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All in Fiction
Rating: 4.5/5 | OK, so A Court of Thorns and Roses was meh. It was fine. Feyre drove me nuts, but I dealt with it for the world-building. Well, I am SO glad that I stuck with this trilogy, because A Court of Mist and Fury was A GAZILLION TIMES BETTER. Such a good read. Engrossing, heart-wrenching, surprising, and exciting. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 4/5 | Miracle Creek was a great read. An intriguing whodunnit with so many layers to the crime and to the entire cast of characters, it kept me guessing — suspecting, but not knowing — all the way up until the end. And it also broke my heart and showed real humanity throughout. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 5/5 | This. Collection. Is. Masterful. I cannot overstate. Lauren Groff is unbelievable, and she does so much with so little in each of these stories. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 4.25/5 | The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls was a beautiful novel about women, family, and the burdens we all carry. The characters were vivid, their experiences were important, and the story was transfixing. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 3.5/5 | This book was, like, fine. The world-building was good and kept me intrigued, and there was just enough good to keep me hooked and willing to read the next story (which has so far proved to be totally worth 1/3 of the way into book two), but there were also some things that made me go *le sigh, YA fantasy, amiright?* (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 4.5/5 | I'm not sure where they had me: "short stories," "speculative fiction," or "feminist lit." Because I love all of those things. And I was supremely ~not disappointed~. These were make-you-squint-and-think stories. I carried a pencil with me when I was reading it and underlined or circled a significant portion of the words on each page. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 4/5 | This book spent quite a while on my to-read list, and I'm so glad that I finally picked it up. As always, Jodi Picoult gives us a brave, thorough, empathetic, well-rounded story about one of the most controversial topics of our time. The book's unique format makes it even more interesting to read, and I felt it was just so well done. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 4/5 | I was very excited to read Living on the Borderlines because I grew up in upstate New York, not far from where many of these stories take place. I know a lot of the small towns, highways, and landmarks referenced. That always makes for a fun reading experience. But beyond that, I loved the stories themselves. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 5/5 | Such Good Work was really, really good. Lichtman's writing is introspectively profound and yet straightforward and simple. It made for a lot of underlined passages and a hard-hitting story. There's also some sort of story-ception going on here, which was a delightful surprise and still has me mulling this whole thing over. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 5/5 | I. Love. This. Trilogy. Chakraborty has built an impressively intricate universe with a terrifying political climate, deep characters, a rich history, and a suspenseful storyline. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 5/5 | Wow. Wowowow. This is exactly the kind of exciting, beautiful, diverse, badass fantasy novel I want in my life. It kept me humming and hawing about what was going to happen, and the ending was so well done — the perfect amount of excitement, heartbreak, answers, and new mysteries. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 4/5 | The Gilded Wolves is an exciting, pull-off-an-impossible-heist-to-save-the-world story with multiple POVs. So, basically, if you liked Six of Crows, this is for you. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 3.75/5 | The Night Tiger was my January 2019 BOTM pick. It was an intriguing, magical look at colonial Malaya (now Malaysia) with a little bit of something for everyone. An innocent little hero? A mind-itching mystery? Themes of destiny, fate family, and love? You got it. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 4/5 | I read this book because it was the Girls' Night In January book club selection, and I was not disappointed. This is the perfect book for a book club — there's a ton to digest, to ruminate about, to discuss. Themes of siblinghood, death, destiny, magic, and love. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 5/5 | That was...intense. There's no other word for it. I read the second half of this book alone on my couch on New Year's Eve, and I couldn't have had it any other way; if my husband had tried to talk to me during that time, I might have blown up. Literally. At one point my Apple Watch told me that my heart rate had been "over 100 bpm when you appeared to be inactive for 10 minutes." LOL. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 4/5 | I picked this book up because in case you haven't noticed, everybody and their mother read it this month. It was catchy and sweet and surprisingly relatable. I sandwiched it between a couple of heavier books. It was a great lightweight read for winter. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 4/5 | This was a fast read, but it was really engaging. When he sent it to me, Greg compared it to The Giver. I was skeptical of that statement, but it was actually a pretty good comparison, at least in style and subject matter. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 5/5 | Full disclosure: Books like this were made for me. I love feminist fiction, and I really love retellings — especially Greek mythology. Madeline Miller is my jam. This book is also my jam. I loved every page. (Click the post to read more.)
Rating: 4.5/5 | This will be a quick review as it's a book two, and obviously I loved the first one and just can't wait to get to book three. And also I'm dying and was totally crushed by that ending and WHY JUST WHY. (Click the post to read more.)
