Candy Bunny Reader

So I gave this book a second chance and read it the whole way through! What did I think of it? Summer of Salt by Katrino Leno is a YA contemporary fiction novel set on a small island called By-the-Sea. The MC Georgina comes from the Fernweh family, where all the women are witches with supernatural powers, but she hasn't discovered her powers yet. Her twin sister, Mary, can fly (actually float), and their mother can make potions (actually regular drinks like teas and coffees with healing herbs in them). The family owns an inn on the island that is popular with bird enthusiasts, because everyone who visits the island come to see a redbird named Annabella lay her eggs every year. Annabella is rumored to be a Fernweh woman who turned herself into a bird for mysterious reasons.  One of these visitors is a girl named Prue and her older brother, Harrison. Georgina and Prue end up becoming close and even become girlfriends, but their joy is ruined when someone mysterious kills Annabella. E...

  I finally read this whole book!  Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor is a YA urban fantasy book set in Nigeria. Sunny is a Nigerian-American albino girl who has always been ostracized by her community, but after befriending two other kids named Orlu and Chichi, she gets sucked into a secret society of people who are different like her. As it turns out, Sunny, Orlu, Chichi, and a fourth guy named Sasha are all "Leopard" people. These people are very spiritually attuned and can perform magic. This is what separates them from Lambs (ordinary people).  The four friends also get summoned to stop the ultimate plan of a serial killer named Black Hat Otokoto. If it isn't stopped, the whole world will literally end. This book was very magical and very atmospheric! It was so fun to read about Sunny stepping into her powers and finding a community of people like her. Very heartwarming.  I did give it 4.5 stars , but that's because of the more heavier elements that are present thro...

  Kind of a spiritual successor to My Favorite Anime Series (you can look at this page and that list under the Navigation Page above).   

  I do this tag every year sometime in June.  Check out my answers for the previous years on the Navigation page! 1. Best book you read so far this year? I've got two: The Witch Who Chases the Sun by Dawn Chen and Lonely Castle in the Mirror by Mizuki Tsujimura   2. Best sequel you read so far this year? Amari and the Metalwork Menace  by BB Alston and Under All the Lights by Maya Ameyaw.   3. New release you haven't read yet, but want to.  Smash or Pass by Birdie Schae 4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year. This is actually a revised edition of a book originally published in 2009, but The Diaries of Emily the Strange: The Lost Days is coming out in September 2026.   Another one is the second book of the Kiki's Delivery Service series (yes, it's a whole series) titled Kiki and the New Magic . The author is Eiko Kadono.  The book was originally published in Japanese back in 1993 and getting an English release i...

The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui  is a graphic novel memoir about the author and her family and their story of being refugees during the Vietnam War, and how they came to live in the US. The author tells her story with the framing device of becoming a new mom, and her trying to understand her own parents and why they acted the way they did with her growing up. So it doubles as a surviving war story and a generational trauma story.  This was really great, heartfelt, and very informative! The author has some really gorgeous artwork.  I gave it 5 stars . Considering what this story is about, it has a lot of trigger warnings. Please read with caution. 

Posting what I have over on my Instagram, @candybunnyreader. Check out the previous parts of my favorite authors series in the Navigation Page!  

   ...and also drawing in general. It's been a while since I read something from Raina Telgemeier ! I read Smile, Sisters , and Drama way back before I started my blog. So how is this newer book of hers that she wrote with Scott McCloud ? The Cartoonists Club is about a group of friends: Mikayla, Howard, Art, and Lynda that form a club at their school dedicated to writing, drawing, and sharing comics. Each friend has some sort of struggle when it comes to writing and drawing their stories. Mikayla has a lot of ideas but usually doesn't know how to get started. Howard often times gets in trouble for focusing too much on comics and not enough on his schoolwork. Art just likes using their hands and creating things in general, and wants to hone their skills. Lynda is very shy to share what she draws because she thinks she's either not good enough or what she draws is too personal.  Luckily, with the help of their school librarian, Ms. Fatima (yes, that's her name!), the ...

    Well, as you can see, I actually listened to it on audiobook.  The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo is a novel written in verse. It's about 15 (later 16) year old Dominican-American Xiomara, who lives in the Harlem neighborhood of NYC. She writes poems narrating her life living in the place. From dealing with her overly strict and religious zealot mother to her friends, first boyfriend, and the poetry club at her school to her bond with her twin brother, Xavier. It's very cathartic for her! I really enjoyed listening to this! I found myself being moved by a lot of the poems, especially the ones about the power of community and generational trauma. It was a nice surprise since I'm a reader who doesn't usually like or read poetry.  It's a very diverse book, too! Most of the characters are Dominican, Father Sean (a priest of Xiomara's church) is Jamaican, and Xiomara's brother Xavier is gay and in an interracial relationship.  I gave it 4.5 stars , but that...

 TW: Mentions of scandals, losing a parent, and shootings. It's been a while since I read something by Leah Johnson ! The last thing I remember reading from her was Ellie Engle Saves Herself (you can read that review here ) two years ago, and a year before that my favorite book so far from her You Should See Me in a Crown (you can read that review here ).  So how was this book? Rise to the Sun is a dual POV book about two girls: Olivia and Toni. They both find each other at a weekend-long music festival while hanging out with each of their best friends. Each girl is trying to escape from something that's weighing each of them down. Olivia with her most recent breakup (not to mention a scandal with her recent ex-boyfriend), and Toni after losing her musician father.  The two girls end up bonding during a scavenger hunt and over their favorite musicians performing at the venue. Their respective friends Peter and Imani end up falling for each other, too.  But when a...

Sheeta's Little Big World is manga trilogy by Yuki Kamba . It seems to take inspiration from the Studio Ghibli movie The Secret World of Arrietty , with elements of survival stories. Sheeta lives with other littlefolk in a small village in the woods somewhere after he was abandoned by his father. He becomes close friends with another boy named Nala. One day, the two boys see smoke coming from a giant tree from afar, and Nala runs away to see what it is. Sheeta then has a mission to find Nala and find his father, too. Sheeta relunctantly teams up with another littlefolk named Izuna, who holds a grudge against Sheeta's father for something he did to him in his past. As they travel, they learn to survive of the land, and encounter other littlefolk with problems they help to solve. It doesn't sound too bad, doesn't it? That's what I thought at first. The first book had a solid beginning. Book 2 still wasn;t too bad--I just didn't like how a large chunk of it was sp...

    I feel like I will do this with the rest of the series, since it's a popular one. I am still waiting for my hold of book 3 to come in from my local library. 

  Reposted from my Instagram @candybunnyreader Check out the previous parts of my favorites authors on the Navigation page!   

  And guess who loved book 1 (as in gave it 5 stars ) and will continue reading the series?! Funny story: my first exposure to Percy Jackson was actually the 2010 film based off of this first book that I watched back in middle school. Since I didn't read the books back then, I thought the movie was okay, but my friends who have read the books all said the movie was a terrible adaptation of the first book. Now that I finally read the original Lightning Thief , I 100% agree with my friends and all longtime Percy Jackson fans. (I haven't watched the more recent Disney+ series because I don't have a subscription, so I can't make comparisons to the show, either.) I don't think I need to explain the plot because I think most of us know what the story is already about. What stood out to me was how surprisingly dark the story can get at times while still being family-friendly (think Avatar the Last Airbender). But I think those are the best kinds of kids' books. I like ...

  And all year long. I did this kind of post last year, too! Check it out here .  

  Decided to just repost what I have over on my Instagram @candybunnyreader.