Corinne Morier's Blog, page 3

Favorite Books of 2019

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Hello, again, everyone, and today I am bringing you a post long in coming… We’re talking about my favorite books of 2019!

I’ve never really done one of these, but last year I had fifteen stand-out books that I really wanted to highlight and I’d always been intending to film it as a video for my Booktube channel, but… we’re just doing a blog post instead because I’m a little lazy lol. (and also my camera may or may not be broken, either way, it’s not cooperating with me.)

Also I don’t want to say that one book is better than another, or anything like that, so instead, I will be giving these books superlative awards because all these books are awesome and I loved them all. These are not in any order, except for the very last book in this post, which gets a very special award.

Without further ado, I present to you… Corinne’s Top Fifteen Books of 2019! [image error]

Disclaimer: All links on this page are affiliate links to Bookshop.org, the leading indie online bookstore. Always shop indie rather than resorting to the mighty ‘Zon! If you purchase a book through my affiliate link, I get a small portion of the profit.

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1. Best Book That Lights a Fire in You: A book that lights a fire in you is basically a book about a subject you’re passionate about or want to study further. That would be THE KINGDOM by Jess Rothenberg. OHMYGOD How do I even start talking about this book? First, it is SO NERDY. The THEME PARK NERD in me is just dying because this is a LITERAL DYSTOPIC THEME PARK. I read a certain well-known dystopian, which got me into dystopians, and which you will see later in this post, after which I read THE KINGDOM. [image error] Welcome to the Kingdom… where ‘Happily Ever After’ isn’t just a promise, but a rule.

I went into this book knowing not much more than it was set at a theme park (and that it was Rothenberg’s debut novel) but I loved it so much that I checked it out from the library, read the library copy cover-to-cover in a single sitting, then went out and bought my own copy for my collection. If I had to describe this, it would be a YA thriller/dystopian that Disney fanatics would really enjoy. The best thing about this book, I’d say, was the GIANT PLOT TWIST near the end–I’m a huge fan of well-written plot twists and this just makes my wannabe detective heart all happy because now I’m rereading this and having fun finding all the little clues that led to the twist.

Buy The Kingdom on Bookshop.org

2. Best Classic: 2019 was my Year of Reading Chronicles of Narnia For the First Time. I’d seen the Walt Disney live-action movie adaptations when they first came out but never read the books. Probably to no one’s surprise, my favorite book in this series is the OG story, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, which also takes the Best Classic award for 2019. [image error]

NARNIA…the land beyond the wardrobe, the secret country known only to Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy…the place where the adventure begins.

I’m fairly certain everyone knows the plot of this novel already–this MG fantasy about four siblings who discover a fantasy kingdom in a wardrobe and take down an evil power-hungry witch was just so much fun to read. I can see how this is a childhood favorite for almost everyone else who isn’t me. xD

Buy The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe on Bookshop.org

3. Best Representation Award: The Best Representation award of 2019 goes to Ginny Moon by Benjamin Ludwig. This book is about thirteen-year-old Ginny Moon, who is autistic and in foster care. Even though her foster family takes very good care of her and her birth mother was neglectful and Ginny was removed for her own good, she still wants to go back to her birth mother’s house to get something she left there. All the social workers, her foster parents, and her teachers all tell her that she can’t go back to her birth mother’s house to get her “Baby Doll,” but she doesn’t listen, and even puts her foster family in danger as she tries to find her birth mother.

[image error] Ginny left something behind and she’s desperate to get it back, to make things right. But no one listens. No one understands. So Ginny takes matters into her own hands…

This was such a good story and as an autistic person myself, I can say with confidence that the portrayal of Ginny’s autism, and the use of it during the story, is excellent representation, because Ginny’s autism is presented as neither good nor bad, and she has both good and bad parts. She’s shown as a real person who just happens to have autism, and she has agency in the story, and it’s her story, rather than being about her foster parents, or about her birth mother, or anything like that. The autistic person is the center of the story and is presented as a real person and I could just go on and on but I won’t for the sake of brevity.

Again, the PLOT TWIST in this book was what I enjoyed the most–it was foreshadowed just enough that it didn’t feel like an ass-pull, but not so much that you see it coming from a mile away.

Ginny Moon is a YA nonromantic contemporary/coming of age story that would appeal to fans of Kyoko Mori’s books, especially One Bird or Shizuko’s Daughter, though some readers might not be comfortable with the explicit swearing or might be triggered by the references to Ginny’s abuse at the hands of her birth mother.

Buy Ginny Moon on Bookshop.org

4. Best Animal Book: Next we have the Best Animal Book, and this award goes to Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa.

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Sometimes you have to leave behind everything you know to find the place you truly belong…

This is a really lovely story about FRIENDSHIP and CATS and A SNARKY CAT NARRATOR and I just can’t stop raving about how great this story was! Nana the cat goes on a road trip across Japan with his owner. His owner is trying to find a new home for Nana, but Nana just wants to stay by his friend’s side no matter what, and it’s just so fun to spend the story with Nana as he tells us about the silly humans who do unexplainable things.

Buy The Travelling Cat Chronicles on Bookshop.org

5. Best Kids Book: The best kids book award goes to one of my favorite authors, Raina Telgemeier, for her 2019 release, Guts.

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It soon becomes clear that Raina’s tummy trouble isn’t going away… and it coincides with her worries about food, school, and changing friendships. What’s going on?

Guts is a graphic novel memoir about Telgemeier’s experiences in fourth grade with a stomach bug that quickly spiraled into what turned out to be IBS, and a major aspect of this story is Raina feeling ashamed of her struggles with food and mental health. I love Raina Telgemeier so much and it feels so good hyping her work because not only is she from my hometown, but she’s also so super talented, as well!

Kids might feel embarrassed about things like going to therapy or admitting to their friends that they struggle with anxiety issues, but Guts normalizes all of that, providing a way for teachers and parents to show kids who might be struggling with these same issues (or similar ones) that it’s okay, you’re not alone, and you’re definitely not weird. If you are a parent or an educator who works with elementary age children, or a fan of Telgemeier’s other works, definitely grab yourself a copy of this one!

Buy Guts on Bookshop.org

6. Best Middle Grade: The Best Middle Grade award goes to Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke. (for those who are unfamiliar with the term, middle grade refers to readers ages 11-14-ish–hence middle grade, since it’s for middle school readers! xD)

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A boy. A dragon. A quest.

This story is about Firedrake, a young dragon who is sent to find the Rim of Heaven so he and the other dragons can live in peace, undisturbed by the humans who are encroaching on their territory. With him travels Sorrel, a sassy brownie, and they meet Ben, a young orphan boy, and fight against Nettlebrand, a monster of old who hunts dragons. This was just a really fun read, and even though it is a big boy, clocking in at over 500 pages, it goes by really quickly, and I gave it five stars and I love it so much and it’s got Funke’s whimsy and snark and I love it so much. And with its strong friendships and found family, it’s just so heartwarming and gives you all the warm and fuzzies.

Buy Dragon Rider on Bookshop.org

7. Best Uncertain Expectations: I definitely couldn’t make a list of my favorite books of the year without including this one: The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchinson.

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In this garden grow luscious flowers, shady trees…and a collection of precious “butterflies”—young women who have been kidnapped and intricately tattooed to resemble their namesakes.

I found this one at the library and was, at the time, very inexperienced with thrillers and suspense novels. I enjoyed this one so much that it got me into reading more thrillers and suspense, and I literally skipped my Master’s swim practice, my favorite thing in the entire world, so that I could finish reading this book! In this book, we alternate between two perspectives: an FBI agent who is in an interview with a kidnapping victim. She and several other women were rescued from the house of a man known only as The Gardener, where he kidnapped and held them in a secret living quarters in his greenhouse, tattooed them with giant butterfly wings along their backs, calling them his Butterflies, then raping them until they turned 21, at which point he killed them and preserved their bodies in resin. Eew. The other perspective is of Maya herself, when she’s still living in the Garden, and we see what life was like for her there and how she eventually got rescued. I wasn’t sure if I’d like this one or not but I was very much intrigued by the premise, because I’m a huge fan of Law and Order SVU and this kind of reminded me of that show.

If you’re looking for your next thriller/suspenseful twisty read, The Butterfly Garden is your thing. I’d recommend it for both thriller beginners and veterans of the genre. Of course, also should add a trigger warning here for sexual assault and kidnapping, but if you’re like me and obsessed with Law and Order: SVU and looking for a new book to read, definitely pick this one up!

Buy The Butterfly Garden on Bookshop.org

8. Best Manga Award: The Best Manga Award of 2019 has to go to Orange by Ichigo Takano.

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On the day that Naho begins 11th grade, she receives a letter from herself ten years in the future.

For those unfamiliar with manga, it’s the Japanese word for graphic novel. Manga beginners and hardcore otaku like myself will be able to enjoy Orange: The Complete Collection. 11th grader Naho at first dismisses the letter from her “future self” as a joke, but as the events described in the letter begin to come true, she wonders if its claim that the new transfer student will soon meet with a terrible future is actually for real. The letter begs Naho to watch over him, saying that only she can change what happened.

Even if you are unfamiliar with the meduim of manga, Orange is a good one to start with–the format is easy to read, the character designs are spot-on, and the mystery builds as Naho tries to find a way to change Kakeru’s fate. I’d recommend this for anyone who’s into a good time travel story, or anyone who likes a story with a strong friend group, because Naho and her friends have a great dynamic and she’s an intriguing character who you just want to root for.

Buy Orange volume 1 on Bookshop.org

9. Best Fantasy Award: Of course, this would not be a “Corinne’s favorite book” list without some epic fantasy. (Surprisingly, a majority of the books I’ve talked about so far in this post are contemporary or sci-fi! 2019 was a weird reading year for me. xD) But the Best Fantasy Award has to go to who I like to call the God of Worldbuilding, Garth Nix, for his YA standalone Angel Mage!

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More than a century after creeping into the empty sarcophagus of Saint Marguerite, Liliath emerges just as beautiful and deadly as before, with a plan to reunite with her angelic lover Palleniel, and four young people hold the keys to his spirit.

You guys all know by now that Nix is my favorite author of all time, and you know that when he announced the release of his newest book, Angel Mage, I was preordering the heck out of it. This book is about the ancient evil sorceress Lilliath, who puts herself into a hundred-year-coma in order to resurrect her angelic lover Palliel. The magic system in this book was so interesting, in that people call on angels in order to do magic but the magic takes away years from your natural lifespan, and the group of friends in this book was so fun to read together, and it was coupled with Nix’s beautiful prose, and I just love it so much. Nix is especially a big fan of The Three Musketeers, and this book is apparently a retelling of that story. I’ve never read The Three Musketeers, but I would definitely recommend it to Musketeer lovers, as it has a lot of the swashbuckling, adventuring, “one for all and all for one” spirit that the original story seems to have.

Buy Angel Mage on Bookshop.org

10. Best Movie Adaptation of 2019: The best book-to-movie adaptation (well, besides Lord of the Rings, you guys already know my feelings on that one, but I’m trying to focus on books I read for the first time on this list, lol) would be The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, adapted into the movie of the same name.

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Could you survive on your own in the wild, with every one out to make sure you don’t live to see the morning?

When this book first came out, way back in 2009, I was determined not to buy into the hype. Us autistic folks tend to have brains that are several years behind our physical age (so for example, in 2009 I was eighteen years old technically, but my emotional and mental maturity was more along the lines of a fourteen-year-old. This seems to have leveled itself out after I hit my twenties, but I have noticed this pattern in my autistic students, as well. I have not done any significant research into this topic, so for now, it is just a theory. An AUTISM theory! Okay, I’ll shut up now and go back to talking about books. xD) so when I tried reading this book immediately after its release, I just wasn’t able to follow the story or what was happening, since I’d never read any dystopians before.

Of course, you guys already probably know the plot of this book. In a postapocalyptic future, an annual event is held called The Hunger Games, at which two teenagers from each district are sent as sacrifices in a giant government-sanctified reality survival show. After her sister is chosen for the Games, Katniss Everdeen volunteers in her sister’s place and becomes a reluctant contender in the Games.

As the years have gone by, and especially since the movie was released, The Hunger Games has become a meme, and parodies and GIFs of it litter the Internet. (I mean, who hasn’t referenced the “I volunteer as Tribute!” line from the first book/movie?)

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So in 2019, while randomly scrolling through the on-demand movies on my TV, I saw that The Hunger Games was free to watch, and I figured it was finally time for me to see what all the hype was about. And HOO BOY this franchise does not disappoint. I saw the movie first, because often if I’m having trouble getting into a book or understanding what’s going on, seeing the movie first helps me then figure out what’s happening in the book. (Yes, I’m one of those horrible people who watches the movie first. xD)

My favorite aspect of this book was the sister relationship between Katniss and Prim that drove the story–I’m trash for great sibling relationships in fiction, and this has to be pretty much my favorite sibling relationship of all time!

If you haven’t picked up The Hunger Games because you’re afraid it won’t live up to the hype, or maybe you’re just feeling a bit apprehensive, maybe it’s time to give this amazing series a chance!

Buy The Hunger Games on Bookshop.org

11. Best Love Letter to Books: Bookworms, take note! This next book is literal porn for us, showcasing the magic of reading and inherent value of books. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke earns the Best Love Letter to Books award of 2019.

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One cruel night, Meggie’s father reads aloud from a book called INKHEART– and an evil ruler escapes the boundaries of fiction and lands in their living room.

This is a MG fantasy about Meggie, who has been raised by her single father (whom she calls Mo), and though both of them are huge bookworms and Mo is a professional bookbinder, he has never once read aloud to her. Until one stormy night when they get a visit from the mysterious Dustfinger, revealing a longstanding secret about Mo’s power, Dustfinger’s real objective, and the disappearance of Meggie’s mother so long ago.

Of course, Meggie and Mo both being huge bookworms, Inkheart has many references to different well-known stories, and the entire series drips with a love of books and stories. I kind of wish I’d read this when I was younger (I’ve had the entire trilogy for years and I think my dad gifted it to me when I was a teenager, but when I came back from teaching English in Japan and got all my books out of storage, I remembered approximately nothing about the story to the point where I decided that I’d just never read it before, even though my copy of Inkheart was rather battered and appeared to have been well-loved over the years).

If you have a voracious reading child who loves fantasy, this is definitely a book series to get. Each installment in this trilogy is over 500 pages, ensuring that the child who zooms through a book in twenty minutes will actually spend an hour or so with each book, guaranteeing frazzled parents a good three hours of peace and quiet.

Book Blogger Anniversary Tag

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Well, almost. September 4, 2020 was the two-year anniversary of my first-ever book review, when I reviewed The Friends by Kazumi Yumoto.

I’ve come a long way since then. xD So I thought I’d mark the anniversary with a fun tag. I was originally going to do this tag over on my Youtube channel, but my camera’s on the fritz and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to film anything anymore until I can get it replaced.

This tag comes from Book Your Imagination, and the original video can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shLHdeNBQmw&t=233s

Of course, I will be adapting some of the questions for a blog rather than a Youtube channel, but here we go!

What anniversary are you celebrating?

This will be the second anniversary of my book blog. Also should be noted that September 29th was my two-year work anniversary of my day job, so yay, let’s celebrate that, too!

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2. What genre or genres do you usually focus on?

I’m very picky about what genres I do and don’t read (see my Frequently Asked Questions for more information) so here’s a general breakdown for those who are new to my site:

MG: I love MG high fantasy (think things like Inkheart, The Girl Who Drank the Moon, or Enchanted Forest Chronicles) but other than that, like MG contemporary or MG portal fantasy, tends to be a hit or miss for me, so I don’t focus on those on my blog. (ironic, though, since my first-ever post was of a MG contemporary! xD)

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YA: This is my main jam. I like most genres within the YA age category, including romantic contemporary, hard-hitting contemporary (I just recently read The Last Leaves Falling and it’s a new favorite!), sci-fi, thriller, and most subgenres of fantasy. (epic fantasy, low fantasy, etc.) The one thing that irks me in YA (and fantasy in general) is portal/urban fantasy. Portal fantasy all tends to be the same across the board, and as for urban fantasy, too much of it stinks of the Chosen One trope, of which I am not a fan, so I more often than not will not reach for these.

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Adult: I don’t really focus much on adult books here on my blog, but I do make exceptions for high fantasy/epic fantasy (after all, Lord of the Rings will always and forever be one of my favorite books of all time!)

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I also really like reading graphic novels in any of the above-mentioned genres, and I will make exceptions (sometimes) for books outside my usual genres if they’re set in or are about Japan. (eg. historical ficiton like The Buddha in the Attic or Memoirs of a Geisha, or paranormal/ghosty stories like Hannah’s Winter)

3. What are you most proud of on your blog in the last year?

Hmm, that’d be a hard one. I did put in a lot of effort to update my Contact page and add a FAQ page that looked nice and were easy to read with lots of images and whitespace . Also have you seen my sidebar lately? I work HARD on that thing. xD

4. Do you receive ARCs to review?

Technically, yes, but again, I’m very picky. I occasionally get inquiries from authors and publishers to send me ARCs, and sometimes I say yes and sometimes I say no, it really depends on my reading mood at the time, especially if I’m in one of my “I don’t want ANYTHING NEW JUST REREAD ALL MY OLD FAVORITES” moods.

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5. What types of posts do you most like to do on your blog?

To be completely honest, I’ve started moving away from individual book reviews. In fact, I’ve got posts planned out all the way until January 2021, and they’re looking to be mostly list-type posts, like talking about my favorite books of the year, end of year wrap up, etc. So I will be moving away from individual reviews for the time being, and maybe in 2021 I’ll decide that I’m tired of list-type posts again. xD

6. What types of posts do you read on other peoples’ blogs?

Hmm, that’s a tough one. It sounds really rude of me to say this, but… I don’t really read other blogs. *dodges pillows* I know, I should be reading other peoples’ blog posts and making a network of fellow bloggers and stuff, but I… I dunno, if I’m going to consume another bookish user’s content, I’d prefer to put on a Booktube video while I play my MMO.

7. Was there anything you tried on your platform last year that didn’t work?

Honestly, the Year of Asian Stories challenge? I mean, I did a good job keeping up with the reading all right, but I stopped posting reviews for my YoAS books after a certain point. I’d still like to post a wrap-up of some sort for that, like “The Best Books I Read for YoAS” or “The YoAS Books, Games, and Anime I Want to Return To” or something like that.

8. Is there anything you tried last year that you won’t do this year?

No more posting of negative reviews! If I didn’t give a book at least four stars, I won’t post it–after all, if I can’t actually recommend it, then what do you guys get out of the post? Or do you just enjoy seeing me spill salt?

9. Is there anything you plan to do more of this year?

More posts of fun stuff, like top ten lists (I have a Top Ten Teachers in Literature post planned, but that’s not going to be able to come for a while because I asked in a few Facebook groups for book recommendations/suggestions for good teachers in literature and apparently I missed quite a few! xD So I’ve got some more books to read before that happens!)

10. Is there anything you plan to add to your blog next year?

Um… haven’t thought about that. Don’t know. Any suggestions, leave them in the comments!

11. What are some of the challenges you face on your blog?

Mostly that I spend way too much time playing video games instead of working on my blog. I need to stop it with so much gaming all the time. xD

12. What is the best piece of advice you could give to a fellow blogger?

To a newbie wanting to start a blog/who has just started to blog, I’d say don’t fret too much about writing reviews for newly-published books. Just write reviews of books you’ve already read in the past, whether it be an old-timey classic or a kid’s book or whatnot. Your review could be as simple as saying the title, genre, author, your star rating, and the back cover copy, along with saying one or two things you enjoyed about the book. You’ll figure out what works best for you as you get into the swing of things.

To bloggers who’ve got a few months of posts under their belt and who want to level up their game, take a look at the design of your homepage and see if you want to make it look different. Look at other people’s blogs and see what you do and don’t like about their website layout, and how you might be able to adapt those strategies to your platform.

13. What is the best part of having a book blog?

Along with the blogging friends I’ve made, I also really like applying my natural creativity to my love of books–for example, in the design of my homepage, which is technically a template but I’ve added a bit of my own stuff to, as well. Also that I get to shout about books and make people read them. Maybe someday I’ll be able to get up the courage to ask my favorite author to let me interview him here. xD

And so ends the Anniversary Tag! Now I have to tag other people, so I tag the amazing Ari from Bookish Valhalla and the sweet bean Av from Teacups and Torn Pages to do this tag on their blogs, as well! Also if anyone else reading this is celebrating an anniversary of some sort on their blog/Youtube channel/etc. you are hereby tagged!

Thank you so much everyone! Wear your mask, stay safe, and I’ll see you in two weeks!

Corinne 乙女

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I am currently accepting review requests from authors and publishers for both backlist and upcoming books. Interested parties should refer to my Contact page for more details and to submit their book.

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like these other posts from me:

Book Review: Dragonsdale

Studio Ghibli Tag!

Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag

Book Review: Dragonsdale

Dragonsdale: Skydancer by Salamanda Drake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The story of me picking up this book is a rather long one. Was it last year when I happened upon Volume 2 of this series at the local thrift store? (This is a rant for another day, but Book 2, entitled “Riding the Storm,” committed one of my least favorite pet peeves in book design, and that is, not saying anywhere on the cover, on the back of the book, or anywhere in the book itself, that it’s a later book in a series. It wasn’t until I got home and went to add it to my Goodreads that I found out that it was Book 2 in a series. (I probably would have bought it regardless, but I would have also been aware of the existence of other books in the series and looked for the other books while still at the thrift store, to see if the donor had included book 1 or even books 3 or 4 in their donation)

Okay, mini-rant over. Onto the content of the book.

(One more note: Because of issues arising over the publication of Books 3 and 4, the series was rebranded and the first book republished under the authors’ independent publishing platform, retitled “Skydancer,” to differentiate it from the series title “Dragonsdale.” For clarity’s sake, I will be calling the title of this book as “Skydancer,” and the series itself as “Dragonsdale.”)

Skydancer is a middle-grade fantasy novel, the first in a four-book series entitled Dragonsdale, set in the fictional land of Bresal, and in particular, the Dragonsdale riding stables, where riders and dragons work together, some in a group of patrol riders and some who compete in contests of obedience and agility. In book 1, we follow Cara and her bonded dragon Skydancer, who was found as a hatchling and only accepts Cara as a rider, even though Cara has been forbidden by her father to ride dragons, due to having lost her mother in a riding accident some years prior.

Over the course of the story, Cara fights to get her father to accept her fervent wish to become a dragon rider and thwart her rival Hortense’s attempts to bully her into submission.

Let’s get into three things I liked and three things I didn’t enjoy so much so that you can make your own decision about whether or not to pick up this book, starting with something I didn’t enjoy so much so I can finish on a positive note.

I didn’t enjoy:

Alphabet fatigue

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You guys all know that one of my least favorite storytelling styles is having multiple characters, all with names starting with the same letter of the alphabet. Like in this book, we have Cara, our main character, and Cloudbreaker, a dragon ridden by one of the other characters. Okay, I can handle that. But then we get Galen and Gerda, Breena and Breezy, and Hortense, Huw, and Hildebrand. Considering that we only got about ten named characters throughout this book, I wish that just one of these characters’ had been changed so that it was easier to tell them apart from their alphabet-partner.

Something I liked about this book:

Father, I Am Your Daughter

[image error]This image. It encompasses everything I love about father-daughter relationships in fiction!

Your girl is trash for father-daughter relationships in fiction, and this one does not disappoint. Arwen and Elrond (Lord of the Rings), Sabriel and Terciel (Sabriel), Yaichi and Kana (My Brother’s Husband), Reiko and Magistrate Ueda (the Sano Ichiro series), and Meggie and Mo (the Inkworld trilogy), and now, Cara and her father Huw. Bonus points if there’s no mother in the picture, forcing the father to step up and be a single parent to his headstrong daughter! I’m a writer myself, and I unwittingly wrote this trope into three of my manuscripts before realizing that I LOVE THIS TROPE SO MUCH. (I realize that by saying this, I might be implying that I don’t have a good relationship with my mom, but that could not be farther from the truth–my mom and I are like best friends and we do everything together. Same with my dad–we have a great relationship and both my parents are great parents to me.) But for some reason, I just can’t not read a book based on a father-daughter relationship. And the father-daughter relationship in this book does not disappoint! When Cara was still very small, her mother died during a riding accident, and in his grief, her father Huw decided that he would never allow Cara to ride a dragon, for fear of losing her the same way. And it is this fear of Huw’s that drives the main conflict of the story. And since it’s a book aimed at children, it has the conclusion that you’re probably imagining it does, but IT’S STILL GOOD, OKAY? I WILL FOREVER DEFEND THIS TROPE UNTIL THE DAY I DIE.

Okay, back to something I didn’t enjoy as much.

CLICHES! GET YOUR CLICHES RIGHT HERE!

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Some of the other characters in this book are rather cliched archetypes. You’ve got your cookie-cutter rich girl who is a rival to the protagonist and bullies her endlessly, an overbearing protective father, a clumsy sidekick, a plump, cheery housekeeper, and an overweight jolly old man. Aside from Cara, none of the other named characters (except Skydancer, and maybe Wony) really do anything to differentiate themselves from the other character archetypes out there that match theirs, and so most of them just fade into the background.

The two characters I liked the most were

Cara and Sky

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As the meme says. You’ve got Cara, a twelve-year-old girl raised at Dragonsdale, who wants desperately to ride Skydancer (Sky for short), a dragon who gets his share of snarky comebacks to various events in the story. There’s gotta be a trope for this, right? Like “Plucky Human Child/Snarky Creature Pair” or something. Again, just a few examples of this trope from other books I loved (in case you need proof that it is, in fact, a trope), Sabriel and Mogget (Sabriel), Ben and Sorrel (Dragon Rider), Eragon and Saphira (Eragon), Talia and Rolan (Arrows of the Queen), Sophie/Howl and Calcifer (Howl’s Moving Castle)… you get the picture. FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN A HUMAN AND A SNARKY NON-HUMAN WILL ALWAYS BE AWESOME.

When they were well out of sight of the house, Cara tapped Sky sharply on the muzzle. “You can stop shamming now,” she told him. “There’s nobody to see. Honestly, you’re such an old fraud.”

Dragonsdale book 1, “Dragonsdale,” p. 180 (published by Chicken House, Scholastic Inc.)

Final thing I didn’t enjoy as much…

Nice job breaking it, hero!

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As expected of a kids’ book, the plot doesn’t go anywhere unexpected or do anything outside of the ordinary. Of course, at the time of reading this book, I happened to be rather in the mood for brainless, predictable stuff (literally, that’s what I have written in my notes, “Predictable, but I’m kind of in the mood for brainless, predictable stuff right now”) so it definitely suited my mood and didn’t really bother me all that much. But at one point, Cara does something not only unexpected, but outright STUPID. She and Drane are sitting in the stands watching the dragons compete, when the judge emerges to give out the grand prize, and it’s someone we know! She nudges Drane (which solidified in my mind that it wasn’t simply intended to be a random utterance of something like “Oh my gosh, I didn’t know Dragonmaster Adair was judging!” or something like that) and is like “That’s Dragonmaster Adair, don’t you know? Of Clapperclaw!”

The problem with this bit is, more than fifty pages ago, Drane and Cara had a rather lengthy discussion about the rival stables of Clapperclaw and how they (the Clapperclaw riders) didn’t fulfill their end of the bargain to lend military aid to Drane’s family’s farms, even though they (Drane’s family) paid tithes to Clapperclaw and Dragonmaster Adair. In short, Drane’s family lost a good portion of their lands to wild animals, he and his family nearly starved, and now he’s working at Dragonsdale to try and help his parents financially. And Cara knows that all of this trauma that Drane went through was beacuse of Dragonmaster Adair. Hence, he would already know who Dragonmaster Adair is.

I couldn’t find any reason for Cara to remind Drane of this traumatic event when she knew all of the above stated facts already. Yeah, she’s twelve, and kids aren’t known for being good decision-makers, but this goes way beyond “stupid child mistake.” There wasn’t even any reason storywise for her to do so, except for Drane to get quiet so she could tell him about the various species of dragons. It’d have been one thing if she hadn’t known that Dragonmaster Adair was going to be the judge, and so when he came out, she exclaimed “It’s Dragonmaster Adair!” without thinking, or something like that, but again, she nudges him, so you’d assume it was on purpose that she did this.

Final thing I enjoyed about this book:

I WANT MY OWN DRAGON, TOO!!!

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This book has some really great illustrations to enhance the story, and it really goes above and beyond to make its readers believe that they, too, could sail over the seas to the islands of Bresal, find the dragons, and have their own dragon to ride. As I said in my notes for this book, “If I’d found this book as a twelve-year-old, I would have had a new favorite read.” If you have a voracious reading child who likes dragon stories, get them this book!

Also to this book’s credit, I cried at the end. Just a little. This unassuming kids’ book with a bright green dragon on the cover made me, a 29-year-old grown woman, cry. Because I FELT things at the end, and as we’ve established before, I am an alexythimic robot who doesn’t understand feelings, and when I feel feelings, I get upset.

In conclusion
Dragonsdale by Salamanda Drake gets 4/5 stars from me for:

Book Review: Reformed

Reformed: Supervillain Rehabilitation Project by H.L. Burke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reformed by HL Burke

Book Review: Convenience Store Woman

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata is an unassuming tiny book that somehow manages to hit all the sweet spots to be everything I’ve ever wanted in a book!

Before we dive into the meat of this review, let’s go ahead and look at all the things this book does right:

A book about a woman who works at a convenience store and is happy with her lot in life despite everyone telling her she should want more

Not to mention that she’s got autism (!) when it’s rare to find an autistic woman depicted realistically in media

And Keiko is so super snarky and relatable (her: ew, people! me: I KNOW RIGHT? PEOPLE ARE GROSS.)

Now that I’ve finished fangirling about this adorable story, I suppose you want a description of what it’s actually about.

Convenience Store Woman (in Japanese: コンビニ人間, Konbini ningen) is an adult contemporary about Keiko Furukura, who has worked part-time at the local convenience store for eighteen years and has no desire to change. She is a convenience store worker. Yet her mother, sister, friends, and coworkers all pressure her into wanting more, a husband, children, a better job… But why would she need any of that when she has all she wants already?

As always with my reviews, I’ll discuss some aspects of the book I enjoyed and some that I didn’t like very much so that you can make your own decision about whether or not to read this (but you should read it because it’s amazing)

So, starting with something I liked about this book…

HOLY CRAP WOMEN WITH AUTISM IN FICTION?? DEPICTED REALISTICALLY?? IS THIS A DREAM???

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Though not mentioned by Murata anywhere on her social media (I checked) as an autistic woman myself, I’m officially headcanon-diagnosing Keiko with Asperger Syndrome. Let’s have a look at why I think she’s autistic:

She’s very resistant to change (eg. resistant to the idea of a new job, resistant to the idea of starting a relationship, changes in her very rigid daily routine cause her distress, etc.)

She is unable to filter out sounds and often remarks that “I never knew customers could be so loud!” (p 16) (for more information about this, see sensory processing disorder on understood.org, which is often co-morbid with autism)

She likes to have a particular way of doing things, and once she learns how to do something (eg. use the cash register, restock the shelves) she only wants to do it that way and does it perfectly.

She relies on stock phrases and imitates other people to learn how to behave and how to act (this is called “masking” and is a common behavior for autistic girls)

She’s unable to answer questions on the fly (for example, she remembers her first day on the job, when a customer asked her a question that they hadn’t practiced in training and she got flustered and didn’t know how to reply)

She doesn’t understand other people’s emotions

She feels bad for taking her required breaks (okay, maybe this isn’t actually a symptom of autism, but I totally relate–when I’m at work and I’m on a break of some sort, I feel like I’m just slacking off, especially if everyone else is running around doing twelve things at once, and more than once, my boss has had to remind me that I’m legally required to have my breaks)

She doesn’t fit in with people who aren’t her coworkers, and doesn’t know how to talk to her coworkers when they start making conversation unrelated to the convenience store

Especially when you consider that autism is still thought of as a “male disorder” and some people would even go as far as saying “Only boys can have autism!” having an autistic woman as the main character who is depicted so realistically and with flaws and strengths just like any neurotypical character would be, is an amazing book in my book. (pun TOTALLY intended. xD)

No book is perfect, though, so now let’s discuss something I didn’t like all that much.

Gullible to a fault

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Keiko is way too gullible. Yes, autistic women tend to be more gullible than their neurotypical counterparts, but at one point, we meet our B story character: Shiraha, a former employee of Keiko’s convenience store who was fired for sexually harassing female employees and stalking a customer. He’s not even meant to be a love interest, either: Keiko is disgusted by his teeth and unkempt appearance. Yet he tells her she should quit her job and find a full-time position, and without even thinking about what she’d like to do, she just goes along with him, quits her beloved job, and gets a job interview in the business sector. Which is not where she wanted to be, nor what she wanted to do, and I was really disappointed in her for a good 50 pages during the middle of the book.

Another thing I enjoyed about this book was that Keiko’s inner snarks are hilarious!

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Keiko inwardly snarks about the people around her, particularly Shiraha, who often goes on rants and who has an inflated sense of ego. She’s got such a fun, unique voice and this book is one of those that’ll just have you turning pages nonstop until you get to the end.

Another thing I didn’t enjoy so much: some of the side characters didn’t have enough presence

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Some of the side characters, like Mami (Keiko’s sister), and Yukari and Miho (Keiko’s friends from school who she occasionally has tea with) didn’t have enough characterization for me to tell them apart. Of course, this was not true for the convenience store–her coworkers all got plenty of characterization and had individual personalities. But when she got together with Yukari and Miho for tea, both of them read as the same person, and Mami, her sister, read like a carbon copy of her friends. Though maybe Murata was doing that intentionally to showcase how the people around Keiko who were trying to pressure her into changing her ways all seemed the same.

Last thing I’ll talk about: something I liked about this book:

Keiko’s character arc is so satisfying!

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I’ve seen other reviews on this book (negative ones) that have said that “Keiko doesn’t have a character arc” and that she “doesn’t go anywhere; she starts at a convenience store and ends at a convenience store.”

To those people, I say, You’re silly.

This isn’t Lord of the Rings, we’re not going to Mordor and back. (AND THE IRONY IS THAT THE HOBBITS THEN RETURNED TO THE SHIRE AT THE END OF THE BOOK)

Keiko’s actual character arc (learning to stand up for what she wants, learning what she wants, learning that she doesn’t have to let other people define her and as long as she’s happy and making enough money to pay for her living expenses she can do whatever job she likes) is so amazing and satisfying and just… *chef’s kiss*

In conclusion: 

This book gets five stars out of five for

Book Review: George by Alex Gino

George by Alex Gino

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Why I Read This Book: In my search for LGBTQ+-positive fiction, I happened upon this middle-grade contemporary about a trans girl who desperately wants to be Charlotte in their school’s stage production of Charlotte’s Web, but can’t because everyone sees her as a boy and her teacher is a fierce believer in the gender binary. 

Types of representation presented in this book: LGBTQ+ (double bonus: the main character is trans, and the author is nonbinary genderqueer!)

I would recommend this book for: Kids ages eight and up, and going all the way up to adults who want a diverse, cute read! Bonus points for nostalgia (regarding Charlotte’s Web) and the main plot being about the kids putting on a stage play (the theater nerd in me died of happiness!) Especially for teachers who are looking for a book to spark discussion in their classroom about LGBTQ+ issues and open doors for LGBTQ+ students to be able to find support without putting themselves at risk for bullying.

When people look at George, they think they see a boy. But she knows she’s not a boy. She knows she’s a girl.

Note: Though the title of this book is “George” and most of the time she is known by her deadname George, I will be referring to her as Melissa, her new name, because whenever you know a trans person and they have a new name to fit with their identity, you should always call them by the name that matches who they are rather than their deadname.

My favorite things about this book:

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The premise of “kids putting on a stage play” did not disappoint at all. A good portion of the book is about the kids in Melissa’s class putting on the play of Charlotte’s Web, either the preparations leading up to the play or the opening night itself. As someone who used to be very involved in her school’s theater department and loved performing onstage, I got all the nostalgia from remembering my own days onstage, along with the nostalgia that Gino manages to entice out of the reader from the focus on Charlotte’s Web.

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In this book, Melissa’s primary relationship, aside from her mother and brother, is with her best friend, Kelly. And Kelly and Melissa just have THE cutest friendship ever! For example, Kelly understands Melissa’s fervent desire to be Charlotte, and when Melissa reveals to Kelly that she’s really a girl, Kelly’s like “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard that term, transgender. Thanks for telling me what it means to you” and then CALLS MELISSA BY HER NEW NAME AND HUGS HER AND JUST ACCEPTS HER IMMEDIATELY!! So cute! I got ALL THE FEELZ!!

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It’s very easy to empathize with Melissa, and within the first few pages, you develop a connection to her and start rooting for her to succeed: you start rooting for her to get the role of Charlotte, you root for her to have the courage to dress in skirts and wear makeup, a secret desire that she keeps hidden from her family, and you root for her to find acceptance from the adults around her and to see her for what she really is, instead of how she was born.

Some things I didn’t really like about this story

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At one point, pretty early on in the story, the recess monitor orders Kelly and Melissa “off the ground” because an animal might have urinated there, which didn’t make much sense at all to me. It might have been just a problem with logistics, because I was imagining that the girls were sitting under a tree on a patch of grass at the edge of the school yard, so it didn’t make sense for her to tell them off the ground because ostensibly there wouldn’t be any animals to urinate on it–the tree would protect their spot from birds, and they would still be far enough away from the fence that dogs and other animals wouldn’t reach that far inside. And because of this confusion, I didn’t understand the point of the recess monitor yelling at them, only for them to go somewhere else where the recess monitor wouldn’t yell at them and continue the conversation.

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I admit, I was a little disappointed by the ending–Ms. Udell, who was the main antagonist of this story (even more so than Melissa’s mother or brother), never got her comeuppance. She never apologized to Melissa, or changed her ways (as far as we can see). Melissa even goes as far as to read Charlotte’s lines for the audition to prove that she’s the best fit for the part, and Ms. Udell is like “no, you’re a boy, so you can’t be Charlotte.”

Um, this is 2020, and we have moved past “a person’s genitals should define what they can do in life.” Because we don’t get to see Ms. Udell regret how she treated Melissa, we don’t really get to see further into Ms. Udell’s motivations to her beliefs. Is it a religious thing? Is she from a very traditional family? Because I’m the kind of person who doesn’t understand why our appearances, the sex we were assigned at birth, our natural disabilities, should define how other people treat us, so I don’t particularly appreciate books that have a character who is anti-LGBTQ without a good reason. Nor do I appreciate said anti-LGBTQ+ character not either seeing that they were wrong (because they are) or at least getting some sort of comeuppance, or the main character and/or the LGBTQ+ characters impeded by their views being free of their influence by the end of the story. As far as we know, Melissa is still in Ms. Udell’s class, and as far as we know, Ms. Udell still sees Melissa as “George,” with no indication that she will accept Melissa if she were to reveal to Ms. Udell that she was trans, nor will Ms. Udell learn, through Melissa’s presence, how to treat any LGBTQ+ students she may get in the future.

In conclusion: A fun, unique book that is in that rare category of “everyone should read this” (usually I don’t like labeling books as such, but in this case, I feel like this book has such a wide appeal, along with a potential to spark debate, change people’s minds, and encourage LGBTQ+ inclusivity in spaces where otherwise there wouldn’t be much opportunity to do so).

Studio Ghibli Tag!

The Studio Ghibli Tag!

Today, I will be doing something a little bit different from the norm, and doing a tag! This is the Studio Ghibli tag, created by me! For those who are unaware, Ghibli is essentially the Disney of Japan. I have chosen twelve films from this amazing animation studio, and will be making a book recommendation for each one based on what I liked about that film.

You can view the full tag here at my video, or if you use a screen reader, scroll down a bit more to see the plain-text version.

Book Review: Arrows of the Queen

Arrows of the Queen by Mercedes Lackey

4.5 stars, and such a fun read! Definitely going to grab the sequel ASAP!

Why I Read This Book: I happened upon several Youtube videos of Mercedes Lackey songs on Youtube, and after a bit of Googling, figured out that these amazing songs I’d found were based on this book series.

Playlist of Mercedes Lackey songs on Youtube (beware that some songs cover events during/after the Heralds of Valdemar so here is your mandatory spoiler alert)

When Talia “found” one of the legendary Companions, she took the first step along the magical pathway to her destiny…

Types of representation presented in this book: LGBTQ+, gynecological issues such as periods and birth control

As always, I’ll talk about three good things and three not-so-good things so you can make your own judgement about whether or not to give this a try (though I do highly recommend you give this a try! xD)

Not-so-good

Though the first few chapters dive right into the action, with Talia setting off on an adventure, once she arrives at the Collegium, the various aspects of this world–the difference between Herald-Mages and regular Mages, why Rolan has only ever spoken to Talia once, why the Mages need to exist, what are the duties of the Queen’s Own Mage, etc. are just kind of infodumped on the reader via Talia not knowing any of this information and then the other students teaching it to her. Nowadays that sort of literary device is a bit overused, but back in the 80’s when this book was first published it was a perfectly acceptable way to tell a story. I personally didn’t mind because I wanted to know all this information and was starved for it by the time Lackey gave us this explanation, but I know that other readers aren’t as forgiving as me, so I thought it was worth mentioning here. Though it is very interesting history and a very interesting Herald-Companion relationship that makes it fun to read.

Amazing

Though I have seen other reviewers who claim that Talia is just another orphaned Chosen One a la Harry Potter, but A) this book was published WAY before Harry Potter, and B) SO WHAT SHE’S REALLY SYMPATHETIC AS A MAIN CHARACTER.

We first meet her at her home village, where she’s washing laundry and taking solace in the stories she loves to read about Vanyel, the legendary Herald-Mage. Her foster mother, who isn’t exactly the best mother, then calls her over and announces that since Talia is now thirteen, she will be married off, as is the tradition for their people. Talia objects, and runs away from home out of frustration that none of the adults will listen. Just when she’s considering returning and accepting the consequences of her actions, she meets a Companion, a horse-like creature with human intelligence, and he manages to impress on her his name, Rolan, and that he wants her to ride him. He then carries her across the kingdom to the castle, where she finds out that she’s been Chosen to be a Herald in service of the Queen, a dream she thought would never come true. And then we see her develop her craftiness as she navigates the complex politics of being the Queen’s Own in direct succession to the previous Queen’s Own who was most likely poisoned. I really liked Talia and became quickly invested in her situation.

Not-so-good

Once Talia arrives at the Collegium to become a Mage, she meets a plethora of other students, and frankly, few of them actually stuck in my mind. For example, one of the first places she visits is the library, where she runs into a trainee named Kris, who is rather friendly to her, then is never mentioned again for 200 pages. Because of his friendly attitude and overall interest in Talia’s background, I’d thought that he was going to be a love interest, or at least a good friend, only for Talia to get another love interest, Skif, fifty or so pages later. I could never write a story this complex and awesome (at least not at this time), but I would have written it as Skif/Kris being one person–that way, during the climax when Kris is struggling to lend his assistance to Queen Selenay, we have the added tension of his and Talia’s relationship and Talia not wanting him to put himself at risk. Talia also was mentored by Sherrill, who we saw once giving Talia a tour of the facilities and then not again until the end when Sherrill graduates and shows off her new Whites to Talia. There were just a lot of characters who didn’t seem to have much purpose in the story.

Good

THE HUMOR AND SELF-DEPRECATING SNARK IN THIS STORY WAS AMAZING! Lackey knew what she was doing when she wrote scenes that just made me stop and need to finish laughing first! Like this scene on page 51. (For context, the dialogue is being spoken by an innkeeper who is helping Talia along her journey, in reference to a man in the village where Talia just came from):

“Just like a man! Never once thinks that you might be more frightened by this than excited, never once thinks you might not know the rules. Totally forgets that you might be Chosen but you’re still just a child. And you’re no better, Rolan!” she added over her shoulder, “Men!”

Or this scene on page 114, when Talia’s instructor is introducing her to a set of twins in the class:

He [the teacher] winked at them, and the twin boys grinned back, obviously at ease with them. “Maybe I should ask Alberich to give one of you a black eye–then at least I’d know which of you was which until it faded.”

In short, the humor in this book is amazing and if you like to laugh while still enjoying a story that takes itself seriously, this is the book for you.

Not-so-good

The last sixty pages of this book feel really rushed. In Chapter Ten, we see the death of a major character who we actually have gotten to know very well and who is very close to Talia. This was such a big, emotional moment that it felt like the climax of the book in and of itself. So then in the following sixty pages, when we have a tense, but rushed attempted rescue of one of the Heralds who is in danger, it felt like mood whiplash and as such, I didn’t remember it as well as the earlier parts of the book. After reading to the final, final page and seeing where the book actually ended, I agree that the death of the forementioned character was not the proper place to end the book and the book needed to continue until the true ending, when Talia finally admitted to herself that the Collegium was her home, but I kind of wish we’d had a moment between the death and Chapter Eleven, when we get a three-year time jump to Talia as a sixteen-year-old and having to suddenly help Queen Selenay rescue aforementioned senior Herald.

Good

The magic system (well, what we see of it–there used to be powerful Herald-Mages a long time ago, but nowadays the only magic is the Gift a Herald can use, which is usually limited to one ability or power and very physically straining to use) and the worldbuilding is so interesting! It’s not just your typical “medieval Europe-ish” setting (well, it kind of is) but it’s got so many legends and characters to explore, and the best part of it is the Companions themselves. It’s such an intriguing concept in terms of the existence of Heralds and Companions and them being essentially bonded with one another is so cool! We see this firsthand with Talia and Rolan, and Talia’s insecurity about being bonded to Rolan, when he’s already had one or more Heralds and she feels like she can’t live up to his previous partners, and it’s just my new favorite friendship ever and I will never stop shouting about this series!

In conclusion: Though the ending chapters are a bit rushed and the large cast leaves something to be desired, this is a fun high fantasy world about an orphan who finds somewhere she can belong and finds a way to serve her Queen while making her dreams come true. In addition, we have several LGBTQ+ characters (right from the first chapter, when Talia is reading about Herald Vanyel, he is mentioned to have a “lifemate,” called Bard Stephen. Then, when Talia goes to the Collegium, multiple of her instructors and fellow students are gay and lesbian, and Talia reveals to the reader that many of the women in her society were also lesbian/bisexual), along with a frank discussion of periods and sexuality and usage of birth control by the female Heralds. If you are looking for a fantasy book with a strong friendship at its core, extensive worldbuilding that would make even Tolkien jealous, and some court intrigue just for fun, pick up this series and give it a read!

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You can also follow Mercedes Lackey on Twitter and support an indie bookseller by purchasing Arrows of the Queen on Books, Inc!

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like these other posts from me:

Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag

Book Review: Angel Mage

Books I’ve Fallen In Love With During Quarantine

Also make sure to join in the Lord of the Readathon, happening RIGHT NOW! Decide the fate of Middle-Earth by reading as much as you can! More details below:

Lord of the Readathon Announcement!

See you guys next time! Happy reading!

Corinne 乙女

Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag

I was tagged by Nikki Swift Reads to participate in the Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag, which is a set of questions that  you’re supposed to answer halfway through the year (aka right now) about how you’ve been doing on your reading goals so far and what you’d like to read before the end of the year. (I actually was not aware of this tag; in fact, I have a document on my computer labeled “Predictions for favorites of 2020 and reading goals for the second half of 2020” that I created before learning about this tag in which I inadvertently answered some of these questions without realizing it)

According to my Goodreads, my average rating for books so far this year is 4.2, which isn’t bad. I’m a little surprised at that, because January and February were not good reading months for me and almost everything I picked up before lockdown started was not very good.

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My goal this year is to read 120 books, and so far, I have accomplished about half of that. In fact, Goodreads thinks I’m eight books ahead of schedule right now, so that’s a very satisfying number.

Now, onto the questions!

Best Book You’ve Read So Far in 2020

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That honor definitely belongs to A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix. For my full thoughts on this book, you can click here to open my review of this book in a new tab, but this is definitely the top of my list of “contenders for favorite book of 2020.”I highly doubt that I’ll find anything I like more than this one (though I do have a few other Nix books I’m planning to read this year, so maybe one of those will take this spot), but this book, in summary:

-Is VOICEY AF AND I LOVED EVERY MINUTE I SPENT IN THIS BOOK

-Was totally outside of my comfort zone (I definitely am not one to reach for space operas on a regular basis lol)

-Is full of Nix’s trademark worldbuilding, and in only 330 pages and some change, he manages to craft a full world that feels satisfying enough to be a standalone (which it is).

-Does something that I always love in a book, and that is THE PLOT TWIST THAT SMACKS YOU IN THE FACE WITH THE “HOW DID I NOT SEE THIS COMING” FACEPALM! The plot twists in this book were so well-done, typical of Nix, with just enough foreshadowing that it felt like a natural progression of the story, but not so much foreshadowing that you see it coming.

Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far in 2020

Well, this was going to be a tie between Clariel by Garth Nix or Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke, but then I realized that Clariel fits very well for a later question in this tag, as well as the fact that it’s a prequel, not a direct sequel, so I’m giving this honor to Inkdeath.

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Inkdeath is the third and final book in the Inkworld trilogy by Cornelia Funke. I think my dad gave me the entire trilogy when I was in middle school. I did remember reading them, but I didn’t remember much about them, only that Meggie and her father were total bookworms and there was a book called Inkheart that her father read from that swallowed up her mother. So I read these as if I was reading them for the first time, essentially, and OH MY GOD THIS TRILOGY IS AMAZING. Of course, for those of you who follow my blog, you’ll remember from my 2019 Bookish Survey that Book 2 in this trilogy, Inkspell, earned the “best sequel of 2019” award, so you might have wondered where Book 3 was and if it would make the family proud by taking that honor in 2020. So far, it is.

New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To

This is a tie; one of these books is “Corinne owns me and has high expectations for me and is looking forward to reading me” and the other one is “Corinne does not have a copy of me and has low expectations for me and would just like to read me and get me out of the way so she can say ‘Been there, done that.’ and finally figure out how she feels about me.”

The one that I want to read out of obligation/pressure but I’m not expecting much out of is The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins. Though I loved the original Hunger Games trilogy, I am not particularly interested in spending 500+ pages with teenage Coriolanus Snow; I’d much rather have seen Mags’ Hunger Games (which was right around this time period, anyway) or Finnick, or Haymitch, or literally anyone else in the entire franchise. Hell, I’d have loved to see a Plutarch origin story, like what he was up to before he was appointed Head Gamemaker, how he got involved with the rebellion, and the political maneuverings he did during the 75th Hunger Games and afterward. If anyone of Suzanne Collins’ friends, family, critique partners, editorial team, agents, etc. are reading this, tell her to write that story next.

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The other one is one that I’m way more excited for, and that I’ll probably be reading in July, and I have very high expectations for, and that is The Mermaid, The Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall.

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All you had to say was “It’s got pirates and mermaids and it’s gay” and I was on board. (pun totally intended) But then you tell me that the author lives in my town (bonus points for supporting local authors) AND is a POC (I believe she’s Asian-American, and I specifically try and read books by BIPOC authors if I can) AND that cover AND it has a premise of a girl pirate disguising herself as a boy meaning that I can maybe use it as a comp book for my YA pirate fantasy when I’m ready to publish it? YAS PLEASE.

Most Anticipated Release for the Second Half of 2020

Before I answer this, it should be noted that I’m just trying to catch up with books that have already been published, so there’s currently only one on my radar, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s another book by who could objectively be called the best author in the world. (and no, I’m totally not biased lol #sarcasm)

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The Left-Handed Booksellers of London. I mean, all I really needed to know about this book was that it’s Garth Nix’s upcoming book to be released in September, but then it’s about booksellers and a girl is searching for her father (hello me who loves father-daughter relationships that drive the plot forward!) and it’s a historical fantasy, which I’ve really been getting more into lately and loving and I NEED THIS BOOK NOW

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Biggest disappointment

I wrote down two books for this question because they fit this for similar reasons, though I don’t like to spew hate on my blog, so I’ll keep it short and sweet. Even though both of these authors passed away years ago, so I don’t feel as guilty saying bad things about these books.

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First, we have House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones, which is the final book in the Howl’s Moving Castle trilogy, and which I was fully expecting to be a five-star read like its predecessors. However, it greatly disappointed, mostly because Charmain (I had to look up her name, she’s that forgettable) was just a boring POV character to hang out with. Howl and Sophie didn’t even seem like the same characters we’d met in Book One and seen briefly in Book Two. I’m not talking actually going through any sort of character development and that’s why they’re different. No, they feel like they actually went backwards in terms of character development!

[image error]Books I’ve Fallen In Love With During Quarantine

Book Review: The Luck Child

The Luck Child by Rebekah Shafer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Luck Child by Rebekah Shafer

ARC received courtesy of Uncommon Universes Press

My rating: 4/5 stars

Told in a dual-timeline format, THE LUCK CHILD is set to be released on June 9, 2020, featuring Cabernet, a young man cursed to walk the shadows of the human world with only a snarky talking cat and a housekeeping dwarf for company.

As always, here are three things about this book I enjoyed and three things I didn’t like so much about it, alternating between bad and good, so that you can make your own decision about whether or not to pick this up. All opinions presented in this review are my own and I have received no financial compensation for writing this review. Like always, I’ll start with something I didn’t like about this book so that I can finish on a positive note.

The Haymitch Problem

This might just be me and my pet peeves, as I certainly have yet to meet anyone else who is also bothered by this when they read, but in this book, we have an arguably important character. This character is very important to the plot, being the brother of the main love interest and a soldier on one of the disappeared ships. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much of a presence in the story because he was named Haymich, one letter off from our favorite mentor in The Hunger Games. So I was unable to differentiate this Haymich from the Haymitch I know so well from The Hunger Games and ended up just kind of ignoring him throughout the story. Of course, if you’re not bothered by characters having names eerily similar to ones in other books, then this might not even be something you need to worry about.

Mermaids and Selkies and Dryads, Oh My!

Tons of fantasy creatures are present here in the story; if you are a sucker for any of the fantasy creatures listed below, you’re in luck because they all play a huge part in the plot:

-Dwarves

-Talking cats

-Fairy queens (especially the not-so-benevolent ones)

-Dryads

-Sirens

-Selkies

-Krakens

-Sea serpents

-Hippocampi

Instalove much?

I was really not a fan of the romance in this book; it felt too much like instalove for my liking and was wrapped up too conveniently. After meeting his love interest for a few days during his childhood adventures, Cabernet runs into her once more as a teenager for no more than a few hours, before he’s pulled off into another adventure. And then he meets her again when they’re both adults, and she’s working as a doctor for the king. Within a few days of this third reunion, he’s already throwing out the “l” word. The main “we shouldn’t be together” aspect of this romance is that Cabernet, due to being half-fairy, would not be able to stay with his love interest for long without making her sick. So despite the instalove aspect, it was technically a forbidden romance, which I am trash for in fantasy. I love forbidden romances, whether they end happily ever after or not, but how this romantic subplot wrapped up felt rather too convenient from what we saw the rules of this world are.

Fantasy Creatures With Unique Personalities

All the characters in this book were so much fun to hang out with! We had a snarky talking cat (a particular favorite trope of mine), a dwarf who laments his master’s ignorance of social conventions like telling his housekeeper when they’ll be expecting company, an evil fairy queen who wants to use a human child for her own purposes, a kraken who gets bored and decides to wreak havoc, and a runaway child who decides to become a pirate and live on the ocean. They all had their individual personalities and motivations and their decisions drove the plot forward.

I Would Have Written It Differently

There was way too much “stuff” stuffed into this book. It’s told in a dual-timeline POV; one where we follow the adult Cabernet and one where we follow him as a child as he runs away from the orphanage where he’s lived all his life. Now, I’m not one to completely hate on dual-POV novels or dual timeline stories, and I can think of several examples off the top of my head of dual timeline/dual POV novels that I’ve loved, but this one didn’t really work all that well. My reading experience kept being interrupted by what I call my “editor brain”: thinking that “OH BUT IT WOULD BE SO MUCH BETTER WRITTEN THIS WAY!!”

Imagine if this had been a duology instead: Book One, we follow Cabernet as a child as he escapes from the orphanage, comes to terms with his curse, and then goes on an adventure to defeat the kraken and earn the king’s respect. Book Two, we follow adult Cabernet as he deals with the consequences of what he did in Book One–the king berates him for not killing the kraken and orders him to go kill the kraken and discover what happened to the ships under threat of his life, and then he thinks that maybe the kraken broke his promise and along the way finds clues that it’s not actually the kraken and maybe the fairy queen is the one responsible…

Supporting this theory is that the “childhood” scenes felt rather episodic and the ending seemed to come out of nowhere, answering questions I didn’t really have while at the same time not answering the questions I wanted answered. I wanted to see why Cabernet was half-fairy and half-human, but the book just wanted us to know that Cabernet is The Luck Child which is apparently a concept that has existed this whole time even though we were never told about it and he is special and different. How is he special and different? Well, he’s part human, part fairy, for no properly explained reason, and fairies always have to listen to him and do what he says because he’s so special. I feel like if this had been two books, we could have gotten a lot more worldbuilding, and seen a few scenes that I kept wishing would happen, like learning why Cabernet is half-human half-fairy or his discovering that the kraken is simply bored.

Kicking it into high gear

Although this book has a rather slow start, once you get used to the format, you start to really get absorbed into the story. You want to find out what’s really behind the king’s ships sinking, and whether or not it’s actually the kraken, and how Cabernet is going to overcome his curse once and for all. And at one point during the story, a certain character dies (trying to avoid spoilers here) and I got appropriately sad when Cabernet had to say his final goodbye to his friend.

In conclusion

This book gets four stars for