not painted on a large canvas. They defiantly mimic the Catholic Orthodox paintings of saint with some modern and fanatical elements. The stories go with each of the illustration very well. The main reason that I only gave it 4 stars instead of 5 was because the saints that were actual charters in the stories are written somewhat different from all the other saints. The other saints get the story of how they became saint. Where as Alina's story for example is just someone praying to her and then at the end telling us briefly what she was saint of and what she did. I'm not quite sure when this book is supposed in this timeline. For example is Alina an newly added to the saints and that is way there is not much about her? I think it would have been more interesting to have it written like the rest of the saints with inaccuracies or just making her more “pure-of-heart” or “righteous” then it was in her book. The idea of how history portrays a person and how they really were is fascinating and I personally think it was something that could have been explored more.

Mean Girls/Heather but they turn into werewolves. This was just okay. The concept is great and there is some interesting things that happen. It could have been longer especially going into the lore of werewolves in this world. Though I liked the two girls getting together at the end (because everything could be gayer) but it felt kind of forced. It started about as friendship with one of them being in the closet, then all of sudden they are dating. That needed more time to develop.

I hate to give this two stars because overall I don't think it's a bad book, it just wasn't what I wanted from a Carmilla retelling. If you're looking for a vampire lesbian story that ends with them happily living the rest of their undead lives together then you'll probably like this fine. For me I was looking for a story that goes leads more with the horror of the original then a love story.
The two thing that I find irritated me was 1.Laura is more horrified and has a hard time reconciling her being gay then the fact that Carmilla is a vampire that must kill people in order to live and 2. All the deaths that Carmilla has causes and the horrible things that she has done are somewhat justified and she doesn't really face any consequences for her actions.
Again I realize I was looking for a very different type of story. This takes a horror story and makes it a romance where as I wanted to go more in depth with a classic horror story.

A very cute story of Deja and Josiah last year working at their towns local Pumpkin Patch before they head off to college. Josiah has been crushing on this girl who he seen but never talk to, so Josiah makes it their quest for Josiah to go and talk to her (plus Deja has a side quest to try all the food they have). This book is full of fall vibes from their outfits, the food, and the over look of everything. The story itself is simple and kind of obvious how it is going to go, but the plots not too important (it's the friend we made along the way). This is prefect read for around fall to get in the mood to go apple picking or eat pumpkin pie.

3.5 stars. Through out this book I just kept saying to myself “I wish there was more.” Leslie always keeps that audience arms length away. The stories that he tells leave out details. One example, more than halfway through is when he first mentions that there had been some difficulties with his father. Or how as a kid he said that he had trouble is school, but that only reason he gives is that he was just rowdy as a kid. As a result it just don't feel a connection. It feels like I'm reading “This happen and then this happened and here is the lesson.”There are moments when he does get a more personal and those are the best parts. Like when he talks about being typed casted in Hollywood as the ‘token black character' and how he chose to no longer take those parts. Overall it does has some good lessons and advice. For someone who just graduated high school and/or is about to start college this would be probably get more out of this book.

Three witches; Abdy, Jolene, and Claire; have their house broken into and some magical items were stolen. Now they are on a road trip to get their stuff back, but there is something dark on the rise.
The graphics are very pretty, I'm really happy that the main characters are diverse and have realistic bodies. They have their own personality and powers. One thing that this story does that I don't really see in other stories that use magic in the modern world is the uses of technology. And they blend it together really well It's wonderful to read and I want more!
But that's also a bit of a problem with the story. Your kind of thrown into this world that you don't know how it works and theses characters that you don't know. Though you get to know the characters the world is still a bit confusing. Sometimes things are implied for example one has to be born with the ability to do magic and there is this kind pure blood magic thing like in Harry Potter. Yet theses three go around casually telling people they are witches. So are witches and wizards accepted in this world? They talk about some people have more power than others. What is the extent of there powers?
The ending the bad guy is reviled and it really comes out of nowhere. This person was mentioned very briefly in the story the I literally for got that they mentioned this person. Plus there motives make no sense. It really feels like some of the story was missing; It's a short read. This would have gotten 5 stars from me if it wasn't for the ending.
The ending was left open ended for a sequel, but to be honest I would love a prequel where it shows how these three came together.

I first saw this book on Facebook and thought the cover looked pretty. I was also really was excited that it took place in NC because growing up I never found interesting books that took place there. Plus the Biltmore Estate is a great historical NC landmark to set it. Later I saw the trailer and thought it looked really cool. A lot of people were talking how great it was. I recently got around to reading when I took a weekend vacation to Asheville NC. So, did it live up to all the hype? YES!
(By the way, if you were wondering the trailer give little to nothing away so go watch it)

Serafina secretly lives in the basement of Biltmore Estate in 1899 as a rat catcher. Her pa tells her to stay out of the way, but that all changes when Serafina sees a man in a black cloak capture a child through supernatural means. Bearly able escape with her own life she breaks her pa's rule by joining forces with Braeden Vanderbilt, the young nephew of the Biltmore owners, to uncover the Man in the Black Cloak before all the children vanish.

First off what a great mystery with supernatural elements. Until the very end, you are never sure how much power the Man in the Black Cloak has so it leaves on edge. There is always a list of possible suspects and why they are suspects. Even Mr. Vanderbilt is suspected, so no one is off limits. Oh, boy, Robert Beatty knows how to write a great cliff hanger! Plus I'm always impressed when authors can write in Southern accents in a way people can read. Serafina is charming and I love how she was written. What makes me really happy is there is finally a book in NC that is fun! Beatty incorporates not only history of the Biltmore, but of NC history and lore also the area and town near in and the landscape.

There is one nitpick I have with the book. Other then Serafina and Braeden, the other kids are not developed. There basically red shirts and I could forgive most that except for one part. Braeden and Serafina are riding in a carriage through the woods when they have to stop and the carriage driver has to figure out how to get passed an obstacle. Then suddenly Beatty is like “Oh, by the way, there was also another kid with them that I forgot to mention.” At first, I was confused until the Man in the Black Cloak showed up and I knew that kid was dead. Give the other redshirt kids credit at least you got to know something about them. But this kid gets nothing and if he was just mentioned that he was with them before the attack I wouldn't have much of problem with it.

Honestly, I was so much fun reading this book and I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel.

I just finished listening to the audiobook read by Allan Corduner. He does an amazing job at portraying the different voice that I still can't believe it is the same person. Though I do have a physical copy of the book, so I know for the audiobook you miss out on some of the drawings within, but I think the narration makes up for that.

I love Death as the narrator. It really does give the book a unique style with being gimmicky. This is a character-driven story even though there is a plot there is not much action. It is really getting to know these characters.

The one thing that I find that complain about is that Death will often say what will happen before it does and people have complained that this “spoiled” the book for them. For me, I didn't have a problem with it. Death explains the reason why he does this is that everyone will die, that it is not a secret so he doesn't bother to keep it hidden. What Death does reveal usually is not too specific, so for me the question is not “What will happen?” but “How will it happen?” which is fascinating to have it slowly unfold.