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…
Posts Tagged‘Fantasy’
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…
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,…
One Dark Throne by Kendare Blake
I was just so disappointed with this book. I instantly fell in love with the first book “three dark crowns” and was excited to have found another YA series that offered something new and had so much potential. But to my great sorrow this next installment really went off the rails. One of the main characters does a complete 180 in personality with very little explanation, taking everything I loved about her and throwing it in the trash. Another MC lost all her strength (metaphorically) and just faded into the shadows. The third (who was my least favorite at the…