Author: greyskysaturday

Sisterhood Everlasting

Hello!
I’m back again with yet another book review. Yes, my intensity for reading and catching up on my Goodreads goal has been rather intense in the past couple of posts, but I’m glad that it’s happening. I am official finished with the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series with this review. If you want to read my other reviews on the series you can read them here and here. This is the final book in the main series although there are a few books that are off shots that Ann Brashares also wrote that involve sisterhood and friendships as well.

The last book of the series is marketed as an adult book simply because it takes place 10 years later and the characters are now just about to hit 30 and have learned to swear. Here’s a quick summary of the book with no spoilers:

It has been 10 years since we last caught up with the Sisterhood. The Traveling Pants were never found, but that’s okay. The Sisterhood spent a good 6 months living together after college in a New York apartment and then parted ways because life came at them rather quickly. Carmen is a supporting actress on a tv show with a douche boyfriend, Lena is a art professor at the college where she got her degree. Bridget is wandering through life in San Francisco with Eric, who still loves her all the same. Tibby is still with Brian and last we hear she is living in Australia. Each of the girls feels dramatically alone and can’t seem to make the time to bridge the distance until one day Tibby sends them plane tickets to Greece to relive their fateful trip from 10 years ago. Before the trip even really takes off tragedy strikes and the group is left with the feeling of what to do.

To be honest aside from the twist in the book, I thought that book was rather bland and uneventful. I felt that in some ways I was reliving the same problems that came up in the final book of the original series. I also felt as if the characters never grew up and didn’t deal with their problems very well. Overall, though I do adore the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series by Ann Brashares I would give this novel a hard pass. It would just be easier to imagine Tibby, Lena, Carmen, and Bridget living their lives as grownups rather than read this novel.

Let me know if you have read this novel or any of the other books in this series and what you thought of it. Would you recommend revisiting any of your favorite series? Hope to see you soon in another post.

The Beholder

Hey!
I’m back again with yet another book review. This book took me a while to read, which actually may be all well and good since the sequel doesn’t come out for ANOTHER YEAR! Ugh….Now I will have to wait forever to continue this story.

In case you haven’t figured it out yet, today we are going to be talking about Anna Bright’s The Beholder. This was yet another book that was chosen for a Readathon for the Creating & Co book club that I didn’t get to finish. It’s finished now though….I don’t hate that the group picked it since it was a newer book that most of the members including myself hadn’t read yet, but the fact that it’s part of a duology is the annoying part.

A quick synopsis of the book is that after Selah, daughter to the Sensechal is rejected at her proposal party by a boy she adored. Her stepmother sets her up with a crew and several appointments for courtships throughout Europe. Knowing that her father has become gravely ill in the last few months and not wanting her stepmother to win, Selah agrees to go on these courtships date through Europe. At first, Selah feels as if she is alone in her quest to quickly find a match and return to her father, but she then discovers that she is not alone in her quest and then is let in on the secret mission of the trip that has nothing to do with her courtship appointments.

I found Selah beautifully refreshing compared to other princess type characters that I have read about in the past. She knows exactly what she wants and who she is for the most part. I was annoyed that she kept allowing herself to keep falling for her suitors and her heart to get broken over and over knowing that she just needed to pick one before heading home and not facing the unknown, which she dreads so much. I was amazed at all the twists and turns in the book, which made me want to keep reading although the slow start in the beginning made me almost want to put it down.

I would definitely recommend this book as a read, but I would have rather read this closer to the sequel release so that I wouldn’t have to wait so long in between books and living in the world of Selah and her adventures in Europe. I will definitely be letting you know my thoughts on the Beholder sequel after it releases next year.

Let me know what you have been reading lately and what you would recommend. I would love to hear your thoughts if you have read the book.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series

Hey!

I know it has been a bit since I had written here, but life got in the way and I’m finally getting to a very normal place.I already talked about my thoughts on the first book in the series as well as the movie here. Well, here are more thoughts on the series from books 2-4.

Once I finished the first book I quickly jumped into the second book, which takes place the following summer after the first book. In this book, we find Bridget still dealing with the effects of last summer, as well as finding out that her mother’s parents still live in Alabama and has been trying to get in contact with her and her brother for years. Bridget impulsively heads to Alabama to rekindle the relationship with the her grandmother as well as find herself. Tibby sets off for a summer film program and also finds that she can’t shake the effects of last summer with losing Bailey and Mimi and becoming a bit more than friends with Brian. As if it weren’t enough, it appears that Lena is also haunted by last summer still being in love with Kostos and then discovering that her heart can be broken in a million more ways than she knows how to deal with. Carmen appears to have her summer together baby- sitting for a neighborhood family and finally being asked out by her crush. Slowly, her summer begins to unravel when her mother begins to date and her step sister shows up on her doorstep wanting to be like her.

In book three Girls in Pants, we find the Sisterhood in their last summer officially together before they start college and it seems that everything is about to change in their lives and not everyone is ready for that change. Tibby is afraid of change and new things and after a scary experience with her sister, she discovers that she needs to find a way to face the future. Lena determined to become an artist has to confronts some realities that she has been hiding from since last summer. Bridget, while she is the only one going away for the summer runs straight into someone from her past which brings up old memories and things she wasn’t quite ready to face and the reality that everything may not be as set in stone as she once thought she had them. Carmen has to deal with the biggest change of all with her mom getting married and finding out that her mother is pregnant with her half sibling.

In the final book of the original series, we catch up with the Septembers right as their first year of college has past and they starting to come into their own as adults. At first the summer starts off strange when there is no normal kick off party at Gilda’s for the pants this year. Carmen has spent the better part of the year feeling lost and becoming a stagehand to a popular actress at school only to find that she may have been hiding from herself all along. Bridget goes an archeological dig to Turkey only to discover that she has been not missing and missing everything at the same time including her new boyfriend Eric. Tibby discovers that growing up is more challenging than she realizes and that she just wants everything to stay the same. Lena while taking an art class during summer school realizes that everything is changing and she isn’t so sure that she is ready for that change.

I’m really glad that I was finally able to finish this series even though it has taken me a while to do so. I also found that it brought back wonderful memories of reading the start of the series at the beginning of college and feeling a bit of the same emotions. While, there are a few inappropriate moments throughout the book series, we see the girls grow and come into their own as adults. I would definitely recommend this series if you love stories about friendship and growing up.

Hope to see you soon in another post.

The Witches

Hello!
I’m back with yet another book review, thankfully I’m catching up on my Goodreads and reading challenge goals for the year at the very least. This year in addition to finishing a couple of series and working on the Paper & Glam book club and the Creating & Co book club I also decided to take on Rachel Dawson’s reading challenge. If it gets me reading more diverse and interesting books I’m all for it. This book completed the challenge of reading a book that was published in the year you were born. I probably could double this up since this is also a children’s book, but I have another book in mind for that.

I chose this book because not only was it published in 1983, but also because Roald Dahl is a quintessential children’s author. You may have recognized his name from such works as James & the Giant Peach or Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. I had never heard of this book , but apparently it is another classic and also has a movie adaptation. The version I chose to read had an introduction and notes from James Patterson.

In the book, we meet our young hero who has spend a good portion of his youth growing up in England before his parents are killed in a tragic car accident and then he is sent to live with his Grandmama. His Grandmama would like to raise him in Norway, but his parents’ will dictate that the child be raised in England. While in England, Grandmama teaches the young boy everything she knows about witches, so that he can protect himself. Unfortunately, it is on his second encounter with witches that he is turned into a mouse.

The 218 page book with an introduction by James Patterson and notes from the editor Stephen Roxburgh make for a quick read and also add to the interest of reading Roald Dahl books. If you haven’t read a Roald Dahl book in your life I highly recommend picking one up. If you haven’t read The Witches I would definitely recommend this fanciful tale surely to have you turning pages and wanting to dive more into the world of Roald Dahl.

Let me know if you have read the book or seen the movie adaptation. I hope to see you soon!

Daughter of the Siren Queen

Hey!
I’m back with a book review, I’d say more, but honestly I feel as if I have been on repeat lately with last post telling you that original content is coming and it hasn’t shown up yet. Maybe I’ll write about all these thoughts in another post.

Today I’m here to discuss Daughter of the Siren Queen the sequel to Tricia Levenseller’s book Daughter of the Pirate King. If you haven’t read my review on that be sure to check it out here. In this book, we catch up with Alosa just as she has located the last part of the map and is headed back to see her father. We finally get to really meet her crew, a merry band of misfit women that she has gathered along with the few men that she decided to keep from Draxen’s ship the Night Farer. We also see Alosa’s interactions with interactions with her father and begin to really see him as a person. The big twist for the book comes at the beginning finding that Alosa’s mother is alive and that she has been a prisoner to her father all these years.

It is also in this book that we finally get all the steamy non steamy parts of the Alosa- Riden romance that we have been hoping for. During their courtship both Alosa and Riden have to come to terms with the things their parents have done to them.

I loved every minute of this book probably a bit more than the previous book and the only thing the book left me hanging on besides more of the Alosa-Riden romance was to know more details about how the relationship between the Pirate King and the Siren Queen came to be. We know some details, but there is quite a bit left in the dark that left me wondering and wanting a bit more . I highly recommend that you read this book series. and I’m so glad that Paige from Creating & Co and the other members of the Creating & Co book club recommended it for the Journey to Atlantis Readathon. See you soon!