Did you ever realize that SEPTEMBER has 9 letters and it is in the 9th month?! Mind blown. It’d be cooler if September wasn’t originally the 7th month of the year (“septem” is the Latin word for seven).
I keep book notes by having tabs that I write on and insert into the book. When I’m ready to write about it, I just go back to all the tabs. This month, I noticed that if the book is FULL of tabs – I hated it. If there’s only a few, I loved it. I think my reasoning is that if I love the book, I’m blowing through it. I’m like a lion who is after its prey. YOU CANNOT STOP ME. If I hated a book. I cannot wait to write things like, “seriously?” or “this is stupid”. It helps break up the annoyance.
Sorry guys, this is a LONG one. I do not blame you if you bail.
The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune
My Rating: 5/5 Stars
What’s it about: A Case Worker (Linus Baker) for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth is unexpectedly summoned to go to the Marsyas Island Orphanage – a place he’s never even heard of – to observe and report on the “most dangerous” sorts of magical children (like a wyvern, a gnome, a sprite, a were-Pomeranian, a green blob, and, of course, the Antichrist). He quickly learns that their caretaker, Arthur Parnassus, will do anything to protect his children.
Quote: “We are who we are not because of our birthright, but because of what we choose to do in this life. It cannot be boiled down to black and white. Not when there is so much in between. You cannot say something is moral or immoral without understanding the nuances behind it.” – Linus Baker
My Review:
I avoided the shit out of this book. It’s been hyped everywhere. No matter where I turned, this book was being praised. I’ve had bad experiences with over hyped books. They never lived up to their reputation.
This one though? It’s worth the hype. Plus some.
While it did take me about 60 pages to get into (Linus starts out as such an unlikeable character), I couldn’t put it down after that. As soon as I read “A quiet child is a healthy child” I knew this “orphanage” business was bad business. Like I said, Linus’ character starts out pretty poorly. He’s a judgy little turd and it’s so hard to like him. There were many times when I wished the kids, the orphans, would actually push him off a cliff. The character development throughout the story, not only for Linus, is so beautifully done. You see the children, who have been abused and thrown in a corner for so long, learn to trust and love. Everyone in this book starts with walls built up around them, afraid to let anyone inside and by the end, it’s just one loving beautiful thing. Lucy (Lucifer) is probably my favorite character. I think he and I would get along fabulously. The adage of “If you’re constantly told you are a monster, you will truly become one” is present here. Although literal creatures, how often are kids told they’re “naughty” or “bad” or that they’re the problem? You feed this into a child and then have the audacity to be shocked when they act the exact way you trained them to be. People suck. Speaking of people sucking, I can’t help but believe that the agency didn’t really want to shut this place down. First of all, what are they going to do? Kill these children? Where do they want these “monsters” to go if it’s not on a remote island that no one knows about? Secondly, they sent a very lonely gay man to go meet a man who was described in their reports as “manipulative” (and who is also gay). I get that this is how it has to work in the romance department but coommmmmeeeee onnnnnnnnnnn. Who wouldn’t have seen that coming?
ANYWAY, there’s also a lot of fun quotes in this book and I want to list them:
I have other things to think about. Like tomorrow. Why is it that I must always worry about tomorrow?
Linus (same)
Hate is a waste of time. I’m far too busy to hate anything.
Linus (Hate, along with jealousy, are emotions I don’t give space to because my GOD does that sound so incredibly exhausting.)
It’s the little things. Little treasures we find without knowing their origin. And they come when we least expect them. It’s beautiful, when you think about it.
Arthur
Sometimes our prejudices color our thoughts when we least expect them to. If we can recognize that, and learn from it, we can become better people
Arthur
People suck, but sometimes, they should just drown in their own suckage without our help.
J-Bone
The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom #1) by Danielle L. Jensen
My Rating: 4/5 Stars
What’s it about: Lara is a princess who is trained as a warrior (hi, Xena) in secret – along with all her sisters. She is trained as a secret warrior so that when she is married off to King Aren, ruler of The Bridge Kingdom, she can infiltrate their kingdom and help her father take it down. This way, her people will no longer be starving. But this is a romance novel so… ENEMIES TO LOVERS!
My Review: This was a book given to me by a friend and I knew nothing of it other than her rating (3 out of 5 stars) and the GoodReads rating (4.06 stars) but the book jar told me it was time to read this one (actually, funny story, I accidentally put the 2nd book in the book jar and realized it when I scanned it into GoodReads and it marked it as #2. Okay reading this back, I guess this was funnier in my head). I was hooked by the first chapter. Badass female character? Always. Sign me up.
I do want to take this time to speak to fantasy writers. I have a bone to pick with you. It’s about naming your character. We all know there’s nothing worse than Renesmee but do you just throw a dart at the alphabet a few times before deciding on names? Actually, that method isn’t as bad as giving your character a fairly popular name but then spelling it differently. My brain struggled over Aren and Ahnna every time it came on the page (which was a lot because Aren is our book husband and Ahnna is his sister.
Okay. I’m done. For now. Was this book a little predictable? Yes, absolutely. But I’m okay with predictability if they give me a good storyline and I think that Jensen really did do that. It was unique without being overly ambitious. The pacing was fantastic and the length of the book was perfect. There wasn’t fluff (looking at you ACOTAR) and Lara’s character grew so much. Luckily my friend also gave me book two, which I immediately picked up upon finishing this one.
The Traitor Queen (The Bridge Kingdom #2) by Danielle L. Jensen
My Rating: 4/5 Stars
What’s it about: You read that first review, right? Lara betrayed Aren (even though they are both TOTALLY IN LOVE WITH ONE ANOTHER) and is now seen as a traitor. And even worse is that Aren was captured by her father and taken prisoner. He’s only keeping Aren alive to bait Lara, which of course she takes. She fights to get her husband back even though he’s a whiny little brat 🙂
Quote: Just because I can see the clouds in the sky doesn’t mean I can predict where the lightning will strike. – Aren
My Review: I love that we got to see Lara working and interacting with so many more characters. You get to see her ingenuity and her fighting spirit. My biggest gripe over this book was Aren. In this book, you get to see from the POV of both Lara and Aren. Which is great. Big fan of that type of thing happening in books… Until you realize that Aren is A BIG FAT BABY. We get it. Lara betrayed you. I KNOW. But either move on or admit you love her. Most of the time I was yelling at him. We already had the tension from book one – I can’t do more! I’m still very interested in this series and I can’t wait to read book three.
A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw
My Rating: 1/5 Stars
What’s it about: HONESTLY. Who the hell knows. I don’t even think the author knows.
My Review: This book is a prime example of how multiple points of view can be a disaster. You can’t hide from yourself. Yes, you can lie to yourself, I get that. Which, is definitely the point of this book… kinda? But it just doesn’t work here. It feels like I found someone’s edited diary. The one they knew was going to be found someday. The thoughts seemed diluted. Due to all the different voices, the timeline is SUPER confusing. I would go back and read pages again in order to understand if we time jumped or not. I mostly hate read this book. I just wanted to know why everyone in the cult was so incredibly stupid and how Levi had any power of over them… Dear Reader, I beg of you to not wonder such things. It’s not worth it.
Let’s talk about the cult first. This place is in the middle of nowhere but still very close to town. When it was created, people went into to town all the time. They were not scared into staying within the compound yet. How have the police not gone to do any type of wellness check on a single human being? Or checked in on the fact that several missing people seem to go MISSING around that area? I get the “dumb local cops” thing but this is gross negligence. Not as gross as Maggie’s mother – who may or may not know where her daughter is all along and is probably one of the most selfish, horrid characters I’ve ever had to read about.
Next I want to talk about Travis. Mr. I-Can-Find-Anyone-with-My-Magic-Powers. This actually seems really cool. Travis can touch an object and see the person it belongs to. I was VERY into this storyline and following along while Travis went looking for Maggie. Except that that is literally like only the first 20 pages and then POOF, Travis is gone. Cool. Thanks. If someone wants to take the basics of THAT storyline and write a book, please let me know. I’d love to read it.
So Maggie is a children’s book author, right? Well, in those 20 first pages, we find out that Maggie created a world called “The Underground” and children kept running away from home in order to find it. Of course, a kid died and Maggie was canceled. Maggie’s book is presented throughout the book and there’s a huge importance of “The Underground” within those first pages that I really thought it might be a fantasy novel in disguise. Maybe “The Underground” was a real place that Maggie was going to, a la Wonderland. Alas, that is also not the case. Again, someone please give me THAT storyline (or I’ll just go read Alice in Wonderland again).
Mmk, time to talk about Levi – the cult leader. He took over from someone else and is involved with Bee (a blind girl who also seems to have prophetic visions) until Bee gets pregnant and he says, “Oh my bad, I’m actually going to marry another woman. One who will get in line cause you clearly will not” (gross). Levi has this insane power over the people of his cult. It seems more intense than other cults. Theo does not trust him, the ENTIRE time and then suddenly just reveals literally every single thing about what he’s discovered about Travis and Maggie. Like okay. Gold star Theo. He’s like a villain at the end of a movie. Keep your trap shut my dude. At first I can’t get a read on him but it’s actually just because he’s a badly written character who has a ~twist~ as to why he was able to control so many people and I literally just CANNOT. Every single person seems so incredibly miserable too. Maybe this really is a fantasy book because it is just so far from anything that could possibly happen. (I ALMOST want to tell you his little twisty twist so that you realize I made such a sacrifice by reading this book and that you do not ant to make said sacrifice).
Speaking of Theo, early on in the story, Theo finds Travis’ truck close to the perimeter of the cult compound. Inside, he finds a photo of Maggie. Spoiler: Maggie is at this cult. There is a ZERO PERCENT CHANCE that he doesn’t immediately recognize Maggie. Zero. Towards the end of the book, Theo mentions that the photo is just SO blurry that he could have never really made out Maggie’s features (a fact never mentioned before it was convenient because the audience is like “How did you miss this, Theo?”). If Travis was using this photo to find Maggie, it would have been useless. He would have only been able to find a woman who had similar coloring/features as Maggie. What’s he gonna do? Walk up to every white blonde lady and ask if she’s Maggie? Stupid.
And then everyone lives happily ever after at the cult. Please don’t read this book. I might hate this book more than I hated The Midnight Library and that’s really saying something.
Devil’s Food Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen #14) by Joanne Fluke
My Rating: 3/5 Stars
What’s it about: Small town. Dead Body. Baker. Love Triangle (it’s literally the same from the first 13 books and yes, I still enjoy it).
My Review: After A History of Wild Places, I needed a palate cleanser. I also needed something short enough that I knew I’d be able to finish it before we went into October, which is when I’ll only be reading horror books (cannot WAIT). This book was another “whodunit” and always a solid 3 stars. I come back to this series when I just need something easy and fun. I do have to say that after 14 books, the recipes are getting a little sketchy. The first few books, I bookmarked almost all the recipes to try because they sounded so good! This last one? I only bookmarked 3.
The book has a talking bird in it that helps to solve the murder. My mother in law has a parrot and it’s bizarre how much it sounds like her. When Jacob lived there and I knew it was only me and him in the house, I would hear Lulu call for Jacob in his mom’s voice and it would always freak me out. This is the first book in which Hannah is told she should have kids. And then considers it a lot. Before, she even talks about how she isn’t longing for children so this is out of left field and not in her character.
I want to talk about Dr. Bev – Norman’s ex-fiance who comes to town to help in the dentist’s office and immediately starts dating Norman again. Oh AND MIKE. I’ve seen Swimfan. Hannah needs to run. Throughout the entire book, Norman talks about how much he DOESN’T want to date Bev, it’s just that when Hannah is out with Mike, he’s bored… And Bev dating Mike makes zero sense if her end game is to get Norman to herself. It’s also wild that not only did Mike never mention to Hannah that he’s dating Bev, but the Gossip Queens of Lake Eden (Dolores and Andrea) have no idea about it.
I didn’t figure this one out before the end. There were a lot of back and forths and it got a little confusing. We are on book #14 that has a very clear formula (similar to the Saw movies) and there’s only so much creativity and wiggle room you can have. But I will say that cliff hanger with Norman and Dr. Bev has made me want to read #15 immediately.
Oh yeah, at the end of the last book, we find out that all the calls Bill had gotten about working as a security guard in Florida were pranks. We didn’t know who they were from at that point. Apparently, according to information Dolores got at that sketchy bar, it was done by some random guy who just got out of jail? What. A. Letdown.
Maiden Mother Crone by D.J. Conway
My Rating: 3/5 Stars
What’s it about: A dive into the symbol of the trinity (maiden, mother, crone) throughout time.
My Review: I had high hopes for this book. I don’t know why but I really did. I read the reviews and still thought, “No but I am going to love this book”. Maybe it’s because I bought this book while in Salem, MA last year. If you don’t know a lot about mythology, this book would be great for you. There are mythologies from around the world that the author relates back to the maiden, mother, and/or crone. The author really dives into the three faces of the Goddess and how each face can help us in different stages of our life. However, it did get slightly repetitive. The mythology sections were droll and too academic for my liking. The sections about how the Goddess can help you (in each different stage) was interesting. The guided meditations and rituals can come in handy. But all in all, I’m pretty indifferent to this book.
Nine Perfect Strangers by Liane Moriarty [Audiobook]
My Rating: 4/5 Stars
What’s it about: There’s a ~health resort~ and a crazy lady who runs it. There’s every type of person there who become bonded through literal trauma. It’s a wild ride.
My Review: I’ve read one other book by Liane Moriarty (Apples That Fall) and I loved it! She is able to create such complex and completely different characters in each of her books. All the POVs sound different because she gives each person a unique voice. By the end of the book, I felt like I knew each character personally – like we were friends. The narrator for this book is fantastic. She has a thick Australian accent but is able to give each character their own voice as well. She’s very animated. I imagine her talking with her hands a lot. Here’s run down of how I feel about each character:
- Masha – WHEW. Can we say “unresolved trauma”? She gives definite “cult leader” vibes without being a full on cult leader. Although given enough time, she probably would become one.
- Frances – She’s the “every woman” (similar to the “every man” but… ya know… a woman). I think she is there for the reader to have an easy person to connect to. She also seems to have the most POVs.
- Napoleon – He’s that one guy you never want to start a convo with because you know it’ll be 10 years before you’re freed.
- Heather – Take a chill pill, honey. Please. Or a deep breath. Or like, go to therapy. Literally, do anything.
- Zoe – Honestly, she’s doing the best she can with those parents.
- Lars – I could take him or leave him as a character (maybe that’s why his character is so drastically different in the show than in the book).
- Carmel – She is the person who’s of average size who constantly talks about how fat she is and how much she wants to lose weight. No matter what the conversation is about, she’ll bring it back to her not being thin enough. Always. I wanted to punch her in the face a lot.
- Ben – Another character I could take or leave. I think he’s just here to be a prop to Jessica.
- Jessica – I LOVE HER. She might be my favorite. She is the typical instagram influencer with lots of plastic surgery behind (and in front) of her. But she’s upfront and cool about it and doesn’t really care what other people think.
- Tony – I also love Tony. His sarcasm and wit is great. His character arc was really well done.
- Yao – Poor poor love sick puppy. Masha is toxic my dude. Run.
- Delilah – I don’t even know why she was here in the first place.
There is a time within the book when everyone is heavily on drugs. Frances, who is a writer by profession, is talking to herself (and her dead friend) about how this is NOT a book… but then continues to create a story of what’s happening right now. I’m a fan of breaking the fourth wall.
All in all, I loved the book. I didn’t love the neat bow it was tied up in at the end though. It was a little to pretty for me.
I did start watching the show and I’m shocked. This is a case of “did you read the source material first?”. Things are drastically different, the casting ranges from “this is okay” to “why??”, and there’s so many storylines that absolutely didn’t need to be there (killing the goat??). I haven’t finished it but yeah… I haven’t seen something veer so far from the source material since Percy Jackson.
The Green Mile by Stephen King [Audiobook]
My Rating: 5/5 Stars
What’s it about: Follow the superintendent of a Death Row facility as he narrates the year (set in the 1930s) that changed his life forever.
My Review: I googled Stephen King’s best audiobooks and this was near the top (and also available on Libby). The narrator, Frank Muller, is now my absolute favorite audiobook narrator (besides Stephen Fry okay). He did such an incredible job with this book. 10/10 for him and I can’t wait to listen to more of his narrations (he does a bunch of King’s books!).
Per usual, I was much too young when I watched this movie. It came out in 1999 and I probably would have watched it around that time (so I was about 11). I’m not going to say “Spoiler Alert” because face it, you’ve probably seen this movie. And if you haven’t, you should. After reading the book, I have to say the movie stays fairly true and only cuts out a few unnecessary things. The only two things I remember from the movie were: the mouse being stepped on and one of the prisoners catching fire. So, ya know, just wholesome stuff 🙂
As for the book itself, it was beautiful. Paul’s perspective was perfect. You know that he’s such a good, kind, and compassionate human so hearing his thoughts was a welcome reprieve from some of King’s other characters. Percy was somehow even more of a complete piece of shit than he was in the movie, which is really saying something. I hope that nepotism can die sometime soon. Just because you “know someone” doesn’t mean you should be able to be an abusive piece of shit. Also, people, be honest with yourself. Do not make excuses for pieces of shit. There’s a great scene where Paul and the other guards are going to put a straight jacket on Percy and shove him in the solitary room (this is so they can help take John to the warden’s house to heal his wife). When Paul finally looks in Percy’s eyes, he’s terrified. He says, “Please don’t throw me in with Wharton” (a prisoner who threatened to r*pe Percy if he ever got the chance). There’s an instant where Paul really sees the type of person Percy is. And it’s a good lesson for all of us. Percy would have easily, and without qualms, thrown a bound man in with someone who threatened to assault him. Easily. That’s why he thought Paul and the others would do something like that. Listen when people tell you who they are.
Anyway, this story is so incredibly sad but still beautiful. Even though I knew John’s and Delacroix’s executions were coming, I still couldn’t help but cry when it happened. I spent the entire book holding my breath, waiting for Mr. Jingles to be crushed by Percy.
Congratulations on making it this far! Apparently, I had a lot to say for September. Have you read any of these books? Have I convinced you (or not) to read any of these? What was your favorite book to read in September?
Writes with Wolves 