Review: The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood

I took too long to read last year's most hyped book because the week I decided to start reading this, I learned that it was Kylo Ren-Rey Star Wars fanfiction. I am obsessed with Star Wars and I have met some of my best friends through fanfiction for another fandom. But, I am not a shipper of Kylo Ren and Rey. The kiss between them was totally unnecessary and honestly really gross. I shipped Rey with Poe with the whole "I Know" bit at then end of episode 8 and also Oscar Issac is easy on the eyes. 

I decided to go ahead and read it and the beginning had me going WTF. I listened to this on audio and usually when I do audio, I have the physical book in my hands so I can follow along. I updated my status multiple times while reading this because I just couldn't understand some of the things that Olive did and said. The first thing I had an issue with is that she is a PhD student and she is using EXPIRED contacts. Talking more than 3 year old contacts. Then she said to Adam the US shouldn't have left the commonwealth to not celebrate Thanksgiving. Olive is Canadian and Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving as well. Seem like poor research on the author's part. 

I ended up giving this a 4 out of 5 at the end because I did enjoy listening to it and wondering what olive and Adam would get up to. Listening to the sex scene was intense and I seriously wanted a bucket of popcorn while listening. I have read smut, but I have never listened to it and that was a damn experience. 

I know that Ali Hazelwood has other books that was also fanfiction first, so I am better prepared to go into her books. 

Review: The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie

 

Second book for the Agatha Christie challenge done. I never knew how much I needed to have Agatha Christie books in my life because her writing style and the two stories that I have read so far have been amazing. The Agatha Christie challenge is being hosted by the 52 book club and they have a list of all of her works in publication order and you can read this list any way you want. I am obviously doing publication order. The first book she ever wrote was The Mysterious Affair at Styles where Hercule Poirot, everyone's favorite Belgian detective was introduced. 

This book introduces two new characters named Tommy and Tuppence. Completely different series from Hercule Poirot, but equally enjoyable. Tommy and Tuppence are friends who grew up together and they are trying to live after World War 1. They don't have much money and they are looking for work. They come up with an idea to advertise their services to do anything for an adventure. Their ad is answered and it is by two men looking for the same girl.

This girl has vital information that can change the course and outcome of the war. She was on the Lusitania when it was torpedoed by the Germans and before she got into the life boat, she was given an oil skin package with a treaty in them. Basically the whole story is trying to find the girl Jane Finn to retrieve the documents.. Granted, it has been 5 years since she was given the papers. 

I really enjoyed this story and the anticipation and the plot. I did want more of the story on board the Lusitania as I didn't know anything about this ship before picking up this book. I never learned about this in school. 

I give this a 4 out of 5 stars. It was 5 stars till the ending where I started to get bored because it just dragged and then the instant romance between Julius and Jane was just ick. I am going to be watching the adaptation as soon as I can find the episodes on the 2015 version. 

Review: My Summer of Love and Misfortune by Lindsay Wong

 

Before I started reading this, I decided to check the rating on Goodreads. Something that I don't do too often because I will then end up reading my friends reviews and that will stay in my mind while I am reading the book. I only looked at the star rating and I was shocked that this had a 2 star average rating. Seeing this, I stayed away from the reviews. I had heard from some booktubers that I watched that they had DNF'ed it and that was it.

So we are following a teenager named Iris. She is Chinese American and she is a very materialistic, narcissistic moron. She has two parents who are not very smart. Her mom is the CEO of an engineering company and her dad is obsessed with Chinese zodiac and getting manicures and pedicures. All her life, she has known that she is cursed because she was born in the year of the Tiger. Tiger girls are cursed and doomed while Tiger boys bring good fortune for the family. 

Reading the first two chapters, I had to vlog myself reading this. I was blown out of my mind that this girl could be so ignorant and obnoxious. She didn't get into any of the colleges she applied to, she failed her senior year by not showing up and she thinks the email from her guidance counselor is a request to be Valedictorian. She gets cheated on by her boyfriend with her best friend. She is sent away to China to fix herself and she then thinks that her parents are fake and then proceeds to look into Forbes top 30 in Asia to find her real parents. She has panic attacks about learning and she can't speak Mandarin to save her life. 

I really hated Iris, but I believe that she was supposed to be an unlikeable main character. I don't want to fault the book for that, but when the parents also make idiotic statements like the mother asking Iris, has no one ever taught you to stay away from strangers. The dad not really knowing anything about his brother and thinking that the uncle and cousin are dirt poor. 

I also could not feel an inch of sympathy for Iris when she got screwed over by her love interest. I know what it feels like to be lied to your face, but girl, for someone who loves attention she needed to pay more attention to the body language of her "lover". 

OCTOBER 2020 WRAP UP

 Last month, I had a spooky TBR. In my opinion, only a couple of the books were mildly spooky and the rest were not. I read a total of 8 books last month. Here they are. I always post my reviews of the books I read except the books I read aloud to my kids. 

1. The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan

2. Locke & Key volume 1: Welcome to Lovecraft by Joe Hill

3. Locke & key volume 2: Head Games by Joe Hill

4. I Am Haunted by Zak Bagans

5. The Ship by Antonia Honeywell

6. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

7. Tuesday Mooney Talks To Ghosts by Kate Racculia

8. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodges Burnett

Review: Flawless by Sara Shepard

After reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, I needed an absolute trash book. I needed something that wouldn't make me think and that I could fly through and not have a care in the world. This was that book. This was the book that was the complete opposite of what I had previously read.
This is the second book in the Pretty Little Liars series and it is just about a bunch of snotty, bitchy over privileged white girls who have basic first world problems. The characters are super one dimensional and bland. I had a hell of a time of keeping up with who was who. They are all the same and not different at all. I would read a part about Hanna and think that it was really Emily.

They are being "harassed" by this person named A who is threatening to tell their worst secrets and all of the family problems.  They refuse to go to authorities and report it because they don't want to reap the consequences of what happened that made their friend Ali disappear.

I have never watched the show and I basically know the ending, but when my daughters are in the teenage years and they want to read these books and watch the show, then I will sit down and watch with them, but until then, I may continue to read this series if and when my library opens back up and if they have the next book in this garbage guilty pleasure.

Review: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

A book that has been on my TBR for the last 5 years and I read it this week and all I can say is WTF. I refused to read the synopsis and went into it completely blind and I am glad I did. I heard about this book through one of my former classmates, she was looking for a first addition that was signed and I immediately put it on my TBR because she is a bigger reader than I am and I know that if she is looking for a special copy, then it has to be damn good.

This book is about the lives of two little boys Amir and Hassan, living in a peaceful Afghanistan. Amir is well off, and Hassan is his servant. These two little boys grow up together and they are told all their lives that they are brothers because they nursed from the same woman. During a kite flying competition that is a sport and kind of olympic like, Amir is the winner and Hassan goes off to fetch the kite that Amir cut. Hassan is known as Amir's kite runner. Something happens that changes the lives of these two boys forever.

I was not expecting this book to get so dark as quick as it did. I wanted to knock sense into Amir and tell him to stop being a damn brat and be there for his friend who has suffered a traumatic event. While reading, I was having a hard time trying to picture Afghanistan as a peaceful monarchy because all I have ever known about the country is what I learned after September 11th. This book had me wanting to research the country's history and all about the monarchy.

After the traumatic event happened to Hassan, I had a hard time wanting to continue because I was just so distraught and then the ending was just excruciating to continue through. I figured I would cry, but the author had a good way of making you feel anxious, hopeful, empty and dread.

Review: My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows

If you are looking for a read that is funny and you need a good laugh in these awful times, then this is the perfect book. It is a re-imagining of Lady Jane Grey. She was a nine day queen who was dethroned and beheaded because her father was a slime.

In this book she lives because the authors can make any character live or die. We have three different POV's throughout the book and the story flows beautifully. We have the POV from Jane, her husband Gifford and her cousin who is the king, Edward.

The authors added a magical element into the story where the country is divided where half of the people turn into animals and the other half do not have this power and are against the Edians and want them exterminated.

There were also so many laughs and this was the first time I ever tabbed a book and now when I need a laugh, I can pick this book up and read all of the funny parts and if I need a swoon, I can go to the few that are sporadically inserted throughout. Jane and Gifford are just too freaking cute together and I ship them.

I just love the use of the word darling and the *SPOILER* second wedding between Jane and G and the VIRTUE bit. Keep it in your pants G.

Review: Carrie by Stephen King

I started my Stephen King reading challenge for the year and to be honest, I may not get to the books I picked out for each month. This was a really fast read and the writing style was a little different compared to all of his other works.

This has been adapted into a movie twice and I remember seeing bits and pieces of both of them, but not all the way through. Before reading this, I knew what this book was about and what happens to Carrie on prom night because my mom is a huge Stephen King fan and pretty much whenever a Stephen King movie was on TV, it would be watched regardless if she had just watched it yesterday.

Also, Stephen King books have a lot of freaking covers for each one and for Carrie, this one has to be my favorite.

If you don't know anything about this story or have never seen the movie, it is about a high school girl named Carrie White. She is severely bullied by every person in school and in the town it seems. She is getting bullied one day while taking a shower after gym class and she starts her period. She gets assaulted by the rest of the girls who are throwing tampons and pads at her.

She knows nothing of menstrual cycles because her mother is a Jesus freak. Her mom spouts religion every time she opens her mouth and reading it was super freaking annoying because I am not religious in the slightest.

The thing that made this book so quick to read is that it references a "book" written about Carrie White and her telekinesis and it also has interviews from a couple of the towns people who testified against her or in the trial which wasn't described.

The ending is still a crap shot with Stephen King. I think he should start ending his books with some cliffhangers and then maybe his books won't be so negatively seen for that aspect.

Review: A House In The Sky by Amanda Lindhout

My first non-fiction read of 2020. I am doing a global nonfiction A-Z challenge this year. My TBR was posted on Sunday where I list all of the books and the countries that they are set in in ABC order.

This book was written by Amanda Lindhout, a woman who was kidnapped and held captive for 15 months in Somalia. She goes into detail about her rough childhood and her moms various abusive boyfriends. She talks about how she got a good paying job at a gentleman's club that helped fund her first trip abroad with her boyfriend. She tells about her time in the Middle East visiting Pakistan, Afghanistan. Working for Press Tv in Iraq.

That was the first quarter of the book. The rest is about her time in Somalia and how her and her partner Nigel were yanked out of their SUV on the way to a meeting to take photographs. They were moved many times and she goes on to talk about her conversion to Islam to try to keep herself alive and how she was also gang raped.

It was very hard to get through the ending because if was very depressing and it felt like there was a stone on my chest while reading. She is an absolute brave soul to be able to go back to Somalia years later and try to educate the women there.

Review: Romanov by Nadine Brandes

Another book that I definitely slept on last year. This was one of my most anticipated reads of 2019 and its because it is a magical retelling of Anastasia. I grew up watching the cartoon movie thanks to my grandma and I have always been fascinated with any and everything dealing Russian history. Particularly Imperial Russia and the Romanov family.

The author's note included in this book is something that I really appreciated. She clearly announces that the first half of this book has is mostly factual with a few truths stretched to make the story more engaging. The second half is purely the imagination of Nadine Brandes with real names.

If you don't know the history of the Romanov family, they were the last Tsar family in Imperial Russia before it was taken over by the Soviets. They accused the Tsar of not caring for the people and called for his abdication. Soon after, the Bolsheviks sent the family into exile in Siberia. They were held captive while the Soviet Red Army engaged in war with the Loyal White Army.

The Romanov's were brutally executed on false orders and the conspiracy theories to this day announce that Anastasia and her brother Alexei survived the execution but that turned out to be rumors. There have also been multiple impersonators throughout the years and disgracing and disrespecting the lives of the family.

Review: Circle of Shadows by Evelyn Skye *spoilers*

The first book I have finished for 2020. I wanted to finish it on New Years Eve, but I ran out of time, and I didn't want to fly through it. I really enjoyed this one. I had it on my list of anticipated reads last year after I saw it on someone's Fairy Loot unboxing and it had lavender sprayed edges. It is an Asian inspired magical fantasy. The sequel comes out this year and I do not know if it is a trilogy or if it will be a duology.

We follow this girl named Sora, but her soldier name is Spirit. She is part of an elite group called the taigas who protect Empress Aki and the kingdom of Kichona. She is a Level 12 apprentice and close to graduating and her partner or her "gemina" is her friend Wolf, who was raised by wolves in the wild.

To get taiga powers, they have to be blessed as babies by the moon goddess Luna who gives them whorls on their bodies that marks them. As Sora and Wolf get their first mission, they complete it and head to Sora's family home to celebrate the Autumn Harvest. On the way to spend the rest of their break in the woods, where Wolf was found, they come across something startling and they see the one person who everyone in the Kingdom believes to be dead.

I was enthralled with this book and I could put it down but I found myself picking it right back up after 5-10 minutes. It is a quick read, but I would recommend to pace yourself because if you read through it too quickly, you will miss some things.

I can not wait for the sequel Cloak of Night to be released next month, and I hope that Fairy Loot will release a special edition.. PLEASE FAIRY LOOT!!!

Review: Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!!! This review is going up on the best day possible and I am glad that I finished this book in time... THANK YOU AUDIBLE!

Like many people, I became obsessed with the Broadway show Hamilton. Every time I would write a blog post, I would listen to the soundtrack on Spotify. I knew I wanted to read this book eventually, and kept putting it off by the number of pages. I knew it was a nonfiction that I wanted to have marked as read on my Goodreads shelf and say yes, I read this hunk of a book.

It's basically the biography of Alexander Hamilton. From his parents' origins and how they met and how Alexander and his brother eventually became orphans. It talks about slavery on the Caribbean islands and Hamilton being a shipping clerk and eventually going to America.

Most of the time while reading this, I was thinking about the musical. Some parts had to be left out of the musical for obvious reasons that it was so repetitive and often times while reading, it would go into the backstory for John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, and Aaron Burr.

I did do a reading vlog while reading this and I will be linking it in a separate post. I bring up some facts that if Alexander Hamilton were alive today, he would freaking LOVE twitter.

Review: YOU by Caroline Kepnes

This was a tough one to finish. I was intrigued and had to know what happened next. By everyone's reviews and reactions to this book and the show, I was expecting something completely different. I was not as creeped out as everyone else was. Only once did I feel that I was being followed and watched. There were a couple times when I thought Joe to be completely normal and then immediately his severe mental illness would come through.

Every character in this book is annoying and ignorant. Beck was just your typical middle-class white girl with daddy issues and dates men that treat her like shit. Also, she is addicted to social media and I would not be surprised if she tweeted that she was taking a shit at 4am in the morning. #keepinitregular. And I did not know about the massive amounts of sex talks and masturbating. Good God. I was not expecting that.

The cover creeped me out more than the actual words in this story, and I will be watching the show with my hubby. Overall, this book does have me wanting to read Hidden Bodies, not soon but maybe later on in the year. 

Review: Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare

I am in love with this book. I don't know what it is about it, but I give it a 5 out of 5 stars. Right off the bat with are with Jem and he is my favorite character. I usually stay away from books set in Victorian era London because I can't get into it. Although there were a few times where there was scenes where something was proper or a guy and a girl wanting to start a relationship and they need to be chaperoned. UGH.

Jem is just a sweetheart who deserves all the love in the world and I am happy that Tessa actually chose him and didn't break things off for Will. Will grew on me a little bit, but he is still the same arrogant and cocky bastard from the first. I did laugh at his jokes about Benedict Lightwood, and I loved learning more about the "curse" and his family.

That bitch Jessamine got what she deserves, and I cannot wait to see her die in Clcokwork Princess. I was spoiled and I was a little upset with that tidbit going into this book, but I just want her to go rot in hell for being a spy. Also, when her ring broke while she was scratching into to the and it was fake, I laughed so loud.

I can't wait to see more about Charlotte and Henry and how their marriage will work out and what is going to happen with Sophie and Gideon.

Review: Catwoman: Soulstealer by Sarah J. Maas

Catwoman has always been one of my favorite villains, thanks to Michelle Pfeiffer in Batman Returns and Halle Barry. I was excited to read this and I was not exactly disappointed but I was not amazed with this book either. The story is great, but I wanted more of Selina Kyle's time with the League of Assassins. I highly enjoyed reading about Poison Ivy and would be freaking pumped if the publishers or whoever decided to make a DC Icons book 5 on Poison Ivy. Also, Batwing was very corny and Luke Fox was a miss for me. He didn't bring anything to the story. His background with the Marines was generic and he was basically riding the coat tails of Bruce Wayne/ Batman.

Overall the plot was amazing. I loved the League of Assassins/ Harley Quinn/ Poison Ivy. I just think that there should have been more to Selina's background before and during the League of Assassins.

If you love the show Arrow, then you have to read this book.

Review: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman

I have finally read the first book of this series after wanting to start it back in October of last year and putting it on February's TBR. With this month being a catch up month for me, I made my bind up of books 1 and 2 my priority and picked it up first.

Now, I am a huge fan of The Walking Dead, but I almost quit watching the show in the 4th season because I hated the Governor so much. And when I found out there were novelizations of The Walking Dead, I wanted to read them even if they are about the Governor.

We follow a group that consists of Philip, Brian, Penny, Nick and Bobby. Philip is the younger brother and the leader of the group. Brian is his timid and weak older brother. Penny is of course Philip's daughter and Nick and Bobby are Philip's childhood buddies. They first hole up in a rich estate with mansions and a whole bunch of biters around. They have to make their way to Atlanta because that is where they have been told that is where the refugee centers are located. If you have watched The Walking Dead, then you know that the city of Atlanta is now home to millions of zombies.

They eventually run into three survivors named April, Tara and their dad David. They eventually try to settle down in the apartments, but something happens between Philip and April. It all goes down hill from there.

This book is very character driven and it has a lot of scientific terminology when it comes to talking about smashing brains in and which party of the brain was hit and the details were freaking gory as hell. The ending was also surprising and was not expecting that plot twist.

One of the things that I think would be a whole lot better is if the titles of this book and book 2 were switched. This wasn't exactly the rise of a governor, it was the journey to finding Woodbury.

Review: Sphinx's Queen by Esther Friesner

I rushed to read this because it is the sequel conclusion to Sphinx's Princess. This series is focused on Nefertiti and her childhood and her royal family line. We left off with Nefertiti escaping a blasphemous accusation set against her by her betrothed and cousin who is acting Pharaoh of Thebes. She escapes with her other cousin, the crown Prince Amenophis who she is falling in love with, and she also has her freed slave Nava with her.

They are on their way to Dendera to talk and plead Nefertiti's innocence to the Pharaoh and Queen Tiye, the Great Royal Wife. She has to fight her way and lie and hide, and eventually, she gets her justice. The romance between Nefertiti and Amenophis was cute, but you have to remind yourself that they are cousins. I was not expecting the death of this hated character and found that the characters changed behaviors afterward did not mix well.

Review: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Finally giving this book a proper read now that I am an adult and have a little more sense and knowledge about the world. Back in 6th or 7th grade, I don't really remember, this book was on a list of summer reading that I had to do. This was the first book on the list and I chose it because I didn't care. I didn't finish the book, I only got 40 pages in before putting it down and I never did the assignment.

I was turned off by the writing style and how the character talked and now that I am aware of how it is supposed to be, I was not as bothered by it and it made for a quick read. Also, the multiple uses of the "R" word really bothered me as a kid and even now.

We follow Charlie Gordon who is mentally handicapped. He gets put through a testing process and is deemed good enough to have this operation to boost his IQ level from 70 to 160+. The doctors have already performed this operation on a mouse named Algernon and he becomes Charlie's friend and common friend.

We see Charlie become intelligent and become a genius and learn more about himself and the people and the world around him. He starts losing friends when he starts questioning every thing and then things take a turn for the worst.

This book had me all in my feelings. This was written in the 60's when it was socially acceptable to lock or hide away all of the mentally handicapped people in state run homes, hospitals and institutions. Growing up in the 90's and 00's, kids were so freaking mean to the special kids and in my high school years, that attitude flipped a complete 180 and they became the popular group in school and everyone loved them and they were included and not hidden away in a classroom.

I was infuriated with Charlie's mother. She was such a bitch and didn't care about her child. She just cared about how people saw her. When her daughter was born, she didn't want Charlie around. Well Karma got her back. The last page of the book made me cry and I felt so destroyed. it felt like I was watching the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button all over again.

Review: Six Miles To Charleston by Bruce Orr

A short nonfiction book that was totally different from what I was expecting. I was expecting facts about the legend of John and Lavinia Fisher and how they murdered people, chopped them up and Lavinia being the first woman serial killer in America. To find out none of it is actually true and a great made up ghost story is mind blowing.

Turns out that John and Lavinia Fisher were not murderers, they did run the Six Mile House is Charleston, but they never killed anyone and chop the bodies into tiny little pieces. To fins out that they were themselves victims by the South Carolina government in property disputes. They had their rights violated and were wrongfully charged and executed for a crime they did not commit. They were sentenced for a crime that they were not charged with at all.

The first time I heard of Lavinia Fisher was on Ghost Adventures when they were in Charleston investigating the Old City Jail where she was held for a year with her husband. I had to know more because of South Carolina history and ghost stories.

To know that to this day, they are still guilty of a baseless crime, they have no grave marker ( the MUSC building is on top of John and Lavinia Fisher's grave), they were not able to have children of their own and they are known to the state, country and possibly the world as murderers. If i was a spirit and died knowing all this, I would also be one pissed off spirit.

The sad thing is, 200 years later and they have no pardon.

Review: Clockwork Angel

I finally get the hype surrounding this series in particular. It is still taking me a long time to get into the Mortal Instruments series because after I finished read the first 3 books, I have realized that I don't think about them. I finished this book right before bed and OMG, I could not stop thinking about it.

The writing is better than the Mortal Instruments by far, but the time period is not my favorite. I don't like reading Victorian era novels because the men are so superior and the women are basically doormats to their husbands. I really like how Cassandra Clare gave Charlotte more of a lead the relationship and fuck the social norm.

Tessa really for on my nerves with the constant that isn't proper, or how dare the servants talk back. Jessamine is by far the most hated character for me. She was this great being and yet she just wanted to be a lady and have a husband and she set her eyes on Nate. In my opinion, Jessamine was the dumbest character of all. She was enamored by Nate and when Tessa told her constantly that he was a gambler and then told her that he didn't have money, she automatically replies, I have money.

Well, you dumbass hussy, if he didn't turn out to be the bad guy and you guys got married, you would become his property and your money would be his, and what do gamblers do... LOSE ALL THEIR MONEY. Once you were broke, you would have ran back to the Institute, the place you hate and despise most of all because it would be there for you even if you didn't deserve it.

Jessamine rant over, one more thing to say...... Will Herondale was such an asshole.