Review: Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker

 

This cover is absolutely gorgeous. I also read this for the Goodreads reading challenge. All of my reads this year are for this challenge it seems. This is the first book that I have read from Kylie Lee Baker and while I sadly did not enjoy this book, I will be reading her backlist titles.

We follow a college student named Lee who has went to Japan to be with his dad and his girlfriend. They have jusy purchased this tiny house in Japan and Lee is running from things. He is a very unreliable character and he is hooked on antihestimins, mostly benadryl. He takes them to dull the world around him and the voice of his dead mother who went missing in Cambodia when he was little.

It is constantly implied that her body was stuffed into a rolling suitcase and to be able to do that, some of the big bones had to be broken. Then we learn that he may have killed his roommate and that is why he ran. He also can't remember where he dumped the body.

The second main character is a girl called Sen and she is in a different time period and she is secretly training to become a samurai because a failed rebellion has killed all samurai. Her father went to the rebellion and he is the only one that came back alive. He is seen as a coward in Sen's eyes but she cannot tell him that. He is brutal in her training and he hates that his wife is babying his sons. They are living in the same house that Lee and his dad are now occupying. Lee and Sen meet through the closet and Lee wants to know if he can contact his mom. Sen learns that she dies with her family and not in battle.

The ending was a clusterfuck and it was so confusing. I feel that the answers that I wanted were walked around and there was a lot of stretches of disbelief.

Review: The Evil In You by Jutta Maria Herrmann

 

this was a fast paced thriller that had me gripping my seat. i read this while my kids were at library events and my face was very expressive. i was getting scared, disgusted, and angry. there should be a trigger warning for the dog death because it was very brutal and i almost dnf'ed the book and threw my phone I was so angry.

I read a good chunk of the book in one sitting and then came back to it and I don't know if it was the length of time between or if the book got predictable and just became the same as all of the others. It also got really boring and when it came to the main character going into the hospital after seeing her own face on the news, just made no since to me.

The ending was just sad and again predictable

Review: The Ballad of Falling Dragons by Sarah A Parker *SPOILERS*

 

My most anticipated read of the year, and of course it is a 5 star. I have been constantly thinking about the first book ever since I finished it, and every pushback of the release date for this was painful. 

This picks up right where the first left off and we get more time with Kyzari and the little folded note that she names Nee. Kyzari is being kept prisoner by her uncle the scavenger king named Arkyn, who is ruthless, diabolic, and just straight evil. Kyzari is wondering who was in the cell before her, and we learn that Raeve was held in the same cell in the first book. I cried alot while reading because of Arkyn ripping Nee in half and killing it. 

Raeve learns through flashbacks that she is Elluin and that Kaan has known the entire time. Kaan is trying to keep his kingdom together and not fall apart by his brother's hand. There is a prophecy that comes to be that all of the moonplumes will fall and it will be catastophic and deadly.

Kaan and Raeve go to the scavenger king's land, The Shade, to end this shit once and for all and Kaan finds out that Kyzari is not his niece but his daughter. Kaan then has to battle against Raeve while Arkyn and his kingdom watches. Kaan refuses and the moonplume fall begins and starts decimating the underground. Kaan goes after Arkyn and Raeve goes to the cell to save Kyzari. She then finds her outside in the destruction in the arms of the God Clode.

The book ends with Sereme bringing back to life a person who will be bad news to Raeve and Kaan.

When the first book came out, it was announced that this was to be a five book series. The author's note at the end of this book states that the third will be the last. I am gutted and I do not want this series to end.

Review: People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry

 

My first Emily Henry book done. I am so glad that I found this in a little free library and I will always remember the day I picked it up because that is the day we rescued our new pup Vulpix, along with her three brothers and two sisters off the side of the road.

I read this for the Goodreads reading challenge and to finally watch the movie, which I have to say I liked even better than the book. Blasphemy, but I still liked the book. I give this a 4 star and the movie a 4.5 because of the changes but it still made sense.

We follow Poppy and Alex who are best buds who meet in college on a roadtrip back home. Poppy is spunky and fun and carefree, and Alex is a routine guy who follows rules. It was also very easy to picture the characters thans to the actors who play them. 

This book jumps around the timeline and at first I thought I would have gotten annoyed, but it made so much sense. It wasn't clunky and choppy and confusing. It was like a tangent based story. I keep having to remind myself not to put what I liked about the movie into this review because this is about the book. What I liked in the movie, is completely different in the book. 

I did get annoyed with Alex when he thought that Poppy was changing her mind about settling down, and I just wanted to shake him and ask him why did he want that for her so badly when they have been besties for so many years. He should have respected her choices, but eventually they get together.

Review: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

 

I started reading this big boi last month in May and I have been immersion reading. Sadly my traslated copy does not have an audio book, so I have been listening to another transalted edition and following along. It is the same with just different wording... obviously.

. As I am writing this now, I am over 700 pages and it is June 3rd. I am reading this for my classics challenge and also the spring goodreads reading challenge. I want all of the bookmarks this year. 

I finished this book back in June and it put me in a slump. I slowed down massively on my reading and I did not want to write reviews. I took a month and a half long break from blogging and it was a much needed rest but then I started to miss it.

I ended up giving this a 2 star. I am just not meant for Russian classics or just Leo Tolstoy. I had the thought that he was in the room with all of the people and just shadowing them and just writing everything that he heard and saw. I was bored with the society parts and was really interested in the war parts. 

Also finidng out that this was adapted into a miniseries with some actors that I have watched and really enjoyed before made me more interested and helped me put faces with names. 

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.