Review: Is This A Cry For Help by Emily Austin

 

DNF at 40%.

I could not continue this whiplash. I was expecting some big drama surrounding the ex but finding out that she broke up with him 10 years ago, and that she blames herself for it seems very selfish in my opinion. She also blames this for her mental breakdown... which I question.

This also gave me the ick when she was talking about the baby's missing fingers and that the baby wouldn't be able to flip anyone off with her left hand and that she wont be able to wear a wedding ring if she was into that sort of thing when she is older. The fact that she only thought of those things, and not what she will probably go through as a child and possible bullying, shows that Darcy is not a good character and that she has no compassion for the things that truly matter.

Also her theory on the porn and censorship and what she would do as head honcho would be a complete overhaul. But Darcy, during your mental breakdown, you were offered a management position in the library and you turned it down.

I truly do not understand darcy as a character.

Review: Trust by Hernan Diaz

 

I have had this book on my radar since it came out and I found a copy at Goodwill a year ago. I picked this up this month because it fulfills two Goodreads reading challenges for the spring. When I read the synopsis, I was confused because it says the first story is based on a book about a character in this. So I start thinking that this is a nonfiction and I do some research. 

I had to wrap my head around the fact that the author created a fake book to be able to advance this story and Bonds is not a real book. So Bonds the "book" is about a guy named Benjamin Rask. He is an only child living in New York with his parents who are socialites and big wigs. Benjamin is great with math and he becomes a stock trader or something like that, I kept thinking of him as a day trader.

He becomes filthy rich and he gets marries to a woman named Helen. Helen has just come back from Europe with her parents and she finds that she is the perfect fit for Benjamin because he keeps to himself and only makes appearances in public to keep his status up. Helen then becomes ill and it is similar to what ailment her father had, and she goes back to Europe to the sanitorium that her and her mom put him in.

The second story in this book is the"real" Bejamin Rask. His name is Arthur Bevel and it is basically a retelling of the first story Bonds, except names weere changed and the attitude towards family and social events were totally different.

The third story is about Arthur told through the eyes of a woman named Ida and he is trying to clear his and his wife's name from a defamatory book called Bonds by Harold Vanner. Bevel hires Ida to takes his dictation so she can write his autobiography. The whole time while reading this, I got Donald Trump vibes and it gave me the ick. We also get Ida's life story and how she is the daughter who an anarchist Italian immigrant father who tells stories and maybe embellish some to make himself sound tough. He gets angry when something doesn't go his way. 

Ida eventually gets an apartment from Bevel because he wants her to be close so they can finish the book. He dies of a heart attack before that and we also get future timeline of Ida as an older woman and she is finally able to learn more about Arthur's wife Mildred. She learns that he has narrated her completely wrong and he took all the credit for her ideas. While Ida is looking through all the paperwork that has become available since the estate of the Bevel's became a museum. Ida finds a hidden diary of Mildred's and she takes it.

The fourth and final story is the diary. It is very chaotic and it is her thoughts and routine during her stay in the sanitorium in Europe. She is dealing with cancer and it is her final thoughts. She also puts down that she told Arthur how to beat the ticker tape and he eventually does it making him an enormous fortune and she calles him a criminal and they don't talk for two years. That was surprising because throughout the book, we are led to believe that they were close and didn't have any qualms. 

It shows that trust was not there in the marriage and it makes the reader question, can we really trust the government and the federal reserves and the stock markets. 

Review: The Poet Empress by Shen Tao

 

I love Asian fantasy and I almost always give them 4 or 5 stars and this was no exception. I picked this up thanks to the spring goodreads challenge and I liked it. Throughout the book, it was a three star and I was kind of getting over the repetitive narrative of Terren being awful and a monster and that the royals were out the get each other and our main character Wei being so disbelieving of the betrayals.

The book starts out with Wei being with her family while they bury her little sister who has died from the famine that is decimating the nation. Wei is hopeful for blessings to come to her local village from one of the princes that is supposed to come to the festival. They go to the town and they are looked down upon because of how they are dressed and how they smell.

One of the princes does in fact show up, and it is Prince Isan who has the magic of growing fruit instantly. He also tosses out blessings, and Wei's little brother Bao catches two. The prince then informs the citizens that he second brother has been named Heir and he is looking to fill his inner court with concubines. Wei is instantly interested because she wants to take care of her village. She goes back and everyone starts giving her prized possessions for her offering basket. The day of the selections, the eunuch that is part of the inner court has to choose one girl. He chooses a girl that made fun of Wei and her family. Wei immediately begs for a chance in front of everyone which is seen as embarassment in the villagers eye, but it is desperation to keep her village fed.

Wei is also chosen because the eunuch can have a good laugh. She is then placed with hundreds of other girls and taught how to please her prince and use techniques to get planted with seal bearing sons. On the day of the selection process, a girl in front of her in line attempts to kill Prince Terren. Then Wei is up next and she is the first that Terren officially gives a title too and he names her his empress.

From then she is constantly being betrayed by the other concubines, she is being blackmailed by the current empress and being tortured nightly by Terren. She eventually learns that the only way to kill Terren is through a heart poem because he has a magic ward around him that makes him impossible to kill.

She then has to gether stories from old advisors and she commits treason and learns how to read because in this world, women being literate is treasonous. It gets kind of repetitive after a while but the ending was shocking and it made me cry. 

Review: Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid

 

Thanks to the Goodreads spring reading challenge, I had to pick this one up. I was not expecting to read this one so soon, but I did finish it in three days. 

It was also very easy to read because I could picture the actors as their characters. Everyone knows what Heated Rivalry is. It is about two hockey players named Shane and Illya. They start their hockey careers at the same time and this starts their rivalry in the media because they are both head to head for first round draft pick.

Ilya is a Russian hockey player who was chosen as first round draft pick and Shane was drafted second. They are also drafted to rival teams which is another boost to the rivalry.

Throughout their careers, the rivalry is still going strong and they hate each other. But behind closed doors, they are railing each other whenever their teams play each other. Ilya is comfortable with his sexuality and he is bi. Shane, throughout the whole book is paranoid that they will be found out and he is constantly wanting to end the relationship. He even starts dating a actress who eventually asks him does he like women and he tells her that its a complication. They even bring up square peg in round hole, and then he compares it to himself that he likes to be the hole rather than the peg and I died laughing.

Ilya is also dealing with family issues back in Russia. He can't come out in Russia because it is illegal and his father is a important minister who is dealing with Alzheimers. Ilya's brother is constantly asking him for money. Once his father dies, he doesn't go back and he can be safe from persecution. 

Shane and Ilya start to get closer in the feelings department and one summer, Ilya goes to Shane's summer house for two weeks. This is the first time they have been together during the summer, and then one day Shane's dad shows up. They end up coming out to him and his mother and they also help with Ilya start the process to become a Canadian citizen. 

I also read the novella between this book and the next book. I am starting to lean more towards watching the show. 

Review: The Book of Life by Deborah Harkness *SPOILERS*

 

I have read the third book in the All Souls or A Discovery of Witches series, and this one is by far my favorite of the three. I gave it 5 stars because the beginning made me cry. I love ghosts, and the inclusion of Phillipes and Emily's ghosts hit me in the feels. It made me cry when Emily said that she didn't get to say goodbye and she didn't want to leave them. It hit close to home because I am still grieving my grandmother who died in 2024 and I had to leave her in the hospital.

Anyways, this picks up right where the second book leaves off. Diana and Matthew arrive back in present day and see everyone at Sept-Tours. Diana learns that Peter Knox killed Emily and she begins grieving and Matthew is distraught because he really liked Emily. Sarah is trying to cope with smoking and drinking large amounts of whiskey. She is being looked after by Fernando who was the mate to Baldwin's brother Hugh. Fernando is trying to help her process the loss and he calls her the widow, which demands a large amount of respect in his culture.

The book takes place in multiple areas including France, London, Massachusetts and Venice. We learn of a new foe and he is awful. I genuinely got the ick because this character was introduced in book two and we get information that he is known as the bad seed. This character is raping witches and trying to get them like Diana and Matthews twins. He crosses Diana's path while she is in the Bodliean trying to get the manuscript and he tells her that he hopes her twins are girls.

That is one of my biggest fears since having three daughters myself. The ending was page turning and it made me excited for the fourth book. I am really excited to watch the third season now, even though I know that they may have changed some things. 

Review: The Giver by Lois Lowry

 

Another classic read off of my 5 year classics list and I am sad to say that I will not be completing that list before July. 

I have had a bind up of all four books in this series since 2020 and I have been wanting to read this for years. If I think back, I do think that my 7th grade teacher read this outloud to us but I did not remember anything. My hubby also watched the movie years ago and at the time, I thought that the black and white was a stylistic choice that the screenwriters and directors decided, but that is not true.

This is a dystopian where we follow a 12 year old boy named Jonas who has been chosen to be the next receiver of memories. It is the highest honor and he gets to be the most respected. He gets to ask rude questions of the citizens and to lie. Those two things are forbidden. When you break a rule or ask a question, you have to apologize. The citizens or people around you automatically forgive you and you go about your day.

The citizens live in communities that live in Sameness. Everyday is the same with meal times and bedtimes and everything. You have to talk about your feelings every night and every morning, you have to talk about your dreams. You are assigned your future at 12. Jonas' dad is a nuturer who helps take care of the babies who around their first birthday are given names and given to their parents. If they are not ready, then the are released.

We also learn that the old people are in a community center and taken care of and when it is there time, they are also released.

We learn what release actually means and The Giver who is teaching Jonas and giving him memories is against everything. 

I do wish we got more about why everything went to sameness and who made the rules and are there other commuities like this. 

While reading this, I was seeing parallels and same situations from Brave New World and it also reminded me of Divergent. I am intrigued to continue the series even though I gave this a three. I am wanting to learn more about the world.

Review: The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

 

My hubby has been nagging me to watch the movie with him since this came out and I finally got to it because of the Goodreads bookmark challenge for spring. I had such high expectations because I really like the actors that are in the movie. It was also easier to picture the characters while reading except for the character of Joyce. 

I had never watched anything with Celia Irmie before and I couldn't picture Joyce clearly. I also found her character rather annoying with the journal entries. But movie Joyce, I really liked her after watching. I will not be continuing in this series, but if they do adapt the sequels I will be watching with my family because my hubby and daughters loved it.

This book follows four old people who live in a retirement village in England. Three of the four are in a little group called the Thursday Murder Club. They meet every Thursday in the jogsaw room because it is vacant. They go over old cold cases that another resident had when she left the force. Her name is Penny and she is one of the main baddies but not really a baddie. She is close friends with Elizabeth who is the leader and a former MI5 or MI6, don't really know the difference. 

Penny is in a coma and she is only shown when Elizabeth stops by to update her and visit. Elizabeth asks Joyce one day for some medical advice because Joyce was a nurse. Elizabeth brings Joyce into the club to figure out who murdered a girl and did the boyfriend do it.

While they are trying to figure that out, the owner of Coopers Chase named Ian is being a dick. He is wanting to dig up the graveyard and build new flats. The residents are against it and a priest named Father Mackie. We learn his story which is sad but was cut out of the movie. There is another owner of Coopers Chase named Tony Curran. Ian decides to cut him out of any future dealings and Tony gets pissed.

Tony is killed in his home and the Thursday Murder club is on the case. They get the officer who came to talk to the residents about safety and phone scams on the case. There was a lot of humor at the beginning of the story but it was nonexistent when the book started to get boring. Ian eventually moves forward with his plans to dig up the graveyard and there is protests. When Ian is on the way home because the work is stalled and he cant do nothing because the police need to go through legal channels, Ian drops dead.

They find out that Ian died from an overdose and that now all of them are suspects.The other storyline that was so unnecessary and was cut out of the book was Bernard's plotline.

By the end of this, I was skimming because I honestly did not care about the other plotlines or who killed who.

Review: The House With The Golden Door by Elodie Harper

 

I started this series back in 2024 and I gave the first book The Wolf Den 4 stars. I enjoyed the ancient roman time period and the fact that this takes place in Pompei. It has taken my library a long time to finally get this book in stock and I had high expectations. 

I ended up giving this a 3 star because I enjoyed some parts, especially with the rumblings of Mt. Vesuvius. It doesn't erupt in this book and it is only mentioned the one time. This book suffers from second book syndrome and it dragged. 

Amara is finally a freed woman and is living in the house her lover is renting for her. She has her own slaves and she is distraught over leaving her friends at the brothel. She makes a deal with Felix and she gets ownership of Victoria and Britannica. She immediately gives them their freedom and she has to find out a way to pay Felix for them.

She ends up selling Victoria as a sex slave and musician which she doesn't mind at all. Britannica starts teaching Amara how to fight and she gets a new life goal of becoming a gladiator. Amara is really stupid in this book and makes a lot of questionable choices. One is that she falls in love with Rufus' slave Philo, who is tasked with keeping an eye on the house and to spy on Amara.

Amara eventually gets pregnant by said slave and Rufus can't deal with that gossip because he is soon to be married. He lets Amara go but he is still looking after them because he believes the child is his. If he found out that he is not the father, Amara would be sold back into slavery and the baby would automatically become a slave because of her father Philo. 

The book ends with Amara becoming a concubine once again to a wealthier and richer patron and leaving Pompei for Rome. She has to leave her baby behind and she will only be able to see her once a year. 

This book was very repetitve and dragged and it was basically one big pissing contest or a my dick is bigger than your dick. Amara made stupid decisions and people are becoming pawns to her.

Review: Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie *SPOILERS*

 

Another Agatha Christie read for my reading challenge. I am slowly getting through her works. I am finding these quite forgettable and I have not gotten a 5 star yet. 

In this, Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings investigate the murder of Lord Edgware. Hercule Poirot had met with his wife, Jane an actress, the day before and she wanted him done in because she wanted to marry another man. Poirot met with Lord Edgware to see if he would divorce his wife Jane. 

Jane was surpried to hear that he had agreed to a divorce. The next day, Lord edgware was found murdered in his study. His daughter and maid all agree that they saw Jane do it. Hercule Poirot immediately starts investigating.

I was a little annoyed with Jane because when she found out about the murder, she immediately started buy clothes for the funeral and trying on hats and fainting and straight up acting. People close to Jane are adament that she killed him, but there is eye witnesses that say that she was at a dinner party at the time of the murder.

There are two more murders that follow and one is a comedian who does impersonations. She did an impersonation of Jane and Jane loved it. She is found with pince-nez in her handbag and she was not someone who wore glasses. 

Poirot comes to the conclusion of who did the murders and we find out that it was in fact Jane who killed her husband. 

The ending was truly crazy and would be grounds to throw her ass in the loony bin because she write to Poirot from prison saying that she had no idea he was that smart and that she hopes to have a wax statue of herself in a museum some day because she thought her plan was genius. Un freaking believable. 

Review: The Mandalorian Manga Volume 1 by Yusuke Osawa

 

I am obsessed with Star Wars and I love The Mandalorian. Grogu is my love and I can not wait to see the movie later this month. I was at a library event with my kids and they saw volume 3 on the shelf and they wanted to read it. I requested this one and it is basically the first episode of the first season.

We see Mando going into a bar and saving the target of the bounty. We see him put the guy in carbonite on the epic Razor Crest. If you haven't watched the first season, watch it and then read this because it will help you remember names and all that. 

This is definitely targeted towards children, but I likw seeing the cutie illustrations of Grogu.

Review: This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page

 

This was a book that I read for a Goodreads reading challenge and the reviews that I heard and watched for this told me that I would be crying my eyes out the whole time.

The first two chapters had me sobbing and hugging Cayce super tight. Then I finished and gave this book a two star. I did not cry anymore, just a couple of sniffles but nothing else. This book became so relatable and not in the good way. I did hug my hubby a couple more times, but there was a part with the mother in law and that gave me anxiety because I do not have a good relationship with mine... its basically non existent and there is a lot of tension and no contact for a reason.

I thought that the mother in law would want to have a talk about money and that is a big red flag and if you couldn't tell, that is the whole problem with mine. So while reading, I was dreading getting to the conversation but thankfully it did not go in that direction. 

The other thing I predicted about a 1/3 of the way in and it is one of my biggest pet peeves. I hate when a spouse dies and the other moves on a year or two later. I am not a fan and I would not get with anyone else if something like this happened and it is very obvious from the beginning who the love interest will be.

The last thing that hit me in a hard way and I just could not give this a 5 star is that Alfie, the bookstore owner took over after his dad passed away.... FROM PANCREATIC CANCER. 

It is like this book was written with all of the trauma that is currently affecting my life because my mom has pancreatic cancer. I read that part and I immediately threw the book down. I just could not deal with this book anymore and I did not even care about the books that was left behind for Tilly. 

Review: The Dustin Experiment by J.L. D'Amato

 

One of my new favorite Stranger Things books. This has made it to my top three because the author made Dustin have experiences without retelling an episode of the show, like some of the previous Stranger Things books,  ie Runaway Max. 

I also really loved Eddie in this book and found him to be written better than his own book Flight of Icarus. 

I have been waiting since last year to read this, before the fifth season started actually and my library took forever in ordering it and then someone requested it and kept it longer than the three week limit. 

Anyways, Dustin has always been my favorite character and the events in this book take place during the beginning of season 4.

The boys have just started high school and they are missing Will and El. Max is absent and we learn why in the show. Dustin is trying to keep the group together, but Lucas is joining the basketball team and hanging out with the enemies. Mike and Dustin join the Hellfire Club and honestly, I can't sing Eddie's praises enough.

Dustin wants to enter the science fair with the guys, but they are not in it. Dustin fixes Eddie's amp and walkman and he gets an idea for his project. Eddie introduces him to the heavy metal music that makes Eddie Eddie. 

Dustin asks Eddie to take him to the science fair and they go. We learn that Eddie is afraid of ducks because one of the participants has a duck named Frodo Quackins and he can do tricks. I love that we got some Lord of the Rings refrences because it is fitting. 

Dustin goes on a side quest while at the science fair to figure out who is sabotaging projects. He figures it out and makes some new friends along the way. He also has to figure out what he wants to do because he gets a once in a lifetime opportunity to attend an elite science school. He has to choose between his passion and his friends.

This book is my 2nd favorite out of all of the Stranger Things books that I have read. Nothing will beat the first book where we learn the origin of Eleven and her birth parents. My third favorite is Hopper's book. 

Review: Accidentally Yours by Christina Lauren

 

still reading the little short stories when my kids have library events. This one took me a month to read, not because it sucked but didn't have time to sit and read on my phone. I did give this a 4 star because I really enjoyed it and it was memorable. 

This is about Veronica who just left her dude bro job because she was not appreciated enough and one day she joins this zoom meeting that is not hers. She secretly stays and watched the presentation and she is apalled by how bad the marketing is. She lets the people know that this company will sink and how bad their marketing scheme is, and then she dips out.

Jude, the CEO of this company tracks her down and emails her offering her a month retainer to help them gets the project off the ground. She refuses and eventually she agrees when she is offered 7000 a month, along with a new desk chair... which made me giggle.

What both of these people don't know is that they have interacted before... on multiple occasions in a specific place where they have a love for their mailman Larry. 

The progression of the relationship was cute and I loved their banter. A good romance book with banter will always be a win for me. This short also solidifies my love for Christina Lauren writing, even if this is my second reading of their work.

Review: Attack on Titan volume 1 by Hajime Isayama

 

I do not need to be starting another Manga series, but my kids want to read it with me. To be honest the cover does nothing for me and makes me not interested. 

The very beginning was very confusing because it throws you straight into the story. We follow a boy named Eren and his sister. Eren is talking about the titans with the gate guards and they are just chilling and living life. Eren says that he wants to leave the walled city and he wants to join the survey corps because he hates being caged. 

Eren tells his parents that he wants to join the survey corps and they lose their minds. He runs off after his mom forbids him to join and then they see a titan that is over 50 meters tall, which is the height of the wall around the city.

The titan punches a hole in the wall and all of the little titans get in and start eating the people. Eren's mom is trapped unfer the rubble of the house and the kids are trying to save her and they get picked up by a neighbor who rushes them to safety leaving the mom behind. We see a titan pick her up and maybe snap her spine and then throws her into it's mouth, which was graphic as hell.

We learn that the colossus titan made it through the outer wall and now all of the survivors are behind the second inner wall close to the center. Eren vows to end every last titan on Earth. We are then shown a group or batallion size of people listening to a instructor. He then calls out 10 people who will be on the front line and be expected to give up their lives if the colossus titan attacks again. The first person is Eren's sister and then Eren gets called. 

The ten get the opportunity to join between three sections. The one that the top ten is exclusive to is the military police where they will be next to the king and be comfortable and not have much to do. Jean and Eren get into a fist fight because Jean is talking about how he can relax when he becomes an MP and Eren is pissed because he thinks that is the reason why so many people died in the attack because they were lazy and not prepared because of the relaxed mindeset. 

I am curious as to what Eren's father injected him with after his mother died. It gives him splitting headaches. I am betting that Eren's dad has something to do with the titans because he wanted to show Eren something in the basement before the colossus titan appeared.

The colossus titan shows back up and punches through the second gate. Eren finds out that he is intelligent. He goes to attack and thinks he does but realizes that the titan has vanished. I am getting bored because I am not interested in the same coversations and scenes. 

After the attack, the commanders go back to splitting up the garrison to where they are needed and Eren is wondering about the origins of the titans. We learn that they have no sexual organs and that they have survived over 100 years without eating, so they eat people purely for killing purposes. They also regenerate their heads if they get cut off. 

Once again there is another attack and the top ten students get descimated. Eren gets his leg bitten off an we see a flashback of when he was little and he was shown a book by Armin about the outside world and the sea and salt and deserts. Eren gets eaten and it is implied that he does it on purpose because he wants to see the outside world.

The volume ends there and I can safely say that I will not be continuing this series because I was bored. 

Review: Icebreaker by Hannah Grace

 My second hockey romance of the month and I am officially in my hockey romance era because I have a couple more on my TBR that I want to get to. I bought this special edition last year and it has been sitting in a pile and I have been staring at it because of the beautiful sprayed edges.

My hubby bought the second book for me from a library book sale and I honestly cannot wait to pick it up because I am in love with these characters, well mostly the secondary characters. I was flying through this and it is a 4 star read. I did get bored with the smut scenes because they were so similar every time, but the characters are what made me keep going.

I love Henry and JJ. They are my two favorites and I will fight for them if it came to it. This book follows a figure skater named Anastasia and a hockey player named Nate. They go to the same college and one day, the hockey team finds out that there rink has been sabotaged and is completely  melted. They then have to share a rink with the figure skaters, which causes tension. 

The coaches decide to have an icebreaker, like a speed dating session where figure skaters and hockey players meet and talk for three minutes to "break the ice". Anastasia is against it at first because it messes with her planner which she is a sticklet for and hates losing control. She ends up really enjoying learning about each hockey player. 

There were a couple things that I really disliked about this and that was the constant state of drunkenness that Anastasia was in. Every social function, she got black out drunk and I was just over it because growing up with a mean alocoholic parent, I was not interested. I didn't mind the first few times she got drunk, but when it cane to everytime I was concerned. 

I also HATE the walking red flag that is Aaron who is Anastasias figure skating partner. He is so controlling and manipulative. I was agreeing with Nate the entire time with the meal plan, the moving back into the apartment and the therapy sessions. 

But I did have times where I was laughing my ass off. The first was at the beginning when the figure skating coach was being compared to a Russian because she was bossy. I also laughed at every scene with JJ, especially when Nate was buying flowers and JJ was against the fact that a man is expected to buy flowers everytime and he just wants a hot man to buy him some flowers.... so Nate ends up getting JJ and bouquet as well. JJ also calls butter chicken the basic white girl favorite of Indian food. 

My favorite character overall is Henry because he is the sweetest cinnamon roll. He has no filter and just says what is on his mind and he tells it like it is. He also becoms besties with Anastasia and he worries about her when she almost drowns while skating on a frozen lake. 

I am excited to get to book three because it has Henry as the main character, but I don't know about book two because the main male character is a character that is known as muffin in this book, but he is kind of mysterious. 

Review: Lore by Alexandra Bracken

 

I bought this book back in 2020 when it was released because I really liked the Darkest Minds series bu Alexandra Bracken. This also fulfilled a goodreads reading challenge. I find this to be OK because the premise sounded great. The original olympians are turned mortal every seven years and they are hunted by the bloodlines to be killed for their power.

Our main character Lore is from the House of Perseus and she is the last of her bloodline. Her parents and little sisters were murdered because she thinks it is what she did as a young girl. Lore is found while fighting for money. She is an amazing fighter. The person that finds her is from her past and she believed that he died of cancer.

Lore refuses to be brought back into the hunt and wants to stay hidden for the next week while the gods are being hunted because she is also being hunted as well. The hunt is called the Agon and it was created by Zeus as a punishment to the olympic Gods. 

This is where I started getting confused with the bloodlines and who was who and why there were enemies and the whole spoils of war deals. I do think this was a little long and that it could have been cut about 75 pages because it was very repetitive. I did get the shock factor once or twice because I was not expecting it. There is a rape scene which I was not expecting and I was confused because it was implied that Lore killed him, but he is was still alive later. 

I also think the ending was a cop out because she just prayed to be left alone and she feels a difference and she doesn't vanish. Like I highly doubt that Zeus would let that happen. 

Review: How to Kill A Witch by Zoe Venditozzi & Claire Mitchell

 

Another book read for the Goodreads winter challenge. I am determined to get all of these digital bookmarks this year. This is the start of my collector's era because I am now obsessed with Pokemon cards again, but that is for another day.

This is a nonfiction book about the witches of Scotland. Well, that is what I thought at first because it is mainly about the witches of Scotland but it eventually talks about other famous women that was accused of witchcraft.

I decided to immersion read this and listen to the audiobook to take full advantage of my free premium spotify. I am so disappointed in the audiobook and this book. I appeciated that the authors narrated the book, but there was additional information in the audiobook that was not in the physical copy. The authors also kept saying I and we when there names were used in the book and it was confusing to keep the two separate. 

They also went off topic alot and the audiobook sounded like an AI search was being read because it was so fact heavy and monotone. I didn't really learn anything about Scotland witches and they mainly reference a woman who became a character in Outlander. They talk about how in the African countries, witchcraft is still frowned upon and women are blamed and killed for it.

Review: Solo Leveling Volume 1

 

I have been wanting to read this since I first heard about it on Booktube. All of the manga readers that I follow have hyped this series up and my kids wants to watch the show. 

Going into this, I have no idea what to expect because I have heard so many things. I immediately compared this to My Hero Academia and Dungeon Crawler Carl and Road to Mastery. It is about people who are hunters and they have a rank denoting their strength. Our main character is an E-rank and he is known as the weakest hunter of all mankind. 

Hunters go into these dungeons to kill bosses. The higher the dungeon rank, the bigger the payload. Jinwoo is always signing up because he has to pay his mother's hospital bills and his sisters tuition. The dungeon that they go into is a d-rank and is known as an easy one.

When the boss gets killed, another dungeon appears inside. A double dungeon. The hunters take a vote to continue on and when they get to the boss, they see all of these enormous statues. The lead hunter sees a list of commandments on the wall and reads them out loud. Our boy Jinwoo immediately senses danger and the door slams shut.

Whoever moves towards the door, gets annihilated by the guard statue and who ever stands tall is vaporized by the lead statues eyes. Jinwoo figures out that the only way to survive is to follow the commandments. The hunters bow and then the statues face changes. It looks exactly like Ethan Hawke's smiling face in black phone. Scary as fuck, which is why I have never watched that movie. I will be terrified for the rest of the night now.

They figure out what to do for the second commandment and they have to stand in front of the statues holding musical instruments. Jinwoo is to late getting to a statue and he loses his leg. He prays to one of the statues and it comes to life and starts singing. The third commandment start when an altar pops up in the middle of the room. The hunters start fighting and saying who should be the sacrifice. 

The hunters surround the altar and then the doors open and red and blue flames appear. Hunters start leaving one by one and a blue flame goes out and the doors close little by little. Jinwoo gets the leader to take Joohee and go and to leave hime behind. He then gets stabbed by a statue and it is gruesome as hell. A notification screen pops up telling him that he has passed the secret quest and does he want to become a player. This is screaming Dungeon Crawler Carl and Road to Mastery.

Jinwoo wakes up in the hospital and he is met with suits from the hunters agency. They think that Jinwoo has had a second awakening since he was the lone survivor in the empty room with the altar. The statues were gone. They check his essence and they are shocked to find that it is so low, they are surprised that he is even a hunter. E rank hunters have a score of 70 and Jinwoo is a 10. 

He is trying to figure out how to open his player inbox which only he can see. He opens a message that says daily strength training. It has a list of exercises that he needs to do and if he doesn't complete it, he will have to suffer a penalty. He of course doesn't do it and he gets sent to a desert. He then gets a notifcation that he now has to survive the required time which is 4 hours and he is being chased by a big ass centipede.

He survives and he starts to take the daily quests seriously. He gets rewards for each completion. In one, he gets a key that opens a door at a train station. He opens an instance gate and he has to defeat the boss. He is panicking because he is by himself and he has no team to save his sorry ass.

I am so intrigued. I was confused as hel at the beginning, but I will be continuing this series. 

Review: Game Changer by Rachel Reid

 

The hype got me. I was watching Gavin's video and he convinced me to pick up this series. I was not interested at first, because I do not like reading male male romance with smut. It gets really confusing during the sex scenes and I got confused a lot during this one. I had to keep re reading previous sentences to see who was doing what because I couldn't keep them sperate in my head.

I ended up giving this a 4 out of 5 stars. I found the relationship between Kip and Scott to be so fucking adorable and swoony. This story reminded me alot of a fanfiction I read about 12 years ago. It was during my year of only reading Hunger Games fanfiction, and I read one where Peeta was a hockey player and Katniss was a bartender. 

Going into this, I am not a hockey fan at all but I can appreciate a sport story and I found myself wanting to watch some hockey. I do think this book is a little on the long side and there could have been two sex scenes deleted because like I said, the dialogue didn't change and the positions and what was happening was the same. It felt like a copy and paste. 

It took me almost a week to read this, not because I was bored but it was the repetitiveness of the sex and the conversations of Kip being lonely and Scott being focused on the playoffs. Kip flirting with the bartender and Scott having a lumberjack beard and being paranoid everytime another player says boyfriend or a slur. 

I am still on the fence about watching the show, so we will have to see what I think of the next book which I will be picking up soon depending on the holds list at my library.

Fate's Last Melody by Vanessa Smith

 

Melody’s life was ordinary… until she was dragged into hell.

Melody wakes in darkness with a pounding skull and two metal bands locked around her wrists, stamped with unfamiliar symbols. Along the cavern wall, carved images emerge through grime and blood, nine interconnected circles arranged with unsettling precision. A pattern. A test. But beyond it lies hell itself…
Nyx, her captor – handsome, scarred and dangerously alluring. He swears he’s here to protect her, to guide her through the Underworld itself but every look, every glance feels like a threat wrapped in a promise. Is Nyx her saviour or the reason she’s here in the first place?
Because Hell does not take at random.
And whatever brought her here knows exactly what it is doing.