While reading Siege and Storm, I was so happy to find out that Ruin and Rising was available at my library! I loved the first two books of this series and wanted to find out what happened.
This isn’t exactly part of the story, but the dedication of this book was so sad. It was dedicated to Ms. Bardugo’s dad: “Sometimes our heroes don’t make it to the end.”
Since this is the third book in the series, there will be spoilers for the first two books.
The actual story begins underground. Alina is the Sun Summoner, and hordes of people see her as a saint. As a sun summoner, Alina doesn’t do so well being cooped up in the dark. And the Apparat is keeping her friend Mal away from her. Even though she’s the celebrity, Alina is more like a prisoner. As a prisoner, she has to find a way to break herself out. Along with the rest of her friends.
Once above ground, Alina and the group have to avoid the Darkling, as well as the forces at war that would do her harm. Fortunately, she ends up meeting up with Nikolai, and they make plans for the future. Nikolai still thinks that Alina should be his queen, even though that’s not really where her heart lies. First things first though: they have to find the third amplifier.
On their journey to find the third amplifier, they discover some heartbreaking news (which I will not share here). They also learn about Mal’s ancestry, and why he is such an amazing tracker. Mal’s family is not the only bit of interesting backstory that we discover in this book.
All of this leads to the final showdown. I can’t say what’s going to happen, but I will say that the ending (for me) was incredibly sweet. I know that some people have a different opinion as to how Ruin and Rising should have ended, but it was the ending I would have liked. If I ever write fanfiction about this book, it won’t be fix-it fiction, because it ended on a satisfying note.
Overall, I loved Ruin and Rising, and started reading Six of Crows (on audiobook) shortly afterwards. This series made me love Leigh Bardugo’s writing, and I even pre-ordered Ninth House, her next book, which comes out in the fall.
It’s Friday again, and it’s time for #Fangirling on Friday, where we get to fangirl over our favorite stories (of course, if you could fanboy or fanperson if you wanted too). Today’s topic (hosted by Books in the Skye is Animal Sidekicks or Shapeshifters). I can’t think of any animal sidekicks in books I’ve read about recently. I used to read a lot of horse books like The Black Stallion, but I don’t even remember very much about the books, so I’m going with Shapeshifters today.
The Fey of Throne of Glass and A Court of Thorns and Roses
I can’t really think of too many shapeshifting books either, but at least I know of some. The first books that came to my name were the Throne of Glass books by Sarah J. Maas. The fae in her books all have the ability to shapeshift into some other form. In Aelin’s case, she transforms between fae and human, however, another fae in the book can transform between fae and a bird (I almost gave away a spoiler there, oops).
The fae of A Court of Thorns and Roses can also shapeshift, but I’ve only read the first book in the series, so I can’t tell you much about their abilities, but Ms. Maas has said that the characters are both from the same universe, so it’s not that difficult to believe.
Shadowhunters
The only other shapeshifters that I can think of are the werewolves in Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter books. Just like Ms. Maas’s books are plentiful and long, so are Ms. Clare’s. If you only read The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, and The Dark Artifaces, you’re reading 12 books! Some of them are 700/800 pages long. Then there’s also several companion books and The Red Scrolls of Magic. I’ll be reading Ghosts of the Shadow Market, which comes out on June 4th.
Can you think of any shapeshifting books or books with animal sidekicks?
Next week’s Fangirling on Friday topic is “First Series” and I’m not sure whether that is supposed to be “First books of series” or “First series by a debut author”. I’ll probably write about the former.
Siege and Storm is the second book in the Grisha Verse trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been thinking about reading these books for months, and I finally got around to it.
Since this is the second book in a trilogy, there may be spoilers for the first book in this review.
Alina and Mal are on the run from the Darkling. Even though this isn’t exactly the perfect life, they seem to be content. But this temporary respite is not to last. Because they get caught.
The Darkling’s forces now want another amplifier for Alina: Rusalye, a sea creature that inhabits the north. It’s a good thing that Mal happens to be the best tracker out there, because it keeps The Darkling from killing him (that, and the fact that he can use him against Alina). They end up tracking down the sea creature, but then things take an unexpected turn.
Siege and Storm forces Alina to think about who she is and what she wants. She’s the most powerful Grisha ever, and perhaps she is the only person that can stop the Darkling. Unfortunately, as she gains power, Alina wants more of it. Will this thirst for power push her away from Mal? The ambitious prince of Ravka, who is a new character in this book, thinks that because she is so powerful, Alina should be with him. Neither Alina nor Mal want that, do they? It feels as if forces are pushing him away and they are destined to be apart. It made me so sad.
“I have loved you all my life, Mal,” I whispered through my tears. “There is no end to our story.”
p. 416
I did not know the ending to this trilogy prior to reading this book. Quotes like this made me so sad, because I wanted these lifelong friends to end up together and… it didn’t seem like they were meant to be.
I loved this book and read it in two days. I loved these characters, I loved the setting. Funny, there is a minor character named Privyet in the book. Privyet (привет) means “hello” in Russian, so when they called the character that for the first time, I thought they were saying hello instead of saying the character’s name. The plot kept me wanting more, and the book ended with a bang.
Siege and Storm was a great book, and I absolutely love Leigh Bardugo’s writing. I recommend this series to people that like to read fantasy books, especially if you enjoy the whole Russian vibe like I do. I’ve already finished the rest of this series, listened to Six of Crows on audiobook, plan to read the rest of her books, and have pre-ordered her new book (out on October 1st like Rebel and The End and Other Beginnings), Ninth House. Even though I waited far too long to start reading her books, I’m definitely going to keep on reading them as long as she keeps writing.
Shadow and Bone is the first book in Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha Verse books. For months, I’ve heard people ooh and aah over the Six of Crows duology. Since I tend to believe in starting book series from the very beginning, I always said to myself “I have to read the Grisha Verse books first.” I finally started the series, and I was not disappointed.
Alina is an orphan girl who now works in Ravka’s army with her best friend, Mal. While Mal seems to be able to do everything right, Alina is mediocre at best. Everything changes when her unit tries to cross the dangerous Shadow Fold. When Mal is nearly killed, a dormant force inside her awakens and saves his life. It also changes her life forever.
Alina is kidnapped and taken to The Little Palace, where she learns that she is a Grisha (magically able to manipulate matter in some way) and hones her magic skills. She misses Mal, although she makes new friends along the way. One of the people she meets is The Darkling, who tells her that she is unique among Grisha; he tries to befriend her (and more). You’ll have to read the book to see how it turns out.
What I Loved
Is there anything I didn’t love about this book? I actually can’t think of anything. I loved the characters, and I thought Alina and Mal were so sweet together. It made me so sad to see them forced apart as they were. I know that some people who read this series rooted for Alina and The Darkling to develop a relationship, but I was rooting for Alina and Mal from the beginning.
I adored the Russian vibe of this book! Since I speak Russian and go to a Russian meetup group almost every week, when I discovered that Ravka has this Russian thing going on, I was overjoyed! I didn’t know about that before reading this book. Had I known this, I probably would have read this series sooner.
Conclusion
After finishing Shadow and Bone, I went on to read the remainder of the Grisha Verse series, and I loved it. I’m now listening to Six of Crows on audiobook. This universe is amazing and I love Leigh Bardugo’s writing. I highly recommend this book and plan to read more of her books in the future.
Last weekend, I got to go to the Colorado Teen Writing Conference. One of the authors there was Sandhya Menon, and I wanted to read one of her books before I went. While I was trying to figure out which of her books to read, someone mentioned that Dimple was a computer scientist. Just like The Kiss Quotient had me at math, When Dimple Met Rishi had me at computer science.
Both Dimple and Rishi come from traditional Indian immigrant families. Dimple rejects these traditions. While her mother wants her to find the Ideal Indian Husband and get married, Dimple wants a career as a computer scientist. Rishi, on the other hand, wants to follow the path that his family has lined up for him and marry the girl that his parents have arranged for him: Dimple Shah.
Dimple doesn’t have any clue about this so-called marriage arrangement, so when she meets Rishi for the first time at Insomnia Con (a six-week summer program for computer scientists) things don’t exactly turn out the way that Rishi would have hoped. I won’t say what happens, but it is funny as anything.
What I Liked
I loved this book. It was funny and the characters were great. I haven’t read many (perhaps not any) stories with Indian-American characters, and I really liked that aspect too. The relationship development between Dimple and Rishi was realistic and sweet.
There were so many awesome quotes I wrote down into my book journal from this book, such as when Rishi’s brother told him “You’re like, some weird thirty-five-year-old teenager” or when Dimple’s “stomach began to flutter up a tiny tornado.” It made the book much more colorful.
There were so many ways that I could identify with Dimple as a character. Not only did I major in computer science in college, but Dimple also had to deal with jerks who mocked her for her looks. The book is full of truths about life, and the characters learn these things for themselves as they develop throughout the course of the book. I just love it.
I can’t think of anything I didn’t like about the book.
If you’re looking for a cute contemporary story, I highly recommend When Dimple Met Rishi. It’s funny, sweet, and has so much to say. I definitely plan on reading more books by this author at some point, and hope to read the accompanying eNovella, As Kismet Would Have It, that comes out on April 30th as well.
Saturday I got to go to the Colorado Teen Literature Conference! It was a lot of fun, I learned a lot, and I plan to go back next year (Mackenzi Lee will be speaking). This year, Sandhya Menon and Bill Konigsberg were the speakers.
Ms. Menon gave the first keynote speech, right after breakfast. So, for these things (because I plan on going to more in the future) I have to go out of my comfort zone. I didn’t know anybody there, so I had to ask someone if they’d let me sit with them. Fortunately, they didn’t pull a Forrest Gump and say “Can’t sit here.” Phew. I think the majority of the people there were librarians and teenagers that love books. I met one librarian who was writing a book, and one librarian that works in my library district.
So Ms. Menon’s speech was really good. She spoke about having doubts as a writer. She evidently had to rip apart From Twinkle With Love a few times before coming up with the final product (which, although I haven’t read it yet, I’ve heard a lot of good things about it). Very timely, since I decided to delete several chapters from my book yesterday. She also talked about self-publishing a book and expecting the masses to flock to it and… yeah, that doesn’t really happen all that often. But it did help her get an agent.
Then we went to a couple sessions. There was at least one workshop in each session that were of interest to writers, and I went to them. I first went to “Writing the Real” hosted by Anne Eliot and Ginger Scott, and they talked about how to write about difficult subjects and how to make your books relate to people (just because I’m writing a fantasy book doesn’t mean I don’t touch on real topics). They were great people and even gave me a book.
The second session I went to was “Make Your World Come ALIVE” hosted by Laura Resau (rhymes with see-saw). There, we went through a couple exercises to learn more about our characters (if you didn’t have a book you were working on you could work with pictures that she provided). I learned that Lila (from my book) is a lot like a Mama bear. I should really do those exercises with Alexei (from my book) because I don’t spend a lot of time with him and I really need to get to know him better. It was a great session to work on bringing more sensory descriptions in your work.
After lunch, Bill Konigsberg spoke. I haven’t read any of his books, and I don’t think any of his current books will rise to the top of my TBR any time soon, but he spoke of a book that he’s coming out with in 2020 called The Bridge that I definitely want to read. Two teenagers meet on the George Washington Bridge to commit suicide and then it splits into three timelines. In one timeline, the boy commits suicide. In the second, the girl commits suicide. We see what happens to the survivor and to their families after that. In the third timeline, they both decide to live. Just hearing him describe the book made me want to break out in tears. He spoke about his journey to become an author. Although he wasn’t as good of a speaker as Ms. Menon, it was really interesting.
For the third session, I went to “Building Better Beginnings” with Todd Fahnestock. This is where I decided to delete a few chapters from my book. We went through a few beginnings to books and analyzed how they use character, plot, and setting to capture a reader’s interest. Also, how you get readers to ask questions and reward them with a few answers (but not all of them, at first). Although I now am going to cut out a few chapters, which will mean changing several other chapters to make sure the missing information is eventually put back in, it’s going to be a better book.
The final session was a Q&A session where teenagers asked the two authors various questions. I thought it was quite interesting (and sad) when Ms. Menon said that Target initially didn’t want to carry When Dimple Met Rishi because the photograph on the cover was “too ethnic” or something like that. They offered various advice and insight for the attendees.
I thought the way they did the author signings was genius. Everybody had an animal on their name badges. After the author Q&A, they put a bunch of books on the table where the panel of authors and teens had been sitting. When they drew your animal, you had 30 seconds to go up to the table and pick out two books. Since I’ve spent a lot of time reading people’s book blogs, I had an idea of what sounded interesting. I already had read most of the fantasy books on the table, so I ended up picking up two contemporary books: Always Forever Maybe and Listen to Your Heart. They drew a cat (which just happened to be on my badge) first.
So why I said that the way they did the book signings was genius is because there wasn’t a huge line for getting your books signed. There was actually no line after I picked up my two books, and I was wondering if they were even ready to sign their books. Since I picked up When Dimple Met Rishi last week and read it (my 5 star review will be out in a few hours), I had her book signed. She liked my phone case that I designed myself (in case your wondering, here’s a link to where you can get a personalized dolphin phone case like mine).
It was a great day and I definitely plan on going back next year.
Hello! It’s Friday again, and once again, it’s time to Fangirl with #Fangirling on Friday hosted by Books in the Skye!. Today we’re going to talk about retellings. I know some people absolutely adore fairy tale retellings, and usually it doesn’t matter to me one way or another. There are some retellings that I like quite a bit though.
As I was reading A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas, there was something that seemed a little familiar with it. Why? I found out it was a Beauty and the Beast retelling. It’s not predictable though. I haven’t read any of the follow-on books, even though I plan to at some point. These books are really popular at my library and there are so many other books I want to read. Someday.
Ms. Maas tends to get a lot of her inspiration from history. As I was reading Tower of Dawn, I noticed that the people of the Southern Continent were a lot like the khans of history. As a writer, I also get inspired from different real things. Sometimes I’m inspired by history, other times I’m inspired by our daily headlines.
I’ve actually never read Les Misérables, but I know I really should at some point. I really enjoy the retellings and books inspired by this story, such as Sky Without Stars and Legend. Plus, historical France in this time period was fascinating.
With really old books like this that are in the public domain, sometimes it’s difficult to find a translation/edition that is good. If you’re okay with an abridged version, there are plenty of editions out there, but if you’re looking for a good unabridged version, that can sometimes be a little difficult. I downloaded a few copies of Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire before I found an edition that worked for me.
One retelling that I still have to finish is Renée Ahdieh’s duology The Wrath & the Dawn. I read the first book in the series, and really liked it, but I haven’t gotten around to reading the second book in the series, The Rose & the Dagger. I would like to, but there are so many other books out there that I want to read that I haven’t really gotten around to the second one.
That’s all I have for this week. Next week we’re going to talk about Animal Sidekicks and Shapeshifters. I’m going to have to think about that one.
What can we say about A Thousand Perfect Notes… it’s a beautiful book! I bought this book on the Kindle, but if you’ve ever seen the paperback copy with the beautiful butterfly that folds out, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s by C.G. Drews… AKA Paper Fury! That alone is probably enough to make you want to check out this book.
A Thousand Perfect Notes is about a boy named Beck. He loves his little sister and lives with an abusive mother who tries to compensate for her broken life by forcing him to become the person she wanted to be. This means practicing on the piano for hours a day, neglecting his school work in favor of the piano, and never having a social life. It’s a pretty dreary existence.
Things change when his teacher teams him up with August for a school project. Even though he keeps telling her no, she won’t give up on him. Her intrusion into his life changes his family forever.
What I Liked
There were a lot of things I liked about this book. A Thousand Perfect Notes brings us into an impoverished fictional town somewhere in Australia. Beck and August weren’t the only characters I felt for in this book. Everybody seemed to have a difficult life. But aren’t we all facing something?
The main characters were great. Beck’s mother was a monster, but she had her own personal demons to deal with too. Beck was a sweet, caring cinnamon roll who you just have to with a better life for. August was a sweet, optimistic girl with a dash of crunchy-granola.
Drawbacks?
This is a beautiful story and I think the only thing that separates this book from one of my favorite books that I read this year is a matter of taste. It’s a sweet story with a small but adorable cast. There’s no world-shaking politics, oh-no-we’re-all-gonna-die! moments, or anything like that. The book is light on romance. And that’s okay. We need stories like this one.
Conclusion
If you’re in the mood for a sweet contemporary with adorable characters that deserve better in life and find comfort among each other, A Thousand Perfect Notes is a good choice. I enjoyed this book, although I think I will choose to read C.G. Drews next book, The Boy Who Steals Houses, at a moment when I’m tired of dark fantasy and need something lighter. Because this author is definitely worth reading again.
I was so excited when I got an email from Netgalley saying I was approved to read Finale by Stephanie Garber. I loved Caraval and Legendary, and had already pre-ordered it. My Advanced Review copy was given to me in exchange for an honest review. I absolutely loved this book.
Because this is the third book in a series, this review contains spoilers from the previous two books.
Finale starts shortly after Legendary ends. Legend is going to be the emperor, and after leaving Tella at the end of the last book, only visits her in dreams. Their mother is still asleep. Scarlett has decided that she wants to get to know her former fiancée Nicholas even though she has feelings for Julian. Nothing is perfect.
And everything is about to get worse.
When the Fates start waking up, Tella witnesses something heartbreaking… and disturbing. She vows to get back at The Fallen Star, who seems to be the worst of the Fates. In order to hurt him, she has to find out what his weakness is. Then she has to exploit it to kill him.
Meanwhile, Scarlett decided that she wanted to have Julian and Nicholas compete with each other so she can decide who she will marry. Almost as soon as she makes that deal, she realizes that she wants Julian. Before she can tell them both that, her life turns south as well.
What follows is a beautiful, twisty story where secrets are revealed, people have to work with people they otherwise wouldn’t want to work with, and love triangles resolve quite nicely. All of this neatly packaged amidst a sea of gorgeous words and lines that give me all the feels.
I recently started a book journal where I write down some of my favorite quotes and reactions to books I read. There were so many quotes I wrote down from this book. “She looked the way Love might have looked if Love looked in a mirror, infectuously happy and radiantly beautiful.” Also I loved the line “maybe no one deserved love. Maybe love was always a gift.” My favorite line in the book was the last two sentences of chapter 59. I can’t quote it here because of spoilers.
The heart on the cover of Finale tells you exactly how I feel about it. The ending was amazing. I highly recommend it.
After reading Pennies and Dollars by Pepper Winters, I had to read the next book in the series, Hundreds. Never mind that I still haven’t read the next two books (I will though). This third book in the Dollar series has more twists and allows us to get to know Pim and Elder a little bit more.
Since Hundreds is the third book in the series, there are spoilers for the first two books.
Pim is now talking, but as you would expect, she’s still dealing with the hurts of her past. She’s falling for Elder, but he doesn’t seem to think it’s such a good idea. In this book, we learn why.
We learn a lot about Elder in this book. Despite his dark past, I still like him. He’s written in such a way so that even though you know he’s made mistakes, you still like him (or at least I do). I root for his character, and I root for him and Pim to get together.
Elder tries to get Pim to become a thief like he was, and in a way, I’m rooting for Pim not to go down this dark path. I don’t know what direction this series is headed in (and since I haven’t read the last two books yet, I still don’t know), but I hope that she doesn’t go down the path of darkness.
This is another great book in the series, although it’s left at something of a cliffhanger. I imagine that Hundreds will take quite a different turn in the next book. There were revelations in this book that will probably raise their heads in Thousands.
If you enjoyed the first two books in the Dollar series, you’ll probably want to continue with Hundreds. I enjoyed this book as much as I did the first two, and plan to continue reading this series with the last two books at some point.
