Candy Bunny Reader

TW: Family member dying mentioned. The book itself has a lot more trigger warnings not discussed here. You can read the full list on this website here: https://booktriggerwarnings.com/Elatsoe_by_Darcie_Little_Badger    This was on my TBR forever, and I am glad to report that this book did not disappoint. Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger is set in a world like ours--but have been shaped by magic and legends of different groups of people. The story is about a Lipan Apache girl named Elatsoe (or Ellie as she is usually called), her ghost dog Kirby, and her best friend Jay. They get thrown into solving a murder mystery case of Ellie's cousin, Trevor. When Ellie and her parents visit her cousin in law Lenore (Trevor's widow) and baby second cousin Gregory to keep them company, they find out the town they live in is rather...odd. It seems to center heavily around an eccentric doctor named Abe Allerton, who might have had something to do with Trevor dying. The task is dangerous...

A sapphic holiday romance! Make My Wish Come True is by Rachael Lippincott and Alyson Derrick . They are the same authors who wrote She Gets The Girl, which I read and reviewed back in 2023. You can read that review here . This book is set in late December, and is a dual POV book of two girls named Caroline and Arden. Caroline lives in a small town called Barnwich in Pennsylvania where they are very obsessed with Christmas. Arden is a famous A-list actress who was also Caroline's best friend when they were younger. They each had a crush on each other, but never told the other one how she felt. Since Arden is an actress, she's been living in LA (Los Angeles) the last four years and has been hyperfocused on her career. Caroline wonders how come in the last four years Arden never contacted her. Caroline is also hoping to get into a good university for journalism.  Well, Arden is hoping to land her next movie role, and in order to get in character for the role, she decides to revis...

Trigger warning: mentioning of miscarriages     Ugh, the book was good until it got to the end... You Were There Too by Colleen Oakley is an adult contemporary romance novel with a dash of magical realism. Mia and her husband Harrison have just moved from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a small town called Hope Springs, thinking life would be easier for them. Instead, Mia has trouble finding a job that she can do with an art degree, and Harrison seems to be hiding something related to his job (he works as a surgeon in a small hospital) from Mia. Even worse, they have been struggling to have children as Mia has already had two miscarriages.  While all of this is going on, Mia keeps having recurring dreams of her encountering a stranger. Well, she's actually been dreaming of this mysterious guy for years. Most of the dreams usually takes place in a carnival, and most of the dreams involve something tragic. Freakier still, Mia ends up finding the guy in real life! His name i...

  I need to read more middle grade horror books after this!  The Clackity by Lora Senf is about 12 year old Evie, who lives with her aunt Desdemona is a reportedly haunted town called Blight Harbor. One day, her aunt goes missing after investigating a strange phenomenon in an old abandoned slaughterhouse. Evie tries to get her aunt back, but she does so by making a deal with a creepy creature called the Clackity. The Clackity wants Evie to bring back the ghost of a notorious criminal named John Jeffery Pope. So Evie goes on this quest through 7 mysterious, magical houses to find her aunt--and the malicious John Jeffery Pope.  Whoa, this book had me on the edge of my seat! I like that was scary but not too scary. It was more mysterious and even a little whimsical at times. I can't wait to read the next book in this series! I gave this first book 5 stars .

  My first Claire Kann book!  If It Makes You Happy follows 18 year old Winnie, who has her whole summer planned before she starts college in the fall: work at Goldeen's, her grandmother's old fashioned diner, and hang out with her ungirlfriend named Kara.  But then Winnie somehow accidentally becomes part of an annual matchmaking tradition the small town she is staying in has with the next small town over. She gets crowned queen, and a guy she's kind of secretly liked for a long time named Dallas steps up to become her king.  Now all of her plans are thrown out of whack as she and Dallas go around attending town events as Misty Haven's unofficial king and queen. Even worse--Winnie thinks the more she hangs out with Dallas, her queerplatonic relationship with Kara will be ruined. Winnie wonders if there is a way to make everyone happy while also prioritizing her own happiness.  This book got me hooked on from page one! I love the way the author writes, and Win...

  Another book by one of my favorite authors ever! I bought this copy at a used bookstore in my area. This is a reminder to support independent bookstores, especially if they sell second-hand!  Double Identity by Margaret Peterson Haddix is about almost-thirteen-year-old Bethany whose overprotective parents have started acting strangely, and they just sent her to live with an aunt she never knew she had, named Myrlie. Bethany's parents also won't answer her phone calls, either, for some reason. Everyone in her aunt Myrlie's small town also react strangely every time they see Bethany, too. Her aunt Myrlie and her cousin Jocelyn, treat her very kindly, but Bethany feels like they're hiding something from her. Something involving someone named Elizabeth... Yup, another mind-boggling mystery story! This one really had me on the edge of my seat.  But I am giving it 4.5 stars . I had to take off half of a star because I didn't really like the way they handled the bad guy...

  Yes, another Sharon Creech book! The Unfinished Angel is different than the rest of the books I've read from Sharon Creech so far. For one, it is a lot shorter. It's more like a novella. Secondly, it is magical realism! The story is narrated by an unnamed angel who guards a small village in Switzerland. They are confused why humans (or "peoples" as they call them) are the way they are, but they want to learn. The angel usually narrates in their unique voice what daily life looks like with what they often see, usually commenting on the same few people. The only one who can see and interact with the angel is an American girl named Zola, who came to live in the village with her father, whom the angel calls Mr. Pomodoro. He is planning on building an international school in the area (not the same one Dinnie from Bloomability goes to). The biggest event that happens in the story is a couple of runaway orphans are found in a chicken shed on a farm not far from the vill...

This is the second Kelly Barnhill book I've read so far. The first one I read was The Girl who Drank the Moon back in 2021, which I gave 4 stars to. The Ogress and The Orphans is set in a fantasy world in a small town called Stone-in-the-Glen, which has fallen on hard times ever since the town's library burned down and other buildings such as the school have mysteriously been destroyed, too. Now no one trusts each other and almost nobody ever leaves their homes. The town orphanage has also been struggling financially. The owners and the orphans are very supportive of one another, and they've been trying to get the town to come together again, especially on market days where they sell handmade soap and food from their mini-farm, but to no avail. At the same time on the outskirts of the town, an ancient Ogress has started to live there and she has noticed how the town has been struggling, so every night she secretly leaves food, baked goods, and handmade cards to the people...

TW: Discussions of death Yes, another great book by Sharon Creech . She is a favorite author of mine now.  Chasing Redbird follows 13-year old Zinnia Taylor, or Zinny as she is nicknamed. She lives with her large family on a farm in Bybanks, Kentucky (not a real place in Kentucky, by the way). Living next door to them is her widower Uncle Nate. She was very close with her uncle, aunt, and cousin, as she would sometimes go over to their house to escape her noisy big house. But her aunt Jessie and her cousin Rose died a few years earlier, and Zinny feels guilty because she thought that she was responsible for their deaths (she was sick then her cousin Rose got infected and died, and aunt Jessie happen to die shortly after one day Zinny showed her a snake, which aunt Jessie was horribly afraid of). Even after everyone in her family told her it was never her fault.  Well, one day Zinny discovers that the small stone-paved trail behind her house that she sometimes walked with her...

(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...