Renata Sancken
OK so we read [b:Fourth Wing 61431922 Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1) Rebecca Yarros https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1701980900l/61431922.SY75.jpg 96945623] for Worst Bestsellers and I bravely spoke my truth that although it was kind of clunky and had bonkers worldbuilding, it was also kinda fun! I might even read the second one, I said!! And then I heard rumors that the 2nd one was so bad fans thought it was written by AI and I was like, well now my curiosity simply COMPELS me to check this one out!! And honestly I really don't get the negative hype–like to me this was approximately as weird and clunky as the first one. A bit longer I guess, DEFO could have used an editor to cut it down–but so could the first one! Nothing about it jumped out to me as obviously AI–no literary equivalent of a 6th finger on a hand or anything.Also I thought some of the reveals were pretty surprising and interesting! The mom's motivations were more complex than I imagined! Dain's change of allegiance! Etc!IDK! I thought this was fine!
Wow this was such a trip. Awad's writing is lovely and poetic on a sentence level, and there are some really funny parodies/critiques of the ~beauty industry~ and beauty bloggers etc. The structure is a little like...weirder and dreamier than I generally prefer to read personally but it was a really compelling journey to go on.
Merged review:
Wow this was such a trip. Awad's writing is lovely and poetic on a sentence level, and there are some really funny parodies/critiques of the ~beauty industry~ and beauty bloggers etc. The structure is a little like...weirder and dreamier than I generally prefer to read personally but it was a really compelling journey to go on.
Merged review:
Wow this was such a trip. Awad's writing is lovely and poetic on a sentence level, and there are some really funny parodies/critiques of the ~beauty industry~ and beauty bloggers etc. The structure is a little like...weirder and dreamier than I generally prefer to read personally but it was a really compelling journey to go on.
wow look at me reading 2 books about basketball in one month!! But this isn't really about basketball, or it's not only about basketball? it's about hope and community and fandom and identity? and as always his prose is so, so beautiful and powerful. He is LITrally a genius (per MacArthur). Maybe his best work yet? And all his work is incredible???
mmm OK so this isn't my favorite FLAVOUR of fantasy (from Bardugo I prefer both the magical heist-y [b:Six of Crows 23437156 Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1) Leigh Bardugo https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1651710803l/23437156.SY75.jpg 42077459] and the urban fantasy [b:Ninth House 43263680 Ninth House (Alex Stern, #1) Leigh Bardugo https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553102141l/43263680.SY75.jpg 53348200]) but still, Leigh Bardugo slays. I was really intrigued by the magic systems here and I dug Luzia and Santangel's whole deal. Also the Ladino language history here is a really cool twist on fantasy-European history.
I read [b:Didn't See That Coming 123115331 Didn't See That Coming Jesse Q. Sutanto https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1680124372l/123115331.SX50.jpg 92872274] and didn't realize it was the second book in a series. They're connected loosely enough that I could follow it fine, but I liked it so much that I went back to read this one and it was also really charming! And very cute to see Sharlot and George here when I already know how their story turns out from their cameos in the 2nd book. (And, OK, due to romance genre conventions I had a pretty good idea how their story would turn out anyway, but.) I really liked the armchair travel aspect of Shar's first trip to Indonesia, and I appreciated Sutanto's nuanced appreciation for Indosnesian culture, with it both being much more beautiful and advanced than Americans like Shar (or like the reader) might expect, while also acknowledging the big anti-LGTBQ bias through a very sweet side plot.
in retrospect: why would I, a known hater of Fantasy Maps, pick this up? I think mostly because I had liked Ramee's contemporary fiction book [b:A Good Kind of Trouble 38251243 A Good Kind of Trouble Lisa Moore Ramée https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1529118640l/38251243.SY75.jpg 59931991] so much. But this ehhh wasn't quite my cup of tea. Probably will go over better with the real map-heads out there, and I do know they're out there. I really liked the contemporary fiction half of this story, with the family drama and the confronting microaggressions etc.
This was a cute, fun read! When I first heard about the premise I was like “why would the drama kids and the TTRPG/LARP kids be enemies, they are natural allies???” but um pretty quickly the characters figure that out too soo...good for them.
I will say: for being die-hard theater nerd Riley sure does refer to Broadway musical CAST RECORDINGS as SOUNDTRACKS and therefore as a teen I would have cyberbullied her. DO YOUR RESEARCH KRISTY BOYCE >:(
ok first of all lol at this having the same title as a Rachel Hollis book [b:Didn't See That Coming: Putting Life Back Together When Your World Falls Apart 54710894 Didn't See That Coming Putting Life Back Together When Your World Falls Apart Rachel Hollis https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1595906158l/54710894.SX50.jpg 85358569]. second of all I liked it more than the Hollis book for sure! Third of all I got this off NetGalley bc the description sounded cute but I didn't realize it was #2 in a series? ([b:Well, That Was Unexpected 59382071 Well, That Was Unexpected Jesse Q. Sutanto https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1653944559l/59382071.SY75.jpg 88920791]) I realized it might be one when the narrator started making very specific references to stuff that happened last school year. But it was easy to follow on its own without having read the first one. For me as an adult reader there were points where I was definitely like AUGH JUST HAVE A CONVERSATION TEEEEEENSSSS but also I do remember the agony of being a teen so...I get it. anyway this is a cute romance, great for gamer girls and also for either readers who might be curious about what school life is like in Indonesia or also for Indonesian readers.
This was a sweet little novella! TBH publishing it like this feels like a bit of a cash grab-it feels like something that might otherwise be a lil bonus on an author's website–but you know what, it's a nice little book that you can read in one cozy sitting. And I did really enjoy the depth of the sibling relationship just seeing the same day from all 3 siblings' perspectives, and the bonus art is adorbs.
I loved [b:Little Thieves 54017820 Little Thieves (Little Thieves #1) Margaret Owen https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1610346141l/54017820.SY75.jpg 68799441] so much and I was like “how can the 2nd one be even better?” and Margaret Owen was like “Vanja accidentally started a cult”
I read this for book club–I'd never read or seen any Jeeves & Wooster stories before but I was vaguely familiar with the premise from existing in Western pop culture. And I have to say: even though this is the first collection and some of them are explicitly first drafts of stories that were later revised and republished, and some of these aren't even about Jeeves but instead about the off-brand Reggie Pepper...this was a delight! Still some genuinely LOL moments and a lot of droll observations about human nature that honestly hold up.
This is a really lovely, moving book about a couple of really important topics that aren't written about very often in YA these days–a Christian faith community + abortion. Like...a lot of American teens are at least nominally Christian and plenty of them do believe in God. But they don't necessarily want to be reading capital-C Christian Fiction. Anyway so, I think this will really resonate with a lot of teens. Also I loved the role music plays in the story and in Tess discovering her own voice. This is great for fans of like Deb Caletti, Jen Mathieu, etc.
ALSO, I always feel like this will come across as damning with faint praise, but it's fairly short! We as a society need more short YA books! Not every teen wants a big brick novel and not every novel needs to be a big brick!
I was like “what is a speculative memoir?” and now I understand–it's both a memoir of her actual life as an adoptee and a fictional account of what she imagines her life might have been with her birth mother, plus some extra narrative twists. Wow. This is the kind of mind-widening book that will stay with me for a long time.
This type of historical fiction isn't something I'm usually drawn to, but the combo of Newbery honor + having LOOOVED Nayeri's previous book [b:Everything Sad Is Untrue 45916267 Everything Sad Is Untrue Daniel Nayeri https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1579708868l/45916267.SY75.jpg 70768669] made me pick this up. And honestly it was a lil slow going for me to get into it but damn he got me in the end.I think this would be soo good for a classroom readaloud, like a chapter a day. Kids would be clamoringggggg