My True Love Gave to Me

12 / 10 / 1912 / 8 / 19

My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories by Stephanie Perkins, Holly Black, Ally Carter, Matt de la Pena, Gayle Forman, Jenny Han, David Levithan, Kelly Link, Myra McEntire, Rainbow Rowell, Laini Taylor, Kiersten White, Jim Tierney
on October 14, 2014
Pages: 321
Goodreads
four-half-stars

If you love holiday stories, holiday movies, made-for-TV-holiday specials, holiday episodes of your favorite sitcoms and, especially, if you love holiday anthologies, you’re going to fall in love with My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories by twelve bestselling young adult writers, edited by international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins. Whether you enjoy celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah, Winter Solstice or New Year's there's something here for everyone. So curl up by the fireplace and get cozy. You have twelve reasons this season to stay indoors and fall in love.

Hey!
I’m back with yet another book review. Yes, I know I should post more real life things, but at least I am catching up on my reading goals. This past week I was reading for the #Tistheseasonathon Reading Challenge, which I love and find it so fun to read holiday books during this time of year. This is actually the second book I finished for the week, but since the first book will actually come with a movie review that will come later. I loved this book for the most part. There were a few stories that I couldn’t get into, but I couldn’t stop turning pages and wanting to read more. An anthology like this is so great because it gives me a chance to try out new authors and find books that I might want to read in the future.

This is also the second book edited by Stephanie Perkins for the holidays the first one is Summer Days, and Summer Nights and you can read my review here. I kind of wish that there were more anthology books out there. Let me know if you have read this book or the other anthology edited by Stephanie Perkins and what you thought. I hope to see you soon in another post.

Day Shift

12 / 3 / 1912 / 2 / 19

Day Shift (Midnight, Texas, #2) by Charlaine Harris
Published by Ace on May 5, 2015
Pages: 307
Goodreads
three-stars

In Midnight Crossroad, Charlaine Harris “capture[d] the same magic as the world of Bon Temps, Louisiana, and [took] it to another level" (Houston Press). Now the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse novels returns to the one-traffic-light town you see only when you’re on the way to someplace else…

There is no such thing as bad publicity, except in Midnight, Texas, where the residents like to keep to themselves. Even in a town full of secretive people, Olivia Charity is an enigma. She lives with the vampire Lemuel, but no one knows what she does; they only know that she’s beautiful and dangerous.

Psychic Manfred Bernardo finds out just how dangerous when he goes on a working weekend to Dallas and sees Olivia there with a couple who are both found dead the next day. To make matters worse, one of Manfred’s regular—and very wealthy—clients dies during a reading.

Manfred returns from Dallas embroiled in scandal and hounded by the press. He turns to Olivia for help; somehow he knows that the mysterious Olivia can get things back to normal. As normal as things get in Midnight…

I’m back with yet another book review and yes, I am still in the midst of cleaning up the blog. I think I’ve finally figured out a format that I like, but need to go back and update some things here and there to make it just right. Let’s get back to all the important things at hand. This is the second book in the Midnight Texas series, if you haven’t read my first one you can read that one here. I didn’t watch the second season of the show, so I can’t tell you if this follows the show by any means.

I found the story to be intriguing and the completionist in me wanted to see what happens next in the Midnight, TX series after finishing the first book. I found the growing story of Manfred, Rev, Olivia added to what we already knew. I would have liked to hear more about why Joe and Chuy are in Midnight, but perhaps that comes in the next book.

I would recommend this book if you liked the Sookie Stackhouse series or have watched the Midnight, TX show. I should be back soon with more reviews and possibly more posts. Hope to see you soon.

Rules of Civility

11 / 26 / 1911 / 26 / 19

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Published by Viking Adult on July 26, 2011
Pages: 335
Format: eBook
Goodreads
four-stars

On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar with her boardinghouse roommate stretching three dollars as far as it will go when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker with royal blue eyes and a tempered smile, happens to sit at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a yearlong journey from a Wall Street secretarial pool toward the upper echelons of New York society and the executive suites of Condé Nast--rarefied environs where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve.

Wooed in turn by a shy, principled multi-millionaire, and an irrepressible Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, befriended by a single-minded widow who is ahead of her time, and challenged by an imperious mentor, Katey experiences firsthand the poise secured by wealth and station and the failed aspirations that reside just below the surface. Even as she waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her life, she begins to realize how our most promising choices inevitably lay the groundwork for our regrets.

Hey!
I’m back with yet another book review. I read this book a a few weeks back, but just hadn’t gotten around to writing the post, so here we are. This was a read for the Paper & Glam book club, which I finally got around to reading. While I thought that this book was interesting in a Great Gatsby kind of way. I wasn’t totally pulled into the story. In fact there was a part of me that kept wanting Katey to wakeup and stop waiting for Tinker, even though they seemed to have a strange relationship that never quite got off the ground. She never quite does, though the book says that she eventually gets married to a man that can give her what she wants.

I would recommend this book if you loved reading the Great Gatsby and loved the imaging of the 1920s/ 1940s. I don’t regret reading this book, but I’m hesitant to pick up any more of Amor Towles other books.

Again, but Better

11 / 21 / 1911 / 17 / 19

Again, but Better by Christine Riccio
Published by Wednesday Books on May 7, 2019
Pages: 373
Goodreads
three-stars

Shane has been doing college all wrong. Pre-med, stellar grades, and happy parents…sounds ideal—but Shane's made zero friends, goes home every weekend, and romance…what’s that?

Her life has been dorm, dining hall, class, repeat. Time's a ticking, and she needs a change—there's nothing like moving to a new country to really mix things up. Shane signs up for a semester abroad in London. She's going to right all her college mistakes: make friends, pursue boys, and find adventure!

Easier said than done. She is soon faced with the complicated realities of living outside her bubble, and when self-doubt sneaks in, her new life starts to fall apart.

Shane comes to find that, with the right amount of courage and determination one can conquer anything. Throw in some fate and a touch of magic—the possibilities are endless.

Hey!
I’m back with yet another book review, yes I know that there have been quite a bit of book reviews lately. I am reading, but I am also in the process of cleaning up the blog and making everything cohesive with the new interface that I got, so that it is easier to read book reviews. I haven’t worked out all the kinks, but we are getting there.

Back to the review, I finished this book a while ago and I had originally picked it up to read for my Gilmoreadathon, but I never got to it. I may have picked it up after seeing one too many reviews on Youtube, stating that people were super uncomfortable with the way the relationship went down in the book. While, I did enjoy the book. I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it to people. I found the writing a little sloppy and I felt that the time travel loop was a bit too convenient for problem solving for Shane. If you don’t want mind super YA cliche novels then read this book, otherwise back away slowly and find something else. I may read Christine’s next novel in the future, but after this I’m still on the fence about it.

Batman: Nightwalker

11 / 19 / 1911 / 17 / 19

Batman: Nightwalker (DC Icons, #2) by Marie Lu
Published by Random House Books for Young Readers on January 2, 2018
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
Goodreads
four-stars

Before he was Batman, he was Bruce Wayne. A reckless boy willing to break the rules for a girl who may be his worst enemy.

The Nightwalkers are terrorizing Gotham City, and Bruce Wayne is next on their list.

One by one, the city's elites are being executed as their mansions' security systems turn against them, trapping them like prey. Meanwhile, Bruce is turning eighteen and about to inherit his family's fortune, not to mention the keys to Wayne Enterprises and all the tech gadgetry his heart could ever desire. But after a run-in with the police, he's forced to do community service at Arkham Asylum, the infamous prison that holds the city's most brutal criminals.

Madeleine Wallace is a brilliant killer . . . and Bruce's only hope.

In Arkham, Bruce meets Madeleine, a brilliant girl with ties to the Nightwalkers. What is she hiding? And why will she speak only to Bruce? Madeleine is the mystery Bruce must unravel. But is he getting her to divulge her secrets, or is he feeding her the information she needs to bring Gotham City to its knees? Bruce will walk the dark line between trust and betrayal as the Nightwalkers circle closer.

Hey!
I’m back once again with a few book reviews, so stay tuned. You may have noticed that this title sounds familiar, well it probably is and that’s because this novel was lucky enough to be turned into a graphic novel, which I reviewed here. I loved this book as much as I loved the graphic novel, though I might have loved the actual book a bit more. I found that reading the actual novel added a bit more depth to the story than the graphic novel did. I would still definitely recommend both. I have been loving the DC Icons series and hope that they come out with more novels, because it actually made me fall in love with DC Icons for the first time in a long while.

Let me know if you have read this novel or any of the other novels in the DC Icons series. I hope to see you soon in another post.