Month: December 2018

BOOK REVIEW: One Day in December, by Josie Silver

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: One Day in December, by Josie SilverTitle: One Day in December by Josie Silver
Published by Broadway Books
Published: October 16th 2018
Genres: Fiction, Romance
Pages: 416
Format: Trade Paper
Source: Purchased
Goodreads

A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick

“Get ready to be swept up in a whirlwind romance. It absolutely charmed me.” —Reese Witherspoon

“Josie Silver writes with a warmth so palpable her characters sneak their way into your heart and stay for a long time.”—Jill Santopolo, New York Times-bestselling author of The Light We Lost

Two people. Ten chances. One unforgettable love story.

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn't exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there's a moment of pure magic...and then her bus drives away.

Certain they're fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn't find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they "reunite" at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It's Jack, the man from the bus. It would be.

What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered. One Day in December is a joyous, heartwarming and immensely moving love story to escape into and a reminder that fate takes inexplicable turns along the route to happiness.

 Josie Silver’s One Day in December was the perfect, magical Christmas read I wanted. It reminded me a lot of the movie Love, Actually in its tone, but it was also new and fresh as well. One Day in December follows two friends, Laurie and Sarah, as they navigate life from the day Laurie sees Jack at the bus stop until the end of the book. A year after Laurie sees a man at the bus stop and has an immediate connection with him (and during that year doesn’t stop looking for him), Sarah brings that same exact man to a holiday party, and his name is Jack. Laurie and Jack recognize each other immediately, and over the course of almost a decade try to make the right choices in their own lives even though they are continually drawn to each other.

I loved how the story was told in alternating points of view of Laurie and Jack and that each of them felt well developed, growing and changing as time went on while each of them still had a deeply rooted, sometimes inexplicable, connection with each other. It was love at first sight, and both of them remained connected from that moment at the bus stop.

It’s a modern fairy tale, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. I couldn’t put it down, and I can’t wait to read her next one!

BOOK REVIEW: The Wolf in the Whale, by Jordanna Max Brodsky

- Meg
BOOK REVIEW: The Wolf in the Whale, by Jordanna Max BrodskyTitle: The Wolf in the Whale by Jordanna Max Brodsky
Published by Redhook
Published: January 29th 2019
Genres: Fantasy, Historical
Pages: 544
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads

A young Inuit shaman's epic quest for survival in the frozen lands of North America in 1000 AD.

Born with the soul of a hunter and the language of the gods, Omat is destined to become a shaman like her grandfather. To protect her people, she invokes the spirits of the sky, the sea, and the air.

But the gods have stopped listening, the seals won't come, and Omat's family is starving.

Desperate to save them, Omat journeys through the icy wastes, fighting for survival with every step. When she meets a Viking warrior and his strange new gods, together they set in motion a conflict that could shatter her world...or save it.

The Wolf in the Whale is a powerful tale of magic, discovery and adventure, featuring an unforgettable narrator ready to confront the gods themselves.

 Brodsky’s novel, The Wolf in the Whale, was an incredibly immersive read from the get-go. After reading the first few chapters and getting familiar with the setting and the story, I didn’t want to stop reading it. The story follows Omat of an Inuit tribe through their journey across land and through life. I loved the gender fluidity of Omat, and their struggles in finding their identity. When they meet a Norseman named Brandr, Omat struggles even more with their identity and their place in the world at large and in their own personal world.

The Wolf in the Whale is violent, full of terrible things that happen to Omat and their people, and to everyone Omat meets. It’s a reminder that the past was violent in people conquering other people and in people colonizing “new” worlds, and Brodsky doesn’t shy away from any of it. None of what happens to the characters in this book feels like it was thrown in as a plot device. Omat and Brandr felt real, their cultures and mythologies felt immediate and real, and the brutalities of the past balanced with the more tender, personal moments.

I don’t want to give too much away in this review because so much of what happens is so integral to the story, but let it be known that this is a hefty book and once I started reading it, I got hooked and couldn’t put it down. If you enjoy rich, expansive historical fantasies with memorable characters and mythology so real you can almost taste it, don’t pass up reading The Wolf in the Whale.

A complimentary copy of the book was provided to me for review via Netgalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own.

BOOK REVIEW: Evermore, by Sara Holland

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: Evermore, by Sara HollandTitle: Evermore by Sara Holland
Series: Everless #2
Published by HarperTeen
Published: December 31st 2018
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Pages: 368
Format: eBook
Source: Publisher
Goodreads

The highly anticipated sequel to New York Times bestseller, Everless!

Jules Ember was raised hearing legends of the ancient magic of the wicked Alchemist and the good Sorceress. But she has just learned the truth: not only are the stories true, but she herself is the Alchemist, and Caro—a woman who single-handedly murdered the Queen and Jules’s first love, Roan, in cold blood—is the Sorceress.

The whole kingdom believes that Jules is responsible for the murders, and a hefty bounty has been placed on her head. And Caro is intent on destroying Jules, who stole her heart twelve lifetimes ago. Jules must delve into the stories that she now recognizes are accounts of her own past. For it is only by piecing together the mysteries of her lives that Jules will be able to save the person who has captured her own heart in this one.

Evermore picks up not long after Everless ends, and while I read the first over a year ago, it wasn’t difficult to get back into Sara Holland’s world not having reread the first. I loved how the world building, magic system, and mythology were expanded upon and built to be so much more in the second, and it honestly made me wish there was at least one more book in this series just to flesh out the world that much more. The writing was just as lyrical and compelling in the sequel as it was in the first, and I absolutely enjoyed the twists and turns the sequel took after book one left off. Jules is fully fleshed out, having moments of brilliance and airheadedness throughout, and I thought that made her real to me and added a lot of dimension to the story. She is a young woman, after all, and I like it when writers choose to add that ‘young’ feeling to their characters without having them be ‘the best at everything.’

Evermore took a different turn than I was expecting, and I found myself completely enjoying the ride. In Everless, Liam is believed to be the villain throughout most of the book, and in Evermore we get to see a lot more of him. The romance in this duology is appropriate for the genre, and sometimes I found it a little too instalove, but overall, I like where Holland went with the character development with Jules and Liam, showing us as readers that there is often a lot more than meets the eye. Besides, I have a little soft spot for those fantasy antiheroes, and I always want more of them.

Overall, if you read Everless and enjoyed it, definitely finish out the duology. I thought it was a fitting ending even though I was left wanting more!

Thank you to the publisher and Glasstown Entertainment for sending me an e-galley to review! All opinions are my own.

BOOK REVIEW: Paperback Crush, by Gabrielle Moss

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: Paperback Crush, by Gabrielle MossTitle: Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction by Gabrielle Moss
Published by Quirk Books
Published: October 30th 2018
Genres: Non-Fiction
Pages: 256
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads

A hilarious and nostalgic trip through the history of paperback pre-teen series of the 80s and 90s.

Every twenty- or thirty-something woman knows these books. The pink covers, the flimsy paper, the zillion volumes in the series that kept you reading for your entire adolescence. Spurred by the commercial success of Sweet Valley High and The Babysitters Club, these were not the serious-issue YA novels of the 1970s, nor were they the blockbuster books of the Harry Potter and Twilight ilk. They were cheap, short, and utterly beloved.

PAPERBACK CRUSH dives in deep to this golden age with affection, history, and a little bit of snark. Readers will discover (and fondly remember) girl-centric series on everything from correspondence (Pen Pals and Dear Diary) to sports (The Pink Parrots, Cheerleaders, and The Gymnasts) to a newspaper at an all-girls Orthodox Jewish middle school (The B.Y. Times) to a literal teen angel (Teen Angels: Heaven Can Wait, where an enterprising guardian angel named Cisco has to earn her wings “by helping the world’s sexist rock star.”) Some were blatant ripoffs of the successful series (looking at you, Sleepover Friends and The Girls of Canby Hall), some were sick-lit tearjerkers à la Love Story (Abby, My Love) and some were just plain perplexing (Uncle Vampire??) But all of them represent that time gone by of girl-power and endless sessions of sustained silent reading.

In six hilarious chapters (Friendship, Love, School, Family, Jobs, Terror, and Tragedy), Bustle Features Editor Gabrielle Moss takes the reader on a nostalgic tour of teen book covers of yore, digging deep into the history of the genre as well as the stories behind the best-known series.

Paperback Crush is such a fun dive into the teen fiction of the 80s and 90s. While I sort of missed the curve with the seemingly endless installments of the Sweet Valley High series and the Babysitters Club, I did read several books from the younger version of the Babysitters Club as well as every single volume in the Star Wars Jedi Apprentice series, the Boxcar Children, and many Goosebumps titles. I love the concept of continuing series for readers, especially when you get involved with the characters and the stories. You as the reader want to continue going on adventures with them and seeing what other high jinks they get into.

I really enjoyed Gabrielle Moss’s dive into the various forms teen fiction took between the 80s and 90s and how it developed. Her dives into the various genres that were popular were interesting, fun, and short. It’s easy to devour this in a single sitting or read each section at a time. My only real quibble with the book is that it ends so abruptly. The rest of it flows like a well-structured essay, but it lacks a conclusion tying everything together and giving a little insight into where these popular series of the 80s and 90s took YA into the 00s and beyond.

And even though I read only a handful of the titles mentioned in the book, Paperback Crush makes me want to go back and revisit some of these series and take a trip down nostalgia lane. If you are an avid reader of any age who loves book history and trips down memory lane, I think this is something you’ll enjoy!

Review copy provided by Netgalley and Quirk Books. All opinions are my own.

BOOK REVIEW: Aquicorn Cove, by Katie O’Neill

- Meg

BOOK REVIEW: Aquicorn Cove, by Katie O’NeillTitle: Aquicorn Cove by Katie O'Neill
Published by Oni Press
Published: October 16th 2018
Genres: Graphic Novel
Pages: 96
Format: eBook
Source: Netgalley
Goodreads

When Lana and her father return to their seaside hometown to help clear the debris of a storm, the last thing she expects is to discover a colony of Aquicorns—magical seahorse-like residents of the coral reef. As she explores the damaged town and the fabled undersea palace, Lana learns that while she cannot always count on adults to be the guardians she needs, she herself is capable of finding the strength to protect both the ocean, and her own happiness.

Katie O’Neill’s Aquicorn Cove is an adorably illustrated story about a girl named Lana and her father who return to their little island to visit Auntie Mae. Lana is still grieving the death of her mother, and she finds comfort in the familiarity of the island she used to call home before she moved away to live with her father.

The graphic novel follows Lana’s return home and her personal exploration through the island. The story shows the island’s connections with the people, flora, and fauna who live on the island and in the ocean around it and showcases the need to take care of our surroundings, especially our seas and our reefs, and does this through captivating and whimsical illustrations. The story also explores those concepts of care and love for people and our local places and how love manifests its way through different channels. Lana, in her exploration of the islands and the seas around it, discovers that she has to learn how to rely on herself and how to love herself in order to do what needs to be done. This sort of self-discovery is relatable on so many levels, and I felt like the writing was appropriate for all ages, not just for younger readers.

I loved it and devoured it in a single sitting, and I found myself wanting to be transported to this island for a visit myself.

Thank you to Netgalley and Oni Press for a complimentary digital review copy! All opinions are my own.