It took a little while for the East coast to shake off winter, but spring is finally here and in March and April I picked up some new books and bookish items for my shelf.
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Book Review : The Wake Up by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Unrated| 323 pages | Lake Union | Contemporary | 12/5/2017
I don’t think I would have stumbled upon The Wake Up if I hadn’t been given the chance to review the audio. It caught my interest because it is published by Lake Union, an Amazon imprint that is marketed as “book club fiction” and because it’s one of those books by an author who has written a bajillion books, yet I’ve never heard of her.
I’m sure most people will recognize Catherine Ryan Hyde as the author of the book that inspired the movement and movie, Pay It Forward. So every time the person in front of you pays your toll…she’s why (unrelated, someone once paid for my lunch at my work cafeteria and I paid for the person behind me and they were totally freaked out, even after I explained it to them…btw cashier’s must hate this, right ?)
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Audiobook Review : Scythe by Neal Schusterman
10 hours 32 mins | Simon & Schuster | Sci-Fi/Dystopian | 11/22/2016
I picked up Scythe when it was a daily deal on Audible. I didn’t know too much about it, I didn’t even know it was a YA book, I thought it was a middle-grade book or a graphic novel.When I dived in I found another one of Shusterman’s expansive worlds dealing with ethical and moral issues in an unconventional way.
Scythe takes place in a world much like our own…except everyone is immortal. With natural death a thing of the past, death now must be dealt out by the hands of a select few highly-trained individuals known as Scythes. It’s a daunting task because even though death comes in human form, fundamentals of death are still intact. When a Scythe comes for you it is swift, resolute and inescapable.
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Jess’ Mini Book Haul
Book Review : Here We Are Now by Jasmine Warga
Unrated | 304 pages | Balzer + Bray | Contemporary | 11/07/2017
Here We Are Now is the captivating story of a family being broken apart and brought back together at the same time. At just 304 pages Warga tells this very insular story about family, loss and love. I mean once this story knows where it wants to go it hits all the marks.
Taliah Abbaldat summer afternoon takes a dramatic turn when the father she has never knew, famous rock star Julian Oliver. shows up on her doorstep. Julian is facing the impending loss of the father he had a tumultuous relationship with. Inspired by the impending loss Julian finds himself ready to do right by his own daughter before it is to late. Together Taliah and Julian set off for his small hometown together as they begin to unearth the murky waters of her parent’s relationship. I was very tempted to comp this to a Sara Dessen novel but there is a sense of closeness and focus on character building to this narrative that makes it less so.
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Audiobook Review : Strange The Dreamer by Laini Taylor
Hachette Audio | Fantasy | 3/28/17
*Trigger Warning : Infanticide, and Sexual Assault
If you read Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bones series and said “I want more GIVE IT TO ME NOW”—well here you go ! In this duology Taylor pits science against imagination and an impossible future against centuries of pain.
Strange The Dreamer is the unusual tale of young librarian Lazlo Strange and how a mysterious city without a name becomes his great adventure. Strange The Dreamer roots itself in many of the same themes from the Smoke and Bone series; there arevividly imagined characters woven out of tragic histories, blinding hope and dreams… .literally on that last one. In a way it’s a love letter to fiction and the power of stories.
Lazlo Strange’s world appears to have a tenuous connection to the world of Smoke and Bone.
Laini Taylor’s imagination is just plain interesting, seriously what goes on in her head? Is it the pink hair? Her brand of YA fantasy is so immersive and her worlds are complicated and beautiful.
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