Review: Sorcery of Thorns, by Margaret Rogerson

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Goodreads

Sorcery of Thorns is one of the of the most exciting young adult fantasy book to come out this year! It tells the story of Elisabeth, an apprentice librarian who dreams of one day becoming a ward and being able to fight evil – demons, sorcerers, anything magical. All she has ever known is the Great Library she grew up in, where books are more than lifeless pages, but are full of life and personality and must be kept under tight security!

I decided to pick up this book in audiobook, and honestly had been debating whether to read it or not – it has been hyped so, so much that I was wary it would be a rather regular YA fantasy that I would be a little bored by because of how many YA fantasy books I read so far.

What I read for #Tropeathon (Mini-Reviews)

Hello book lovers!

As you know, I participated on Tropeathon this week, hosted by Misty and Chelle! There are nine prompts, which I managed to cover with the three books below. So in the end I read exactly what I’d planned, plus finished an audiobook from last week. The Bride Test I got finished on day 2 of the readathon, so I felt pretty confident and considered adding another book to it, but then my life got crazy busy and I only got some time here and there to read – so I finished The Wicked King by Saturday night and devoured Binti on Sunday!

I started with The Bride Test, by Helen Hoang! I’ll be posting a full review of this, since it’s an eARC, but to sum up: this was a sweet, quick read and oh my gosh, completely adorable. ★★★★☆

I then picked up The Wicked King, by Holly Black for an exciting, fast-paced fantasy and boy, did it scratch that itch. This was twisty and dark and delicious to read. I can barely wait for book 3! ★★★★☆

Finally, on Sunday I picked up Binti, by Nnedi Okorafor and… did not like it so much. I loved the world, the concept of the book, the story… but not the writing. I could not connect to the character so well and found it a bit too dry and too fast paced. ★★★☆☆

 

My Name in Blogs Tag

Ally from Ally Writes Things tagged me on this and I’m so excited! This is such a fun tag that helps spread love for other bloggers, and also quite a challenge (it took me two hours and a half to write this post). Ally herself is a great blogger who’s become such a staple on my blog hopping because of her amazing content – How to: get ideas for blog posts (+ blog post ideas!) is one of my favorite recent posts from her.

THE RULES

• Spell your blog name with other blog names!
• If you have a long blog name, feel free to shorten it/only use part of it!
• Write a bit about each blog you mention to tell the world how much you love them.
• Pingback to the creator of this tag (Hammock of Books).
• Pingback all the blogs you mentioned so they can see why you love them.

Blogs that spell Naty’s Bookshelf

Mini-Review: Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir, by Jenny Lawson

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Genres: Non-Fiction, Memoir, Humor

Goodreads

I picked this up as an audiobook a few months ago, and I think it’s the first humor book I listen to, which was an interesting experience – Jenny Lawson narrates it herself and she’s so funny. It was also quite weird – there is a lot of exaggeration in sound effect, with bells and singing and cows. I’m not a fan of absurd humor, including said bells and singing and cows, but it’s alright because the actual book content was good!

Let’s Pretend This Never Happened is the first memoir of Jenny Lawson, and includes stories from her childhood, teen years and adulthood.

I liked Furiously Happy a lot more than this one, which is probably why this got 3 stars, but it definitely has the same hilarious, witty tone that I loved about Furiously Happy. I love that Jenny Lawson keeps it so real and honest, and while there is not much sensitivity in the way she talks about things, it can be pretty relatable, too. The parts she talked about being anxious in dinner parties and rambling embarrassing nonsense, that was such a highlight for me. She’s pretty candid about her experiences.

I recommend this if you want to get a good laugh and don’t mind Jenny rambling nonsense for most of the time.

Review: The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon

Rating: ★★★★★

Genres: Fantasy

Goodreads

The Priory of the Orange Tree is an epic fantasy book that feels instantly classic. I had this book on my radar for a while and bought it months ago and have been trying to get some time when I could read this without needing to postpone my blog posts. Because this is over 800 pages long, I think it’s been scaring people off a bit, but really it’s shorter than a regular fantasy trilogy.

Queen Sabran knows her queendom needs an heir, but she is afraid of childbed. Ead has been protecting her for eight years and trying to belong in a court that is highly suspicious of her. On the other side of the world, Tané has been training for years to become a High Sea Guard, but her fate entangles with a strange man who might have the Red Disease and might destroy everything she ever fought for. As West and East put their history and pride first and refuse to ally, the Nameless One starts to awaken and a thousand-old prophecy might be coming to fruition and destroy the world.

I’m joining #Tropeathon this July! (and here’s what I’ll read)

Hello book lovers!

I haven’t participated in a readathon in a long time, and thought this would be a nice one to join! In case you don’t know, Tropeathon was created by Chelle and Misty, two bloggers that I admire a lot, so I was excited to see their collaboration!

Here are the prompts! (Image from their Twitter @tropeathon)

Review: Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup, by John Carreyrou

Rating: ★★★★★

Genres: Non-Fiction, True Crime

Goodreads

I saw Rachel’s glowing review of this book on Goodreads and my interest was immediately picked. I wasn’t originally going to read this book because the words “Silicon Valley Startup” kind of threw me off and I wasn’t too keen on reading a “business book”. Boy, was I wrong.

Bad Blood tells the true story of John Carreyrou’s investigation on Silicon Valley’s Theranos, an obscure company led by the brilliant Elizabeth Holmes into overnight success worth 9 billion dollars. Theranos’ product, however, a device that uses a person’s blood to quickly and efficiently perform 200 blood tests with just the prick of a finger – was a fraud, and could be putting people in danger. 

More Audiobook Recommendations

Hello readers!

It’s been a while since my Audiobook Recommendations post, so I thought I’d give you a few more recs! I listen to audiobooks a lot, and these are some that I thought were done really well!

I read mostly thrillers on audio, so most of my recommendations will be thrillers!

Thrillers

Jar of Hearts, by Jennifer Hillier

January LaVoy is my favorite narrator, so I will gladly recommend basically any audiobook she narrates. This one was no exception – Jar of Hearts was very popular when it came out, and although I ended up giving it 3 stars, most people I know loved it. AND the narration is fantastic.

The Woman in the Window, by A.J. Finn

This book is just fantastic, and the narrator does a pretty good job, too! My sister recommended this one to me and boy, was she right.

Lying in Wait, by Liz Nugent

There are three POVs and three narrators to this book, which always makes me happy. I love different narrators! One of them has quite a thick accent, which for me was not so easy to understand, and talks in sort of a monotone, but the others are really good, especially Lydia.

ARC Review: Kingsbane (Empirium #2), by Claire Legrand

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult

Goodreads

In Kingsbane, Rielle has now been named Sun Queen, but not everyone agrees with that. As protests against her become more riotous and the Gate shows signs of starting to fall, Rielle must do what she can to collect the castings from the Saints to save humanity, and not be seduced by Corien in the process. A thousand years later, Eliana is too afraid of becoming corrupted to use her powers, making it even more dangerous. She must learn how to yield her power without letting it destroy her before it’s too late.

Book Blogger Memory Challenge

I saw this on Stefanie’s blog Adventures of a Bibliophile and thought it looked so much fun I wanted to try it! I deleted the answers and waited a while to answer myself, so as not to remember hers… let’s see if we got any similar results!

Rules

You must answer these questions without looking anything up on the internet and without looking at your bookshelves!

Name a book written by an author called Michael

Dude, Where’s My Country, by Michael Moore. This was one of the first English books I read, and a non-fiction, too! Quite a rarity back in the day, for me. I actually enjoyed this a lot, and it’s been now maybe 12 years since I read it… I wonder if I would like it now?