Busy Busy Busy// Sunday Post #50

 

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly from The Caffeinated Book Reviewer.

I am finally sitting down and making another Sunday Post. I have been extremely busy since my last one and I have so much to say, but I won't bore you. My reading has been going well. I have been liking everything I have been reading. I am babysitting the toddlers again until next school year. For the rest of this school year, they are riding the bus to my house every afternoon and then in the summer, I will have them all day. They have a new little cousin on the way which is why I am going to be watching them for the rest of the school year.

Out outdoor kitchen area is still coming along nicely. We are almost done putting down the floor and we got the counter and bar built. The next thing we have to focus on is the electrical and then we can finish the floor. We are starting to plan out our little garden for the summer. We got our potatoes planted, and we are waiting for these last few cool nights to go away completely before we start tilling. We are in the process of buying another acre of property across from our house. The property belongs to my uncle and I am so much closer to getting all of the land that my grandpa had before he split it between me and my uncle and brother. 

I did some book shopping today for the first time in months. My book buying ban is still going strong. The only books I do buy is one in a series that my library doesn't have or books that my kids want and those are mainly grapic novels and manga. 

Pizza is getting so big

Super Bowl Sunday. We pulled for the Eagles

The two books I bought today. I am obsessed with the new Throne of Glass covers. Heir of Fire is the next one I have to read. 

Review: When You Get The Chance by Emma Lord

 

A book that I have been meaning to read for the past year and I enjoyed it. This is my first Emma Lord book and I will be picking up the rest of her books. I do admit that I did want to re-watch Mamma Mia before picking it up, but I went ahead and this book did a good job of reminding me of the movie. It also gave me Devil Wears Prada vibes. 

We follow Millie who is an aspiring Broadway star. She just got accepted into a precollege in California and she is going head to head with her dad who is against her going. One day she is hanging out with her next door neighbor and best friend when she gets alerted to one of her aunt's emails. This email contains a link to her dad's LiveJournal from his college days and she becomes a snoop. She then gets this idea that she will look for her mom and just like her favorite movie Mamma Mia, she settles on three women that will also be helpful in getting her on her way to Madison.

Along the way, she also gets close to her school nemesis Oliver who is a tight wad. He needs to control every aspect of every situation but he takes the time to give everyone attention and help when they need it. I loved the dynamic of this friendship and how these characters grew.

The length of the book could have been shortened because halfway through, I figured out who her mom was and I was kind of bored with the rest. I loved the end with them waiting on the couple to arrive. No spoilers here. I think it was wrapped up a little too nicely and don't understand how her mom was just welcomed back with open arms. 

Also, another annoyance was that she was constantly looking down at her shoes and thinking "Heather's shoes". I was tired of constantly being reminded that the shoes belonged to her aunt. It made me eye roll alot and the shoes are a character by how many times they are mentioned. 

Review: My Hero Academia Volume 5 by Kohei Horikoshi *SPOILERS*

 

With volume 4 being my favorite in the series so far, I was looking forward to this one. I read it before my daughter and I am glad I did because she has no filter and will spoil the hell out of a book. I ended up giving this a 4 out of 5 stars because the matchup between Uraraka and Bakugo was very boring and it felt like a cheap shot and that not much thought was put into it. 

The the battle between Midoriya and Todoroki was very annoying because it was a constant back and forth of.... omg, he is hurting himself.... Midoriya giving Todoroki a pep talk in the middle of the battle and then more concern from the teachers thinking whether or not they should end the match. 

The one thing I did like and wanted more of was Todoroki's childhood. He was very angry at his father for putting his mother away and he was abusing her and the kids, no wonder Todoroki didn't want to use his second quirk that was part of his father. 

I also think the the storyline of Ida's brother being taken by a villian could have waited for another volume so there could be more time to dedicate to it and Uraraka's parents showing up was just filler to me. 

I am a pro at reading manga now because I had no difficulty reading it and I was zooming and not messing up and going left to right, but the correct way right to left. I noticed that halfway through the book and I was a little smug about it. 

Review: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir *SPOILERS*

 

OBSESSED!!!!!! That is how I feel about this book. I hate that I took so long to read this. I had heard so many good things about this and how it was just as good as The Martian and I have to agree that it is up there, but it doesn't take the number one spot. This was definitely better than Artemis. I have found some of my favorite quotes and I am really hoping that this will be made into a movie because I want to see how they make Rocky who is without a doubt the best character. Never thought I would say that about a space spider.

Ryland grace, out human main character is a high school science teacher who gets dragged into a government program where he learns that the sun is dimming and Earth will be plunged into an instant ice age in 5 years. He terms the name for the microbe aliens that are stealing the Sun's energy and it becomes a global race to send a crew to another solar system to find out what the alien is and how can Earth be saved.

He then wakes up from a coma aboard the Hail Mary with amnesia and he two other crew members dead and mummified from their comas. He then realizes he is on a suicide mission and he is in a race to get Earth answers before Earth dies and he dies. He then makes a friend who is the best spider in the universe and they become best buds. There are hijinks, sadness, happiness and general anger and also fear about what to do and how to do it, but they make an amazing team. 

I would love to have another book from Rocky's POV after the events of this one. I think it would be cool to see how he lives out the rest of his life and how his planet will evolve and learn. 

Review: Bridgerton: The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

 I had to jump on the Bridgerton bandwagon because the FOMO became too much and I am so glad that I did. I am obsessed. I loved the humor and the sarcasm and the smut. The sexism from Simon could have taken a flying leap. I understand that it was a product of the time period and one of the reasons I have always stayed away from this time period in books and movies because it always grates on my nerves. Hence why the 4 out of 5 stars. 

This series follows the Bridgerton siblings and there are 8. The thing that is funny about this family is that there names are in alphabetical order by birth order. The oldest is Anthony who is now the head of the family. But this book follows Daphne, who is the eldest daughter of the Bridgerton brood and she is of marriage age. Her mother is introducing her to society and she meets the Duke of Hastings who has come back to London after traveling the world. They meet at a ball where Daphne is being pleaded to by a man who is desperately wanting to marry her. Simon and Daphne literally get their punches in on the pleading, drunk and pathetic guy who starts to get handsy with Daphne. 

We also learn about Simon's childhood and why he is such an angry person. Daphne is very ignorant and naive. The smut in this book was top notch and it is better than the smut in Outlander. But I still have to watch the show to see if what I said is true for the adaptations. Outlander has the most revealing smut scenes. 

I can't wait to pick up the next book because it is from Anthony's POV and I am obsessed with the Bridgerton kids and plus I want to read more from Lady Whistledown's society papers. 

My favorite quote from the book is at the very end and it is a huge spoiler, so I will not add names.

"Am I radiant or a waddling duck?"

"You're a radiant duck."

Review: The Broken Circle by Enjeela Ahmadi Miller

 

First nonfiction read of 2023 and it is 5 stars. My favorite type of nonfiction are ones that are told like stories and this was exactly that. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a true account and it definitely remided me of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Both of the books are set during the same time in Afghanistan when the soviets invaded and their democratic government crumbled.

The author Enjeela tells us about her childhood and how she was one of the wealthy families due to her mother's family and her father's job as a translator at the American Embassy which turns out to place a massive target on his back. Enjeela is one of 7 or 8 siblings and one day her mother takes only two of her children and flees the country to India. The whole time, Enjeela is waiting for her mother to return while Kabul is turning into a war zone. Her older brother is on the run from the afghan military and then one night Enjeela and her remaining siblings have to flee the country. 

It is almost similar to The Kite Runner but no gas tankers or sexual assault. They stay in villages along the way and Enjeela realizes that how she lived in Kabul and what she thought was right in her religion is practiced differently and some rules are not followed. She meets friends along the way who open her eyes to what she didn't know. She has to trek over the Hindu Kush mountains and go into multiple different countries to be able to get to India with her mother and hope that her father will be able to find them.