Review: Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Genres: Fantasy

Goodreads

Neverwhere is the story of Richard, who leads a perfectly normal life in London with a perfectly normal job and is engaged to the beautiful Jessica – until the day he decides to save a strange girl named Door and his life is turned upside down. Suddenly no one else can see him. He no longer exists in the London he knows – in fact, the only people who see him now belong to the world of the strange girl he saved, in London Below.

Neverwhere was such an entertaining read, I was very impressed by the world building, how dark, vivid and enticing it was, and was so many times enchanted by the writing. I do love a witty, dark style, and Neil Gaiman surely did that. He managed to create villains so unapologetically caricatures of themselves that it just worked – their comical evilness was delightful to read!

eARC Review: Most Ardently, by Susan Mesler-Evans

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: F/F Romance, Contemporary Fiction, Retelling, Young Adult

Goodreads

I received an eARC of this book from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Most Ardently is the story of Elisa Benitez, the second of five sisters, who starts taking classes at University, where she meets the insufferable, cold and condescending Darcy. She’s tall, beautiful and… fifthly rich. Elisa despises her, admires her and is determined that, no matter what, Darcy is the kind of girl she could never fall for.

This is a YA F/F retelling of Pride and Prejudice – what else did I really need to know to pick this up? I’ve read quite a few retellings of P&P, which is one of my favorite books of all times, and this one is among my favorites! It’s a light-hearted hate-to-love romcom, with a half-Black lesbian girl (Darcy) and a bisexual Latina (Elisa). This is a lovely read which also touched on sensitive topics like student loan debt, consent, statutory rape. But while these topics were treated seriously and are quite relevant to the story, it didn’t make the novel emotionally difficult to read.

The Sunday Snuggle W42/2019: Weekly Wrap Up, #Tropeathon

Hello readers!

This week has been quite eventful, so for the weekend I stayed home most of the time and relaxed. The weather has now gotten a bit colder, but it was sunny and lovely all day so I did end up running!

This next week I hope to have a little more free time and pick up more books from my TBR! I’m currently at 99 books read!

I bought on Audible:

And on my Kindle:

ALSO, this week starts Tropeathon, hosted by Chelle and Misty! I participated on round 1, so I’m excited to join for round 2, although I’m quite worried I won’t do so well this time, especially considering I still have to finish The Poppy War before picking up another book on Kindle. We will see! The prompts are:

And for that I chose:

Creepy Atmosphere, Second Chance, Night Time Reading, Missing Person & Halloween Colors: Missing, Presumed Dead, by Emma Berquist. This is SUCH a great fit for this Tropeathon! Because it’s about a girl who gets a second chance at justice to see her murderer go to jail, it’s all about ghosts and murder so definitely a creepy atmosphere. Jane is dead but I think nobody found her body yet, so she is “missing, presumed dead”. I will read it at night and, lastly, it’s got black and orange on the cover!

Initials in the Title: I actually am hoping that my copy of Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo arrives this week, so I could pick this up! If not, I will read Nevernight instead.

Fated Mates & Magically Inclined: Jade War by Fonda Lee. I will choose to interpret that fated mates includes people who are fated to meet, and if you read book one you know what I am talking about here. I’ve been wanting to read this for months, so it’s a perfect excuse!

As usual, I combined a bunch of prompts because I love combining challenges – I think it’s part of the challenge itself! Especially because I didn’t want to get books that weren’t in my TBR already – I initially didn’t want to buy any books for the challenge but Missing, Presumed Dead just fit SO WELL that I had to get it. This will be a great week for F/F reading!

Weekly Wrap Up

7 Books I Read and Loved Because of my Mom (It’s her birthday!!)

Hello readers (hello mom!),

Today is my mom’s birthday and I thought dedicating a post to her would be a nice and fitting thing to do – I took my reading habits from my parents, and read many books together with my mom and sister as a kid and teen. Even nowadays we still read similar books and recommend books to each other. I am 100% positive that I would not be half the reader I am today without my mom. She’s also one of my most assiduous readers in this blog, which is why I barely curse in here. 😀

Without further ado, here are books that I read because of my mom and loved!

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J. K. Rowling: I got as a gift from her this book when I was maybe 9 years old or a bit older?, and I devoured it, and then proceeded to inform her that there was, in fact, a book before that one and she had given me book 2. My mom then proceeded me to supply me faithfully with all the other books.

The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien: we read these books together when I was maybe 15. We’re big LOTR fans and have re-watched the movies lots and lots of times. My sister famously slept thought the big battle scene on The Two Towers one time. I loved drawing the Middle Earth map and, at some point, had it memorized.

The Iron King, by Maurice Druon: I still have a lot of books from this series to read, but my mom has been trying to get my dad and mw to read these for a while, and even my fiancé has joined in, and I have finally succumbed to social pressure. Which is great, because this is such a great read and I look forward to reading the next ones! Drama, politics, royalty… these books have it all.

Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie: well, really any Agatha Christie book, but this one is my favorite. My mom must have dozens and dozens of her books and I am not even sure how many I’ve read. My sister and I used to take a few on vacation and exchange them after reading (so only taking half the books we’d need to otherwise) and trying to guess who the murderer was and more or less how. I particularly remember reading this one on vacation and guessing the murderer.

The Martian, by Andy Weir: my mom RAVES about this movie so much. I don’t particularly like Matt Damon, so instead of subjecting myself to it, I decided to pick up the book instead and ohmygod, this was HILARIOUS and so good. I want to re-read just talking about it!

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows: another movie my mom bullies me into watching and instead I picked up the book because I’m too lazy to watch a movie if it isn’t on Netflix. This was super charming, sweet and bookish and I love this book so much.

Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer: I was 10 when this book came out and the main character was 10 so I was like !!!! and also this book is GOLDEN and beautiful and I was so hyped for it! Artemis Fowl book 1 has been an all-time favorite since then, although it’s been a few years now that I haven’t read it! There’s a kid genius, fairies, scheming and magic… what else does a person even need?!

There are probably a lot more that I am forgetting, but these ones stood out to me, plus the ones in Portuguese I don’t think you guys would know! I love every single one of these books. (I also think she gave me His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman, another of my all-time favorites, but I’m not 100% sure about that…)

Mom, happy birthday. Thank you for everything. Te amo ❤

I hereby formally invite you to write a post on the books I recommended to you and you loved (or hated), too! 🙂

 

Review: Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, by Jia Tolentino

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Genres: Non-Fiction, Essays

Goodreads

Trick Mirror is a collection of essays by Jia Tolentino, a writer for The New Yorker, in which she discusses social media, gender violence, reality TV, self-optimization and more.

I did not know Jia Tolentino very well before reading her book, but I saw Sarah reading it and it sounded like such an interesting book that I decided to pick up the audio. The author herself narrates the book, and it’s pretty well done!

I found this book to be a mixed bag, with some essays very interesting and thought-provoking, but others felt more like a narration of news I already knew, without adding much more to them than adding them together. Jia Tolentino is a witty, matter-of-fact writer and her essays make for really good reads, even those I didn’t enjoy as much.

The Sunday Snuggle W41/2019: Weekly Wrap Up

Hello readers!

I think I am finally out of my reading slump – this week I managed to finish a bunch of book I had started weeks ago, so it looks like a very prolific week reading-wise but really it’s just the result of reading many books at the same time and finally finishing them.

The two audiobooks I read this week were just okay, although objectively good, neither really impressed me too much – maybe I’m still having audiobook hangover from Lock Every Door? It’s possible. It was just so good.

I received from Netgalley:

On Audible, I got:

Weekly Wrap Up

eARC Review: Girl of Fire, by Gabrielle Mathieu

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy

Goodreads

I received an eARC for this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Berona loves the wilderness, and dreams of finding true love. When an ancient Water Demon threatens her and everything she loves, Berona knows she must make a choice and become stronger. She decides to join the Yellow Cloaks to learn how to become a warrior and kill demons, hopefully without losing her dreams in the process.

Mini-Review: We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson

Rating: ★★★★★

Genres: Fiction, Gothic

Goodreads

We Have Always Lived in the Castle tells the story of Mary Katherine and her sister Constance, who live their Uncle Julian in the old mansion  where the rest of their family died. The villagers hate them, but they’ve managed to have a quiet life despite the animosity. This will all change once Cousin Charles decides to pay a visit…

This book was such a deliciously whimsical, Gothic read! I loved it so much. Mary Katherine is one of the best characters I’ve read in a while, smart, a bit wild, and definitely up to no good. The atmosphere of the book so tense you always feel like it will all fall apart. Constance is a bit of an enigma to me, so kind and lovely but her involvement in the murders is not clear, so you always have a suspicion about her sweet temperament – did she or didn’t she? I loved also that there is so much talk about food in this book – there is something ritualistic about the way so much of their lives go around the meals they will have, especially considering the way their family died.

This short novel is full of mystery, witty dialogue and it’s such an entertaining read! If you’ve never read anything Gothic before, I think it’s a great place to start.

Review: A Spell of Winter, by Helen Dunmore

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genres: Gothic Literary Fiction

Goodreads

‘I saw an arm fall off a man once,’ said Kate.

So begins A Spell of Winter, the inaugural winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, now known as Women’s Prize for Fiction. I am partial to a good Gothic story, so it comes as no surprise that I loved this book!

A Spell of Winter tells the story of Cathy, a girl living with her cold grandfather and her brother Rob in England, in a big house that once was full of life, before her mother ran away and her father was locked away in a sanatorium. As Cathy’s life becomes more complicated and full of dark secrets, and World War I slowly starts to threaten the their quiet town, she must not let herself break.

Mini-Review: Behind Closed Doors, by B. A. Paris

Rating: ★★★★★

Genres: Thriller

Goodreads

Jack and Grace are a perfect couple – he is handsome and rich, she is charming and loving. But behind closed doors, things may not be so perfect after all.

This was the second B. A. Paris book I read, after The Breakdown, and I loved it so much. I am partial to books about couples that aren’t what they seem, so I was definitely inclined to like this one anyway. I listened to this in audio, which was absolutely brilliant! It was so well done, and kept the story just as (or even more) gripping and intense as reading it would have been. This is a whip-smart thriller that I highly recommend.