Kayla Rayne and Trina do such a good job of running the Goodreads group for the Monthly Recommendations meme, coming up with suggestions, creating their own videos, and so on. I’ve been lax in making my own monthly recommendations list, but this is the perfect month to come back to the fold because the topic is Mash Up! Instead of a specific topic, it’s one recommendation based on the topics that have been touched on this past year.
Monthly Recommendations is a monthly meme hosted by Kayla Rayne (YouTube) and Trina from Between Chapters (YouTube). You can find the Goodreads group, including the monthly prompts, here.
Murderbot is one of my new favorite characters this year. All it wants to do is be left along to enjoy its media and figure itself out. How relatable is that? But no, the humans have to muck things up and who has to protect them and figure things out? Murderbot, of course. This is the first in the Murderbot Diaries and I am so looking forward to the rest of the series.
Adam’s humor never fails to be both humorous and relatable, whether it’s his love for his cats (including his tripod kitty) or the trials he faces in day to day life. I could not recommend this collection, and his ongoing comic, more.
If there’s one author that I’m sure knows how to write about mental health issues, it’s Akemi Dawn Bowman. After reading her previous book Starfish, I knew that Summer Bird Blue would be on my list and I am so thankful that it was. For all the heartbreak and toughness that was in it, it was a superb read that handled difficult subjects well. You can read me review here.
This retelling of the Scrooge myth was an interesting one and it certainly had a good time with its twists and magic affecting the modern take on the old story.
Any of Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series would be a delight to listen to, but I’m highlight the second in the series, Down Among the Sticks and Bones, because it is read by the author. Technically this book is a prequel, so I suppose you could read it before Every Heart a Doorway, though I think there might be just the slightest bit lost in character surprise if you did. So, read them in order, but I think you’ll be in for a real treat when you listen to this, book #2, because Seanan does such a good job of reading her children to life.
A moving coming-of-age story set in the 1900’s, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn follows the lives of 11-year-old Francie Nolan, her younger brother Neely, and their parents, Irish immigrants who have settled in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. Johnny Nolan is as loving and fanciful as they come, but he is also often drunk and out of work, unable to find his place in the land of opportunity. His wife Katie scrubs floors to put food on the table and clothes on her childrens’ backs, instilling in them the values of being practical and planning ahead.
When Johnny dies, leaving Katie pregnant, Francie, smart, pensive and hoping for something better, cannot believe that life can carry on as before. But with her own determination, and that of her mother behind her, Francie is able to move toward the future of her dreams, completing her education and heading oft to college, always carrying the beloved Brooklyn of her childhood in her heart.
I’ve read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn at least twice a year for a couple years now, so I can definitely say it’s worth a reread. Whether you decide to pick up a physical copy, an e-copy, or listen to the incomparable Kate Burton read this classic story aloud, you’re in for a treat.
Eons ago, it was prophesied…four distinguished champions would be chosen to lead the universe into a new age of strength and peace. They were expecting warriors; what they got was a little bit…different. Join Amie, an art student, Sandy, a single mom, Kevin, aging athlete and Silas…a goldfish?…as they learn to navigate Earth and each other as the most unanticipated powerful beings in the universe!
Created by New York Times-bestselling writer Kate Leth (ADVENTURE TIME, BRAVEST WARRIORS) and illustrator Matt Cummings (BATTLE DOG), POWER UP is a super team-up with a twist…and in the end, finding a family where you least expect it.
These are honking big books, but I think you’ll want to marathon them despite that. With the twists, the unique formatting, and the cliffhangers in the first two books, it would be impossible not to marathon this series once you start. The characters, the scenarios, everything just draws you in so that you have to know what happens next to the various crews in their quest for survival and justice.
This book is packed full of witches and witchy themes. You can read my review here.
Loveday’s got it. Books to people? Sounds about right. The Lost for Words Book Shop is her refuge and I think a lot of us can agree that it sounds like heaven, being able to have that sort of place to go, to have support us. Archie, the owner, is such a dear and is just the best support network for Loveday. The overall bookish feel of this story, obviously of Loveday, is totally relatable.
There are so many books to read in a year and so little time to do it in. If I finish my goal this year, I’ll have read around 200 books. That’s great, but that doesn’t even touch on all the wonderful titles I wish I could have gotten to in 2018, whether they were new releases or back list titles that were holdovers from 2017 or earlier! Today I’m sharing with you five titles I wish I could have gotten to this year, but sadly did not have time to read.
Seventeen-year-old Mira has always danced to her own beat. A music prodigy in a family of athletes, she’d rather play trumpet than party — and with her audition to a prestigious jazz conservatory just around the corner (and her two best friends at music camp without her), she plans to spend the summer focused on jazz and nothing else.
She only goes to the warehouse party in a last-ditch effort to bond with her older sister. Instead, she falls in love with dance music, DJing… and Derek, a gorgeous promoter who thinks he can make her a star. Suddenly trumpet practice and old friendships are taking a backseat to the packed dance floors, sun-soaked music festivals, outsized personalities, and endless beats of the EDM scene.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. Upcoming topics and past TTT topics can be found here.
From beloved New Yorker cartoonist Bob Eckstein, Footnotes from the World s Greatest Bookstores invites you into the heart and soul of every community: the local bookshop, each with its own quirks, charms, and legendary stories.
This collection of seventy-five of the most cherished bookstores from around the world features evocative paintings by Eckstein paired with colorful anecdotes about each shop, featuring a roster of great thinkers and artists of our time, including David Bowie, Tom Wolfe, Joe Frank, Tracy Chevalier, Jonathan Lethem, Michael Palin, Roz Chast, Deepak Chopra, Bob Odenkirk, Robin Williams, Patricia Marx, Philip Glass, Paul McCartney, Dave Berry, Michael Jackson, Jonathan Ames, Terry Gross, Mark Maron, Neil Gaiman, Ann Patchett, Jo Nesbo, Diane Keaton, Chris Ware, Molly Crabapple, Amitav Ghosh, Patti Smith, Mo Willems, Alice Munro, Dave Eggers, Roxanna Robinson, Garrison Keillor and many more.
Jilly thinks she’s figured out how life works. But when her sister Emma is born Deaf, she realizes how much she still has to learn.
Bree Howland’s Bring Me Home Blog Tour – An Excerpt of the New Novel!
When her absolute certainty is shattered, Kailey has to learn how to adapt and pick up the pieces to her new life, figuring out whether the past will reconcile with the future she’d once imagined or whether too much will have changed, including her best friend, Cole.
Bree Howland’s new novel, Bring Me Home, will not only provide readers with a warming story to curl up with, but a good feeling knowing that the proceeds of their purchase will assist felines looking for their own home. For more information about the beneficiary, check out Fortunate Felines Rescue’s Facebook and Instagram pages.
“What can I get you to drink?” The pretty waitress asked with a smile as we sat down.
I coughed slightly as the waitress and my date flirted in front of me. With how sweet Shawn acted in class, I did not expect this at all.
What was almost worst was that he ordered my drink for me.
“Nothing.” I held back the urge to roll my eyes. “Want to go get our food?” The faster we ate, the faster I could end this night. I was already losing patience with it.
The food was no better than my experience thus far, but it was still the highlight of the date. For a restaurant that was so busy you would think the food would be fresher, but not even. The heat lamps had dried out even the hardiest of foods.
By the end of the hour I had picked at a small plate of food and Shawn had finished at least three. The annoying part was that the waitress kept coming back and Shawn and her would flirt some more. She would giggle and flip her hair, batting her pretty blue eyes at him. He would lean close, soaking up the attention. I resisted the urge to just leave.
I had given up on trying to eat or trying to make conversation with my date and sat there until he was done. I was hungry, annoyed, and uncomfortable with the whole night. When our check arrived, Shawn left with the waitress and never came back. So I played on my phone for another ten minutes before heading to the cash.
A quick reminder that all proceeds from Bring Me Home will be donated to Fortunate Felines Rescue. You can find out more about them on their Facebook and Instagram pages.
Winding elements of classic literature with modern awesomeness, authors Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows return to their Lady Janies series with My Plain Jane, an homage to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre in which ghosts are real…and so is Jane.
Having never read the original story of Mr. Rochester and Thornfield Hall, Jane and her journey there, and whatnot, I wasn’t sure whether this story would further serve to bamboozle me. Truth be told, I’ve only read retellings (side note: check out The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde). However, if you’ve never read it or if you thought yourself maybe uninterested in classics, fret not because the writing style of My Plain Jane was entirely enjoyable, whether you read it physically, as an e-book, or listen to the audiobook.
To start, Fiona Hardingham as a narrator was an inspired choice. I’ve heard her perform before in everything from And I Darken by Kiersten White to An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir, so I’m confident in saying her range is well displayed from society to action, whether it be swordplay to society scenes.
Some of the vocals for the girls were a bit high pitched for my liking, but I think that is because she was playing to stereotypes of the period novels/film adaptations of those novels rather than because those are her natural choices for those characters.
These were just some of my favorites, especial ones that caught my note. I think upon further reading there’d be more to highlight, considering I’d be switching back and forth between two editions. I know there was at least one Lord of the Rings reference the King of England made that had me shaking my head.
To read the characters, going back and forth between Charlotte, Jane, and Alexander’s points of view, was interesting because the authors managed to make their personalities largely a combination of their pre-Victorian reality (or, at least, what Charlotte would likely have been) and some modern sensibilities, particularly regarding the events that were inspired by the events of Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre. There is commentary on toxic masculinity, trust, expectations of women, fashion, and why men are so resistant to be forthcoming with answers in a time of need.
The supernatural elements were fascinating. They provided a source of humor, not least of which because it gave a reason for our characters to become an early version of the Scooby Squad/Ghostbusters. There was also a deeper level of interest regarding the philosophy regarding ghosts and what makes them stay, how they’re relocated, when and if they move on, that sort of thing. This is made especially poignant because one of the secondary characters, Helen aka Jane’s best friend, is a ghost. Also because, through one thing and another, the ghostly element leads to an Easter Egg for readers of Lady Janies Book #1 (My Lady Jane).
This was a fun novel that felt like it was over too soon. It’s combination of classic elements with current methods of storytelling made for such a good book that I was sad to see it go, though that ending did have me chuckling so at least the last page was a happy one. 🙂 What a way to leave off until book 3.