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Books and Sensibility

We're an Open Book

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Diverse Reads

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

April 14, 2021      Leave a Comment

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

I did the thing. I saw a fantasy written by a female author and assumed it was YA. I am not proud of how long it took me to realize this wasn’t YA. I t convinced I was calculating the character ages wrong.  *sigh*. Anyway…

Black Sun is an immersive pre-Columbian-inspired fantasy with intrigue, danger, and magic. The countdown is on as we follow an ensemble of characters to the day of a prophetic solar eclipse, where a vengeful god is set to claim his rightful place from the Sun Priest. The characters and plot completely pulled me into the story and left me wanting more.

…

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Bookish and The Beast by Ashley Poston

April 10, 2021      Leave a Comment

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

7 hours 21 minutes | Quirk Books | Contemporary YA | 8/4/2020

This was such a clever retelling of Beauty in the Beast.

Bookish high school senior Rosie Thorne inherited her love of the Starfield franchise from her mother. Little does she know Vance Reigns–the bad-boy star of the Starfield movie– has been banished to her backwoods North Carolina town until his 18th birthday.

When Rosie accidentally ruins a book in the library she agrees to catalog the house’s massive science fiction library. Vance brings the expected grumpy broodiness from the Beast archetype but he’s also just kind of full of regret -much like the Beast in the Disney movie. 

This is is the third book in the Once Upon A Con series but each book takes place a year apart so, while there are some cameos and references, I think it can be read as a standalone.

I did a lot of this on audio. Narrator Caitlin Kelly is one of my favorites and the main reason I picked this up. She has such a great YA voice and range of characters. This was my first time hearing Curry Whitmire–he does a great British teenager even though I think he’s American. However, I found it so odd that they pronounced Vance Reigns’ last name with a hard “G”. I have never heard of this pronunciation.

Skyhunter by Marie Lu

December 30, 2020      Leave a Comment

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

11 hours 58 minutes| Macmillan Audio| Dystopian| Release Date: 9/29/2020

Skyhunter feels like a follow-up to Legend (which is almost a decade old at this point). It has all of the things that made Legend such an enticing read; betrayal, biological warfare, experimentation, and coats. Lu loves to write characters in sweeping coats…though there are noticeable fewer epaulets in this one.

…

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You Should See Me In A Crown by Leah Johnson

December 19, 2020      Leave a Comment

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

336 pages | Scholastic Press| Contemporary | 06/2/2020 

17-year-old Liz Lighty is an unconventional candidate for Campbell County, Indiana’s prom queen–but she needs the scholarship money that comes with the crown if she wants to attend her dream college next fall. Lucky for Liz, she has a dream team of friends ready to help her rock the competition. 

…

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Miss Meteor by Tehlor Kay Mejia and Anna-Marie McLemore

December 6, 2020      Leave a Comment

Rating: Unrated | 320 pages | Harper Teen | Contemporary/Magican Realism | 09/22/2020 |

I’ve been wanting to specifically read A-M forever. From what I’ve heard their novels are a blend of fantasy and contemporary which is a genre mash-up that has always been right up my alley, so when I had a chance to review the audio for Miss Meteor, jointly written by Tehlor Kay Mejia, I jumped at the chance.

In Miss Metoer a small-town beauty pageant brings together estranged best friends, Chicky a loner and outcast who doesn’t quite fit in with her three larger-than-life big sisters; and Lita, en eccentric girl born from the stardust of the meteor that gave their small New Mexico town its name. Yes, there is a magical realism element to this story that the authors quietly weave in that I think adds a layer of actual alien to the alienation the girls already feel being brown girls in a town that often rewards blonde-haired white girls.

…

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Book Review: The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski

December 5, 2020      2 Comments

Unrated | 358 pages |  Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)| YA Fantasy | Release Date: 03/03/20 

Years ago I read Marie Rutkoski’s much-buzzed-about The Winner’s Curse. I mean this book was the ARC to have in 2013. When the book debuted in 2014 I actually purchased a copy from Books-A-Million because of all the buzz … and it just didn’t live up to the hype for me. 

However, I 100% believe that just because one book in the authors’ backlist doesn’t work for me, that doesn’t automatically cross the author off my list. I mean I didn’t love the Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo but I enjoyed Six of Crows and while Holly Black’s Cruel Prince was a no for me I’ve always been a fan of her Curse Workers series.

How did Midnight Lie hold up ?

Well, I liked it better The Winner’s Curse. I think I enjoyed it more after I had a few days to sit with it.

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