Audrey Meihak

I've been meaning to read this book for quite a while. A friend who likes fantasy a lot less than me wanted me to read it first and give her my expert opinion on it, so it became read number 59 for the year.

I think this book was between ok and good. It sat at a solid 3 stars for the first half, and worked its way to 4 by the end. I read another series this year (Royals of Faery by Hayley Osborn) that I liked more, and I felt immersed me in the world of the fae much better. The amount and description of all of the different species and types of faeries in this book was confusing and a bit overwhelming.

There were certain parts of this book that I just didn't find believable, but I think I'll still eventually read the remainder of this series.

I wasn't planning on reading this book until later in the year, but I'm glad I did. I haven't had the best look with books lately, and this was a nice break.

I wasn't sure what to think of it for the first half. It was all over the place and was confusing and weird. But, I ended up loving it! I've never read a book structured quite like this, almost like it was told out of order.

As I followed the journey in this book, I slowly fell in love with the characters, especially Estelle. I figured out the secret about the apartment, but not who the criminal was.

This was one of the most fun books I've read this year, despite the epic confusion in the beginning. The narrator was great, and the characters were adorable. I thought the ending was wrapped up a little too perfectly, but it was still a great book.

Ok, I want to go to London right now. This was such a fun story to listen to. I love dual timelines, and this novel definitely did not disappoint. The narrators were spot on.

I definitely found Nella and Eliza's story more enjoyable than Caroline's. Caroline's seemed too easy and convenient. Putting aside all deep thought and reading into things, this book was flawless. There were a few things that weren't 100% believable, but that's the best part of fiction. I'll definitely be reading this book again.

I was a little disappointed that Caroline put her own dream on hold so her husband could follow his. I was glad that she finally got her act together at the end and put in her application to Cambridge, but it seemed a little rushed. I would think that she'd want to finalize her divorce before moving halfway across the world, but maybe she felt that 10 years was long enough to wait.

Also, I was worried for a while that Nella was going to push Eliza over the bridge railing. I don't really understand how she survived the jump, but maybe the elixir she drank really was supernatural and saved her life.

The first big thing I noticed when I started reading this book was that it gave me serious Midnight Library (Matt Haig) vibes. I definitely liked this book better than Midnight Library though.

This book makes you wonder how much control you really have over your own life. Oona tried doing things in the “past” that would positively affect her “future,” and things turned out the same way anyway. I've often wondered how one decision can change my life, and it was interesting to see it unfold almost right away.

I've been trying to get my friend to read this book pretty much since I picked it up. A few of the texts I sent her about this book were “

“Over the past year, I can count on one hand how many times my best friend has smiled - properly smiled. And in case I'm not making myself clear, he hasn't smiled since you left him.”

I've never really been a big fan of books about fairies, probably because I immediately think of Tinker Bell, and just can't take them seriously. This series though. Hayley has created a world I long to visit again, and characters that I miss.

The quote I included above sums up the final book in the series and captures all of the things I wanted to feel in the finale.

She includes so many things I want to read about in a series like this: ✔️Slow burn romance ✔️Enemies to lovers....to enemies....to lovers ✔️Plot twists ✔️Family secrets ✔️Sacrifice ✔️Hidden identity

Bria, Fergus, and Willow challenge what humans can do in the fairy world, and push the limits on what women are allowed to do.

While she sent me the ebooks for free to review, I plan to buy the physical copies and reread them probably another 67 times.

Thanks, Hayley. It's been an honor.

For about the first 1/3 of this book, I wasn't sure what to think of it. I didn't find any of the characters likeable, and it took a while for the mystery of the Cloaks to suck me in. I'd been interested in this book for months, so I really wanted to stick it out. I'm glad I did! In addition to the story, the narrators were perfect.

I was just sitting at work making IVs, having a good time. Then, chapter 34 hit me, and BAM! I've been trying to decide if this book counts as enemies to lovers, and I'm set on a strong maybe.

I called the twist about Lana but was blindsided by who the bad guy really was. I feel like I should have seen it coming, but I never claimed to be the best at figuring these out. Probably why I'm trying to be a fantasy writer, not mystery

Inspiring. I tried to think of the perfect words to describe this book. The women in this book were trailblazers, for their race, for their gender, for the world.

I had never even heard about these women until I heard about the movie that came out based on this book. I often find it hard to think about how long modern technology has been around. I forget that we walked on the moon over 50 years ago, and we've been flying for 100+ years.

I really can't say much about this, but READ THIS BOOK! It's a look into a part of history that I think has been immensely overlooked. I think these women played a huge factor on the sidelines of the Civil Rights Movement, and they most definitely played a huge factor in WWII, the Space Race, and the Cold War.

I lost track of the number of times I both laughed out loud and got warm, fuzzy, early flirtation feelings while listening to this book. The writing and narration was spot-on, and I still can't get over the way the narrator has Clark say “Lola”

This is the first book I've read by Kristin Hannah, and it definitely did not disappoint.

Admittedly, I've never really thought about what the regular European citizens had to endure throughout WWII. (I read All the Light We Cannot See earlier this year and it helped shed a little light, but not quite like this.) The horrors that these women went through are astounding.

I never learned about WWII France in school. Really, I only learned the basics, but The Holocaust seems too heartbreaking to research on my own. I still can't believe the atrocities that innocent people had to endure and am disgusted that it's even part of our world history.

Books like this are so important. It's important to understand where we come from so we don't make the mistake of going there again.

This was one of my favorite books growing up. I remember reading it for the first time in 3rd grade, and it has stuck with me for years. I've been sitting on this prompt for a while, knowing it was going to be this book until I knew I really needed a comfort read. Things at work have been crazy, and I needed an escape.

This book has a literal watchdog ⏰

Wow. Just....just wow

This wasn't my favorite book so far this year, but I think it's been the most fun. I thought that telling the story from 10+ perspectives would be too ambitious, but it was actually done quite well.

This book made me think more than I was expecting. Each person was at the resort for a different reason, and had different things they wanted out of their experience. It made me think about what I can do more to improve my health in small ways (I don't see myself ever going to a 10 day health retreat after reading this). I bought a jump rope! We'll see how long it takes me to get past 1 minute of jumping before I'm out of breath.

Everyone has things they want to improve, and this book showed that even the people that seem to have everything can be unhappy with who they are. This was one book I will be thinking about and recommending for quite a while.

I really wanted to like this book. I read really good reviews, but all I could hear in this book was the ramblings of an old man. I continually found myself looking for the point of the book, other than recounting his life. I didn't find one.

I understand why other people liked it, it just wasn't for me.

The concept of this book itself earned an extra star - what would you do if you could undo any regret you had and could enter any possible life you would have lived?

Life is so full of regrets and wanted do-overs. If any of the above situations had changed, I wouldn't be where I am today. I have a job I enjoy, with people I love working with. I have a husband who constantly encourages my goofiness and love of reading.

I was disappointed in Nora at the end of the book. She had a life where she had everything she wanted, and it still wasn't good enough. She even started settling into her perfect life, actually living it, and still was disappointed enough in it to go back to the library.

I'm really not sure what to think about this book. I mean, I really liked it, but I'm definitely going to have to read it again. There were so many chapters I had to rewind multiple times when I just gave up and kept going. I figured that the pieces would fall into place eventually. I've decided to buy the book and comb through it and highlight everything, and maybe I can understand it better

I'm going to start this by saying that I LOVED Gail Carson Levine's books growing up (The Princess Test, Cinderellis and the Glass Hill, The Wish, Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep....). That being said, I think I would have liked this book a lot better if I'd read it in middle school than as an adult.

At its bare bones, this is a story about girl empowerment. Ella takes the reins on her own life and does everything she can to make her life go in the way that she sees fit.

I enjoyed this retelling of Cinderella. I read Cinder last year, and I'm almost amazed by how different they are. I like how Ella was able to break the curse herself at the end and didn't rely on “true love's kiss” like so many Disney/Disney-esque stories.

Hayley has done it again! This was an extremely short read, but I think it was important. It helps fill in gaps like why music is banned, and how Bria ended up in Iadrun to begin with.

I think it's somewhat fitting that I finished reading this book 1 year to the day after it was published. Chakraborty definitely earned all 5 paw prints on this book, although it was quite a fight for a while.

This series had heartbreak, betrayal, sacrifice, and prejudice. It ended with everyone having happy endings, but not quite in the way that I had expected in the beginning.

I don't know that I would have ever visited Daevabad, had it not been for this reading challenge. If I did, it would have been extremely far down on my list, and only because of the stunning covers. (That alone is reason enough for me to buy them, just don't tell my husband WINK)

This book was so LOOOOOONG! Halfway through this book (and the other 2, actually), I found myself getting bored. I powered through though, and I'm so glad I did. I listened up to Nahri's last chapter and the epilogue this morning, and it was hard to listen to it. I didn't want it to end!

I'm going to start off by saying that The Princess Bride is probably my favorite movie of all time, which led to me having extremely high expectations for his book. Goldman wrote both this book, and the screenplay for the movie, so I thought that was an acceptable expectation. Right? Wrong!

In one of his additional anecdotes he placed throughout the book, he said “For those of you who have not yet thrown this book across the room in frustration...” and that spoke to me on a very deep level. The story is great! It makes for a great movie, and I will maybe just keep watching the movie and never read this book again.

The added parentheticals made it really hard to read in places - “‘I'll leave the lad an acre in my will,' Buttercup's father was fond of saying. (They had acres then.)”

The parentheticals, trying to figure out the whole Morgenstern vs. Goldman situation in the introduction, and the huge italicized sections saying what Goldman cut out of the Morgenstern book (which doesn't actually exist) probably would have driven me to put the book down and never pick it back up, if I hadn't loved the movie so much.

I did really enjoy that each character was given an extensive backstory. You get insight on why Inigo wants to kill the six-fingered man, and learn that he had a life before he was a drunk that Vizzini recruited.

Prompt 6 from 2021 Popsugar Challenge: A book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title

Book: The Kingdom of Copper Author: S. A. Chakraborty Narrator: Soneela Nankani Genre: fiction, fantasy Dates Read: 05/12/2021-0524/2021 Format: audiobook - Hoopla Other prompts: A book by a Muslim author, a book about do-overs or fresh starts, a book with a pretty cover Rating:

Prompt 7 from 2019 Popsugar Challenge: A reread of a favorite book; prompt 6 from 2020 Popsugar Challenge: A bildungsroman; prompt 40 from 2021 Popsugar Challenge: Your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge

Book: The Outsiders Author: S. E. Hinton Genre: YA fiction, bildungsroman Dates Read: 05/12/2021-05/21/2021 Format: physical book Other prompts: A book everyone seems to have read but you.

Rating:

I've been meaning to read this book for a while since the cover is so beautiful. It's nice that this book and its sequel both fit PopSugar prompts this year, so I can read them back to back! I haven't been doing that the last couple of years because I've been focusing more on the challenges than finishing series. My goal next year is to use as many books from the fewest series/by the fewest authors in as many prompts as I can.

I went into this book with no expectations, which hasn't happened lately. I'm glad that I listened to this book because there's no way I could have pronounced all of the Egyptian/Middle Eastern names/terms (without feeling guilty and a little offensive). This book is definitely one of the slower books I've read this year, while still having a captivating story.

I wasn't surprised by the twist in the epilogue, but maybe that's just because I read too many of these books

This may be the biggest disappointment so far this year. I really liked the movie and was hoping that the book would be even better. I think that mental health is a hard subject to write from in the first person, and for me, the writing fell short.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started this book, but it definitely wasn't what I got. At first, I was really confused with all of the jumping around with narrations, and bouncing between generations. I didn't think that the connections were explained as well as they could have been. I also didn't like the way the male narrator described Oscar. It seems that almost every comment featured something negative about Oscar's weight, nerdiness, or desperation to find a girlfriend.

if I remember correctly, the only reason that Junior even moves in with Oscar is that he feels bad for him, and wants to get good with Lola

I don't know really anything about the history of the Dominican Republic, but I feel that a lot of the things discussed about Trujillo were unnecessary.

I think I could have done without reading this book, but it's definitely not the worst one I've read this year.

This book definitely did NOT have the happy ending I wanted!