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Showing posts with the label 4.5 star books

Yes I Am Hot in This Review

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While I wait for book 4 of the Huda F series to come out (apparently it's no longer going to be a trilogy), I decided to read another one of Huda Fahmy 's books.  Yes I Am Hot in This doesn't have a linear story--it is more a series of short, relatable comics of funny, awkward, and sometimes unfortunate situations the author has experienced as a hijabi. Sometimes her husband in involved, too. Once again, the book is filled with Huda's fun illustrations! I gave it 4.5 stars , but like the last book of her's that I read, it was because of a few Harry Potter references. But this book was published in 2018, so I could overlook them this time.  

Record of a Spaceborn Few Review

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    This book is the third in the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers . The first two were A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit . Click on the titles to read my reviews! Record of a Spaceborn Few  follows five different Exodans (humans who have left Earth and are now living by wandering around space in big spaceships) aboard the ship Asteria . They are: Tessa, a working mom and sister of Ashby from the first book in this series Isabel, an elderly Archivist Kip, a teenager with growing pains Eyas, a caretaker who usually leads funerals Sawyer, originally from the planet Mushtello, looking for a job  While each of their stories seem separate at first, they eventually all come together towards the end. Like all of Becky Chambers's books, this story offers a lot of cool sci-fi worldbuilding and a lot of philosophy.  This book was so great! I just love cozy sci-fi. There's also good queer and disability representation as well. I gave thi...

The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo

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  My third Kate DiCamillo book (the first two I read were Because of Winn-Dixie and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane waaaay back when I was elementary school. This one was also great! The Magician's Elephant is about Peter, an orphan living with an elderly soldier named Vilnia Lutz, finds out his little sister Adele is still alive after hearing it from a fortune teller. The fortune teller tells Peter that an elephant will lead him to his sister, but Peter doesn't know where to find this elephant.  Meanwhile, Adele (yes, she's alive!), is living in an orphanage, and she keeps having dreams of an elephant visiting her.   At the same time, a magician is in the city and he performs a magic trick at one of his shows that goes wrong. Instead of summoning a bouquet  of lilies, his accidentally summons an elephant. The elephant lands on a noblewoman named Madama LaVaughn, leaving her paralyzed. The magician is put in jail for destruction of property. The eleph...

I FINALLY READ THE LONG WAY TO A SMALL ANGRY PLANET!

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  Now this is a book that lives up to the hype! The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers is about a group of space travelers in a spaceship called the Wayfarer who have been selected to create a space tunnel between two planets that recently had a war with each other in hopes to bring peace. The setting is in the far future where Earth has become mostly inhabitable and many humans have left Earth to go live on other planets (mostly Mars). Those humans are called Exodans, by the way. However, the real focus of the story is about the relationships (friendship, family, and romantic) between our main space traveling team and the wordbuilding as they visit and talk about many different planets along the way. The cast is as follows: Rosemary, a human from Mars who gets to work on the Wayfarer as a clerk and is trying to escape her dark past. Then there's Ashby, another human who is the stern but kind captain of the Wayfarer, and is in a relationship with the captain of a...

Ruby Holler Review

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(Pic was found on Google Images) Yes, another book I read months ago that I couldn't review because of the HarperCollins strike. But here we are now! Ruby Holler by Sharon Creech is about two 13 year old orphans named Dallas and Florida. They've never had a trusted adult in their lives that they felt safe around, because they are usually taken in by a foster family that get sick of them after a while, and then return them to the run-down orphanage they grew up in, run by a mean couple named Mr. and Mrs.  Trepid. Dallas and Florida constantly dream of becoming runaways by sneaking onto the train that sometimes runs through the town. Not far from the small town they live in, there is a farm called Ruby Holler where an elderly couple named Tiller and Sairy live. They decide to go on two separate trips (a canoeing trip for Tiller and a camping trip for Sairy) and also decide to take in Dallas and Florida and invite them on their trips (Florida will go with Tiller, Dallas wil...

THE MOOMINS AND THE GREAT FLOOD REVIEW

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(Pic was found on Google Images) A while ago I listened to the very first Moomin book ever by Tove Jansson on audiobook .  It is called The Moomins and the Great Flood .  In this very first book we follow Moomintroll and Moominmamma as they go on a journey to find Moominpappa, as he went away with the creatures called the Hattifatteners, and they are all looking for a new place to live. Along the way they meet "a little creature" (who is really the character of Sniff) who joins them on their journey and Tulipa, a fairy from a tulip flower that protected them from a giant serpent. They also encounter a strange old man, a scary ant-lion, more Hattifatteners, and a red-haired boy who lives in a lighthouse and who briefly met Moominpappa and knows which way he went.  As they all search for Moominpappa, a huge rainstorm happens which causes a flood. When the rain stops the team finds a message in a bottle from Moominpappa saying he is safe and he built a new house for the fam...

I FINALLY READ BOOK LOVERS BY EMILY HENRY!

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  Just like the title of this post says. Book Lovers by Emily Henry is an adult contemporary romance novel about a woman working in the book publishing industry named Nora. Nora is trying to help one of her clients, named Dusty, get her book published, but the coworker she is stuck working with to make it happen is a somewhat uptight guy named Charlie.  Nora's sister Libby then invites her to go on vacation so they can unwind at Sunshine Falls, a small town near Asheville, North Carolina. While they are there they try to accomplish a list of things to do that are cliche movie tropes found in small town Hallmark-esque movies, such as going on dates with locals and going to unusual tourist attractions. Nora happens to run into Charlie while there, and it turns out his family lives in Sunshine Falls and he came back to help his family with their family business, a bookstore that's beginning to fall apart. While they continue to butt heads at first, Nora and Charlie slowly start ...

Our Dreams at Dusk Volume 1

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 TW: Suicide attempt This was another manga I picked up on a whim at the library.  Our Dreams at Dusk   by Yuhki Kamatani is about a teenage boy named Tasuku who is gay and has been in the closet for a while, but he thinks he's been outed after some classmates took a look at his search history on his phone. Tasuku gets very distressed and tries to jump off of a high building, but is stopped in his tracks when he sees a mysterious person jump off of the same area but they land unharmed, and they enter a small building that looks like a clubhouse. Tasuku decides to check out that small building and finds out it is a drop-in center for people like him (part of the LGBT community!) to socialize, and the mysterious person who he saw earlier runs the place. They preferred to be called Someone-san.  Tasuku starts talking to Someone-san and the rest of the people in the club, and they tell him he is allowed to drop in (hence the name) anytime he wants to hang out. Tasuku sl...

THE PRINCE AND THE DRESSMAKER SPOILER FREE REVIEW

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  Another sweet graphic novel you need to read! The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang  is a YA historical fiction graphic novel about a young girl named Frances who lives in France at the time it was still a kingdom. She is a seamstress working in a clothing and tailor store. By surprise, she gets hired to make clothes for the prince of the country, Prince Sebastien. As she gets to know him, he has a secret: sometimes he likes to wear dresses and look like a girl. But he doesn't want anyone else to know about it because it might ruin his reputation as a future husband and king. Throughout the course of the story, Frances and Sebastien deepen their friendship and try to achieve their individual goals of becoming a famous dressmaker and gaining the confidence to show their gender-nonconformity in public, mostly through sneaking off to parties. and such. This was such a cute book! The artwork was gorgeous, the characters were great. I might be a little bit biased because I ju...

THE LITTLE PRINCE AUDIOBOOK SPOILER FREE REVIEW

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  Here is the link to the audiobook video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APG1upS8LDw&ab_channel=ChristopherWilliams This is my first audiobook of the year. It is of Antoine de Saint-Exupery's novella The Little Prince. While it may look like a kid's picture book story (and can still be read as one), it is also a story of deep philosophical themes that can hit harder when you are an adult. That's why the book is so popular among adults as well. The plot itself is about an unnamed narrator who is a pilot who crash landed in the Sahara Desert. As he is trying to fix his plane, a young boy, The Little Prince, asks him to draw him a sheep. The narrator is not confident in his drawing skills as he gave up drawing as a kid a long time ago when the grown ups in his life couldn't understand his drawings of boa constrictors. He draws a sheep inside of a box for The Little Prince, which satisfies him, and then he tells the narrator about his planet and flower, his journey o...

Other Books I Read in 2022 that I haven't mentioned yet

TW: Brief mentioning of injuries, racism, and transphobia Exactly what it says in the title. 1. The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford Goodreads summary here. Very captivating classic book! I gave it 4 stars since sometimes the descriptions of nature and injuries of the characters can get a little too into detail.  2. Anne of the Island by LM Montgomery. Goodreads summary here. I can't talk too much about it since it is the sequel to Anne of Avonlea , which itself is the sequel to Anne of Green Gables . All I can say is, it takes place over Anne's college years and it's just as romantic and sweet as the previous two books. 4.5 stars. 3. My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand Goodreads summary here. Well, this book has two other authors, I just put the first one of them. This is a great historical fantasy retelling of Lady Jane Grey! 4.5 stars.   4. Molly Moon Stops the World by Georgia Byng Goodreads summary here This is the sequel to Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnotis...

THE BLUE CASTLE SPOILER FREE REVIEW

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  This book is more proof LM Montgomery is one of my favorite authors ever. The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery is a classic romance novel taking place in the 1920s in Deerwood, a fictional city in Ontario, Canada. Our main character is 29-year old Valancy Stirling, who is considered an "old-maid" and shunned by her family because she is 29 years old and not married yet. Valancy has also felt that she has always got the short end of the stick when it came to everything in her family, and she wishes to get away from them to finally live the life she wants. She at first mostly does this by daydreaming about a blue castle where she has everything she's ever wanted. Valancy also gets sick frequently, and one day she gets a letter in the mail from her family doctor that she only has a year left to live. Wanting to live her last year of life to the fullest, Valancy finally stops being a doormat towards her family. She also leaves them by going to take care of a sickly family frie...

Double Review: The Last Unicorn and Mr. Popper's Penguins

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  So I was able to finish two books on the same day. They are: The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle and Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater.   I'll try to keep it as short as possible. I actually watched The Last Unicorn movie first, way back when I was a kid. I'm glad to report that the movie is 99% just like the book! The Last Unicorn is a fantasy novel that follows a unicorn who, for a long time, did not know she was the last unicorn on Earth. All the other unicorns were driven out by a monster named the Red Bull, for reasons the unicorn will later find out. With the help of a magician named Schmendrick and a cook named Molly, the unicorn goes on an adventure to find out what happened to her kind and bring them back. An evil king named Haggard and his kindly son Lir also get involved in the unicorn's mission.  This was such a magical and thoughtful book! Peter S. Beagle is a writer with great, lyrical prose. If you liked the movie, you'll also l...