Candy Bunny Reader

 TW: Mentions of pandemics, queerphobia, racism, and cancer Now I am in the mood for White Rabbit candies!  Messy Roots by Laura Gao is a graphic novel memoir of the author's experience growing up Chinese-American, struggling with their identity, and other typical experiences of growing up. She and her family also happen to be from Wuhan--which would make international headlines in 2020 as that is where the Covid-19 pandemic began. But the pandemic part of the story is quite minimal--the real focus is on Laura tells us their own story on how she came to accept and celebrate every part of themselves.  This was a great memoir! The artwork is one of my favorite aspects of this book. I am not an immigrant myself but I do have immigrant parents, and I related heavily to a lot of the experiences Laura had, especially with her parents. Laura Gao is queer, too, and they briefly talks about it.  I gave it 4.5 stars . I had to take off half a point for some triggering subject...

I swear at least one of these will really shock you.  Well, have fun looking at my unpopular opinions! Luckily I have only three books that I read that I disliked, but not because they were objectively bad, I was personally just disappointed with them. Here they are: Ellie Engle Saves Herself by Leah Johnson -3 stars Serafina and the Seven Stars by Robert Beatty -3.5 stars Frieren Volume 5 by Kanehito Yamada -3 stars And here are all the books I DNF'd... 😬 Heartstopper Volume 5 by Alice Oseman Unbowed by Wangari Mathai Hurricane Child by Kacen Callendar  A Complicated Love Story Set in Space by Shaun David Hutchison Apollo's Angels by Jennifer Homans To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson The Falling in Love Montage by Ciara Smyth Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Little Women by Louisa May Alcott Spellbound by Bishakh Som Rickety Stitch Volume 1 by Ben Costa and James Parks Replay by Sharon Creech Purple Cow by Seth Godin The ...

  I finally got around to reading this! They Called us Enemy by George Takei is a graphic novel memoir of actor George Takei. It recounts experience as a child in a Japanese internment camp during WW2. He showcases his feelings as a kid experiencing something where he didn't always understand what was going on, but he knew it was something terrible. Growing up, he learned more about what it was being a victim of racism in the United States. He also teaches the audience things they might have not known about the internment camps and how they were able to end them after WW2. He also talks about the aftermath and his overall identity as a Japanese-American, and briefly his time about becoming and actor and being on the critically-acclaimed show, Star Trek.  I loved this book so much! I learned so much about what it was like being in an internment camp from someone who experienced it firsthand, and I also learned more about George Takei in general. I think everyone needs to read t...

I was tagged once again by @books.below.stars over on Instagram to do this tag (thank you tahlia!) So here are my answers to the Conan Gray Book tag! As usual, feel free to do this tag if you see it. 1. heather (a popular book you love) Loveless by Alice Oseman 2. movies (book with a movie adaptation) Coraline by Neil Gaiman 3. little league (a nostalgic book) Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery 4. best friend (book with found family) A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers 5. yours (emotional read) The Last Cherry Blossom by Kathleen Burkinshaw 6. footnote (a book on your TBR for too long) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott! I gotta read it next year... 7. wish you were sober (favorite book from this year) I will tell you 3 of my many favorite books from this year: Sleeping Around by Morgan Vega, Jane of Lantern Hill by LM Montgomery, and Serafina and the Black Cloak by Robert Beatty. 8. people watching (book you can relate to) Kisses and Croissants by Anne-Sophie Johan...

Just like the last book I reviewed on here, you don't know how long I've been wanting to get around to this book. Bicycling with Butterflies by Sara Dykman is a memoir about the author's true story of how she charted and followed the migration paths of monarch butterflies from Mexico to Canada and back to Mexico again. She completed the whole journey via biking! Every chapter of the book recounts every place Dykman biked through and stopped at. She found lots of monarchs, but all sorts of other wildlife too, most important of them all being milkweed, which is what monarch butterflies need to lay their eggs. She also talked about how and where she would find places to camp out in her tent for the nights she was on the road. It wasn't always easy! During her journey she would sometimes go to schools and universities to talk about her journey and scientific research and facts she knew about monarch butterflies. She also talked about all of the people she met along the way...

  You have no idea how long I've wanted to read this memoir. I finally got to read it this past month! My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud'homme is Julia Child's memoir. It is her story on how she got into cooking after she and her husband Paul Child moved to Paris, France. They moved there because of Paul's job at the US Embassy there. In her first few years in France, Julia learned to cook all sorts of French dishes and desserts at a world famous cooking school, and she met two of her long-time collaborators there: Simone Beck (nicknamed Simca) and Louisette Betholle. Julia then got the idea of making a cookbook with French recipes, but for an American audience. Aside from talking about her everyday life in France, she also gets into details on how she, Simca, and Louisette wrote there first and most famous cookbook: Mastering the Art of French Cooking . It was not an easy process! But their book became super-successful overseas (in the United States), to ...

Since it's (approximately?) halfway through the year, I thought I would share with you my favorite books of the year so far. These are all 5 star books. I also put links to their respective review pages if you want to check those out/revisit them. Just click on the title of the book. (Well, most of these have reviews...those that don't are usually sequels in series that I obviously can't talk about because that will go into spoiler territory!) Among the Brave by Margaret Peterson Haddix Heartstopper Volume 4 by Alice Oseman Heartstopper Yearbook by Alice Oseman Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree Sleeping Around by Morgan Vega Talli: Daughter of the Moon by Sulhya Among the Enemy by Margaret Peterson Haddix Among the Free by Margaret Peterson Haddix Bone Volumes 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 by Jeff Smith Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur Nancy Drew and the Bungalow Mystery by Carolyn Keene Witch Hat Atelier Volumes 1 , 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, and 10 by Kamome Shirahama Nancy Drew an...

Now I'm being positive! These are all 5 stars books I read this year.  I recommend all of these! For the first half I will just write what I thought of them and put a link to their Goodreads page so you can read their plot summary, but everything after starting with Where the Mountain meets the Moon will just be a list with no summary, as I already have blog posts for those you can check out for my full thoughts. I will be linking their respective posts. (Except the Babymouse books, the Shadow Children books, and volumes 2 and 3 of Heartstopper will have Goodreads pages and write their summary here since I read those before Meets the Moon, or they are sequels and I can't talk about spoilers).  1. Frindle by Andrew Clements. Goodreads page here.  This was such a short book, but so interesting! I loved how creative and funny Nick and his friends were to challenge their English teacher Mrs. Granger regarding dictionaries and words. I've started calling ball point pens frin...

  This past week I was also reading Do Nothing by Celeste Headlee . It is a nonfiction book written by an NPR journalist. This book is all about how we've become so obsessed with productivity as a society and what we can do to slow down and feel less stressed out. Since this is a nonfiction book, I review nonfiction very differently from fiction, unless it is a memoir. That is why I do not have a spoiler free tag, because there's really nothing to spoil. This is a general information/self-help book, and I will give mostly general ideas of what the book is about and how the author organizes the information. It is up to you if you want to read this book to get all the details. I really like the way the book is written. Celeste Headlee has a very approachable writing style that I think general audiences can read from. The first half of the book is a detailed history on how particularly American culture has become very obsessed with productivity. At the same time, the author ...