I am a sucker for all things “Beauty and the Beast”. I will never get tired of it. It has always been my favorite fairy tale I and love reading all the variations authors take on it. That said, this was not my favorite Beauty and the Beast retelling (I think my favorite is still “Beauty” by Robin McKinley). There was so much I appreciated about it but I didn’t connect with it like I had hoped to. I LOVE the idea of this book. I loved Yeva’s (Beauty’s) wanderer nature and yearning for something “more”. She was highly spirited…
Browsing CategoryFantasy
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a solidly good middle grade book that is full of appeal, if not life changing. This book is packed full with life truths about love, loss, grief, ignorance, hope, and endurance. Its quite amazing now that I think about it in retrospect but this little book had a lot to say about some pretty heavy topics. The Girl Who Drank the Moon is about a town who lives in fear of the witch that haunts their local woods. To appease the witch and keep her from their door they offer up the youngest…
Walk on Earth a Stranger by Rae Carson
I was an avid reader of Rae Carson’s Girl of Fire and Thorns series and I was prepared to fully enjoy her Walk on Earth a Stranger series as well. Upon finishing this first installment I am a little let down to admit that this book was good but not great. I’ve never been enthusiastic about magical realism but the historical setting and strong female lead persuaded me to set aside my apprehensions and take a chance on Walk on Earth a Stranger. Lee Westfall is the only child of a prospecting couple in Georgia. Her life is standard for…
Twilight of Avalon Series by Anna Elliot
I have a lot of good things to say about this series-so get comfortable. It’s a hidden gem that I stumbled upon last week and couldn’t rest until I had completed the trilogy. Before there was Romeo and Juliet there was Tristan and Isolde. Star crossed lovers who gambled everything on their love. If you saw that horribly awful movie from 2006 then forget everything you know about Tristan and Isolde. The Twilight of Avalon series is the story the legendary couple deserve. Isolde is the granddaughter of King Arthur (of Knights of…
Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin
This book wasn’t what I was expecting, but I actually really enjoyed it. This is an alternate reality story where the outcome of WWII went the other way and Germany and Japan won. The story follows a young concentration camp survivor Yael who, because of experiments performed on her at the concentration camp, can change her appearance at will. She escapes the death camp to be groomed by the resistance as human weapon thanks to her special abilities. By 1956 the post war world looks very different and Yael is an educated, competent, and stone cold seventeen year old about…
The Trials of Morrigan Crow (Nevermoor #1) by Jessica Townsend
I can’t remember a book I have had more fun with in the past year than “The Trials of Morrigan Crow”. Before I had even hit the half way mark I was texting my sister, my cousin, my friend saying “you need to read this, now!” “The Trials of Morrigan Crow” follows a young girl on the eve of her 11th birthday. Morrigan had the misfortune of being born on the last day of a twelve year cycle, this of course means she is cursed and the cause of all the problems in her home town. Her cursed state also…
The Queen of the Tearling Series by Erika Johansen
Days after finishing the Tearling trilogy I still don’t quite know how I feel about it. I’ll tell you one thing for sure, I absolutely did not know what I was getting into when I picked up the first book. I thought it would be a fairly run-of-the-mill coming of age fantasy. I was prepared for it to be good because it’s had a fair amount of hype the last couple of years; I was not prepared for its intensity, maturity, nor the dystopian factor. Yes, that’s right, I had no idea it had any dystopian elements at all when…
The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
This is a solid 4 star book. I love the idea of taking a lesser known fairy tale and turning it into a fully fleshed out novel. In a similar vein of “The Goose Girl” this book has a major deviation-that it was obviously written for an adult audience. Let me be clear I would give it a PG rating, I only mean that it was largely about adult issues-miscarriage, loneliness, the struggle to provide for a family, etc. This novel was well written, engaging, and perfectly paced. I felt what the protagonists felt, and like them, faced what lay…
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
I only need one word to capture the essence of this book: enchanting. I fell captive to its spell while reading (which only took me two days) and when I finished it was with no small struggle that I awakened to reality. This is a fascinating re-telling of a little known Russian fairy tale and is perfect for the winter season. I’ve never known the original fairy tale so I can’t speak to how true it was to it’s source, but I can say that I enjoyed it immensely. Its greatest strength is it’s atmospheric tone and vividly fresh setting.…
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
I don’t even know where to begin with this one. It was phenomenal. I feel completely unequal to the task of reviewing this book. I almost never give 5 stars to a book that doesn’t change me in some way, but I am abandoning that standard here because this book is just too perfect. I’ve been putting off reading it for a couple years now, hoping that Patrick Rothfuss will finally complete his trilogy and thus pave the way for me to binge read all three at once-but that was not to be. So, I moved on to Plan B,…