Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

Books I’ve Read That I’d Like in My Personal Library

By Brookelorren on August 26, 2019August 26, 201927 Comments

Hello! It’s Tuesday again, and you know what that means! Another episode of Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl)! Today we’re talking about “Books I’ve Read That I’d Like in My Personal Library”.

I’m in a fortunate position in that I currently get an allowance every month, and since I’m not really interested in much else, most of that money goes towards books. That wasn’t always the case, and since I have a limited amount of space to store books, I have to be careful about that too. Plus there’s collectible editions of some books that I’d kill to get my hands on.

After nearly a year of saying “I have to read something by Maggie Stiefvater someday” I finally read The Raven Boys. I ended up borrowing the first three books from the library. I loved these books, but don’t own them. The fourth book, The Raven King, was unavailable from the library, so it’s coming from Amazon on Thursday. But I don’t own the first three, and I can’t really justify buying the books when I might not read them again for a while.

The reason I don’t own the original edition of Life After Legend (the one that was given away as a free gift for pre-ordering Warcross) is because I can’t find it for sale. Anywhere. I periodically check eBay to see if anybody has it up for sale, but I can’t find it. I don’t blame people for not wanting to sell it though. I’ve read it (I bought the paperback edition of Warcross specifically for this) but I don’t own this collectible edition. I’ll keep looking. If you have one you’d like to get rid of, I’d happily buy it from you.

Another author I talked about reading for months was Leigh Bardugo. I actually own Shadow and Bone (I found it on sale on the Kindle for $1.99) but I don’t own the other two. This would be a nice series to own in hardback.

I read Summer Days and Summer Nights last July. There are so many sweet stories in here. I thought about purchasing a copy this summer, but then I realized that I probably wouldn’t end up reading it this summer, and I’ll be getting Veronica Roth’s story “Inertia” with her book The End and Other Beginnings in five weeks, so I decided to postpone the purchase. Maybe I’ll get a copy next year. Sure, I could just get it from the library again if I wanted to read it, but some books you just want to have on hand whenever you feel like reading it.

I listened to Fangirl on via audiobook (that I borrowed from the library) and I really loved it. I’d probably enjoy having a hardback copy of this book. It’s such a sweet story.

Enchantée was such a lovely book, but I don’t own a finished copy. A lot of times when I receive an ARC, I don’t buy the finished copy, but I occasionally do when it’s a book I really loved. Plus, the digital Enchantée ARC is pretty rough. Maybe I’ll get a gorgeous hardback to go with its sequel, Liberté (which comes out on July 14, 2020). I’d rather reread the first book in a pretty hardback than the rough ARC.

The Evertree is the only Marie Lu book or book containing a short story of hers that I don’t own in at least some form. I’ll probably buy this book at some point, but since it’s the seventh book in a middle grade series, I’m not really in a hurry. The reason I never reviewed this book on my blog is that I never read the six books that came before this one. Perhaps someday I’ll check the six books that came before this one out of the library (my boy is currently on this book of the series) and I’ll buy this one so I can complete my collection.

So the first seven books on my list are all sweet, maybe the world is in jeopardy but there’s still some levity to it, and then you get to this book: In the Garden of Beasts. This is a story about the early days of Hitler’s reign. One of these things is not like the other. Even the cover is pretty dark. I loved this book though, and wouldn’t mind reading it again.

Although I still haven’t read the third book in the Clash of Kingdoms series by Erin Summerill, I really loved Ever the Hunted and Ever the Brave. I read both of these books as library books.

Echoes is another book I own as an ARC, but I don’t have a finished copy. The sequel, Fissures, is supposed to come out in winter 2020. Maybe I’ll buy a finished copy around then. I’ll probably want to read it again, and I’d rather read a nice hardback then a rough ARC.

So those are the books that I’ve read but would like in my personal library. Which books would you like to own? Next week we’re going to talk about “Books I Enjoyed Which Were Outside My Comfort Zone”. I might end up tweaking that topic, because I’ll read just about anything.

The Lady Rogue

By Brookelorren on August 26, 2019August 25, 20194 Comments

Jenn Bennett’s The Lady Rogue is a historical adventure/romance set in the late 1930s. I have to thank Netgalley and Simon Pulse for providing me with an advanced reader copy. I enjoyed the other book I read by Ms. Bennett, Alex, Approximately (link is to my review), and I liked this book as well. This is definitely a different kind of book, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

Theodora is a spirited girl who gets into trouble and loves crossword puzzles. Her dad left her in Turkey while he goes and traipses around Romania in search of Count Dracula’s magical ring. When he disappears and Huck, a boy she has a history with, shows up, they have to go on a trip to try to find him and rescue him. All while their funds are dwindling, they’re being chased by bad guys, and people around them are dying.

I loved the characters in this book. This book is set in 1937, so the mindset of people was a little different back then than it is now, but Theodora is adventurous and smart. I really liked her character. She and Huck obviously have a lingering attraction to each other, and their interactions are fun to watch. It’s also fun to find out exactly what happened and watching them work through their conflict. If you like enemies to lover’s books, this has got a little bit of that going on (also a twist on there’s only one bed).

The Lady Rogue has a great setting. Reading the book, you get to experience a little bit of old Turkey, the countryside of Romania, a haunted forest… it’s a lot of fun. The descriptions are great and well done. I enjoyed the historical context to this story as well. It was fun to learn about Dracula and Romania.

If you’re looking for an adventure story with a spirited heroine, evil magic, bad guys, and magical artifacts, then The Lady Rogue might be for you. It has a hint of romance to it (probably less than many of her books), but the other exciting elements of the book make up for it. I highly recommend it. It won’t be released until September 3rd, but you can pre-order it now.

ABC Book Challenge – H

By Brookelorren on August 25, 2019August 22, 20192 Comments

It’s Sunday again, and time for another letter in the ABC Book Challenge! Until the end of the year, I’ll be going through my Goodreads TBR and highlighting books that I really want to read or thought were really good. I first found this tag over at Me, Myself, and Books, but I believe it was started by Thrifty Bibliophile. The letter H doesn’t have a ton of books to it, but we’ll go over some of the ones that stick out to me.

The Heavenly Man was such an inspirational book! I loved reading the miraculous story of his life.

Here Be Dragons came out 11 years ago, but I just found out about it in the last year, and I really want to read it. The story is set in thirteenth century Wales, which seems like such an interesting time period in history. Some of her other books look pretty interesting too.

Here and Now and Then is a cool time travel story set in San Francisco, both in the present and the future. And the past.

The H’s I guess are for history. A History of Modern Europe from the Renaissance to the Present by John Merriman is a huge book, but it was also pretty interesting. I found it a lot easier to read than Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which is ginormous, and Kindle says I have over 90 hours of reading left (this book here didn’t take that long).

J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit is a classic H book. Although it wasn’t set in our world, it still kinda fits into the history theme of this letter, as Middle Earth has a lot in common with our medieval era.

The Hunger Games seems to be the odd one out in our “H is for history” theme today. This book is set in the dystopian future. If this is what our future has in store for us, I think I’d rather go hang out with the dragons. Although I can’t imagine they’d be that pleasant either.

So those are some books on my TBR that start with the letter H. The I books on my Goodreads TBR take up less than a full page, so I’m guessing that there won’t be too many on my list next week, but we’ll see what we can come up with.

A Very Large Expanse of Sea

By Brookelorren on August 22, 2019June 19, 2019Leave a Comment

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi deals with a teenage girl in the year following the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. It is a story that can act as a warning of what can happen when we don’t treat people like… people. I thought it was a good book.

I purchased the special Target edition with bonus chapters, so I’ll comment about that as well.

Shirin is a sophomore in high school who grew up in America, but whose parents had immigrated from Iran. She chose to wear a headscarf, even though it caused trouble for her with her classmates. She also seems to have a huge chip on her shoulder, although she doesn’t realize it. You can’t particularly blame her, not when people give her one glance and assume she’s a terrorist or is weird. When Ocean James, a boy who is assigned as her biology partner, befriends her and later becomes something more, they both develop as people, and eventually, the community starts to come around as well.

A Very Large Expanse of Sea was entertaining. Shirin has a distinctive voice and you have to feel for her. Over time, you also start to see where she’s going wrong (although to be fair, the people around her aren’t saints either). I thought she was well done and realistic.

Themes

A huge theme in this story is how hatred can hurt yourself and the people that you care about. People looked at Shirin and automatically assumed that she hated America, or was a terrorist, or there was something wrong with her. As a result, they hurt their community when they tried to intimidate Ocean in an attempt to get him to break up with her. I guess I can’t say how because I don’t want to give away spoilers.

At the same time, Shirin hurt herself when she defaulted to hate for the people around her. Sure, a lot of the people in the school were jerks. Still, she hurt herself by shutting herself off. She said herself:

I could no longer distinguish people from monsters.
p. 110

It eventually worked itself out, but both she and the community had a lot to learn before they got to that point.

The Romance Aspect

While this is a story about teen romance, it’s really more about other things. Shirin pushes Ocean away for most of the story, even though she likes him. Even though he tells her repeatedly that he doesn’t care what other people think, she worries about how people will react to them being together. There is some kissing, but as the majority of the book is spent with Shirin trying to stay out of a relationship, there’s not too much of it. Still, first love is definitely one of the subplots of the story.

Bonus Chapters

The special edition that I bought came with bonus chapters told about Ocean’s reaction to meeting Shirin. It was interesting to see things from his point of view: his thoughts about his home life, sports, and what he thought of her for the first time. As of this writing, you can still buy it on Target’s web site. I thought the bonus chapters were interesting, but they don’t really provide more information than you already know after reading the book.

Final Thoughts

While I liked the book overall, I did think that the people’s hatred seemed exaggerated for that era. To be fair, I lived in Italy during the time that this story would have taken place, so I wasn’t really in the middle of American life at the time, but it didn’t feel like this from my perspective. That doesn’t mean that there weren’t pockets of places like this school where the people were jerks, I just don’t think it was the norm. At any rate, if people were only mildly bigoted, it wouldn’t have made such an entertaining story.

If you’re interested in a sweet love story between two people of different cultures, where they have to deal with a lot of bigotry, you might want to try A Very Large Expanse of Sea. I thought it was pretty good.

Favorite Tropes (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on August 19, 2019August 19, 201928 Comments

Aaah! It’s Monday night and I still haven’t worked on my Top Ten Tuesday post for this week! Today was so busy (it was my boy’s first day of homeschool for the year and I had to go shopping) and I was about to go to bed but… good thing I remembered. Top Ten Tuesday is an awesome weekly gathering where we talk about books! It’s hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. Today we’re going to talk about our favorite tropes.

1. Variations of “There’s only One Bed!”

I don’t really care for a simple “there’s only one bed” because one of them can sleep on the floor, but there are ways to twist this. Lost in the forest and need to huddle for warmth? You have to share a room with close quarters? These make sense. I use this in the book I’m writing.

2. Enemies to Lovers

Two people start off hating each other and by the end of the book they can’t get enough of each other? Count me in!

3. Childhood Friends to Lovers

On the other end of the spectrum, I love when characters have been best friends since childhood and then they fall in love with each other.

4. Cinnamon Roll Boys

I just love cinnamon roll boys… I just want to give them a hug! Boys who had terrible childhoods, but they’re still sweethearts deep down. Even if they had to turn to a life of crime as a matter of survival.

5. Would-Be Lovers Trip Onto Each Other

These two have to get together somehow!

6. Morally Grey “Heroes”

I loved Adelina Amouteru in The Young Elites, even though she’s definitely not a good person. Although she does terrible things, I feel bad for her. She didn’t choose to be bad. Cardan from The Cruel Prince probably could fit into this category as well.

7. Strong Girls

She doesn’t have to face the entire Hun army on her own (that would be unrealistic anyway) but I like a girl who knows what she wants and doesn’t let people walk all over her.

8. Forbidden Love

I’m not talking about biological siblings, but if the two families aren’t on board, they’re an interracial couple in a society where that’s forbidden, or that sort of thing, I might like it.

9. Characters Go on a Journey

It can be a lot of fun to see the characters run off and have to travel the world.

10. Survival

Oh no! We’re lost in the forest and we have to find a way to survive! Even better if the characters have some sort of attraction to each other (or develop one).

It was hard to come up with ten this week (and I kinda put it off until the last minute too). Next week, when we talk about books I wish were in my personal library, should be easier. Anyway, how about you? What are your favorite tropes (or ones that you hate)? Looking forward to reading what you posted this week.

Ghost Fire

By Brookelorren on August 19, 2019August 18, 2019Leave a Comment

I recently read Ghost Fire by Wilbur Smith with Tom Harper (thank you to Bookish First and Simon and Schuster for the Advanced Reader Copy). Even though it was the first Wilbur Smith book I read, evidently, he’s written a lot of books. I really liked the book and would read more books by this author in the future.

Theo and Courtney grow up in India in the mid 1700s. Courtney is something of a wild child, and Theo always looks out for her. Until the death of their parents tears them apart. They spend the next several years growing into adulthood, without each other. Both of them go through a lot of adventures and travel the world, unaware of what the other is doing.

What I Liked

One of the things I liked about Ghost Fire was its historical accuracy. I’m a student of history, so I actually figured out ahead of time what one of the things the characters would have to go through would be (they were in Calcutta in 1756… I won’t give it away if you don’t know). Although I was expecting this event to occur, I didn’t know how it would affect the characters. Courtney and Theo were also affected by the French and Indian War. The book really emphasized to me how interconnected a world we live in. Even in the 1700s, something happening in Europe would affect both India and North America.

I also liked the characters. Courtney makes her own choices, even though it tends to go against the societal norms of the day. Although Theo doesn’t agree with them, towards the end of the book, he begins to accept them. Theo grows as a person too, from a cautious boy whose sister pushes him into doing things to a man who is willing to risk his life for the sake of others.

I’ve seen some comments that the book was misogynistic towards Courtney; however, I think the book reflects society’s attitudes well for the time period.

Other Things to Note

Ghost Fire is not a YA book even though the main characters are young adults for most of the book. Back in the 1750s, young adults often lived as adults, and the book reflects that. The vocabulary is more like that of an adult book as well (as in SAT-type words, military jargon, and Indian vocabulary) Trigger warnings you might want to be aware of: there’s an attempted rape and there’s widespread racism.

While I did enjoy Ghost Fire, I think it missed an opportunity with the ending (although in order to avoid spoilers I can’t say how). I wasn’t disappointed with the ending; I just thought there were a couple of things that would have made it more awesome. Nevertheless, if Wilbur Smith wrote more books about these two, I’d read them. This book doesn’t come out until September 3rd but you can pre-order it now.

ABC Book Challenge – G

By Brookelorren on August 18, 2019August 17, 2019Leave a Comment

It’s hard to believe that I’m already up to the letter G in the ABC Book Challenge. It was started by Thrifty Bibliophile (as far as I can tell), although I first found it over at Me, Myself, and Books. Every week between now and the end of the year, I will be going through my Goodreads books and finding books that start with the letter of the week, highlighting the books that I liked, find interesting, or am looking forward to.

One book that I hope to get the chance to read is Kiersten White’s book, The Guinevere Deception, which is coming out this November. I still haven’t read anything other than a short story by this author, but I hope to fix that sometime in the future.

I’m reading Ghost Fire right now, and it’s pretty good. I bought it with some of the points I’ve been getting over at Bookish First. I’m sure this book will end up on some of my Top Ten Tuesday lists at some point. I had never heard of Wilbur Smith before, but evidently he’s written a lot of books. I might want to read more of them at some point.

The letter G must be the letter of ghosts, because another G book for today is Ghosts of the Shadow Market by Cassandra Clare. I really enjoyed following Jem from the past to the present in this collection of short stories. It makes me more excited for Chain of Gold, which they postponed to March 3rd of next year. There are already three books I want to read that come out on that day.

It’s been a couple years since I read A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. Will we ever read Winds of Winter, let alone A Dream of Spring? I suspect that if Mr. Martin doesn’t finish it in his lifetime, a ghostwriter will take whatever draft he’s on and finish it for him.

As I’m writing my own book, I can see how it can take a while to write a book… but these are really taking a long time.

Well, those are the books I wanted to highlight that start with the letter G. There aren’t that many this week, but there should be more H books next week.

What Cats Do Book Tag

By Brookelorren on August 17, 2019August 16, 20192 Comments

Hello! Today I’m doing the “What Cats Do” book tag. I first found it over at Golden Books Girl, but it was started by Melting Pots and Other Calamities.

If you want to do this tag, here are the rules (they’re pretty standard):

If you do this tag please credit Kate@ meltingpotsandothercalamities
Answer the questions
And tag as many people as you like!

PURR- AS CATS DO THIS WHEN THEY’RE HAPPY OR RELAXED, WHAT IS THE BOOK THAT MAKES YOU HAPPIEST OR RELAXED?

I’m sure a lot of books could fit this description, but I’ll start with Start Here, a book I recently read that made me (mostly) feel happy and relaxed. How could you not be happy while sailing in the middle of the summer?

SLEEP- WHAT IS A BOOK THAT PUT YOU TO SLEEP OR WAS JUST BORING?

I know this is a really unpopular opinion, but Circe didn’t seem to have the overarching plot to me. Or at least, the stakes didn’t seem that high. Sure, the writing is beautiful, but… it just didn’t do much for me. Maybe it was the audiobook.

TWITCH WHILE DREAMING- HAVE YOU EVER DREAMT OF A BOOK YOU READ?

I’ve dreamt of more than one book I’ve read, but the book I’m editing now started out as a dream about Day and June from Legend. I dream about characters when I’m writing fanfics about them too.

SEEMS TO PLAY NICE…UNTIL THE CLAWS ARE OUT- WHICH BOOK HAD THE BIGGEST PLOT TWIST(S)?

I’ve read a lot of books with plot twists… but I didn’t expect THAT ENDING when I read The Wicked King! If you read it, you know what I’m talking about. Now I’m impatiently waiting for The Queen of Nothing!

CUDDLES- WHICH BOOK CHARACTER WOULD YOU GIVE A HUG TO?

I know I already (kinda) gave this answer out already, but I really want to give little Daniel a hug at the beginning of the Legend graphic novel. And tell him it will be okay. I think. I haven’t read Rebel yet.

CATNIP- WHAT’S A BOOK THAT MADE YOU HAVE WARM AND FUZZY FEELS?

Summer Days and Summer Nights is one of those books that gives you warm and fuzzy feels. I thought about rereading it this summer, but there were just too many other books to read.

CAT BREEDS- WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE BOOKS?

Well, I already mentioned Legend twice… one of my favorite books this year was Sky Without Stars though. I won’t be listing this book or the author elsewhere, so we’ll go with that.

THE VET’S OFFICE- YOUR LEAST FAVORITE BOOK:

I can’t really think of a least favorite book. There was a book I read last year that was a chore to read, but I can’t remember the title right now.

BEING IN PLACES THEY SHOULDN’T- LEAST FAVORITE CLICHÉ:

Probably the girl with a bad-boy boyfriend that she thinks she can redeem.

FINAL QUESTION: THE GOOD OLD CARDBOARD BOX- MOST UNDERRATED BOOK SERIES.

This seemed like a difficult question at first, because the most underrated books I know of aren’t series. But Enchantée is part of a trilogy, so I’m going to list that book. The second book in the series isn’t supposed to come out until next July, but since a trilogy is planned, I’ll count it.

So that’s the What Cats Do book tag. Some of these questions were tricky! If you’d like to do the tag, please do! I’d love to see what you come up with if you decide to do it.

Killing Patton

By Brookelorren on August 15, 2019August 14, 20194 Comments

I recently read Killing Patton, one of the books in Bill O’Reilly’s Killing series. These books always talk about the death of the main person in the book’s title. They also say a lot about the times in which the book was set. George Patton’s death was one that I’ve seen the history channel talk about before, and it seemed interesting.

Prior to reading this book, I didn’t know a lot about Patton, other than he was a famous general. I also knew he was buried in Luxembourg, because I saw his grave when I went on vacation in Germany. World War II happened before my parents were even born. It’s one of those world events that is slowly receding into the mists of history. This book provides a lot of insight into that war. The section covering Patton’s death is a very small fraction of this book.

Killing Patton, in addition to discussing the general’s military genius and his insensitivity towards people with PTSD (back then known as “shell shock”) talks about other aspects of the war as well. It discusses some of the battles that led to victory in Europe, Hitler’s demise, and some of the horrific things that happened to people in the concentration camps (even after their release). It even talks a little bit about Stalin and why the Russians celebrate New Years’ with Christmas trees, even to this day.

The style of this book is similar to the other Killing books, with a close third person perspective. It sticks to the facts, while trying to bring the story to life.

If you’re interested in George Patton, World War II, or enjoy Bill O’Reilly’s other Killing books, you might want to read Killing Patton. If you’re already an expert on the European theater during World War II, this book might not bring any new information. It’s also a book solely about Patton’s death and it’s associated conspiracy theories. If you’re looking for a book that pushes conspiracy theories, O’Reilly’s books are not for you. I enjoyed it, and maybe you will as well.

The Raven Boys

By Brookelorren on August 14, 2019August 13, 20192 Comments

I finally got around to reading The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater! You know those authors that every week (usually right around Tuesday) you get a reminder that you have to read one of their books? Well, Maggie Stiefvater was one of them, and The Raven Boys is the book that everybody associates with her. So when I found out that there was a Raven Cycle readalong, I had to get involved. I wasn’t disappointed.

Blue is a non-clairvoyant girl in a family of clairvoyants. She does have a gift for making it easier for the other ladies in her family to be able to see into the spirit world more strongly. Her family isn’t wealthy, and she works a couple of jobs to help out.

She’s also been told that the first boy she falls in love with and kisses will die.

Also in her town is one of those stuffy-stuck up private schools for rich boys. The one in her town is Aglionby Academy. The boys absolutely rankle her when she has to help them at the restaurant where she works. So when a boy shows up and asks if she’d go talk to a friend of his (both from the Academy) she gets really upset. They don’t really hit it off on the right foot.

Until they realize that she actually has something in common with this particular group of boys. They’re in the process of going on this supernatural treasure hunt.

They’re not the only people going on this treasure hunt. And the other person searching doesn’t want to play nice. You’ll just have to read the book to find out more.

The Raven Boys is a great friendship book. Despite being from Aglionby, these particular boys aren’t stuck up or snobby. They allow her into their group, even though she’s neither a boy nor wealthy. The four boys themselves care about each other too. Additionally, these boys aren’t just caricatures… they all have little quirks, things they like, etc. that make them seem like real people.

At the end of book one, you don’t find out who Blue is going to kiss or who’s going to die, but you’ll want to read the next book to find out anyway, so it doesn’t matter.

Conclusion: read the book. Especially if you’re into the paranormal, great friendships, and cool settings with fairly small towns set near the forest. I’m glad I finally got the chance to read it.