Category Archives: Books

My thoughts on books I’ve read

Catwoman: Soul Stealer

Image result for catwoman soulstealer

Hey!
I’m back with yet another book review. I know that it feels so tiring that I only post book reviews on here, but I can’t seem to wrap my head around how fast this year is going. Perhaps I’ll talk more about this in another post. Let’s get to the real reason why you are here the review of Catwoman: Soul Stealer by Sarah J. Maas. While Maas is the author of a famous for her Court of Thorns and Roses series, I simply haven’t gotten around to reading it. I have tried to read a few other books in this series before this and it hadn’t worked out too well.

A quick rundown of the book is that we meet Selina Kyle as a young teenager, who has taken charge of the care of her sister, Maggie who has been diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. Her father is never talked about in the book, while her mother is portrayed as a woman who cares more about her next high rather than her girls. Selina and Maggie manage to avoid social services for a few years before time catches up with them. It is around this time that Selina is taken to jail from some of her activities with the Leopards. While she is awaiting to be arraigned Selina meets one of the sisters that run the Ah-ghuls and is taken in by what they are offering her, especially if it means that Maggie is taken care of. Flash forward several years and Selina is back in her home city of Gotham with a new look and a new agenda, and all this might be sidelined by her growing interest in Luke Fox and Batwing.

I loved at how fast paced and twist and turny this book was. Sarah J Maas really knows how to draw the reader into the story as well as bringing the story of Selina Kyle and Catwoman to a new audience with a few different takes. It was also interesting to see how Batwing and Gotham stood on their own in the story. It would have been nice to see a more developed relationship between Selina Kyle and Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, though I did enjoy the camaraderie and girl power in their moments together. It would be interesting to revisit Gotham in a later book following the story of Poison Ivy or Harley Quinn within this world that Selina Kyle also lives in.

Have you read Catwoman: Soul Stealer or any of the other books in the DC Icons series? Now that my interest has been piqued with Catwoman, I can’t wait to read a few more books in the series.

Escape to Book Island books

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I recently participated in the Creating & Co Escape to Book Island Readathon. Here are some of the books I read during the week along with a short review on each.

I found that I actually read quite a few books this week, both more and less than I had hoped. The first book I started and read this week was Everything Nice by Ellen Shanman. This book fulfilled the Beach Read prompt challenge. I had previously read this book over 9 years ago, when I would randomly browse Borders and find books on my lunch break from my retail job at the time. I enjoyed the book and definitely thought it was worth keeping. While I enjoyed the book again this time, I don’t feel the need to keep it on my shelves forever. The short synopsis of this is that Michaela Edwards, a hot shot ad executive is rifted from her job and finds that her life is quickly spiraling down the tubes along with the fact that she has become untouchable in the advertising world. She ends up moving back in with her dad and getting a tip on a job tip from her dad’s girlfriend. While Michaela might not know anything about teaching, she does know a few things about staying safe on the streets of New York and how to make it on her own. The twists and turns of the story will have you hoping that everything turns out just as it should be and it will tug at your heart strings just a bit.

The second book I finished this week was Mera: Tidebreaker by Danielle Paige. This book fulfilled the prompts for matching the colors of the kit and an adventure book. This was the first comic book that I had read in a long time. Probably since two years ago, when I read two comic books in a row for the first Rest in Peace Readathon. I loved at how fast paced and easy to read comic books are. The quick synopsis on the book is that this is the prequel to Aquaman. Mera is teenager trying to prove herself to her father and goes to the surface to kill Arthur. It isn’t long before she falls for him and realizes that things might not be so bad after all. I would definitely recommend this book and any of the other books in the reimagined DC icon series.

Ahhh! This was the last and final book that I read this week. I will admit that I wasn’t able to finish the book during the readathon, but did manage to finish this right after. Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid is my first book of hers that I’ve read. I love that it is written in an autobiographical style making you believe that the band is real and that you are sometimes, so sucked into the world that you have a hard time believing that the band isn’t real. This was a majorly hyped book that has been featured nearly everywhere since its release date earlier in April. A quick synopsis of the book is that is an autobiographical fictional piece on a band called Daisy Jones & The Six focusing on the rise and fall of the band during the 1970s. It’s an extremely well written time period piece that draws you into the world of the 1970s.

I love that I’m back into reading again after having such a hard reading slump in the past couple of weeks. I hope to continue to keep reading since I’m also participating in Books_and_planners Finish a Series Readathon for the month of May and the next Creating & Co Readathon in June. It’s definitely going to be a busy summer reading and hopefully I will be able to get in a few more lifestyle post here for you.

Let me know what you have been reading lately and if you have ever participated in a readathon. Until next time.

The Bright Hour

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It’s been a while since I have been here. Life has gotten quite a bit hectic and it is taking me WAY too long to get through books lately. I also have been caught up in the #100dayproject, which you can catch in more details on my instagram.

Let’s get back to the real reason you are here. Today’s post is about The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs. Last year when the Paper&Glam book club read When Breath becomes Air and the members found out that the 2 spouses of the authors were now dating, I knew that at some point I would need to read this book! I was finally able to pick up the book this year, not only that it fulfilled the requirement for the Rachel Dawson’s reading challenge of Memoir.

Nina Riggs’ book is written in a series of essays that seem to be written in chronological order and slowly get more introspective as the book progresses. Throughout the book Riggs talks candidly about her dealing with breast cancer, which soon spreads to other parts of her body. She also mentions her conversations with other cancer patients including her mother and her best friend Ginny. Riggs also quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson and other notable writers throughout the book showing off her MFA degree with some air of knowledge, but not in a haughty sense.

I loved that Nina Riggs’ is able to talk so candidly about her battle with cancer and share her thoughts on losing her mother during her battle, as well as a few interactions with her doctors and nurses throughout the ordeal. I would definitely recommend this book for its thoughtful introspective nature. I would not recommend this book for people who have recently lost a loved one to cancer or are currently battling cancer. I was in tears toward the end of the book, even though I knew what was going to happen. I also thought that it was sweet that her husband included an end note regarding many of the people we were introduced to throughout the book as to tie the ends together.

Let me know what you have been reading lately and if you have read this book also.

The Wedding

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I’m back with yet another book review, but I thought that this one was incredibly fitting. I definitely owe you more diverse posts here and I definitely plan and bringing it in the near future, but that won’t be today’s post.

Today we are going to talk about Nicholas’ Sparks The Wedding which is the sequel to The Notebook. This was also the Paper & Glam read for the month of February if you are also participating in that book club. If you loved The Notebook movie you will not like this book as much because it gives you a definite ending to the movie, which was slightly different than the book. In this book, we catch up with Noah Calhoun several years after Allie has died, but he is still continuing to live at Creekside home. We interact with Noah far less than we do in The Notebook, but we still have interactions with him since his love story with Allie is the driving force behind what happens. In the sequel, we meet up with Winston and Jane, a couple who have had a rough couple of years being empty nester, which is only made worse when Winston forgets his wedding anniversary. His wife takes an extended vacation to see their son and makes it clear that she was extremely hurt by his lack of carelessness.

Winston spends the majority of the book in the year since trying to put together the ultimate surprise for his wife the following year in order to save their marriage. Since, the book is narrated by Winston it is difficult to know how Jane truly reacted to the changes the Winston made throughout the year and the surprise. I won’t give away the surprise, but if you have read any Nicholas Sparks book you can guess pretty good where this story is headed.

Even though, this was my second time reading this book I found myself still cheering for Winston and the little victories that he made in surprising his wife throughout the year. I thought that his trips down memory lane recalling his romance and love story with his wife were especially touching. I also loved the fact the when Winston talked to Noah about his plan and ask for advice Noah didn’t judge him and Winston also didn’t judge Noah for believing certain things and wanting them to be true.

I felt that Nicholas Sparks correctly portrayed the plight of the every man in the every day life. We all can’t be Noah Calhoun’s and have beautiful romances like Noah and Allie’s. Noah does admit that he and Allie did fight in the book and not everything he did for her was sweet and beautiful as people might think. I would definitely recommend this book if you are needing a bit of romance in your life and would need to live a bit more time in the world of Noah Calhoun and Allie.

How to get Sh*t Done

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I’m back once again with a book review, because as much as I would like to write other things and feel as if my life is more together at certain times of the day I just lose motivation and can’t. Hopefully with a day off coming up I will be able to get a bunch of things done and feel motivated to do other things. All of this is pretty fitting since this is a book review for Erin Falconer’s How to get Sh*t Done.

The quick rundown and why I read this book. I really enjoy self help books and I find them a little motivating, however this was a Paper & Glam book club pick for January that didn’t go over quite well.

While, I did take quite a bit of notes, but I didn’t find any new information out of the book that I had not heard before. Though the book was published in 2018, I found that the information was a bit dated and wasn’t as motiving as it could be. I know that the book was marketed as a woman CEO self help book for other women since most self help or productivity books are written by men.

If you have not read any major authors in productivity, which I plan on doing this year, so hopefully you’ll be able to read some of those reviews here this year. I would recommend that you read some of those. Otherwise, if this is your first productivity book this is a good starter book.

Let me know what you have been reading lately and what other books that you would recommend that I read? Thanks for reading along and hope to see you again soon.