Book Review: First Comes Like (Modern Love 3) by Alisha Rai

First Comes Like (Modern Love 3)

Author: Alisha Rai

Narrator: Saira Ayers & Neil Shah

Genre: Romance

Release Date: February 16, 2021

*Thank you to Libro.FM, Avon Books, and Harper Collins Audio for my Advanced Listening Copy. All options are my own*

Synopsis via Libro.FM:

“Beauty expert and influencer Jia Ahmed has her eye on the prize: conquering the internet today, the entire makeup industry tomorrow, and finally, proving herself to her big opinionated family. She has little time for love, and even less time for the men in her private messages-until the day a certain international superstar slides into her DMs, and she falls hard and fast.

There’s just one wrinkle: he has no idea who she is.

The son if a powerful Bollywood family, soap opera star Dev Dixit is used to the drama, but a strange woman who accuses him of wooing her online, well, that’s a new one. As much as he’d like to focus on his Hollywood fresh start, he can’t get Jia out of his head. Especially once he starts to suspect who might have used his famous name to catfish her…

When paparazzi blast their private business into the public eye, Dev is happy to engage in some friendly fake dating to calm the gossips and to dazzle her family. But as the whole world swoons over their relationship, Jia can’t help but wonder: Can an online romance-turned-offline-fauxmance ever become love in real life?

My Review and Thoughts

First let’s start off with the things I liked.

1. I liked the fake dating trope. This was the first time I have ever read a romance book that I can remember with a fake dating trope. I can definitely see the appeal of this trope. You get to learn the characters and see their relationship blossom.

2. I loved the influencer main character, Jia. It’s very timely to include a MC where her main job and source of income is being an internet influencer. It is nice to see a character build a name and brand for herself. It almost makes the reader feel as if she/he can do it too.

3. My favorite scene is when the Dev and Jia go on a day adventure to do some photography for her influencer job. Specifically the beach scene. I don’t want to talk about it too much because it would give some things away. But, this scene just made my heart warm and fuzzy. Everything after that though was a dumpster fire.

Naturally, it’s time to share what I didn’t like.

1. MISCOMMUNICATION TROPE!! This trope is one of my biggest pet peeves. I know miscommunications happen in real life, and honestly I am the QUEEN of miscommunication. But, in a book I find it so infuriating and it takes me right out of the book.

2. The rushed relationship at the end. The whole book was building a relationship between Jia and Dev and then at the end they completely forget their morals and their MINDS and rush into EVERYTHING. Not only does it go against their morals as characters it just feels so out of place in the book.

3. The Sex. I don’t consider this a spoiler. You are reading a romance book review there is going to be sex. I think my hate for the steamy parts stems from the rushed relationship. I felt that the relationship was out of place so of course the sex and steam felt awkward and out of place as well. Let me tell you that I legit CRINGED when I was listening to this part.

I *almost* stopped listening to this book toward the end, but instead I listened to it on 2x speed to get it over with. Now, it may seem like I didnt like the book, but that’s not true. I did like the majority of the book. I just really didn’t like certain parts. If you were to take the slow-fake-romance-that-then-hurdles-out-of-control-real-romance and the miscommunication subplot, I would have loved this book.

I gave First Comes Like ⭐️⭐️⭐️ on Goodreads and my instagram.

I would recommend this book to people who love the following tropes in romance books: fake dating, miscommunication, one bed, and cat-fishing.

If you made it this far leave me a 🌸 in the comments. Also, if you could leave me some romance recommendations that would be awesome. I am pretty new to the genre overall.

Happy reading!

Xoxo Shannon

Regretting You by Colleen Hoover | Book Review #1

Listen, before I even get into this review I want to apologize because I am already 3 weeks behind on all of my stuff. However, it is what it is and I’m just rolling with it at this point.

Title: Regretting You

Author: Colleen Hoover

Published by: Montlake Romance (Amazon)

Format: ebook

Pages: 365

Read from 10/12/2019 – 1/2/2020 *

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Synopsis:

From #1 New York Times bestselling authors of It Ends With Us comes a poignant novel about family , first love, grief, and betrayal that will touch hearts of both mothers and daughters. Morgan Grant and her sixteen year old daughter, Clara, would like nothing more than to be nothing alike. Morgan is determined to prevent her daughter from making the same mistakes she did. By getting pregnant and married way too young, Morgan put her own dreams on hold. Clara doesn’t want to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Her predictable mother doesn’t have a spontaneous bone in her body. With warring personalities and conflicting goals, Morgan and Clara find it increasingly difficult to coexist. The only person whole can bring peace to the household is Chris—Morgan’s husband, Clara’s father, and the family anchor. But that peace is shattered when Chris is involved in a tragic and questionable accident. The heartbreaking and long-lasting consequences will reach far beyond just Morgan and Clara. While struggling to rebuild everything that crashed around them, Morgan finds comfort in the last person she expects to, and ClRz turns to the one boy she’s been forbidden to see. With each passing day, new secrets, resentment, and misunderstandings make mother and daughter fall further apart. So far apart, it might be impossible for them to ever fall back together.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44582454

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Review

I normally do not read romance at all, but I trusted my bookish ladies on Instagram and gave it a go. And Oh My Gosh I am so glad that I did. This book gave me all the feels!

What I mean by that is that I was actually feeling the emotions that Clara and Morgan were feeling. I was upset when terrible things happened and gleeful when excited new opportunities arose for them.

Regretting You did not make me cry, but there were times when my sorrow was so incredible that I had to walk away from the book and go find my boyfriend to be comforted because I could not imagine living in a world without the people that I loved the most.

That’s the thing about Colleen Hoover. She doesn’t write “normal” romance and I will say that time and time again. Her books are unlike any other romance book that I have ever read. I don’t just feel mushy and gushy but I feel sorrow, hurt, betrayal, and euphoria. Her writing is magnificent and if you haven’t read a Colleen Hoover book yet… well you need to. Trust me.

I absolutely recommended this book to romance lovers and haters alike.

I want to thank NetGalley and Montlake Romance for providing me with the ebook in exchange for my honest review.

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Xoxo

Shannon

The Furies by Katie Lowe | Book Review

Hey friends! I have to admit that I kind of fell off the rocker here in my bookish internet world. But, as I said to my followers on Instagram, I am trying to get better!

However, I did enjoy my break! It was nice to just reset my mindset and start over in a way!

With that being said I am bringing you a very overdue book review of the Furies by Katie Lowe.

Overdue in the sense that I finished the Furies over a month ago. Please forgive me, friends

The Furies by Katie Lowe

The Furies by Katie Lowe

Ebook edition: 357 Pages

Published October 8, 2019 by St. Martin’s Press

Average Rating on Goodreads: 3.15 Stars (1,482 ratings)

Synopsis:

This page-turning, harrowing debut is the story of a girl trying to fit in, whose obsessive new friends and desperation to belong leads her to places she’d never imagined…dark, dangerous, and possibly even violent.

“The Furies us a haunting tale of angry, young women, the fates they hold and the furies they possess. Katie Lowe steers her juggernaut through twists of madness, revenge and murder to a finish that resonates deeply. It still hasn’t left me.” – Peter Filardi, screenwriter of The Craft

In 1998, a sixteen-year-old girl is found dead. She’s posed on a swing on her boarding school’s property, dressed in all white, with no known cause of death.Whispers and rumors swirl, with no answers. But there are a few who know what happened; there is one girl who will never forget. One year earlier: a new student, Violet, steps on the campus of Elm Hollow Academy, an all-girl’s boarding school on the outskirts of a sleepy coastal town. This is her fresh start, her chance to begin again in the wake of tragedy, leave her demons behind. Bright but a little strange, uncertain and desperate to fit in, she soon finds herself invited to an advanced study group, led by her alluring and mysterious art teachers Annabel. There, with three other girls – Alex, Grace, and Robin – the five of them delve into the school’s long buried grim history: of Greek and Celtic legends; of the school founder’s “academic” interest in the occult; of gruesome 17th century witch trials. Annabel does her best to convince the girls that her classes aren’t related to ancient rites and rituals, and that they are just history and mythology. But the more she tries to warn the girls off the topic, the more they are drawn to it, and the possibility that they can harness magic for themselves. Violet quickly finds herself wrapped up in this heady new world of lawless power – except she is needled by the disappearance of a former member of the group, one with whom Violet shares an uncanny resembles. As her friends’ actions take a turn for the darker and spiral out of control, she begins to wonder who she can trust, all the while becoming more deeply entangled. How far will these young girls go to protect on another…or destroy one another?

Rating: 3 stars

Review:

I had such high hopes for the Furies. Seriously this book had so many key terms that appealed to me.

– magic

– the occult

– witches

But, the whole thing just really fell flat for me. Violet, the main character, seemed to lack any real drive or characterization. She just kinda went with the flow and did anything to fit in to this new school. Including participating in murder??? Like hello?

Let me back up a bit. I am not here to bash this book, and clearly I did enjoy it a bit if I gave it 3 stars instead of 2.

I just feel that Katie Lowe could have done more with the story.

I wanted more magic. The synopsis talks about these girl harnessing this dangerous black magic but like….nothing really becomes of it? The deaths that we witness are not magically induced for the most part. They are “accidental” and just straight up murder.

If Katie comes out with a sequel, I will definitely read it in hopes that it expands upon some of my questions that the Furies left me with.

I need to know Annabel’s connection to everything, I definitely do not think that she is innocent in all of this.

I need to know more about the founder of the Academy and why that one teacher (I seriously forget his name already) was spending so much time researching the history of the school. There is no way that is just a coincidence.

I also just need to know more about Alex, Grace, and Robin. Seeing them through Violet’s eyes alone wasn’t enough.

I was left unsatisfied and needing more explanation for EVERYTHING.

Did you feel the same way? What did you end up rating The Furies?

* Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for my e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

You can purchase The Furies here

XOXO,

Shannon

Holly Banks Full of Angst by Julie Valerie | Book Review

Holly Banks Full of Angst by Julie Valerie

My 30 book of 2019!! Which was my goal for the year 😄

Goodreads

Buy a copy on Amazon

Holly Banks could not have made a worse first impression on the seemingly perfect moms in her new affluent community, the Village of Primm. Turns out wearing pink piggy pajama bottoms while dropping off her kindergartener late to the first day of school wasn’ther best look.

Not to mention Holly’s worried her husband may be having an affair, she can’t get her daughter to stop sucking her thumb, her hard-won film degree is collecting dust, and to top it all off, the power-hungry PTA president clearly has it in for her…

To make matters even worse, Holly’s natural eye for drama lands her smack-dab in the middle of a neighborhood mystery—right as her own crazy mother shows up in Primm “to help.” Through it all, Holly begins to realize her neighbors may be just as flawed as—and even wackier than—she is, leaving her to wonder: Is there such a thing as a perfect mom?

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was very unsure when I started reading Holly Banks Full of Angst because I don’t typically read contemporary with a splash of comedy.

I was also worried that I wouldn’t connect to the story because I’m not a mom and I don’t have a kindergartner.

BUT I LOVED IT!! And Holly is so relatable even to me, a 24-year-old hot mess.

Holly Banks is delightful and hilariously relatable! Holly just wants the best for her family and herself and I can appreciate that so so much.

Besides Holly, the other characters are extremely entertaining.

Mary-Margaret can be a lot to swallow when you begin reading. But, she found her own special place in my heart.

My favorite moments (that had me belly laughing):

• Cookie fight

• the scrapbooking fiasco

• school drop off OTD (outfit of the day)

Moments that made me sad:

• dead topiaries

• Plume’s fate

Nothing can compare to this book. I am so happy that I picked it up and was able to review it for Julie!

Holly Banks Full of Angst comes out December 1 BUT if you have Amazon Prime you can select it as your Amazon First Reads choice! Which I highly recommend 😉

Thank you to NetGalley and Julie Valerie for my review copy!! But, all opinions are my own!

Xoxo,

Shannon

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood | Book Review

I finished The Testaments awhile ago…like weeks ago. It took me awhile to sit on what I wanted to say and I still really don’t know what I want to say so I am just going to go for it. What could go wrong?

Book 19 of 2019

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood

Publisher: Double Day Books

Genre: Fiction/Sci-Fi/Dystopian/Feminist

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

In this brilliant sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale, acclaimed author Margaret Atwood answers the questions that have tantalized readers for decades.

When the van door slammed on Offred’s future at the end of The Handmaid’s Tale, readers had no way of telling what lay ahead for her–freedom, prison or death.

With The Testaments, the wait is over.

Margaret Atwood’s sequel picks up the story more than fifteen years after Offred stepped into the unknown, with the explosive testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.

“Dear Readers: Everything you’ve ever asked me about Gilead and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we’ve been living in.” –Margaret Atwood

To me, The Testaments, was like a hurricane.

Out of nowhere we see this book being whispered about in the corners of the internet. Maybe..possibly..just a rumor.

Then suddenly, everyone is talking about it. I saw the Testaments on every single social media platform. It was hard to believe. The Handmaid’s Tale FINALY has a sequel.

Then…it arrived at my house. I tried to protect myself from the onslaught of early reviews and opinions so I can form my own.

Once I was done reading…the Testaments faded back and disappeared.

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The Testaments is a great example of an overhyped book. I was so so so excited to get my hands on the sequel to the Handmaid’s Tale and I couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed.

Let me explain why.

1. We get 3 different perspectives and NONE of them are June
2. The entire “Baby Nicole” thing seems to have been born from the Netflix series and felt just weird to me
3. I couldn’t discern what was a product of the Netflix series and what was truly the natural progression from the Handmaid’s Tale book

Almost a month later and I am so confused.

But, if I remove everything I know about the Netflix series (which is hard) from my mind and think of the Testaments as its own unique story then I found I could enjoy it.

I did enjoy seeing Gilead 14 years after where we left off with the Handmaid’s Tale. It was weird seeing Agnes and Nicole all grown up – but I feel like they would have been older than Atwood said they were.

Like this girl needs a timeline.

Forget putting a map on the front page give me a god damn time line!

(sorry, collecting myself)

The Testaments on its own was a very good, entertaining read and I was very happy with the way Atwood connected the 3 different povs at the end of the book.

However, I am upset with the Testaments as a sequel. And because of that, I gave it 4 stars.

While my review is (mostly) spoiler free…the comments may not be! Talk to me fam! What did you think? What are you disappointed about? What did you absolutely love?

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XOXO,

Shannon

The Twenty-Ninth Day: Surviving A Grizzly Attack in the Canadian Tundra | Book Review

Book 24 of 2019
Picture from my Insta 🙂

The Twenty-Ninth Day by Alex Messenger

To be published on November 12 by Blackstone Publishing (272 pages – Kindle edition)

Genre: Non-Fiction/Contemporary

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A six-hundred-mile canoe trip in the Canadian wilderness is a seventeen-year-old’s dream adventure, but after he is mauled by a grizzly bear, it’s all about staying alive.

This true-life wilderness survival epic recounts seventeen-year-old Alex Messenger’s near-lethal encounter with a grizzly bear during a canoe trip in the Canadian tundra. The story follows Alex and his five companions as they paddle north through harrowing rapids and stunning terrain. Twenty-nine days into the trip, while out hiking alone, Alex is attacked by a barren-ground grizzly. Left for dead, he wakes to find that his summer adventure has become a struggle to stay alive. Over the next hours and days, Alex and his companions tend his wounds and use their resilience, ingenuity, and dogged perseverance to reach help at a remote village a thousand miles north of the US-Canadian border.

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It’s hard to give a star rating to someone’s life story and experiences so I am not going to for the purpose of this blog. Sorry not sorry.

On websites that require me to give my star rating, I will give this book 4.5 stars (rounded up to 5) because:

At times I forgot that I was reading a nonfiction story because I was so engrossed by the events that he was reliving.

Alex Messenger does a great job with recounting his experiences and delivering them to us as readers in a way that is entertaining while still sticking to what truly happened.

I mean, this man SURVIVED a GRIZZLY BEAR attack in the wilderness. Like how can I rate that badly? And not only did he survive, but he was able to go home and live his life in a way to help others do what he loved to do.

I enjoyed seeing these 6 boys turn into men in one trip into the Canadian Tundra. I not only loved seeing how Alex survived but how his friends rose to the occasion and made due with what they had.

Those boys lost a canoe, ended up short on supplies, figured their way out of an ice filled lake, and helped their friend survive a terrible Grizzly Bear attack.

If you are looking for a book similar to the Revenant, then you will be disappointed. There is no one on one with a Grizzly for revenge. No alone in the wilderness to die without any aid. There is no drama.

If you are looking for an intense coming of age story that is true then you will be very pleased.

I personally love hiking, kayaking, camping, and being outdoors in general so I may be a bit bias, but this story made me feel for Alex and his friends. Being in these situations can be difficult and strenuous on relationships and they made it all look easy.

There were several moments when I had to think about what I would have done if I were in their shoes.

Alex, thank you so much for sharing your story. I hope it resonates with others as much as it has with me.

XOXO,

Shannon

House of Salt and Sorrows | Book Review

Book 18 of 2019
Picture Courtesy of my own Insta 🙂

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

Published: August 6, 2019 by Delacorte Press – 400 pages (BOTM hardback edition)

Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy/Retelling

Average Rating: 4.02

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Like always, lets begin with a brief synopsis. Provided by the blurb on my dust jacket!

Annaleigh lives a sheltered life at Highmoor, a manor by the sea, with her sisters and their father and stepmother. Once there were twelve, but loneliness fills the grand halls now that four of the girls’ lives have been cut short. Each death was more tragic than the last – the plague, a plummeting fall, a drowning, a slippery plunge – and there are whispers throughout the surrounding villages that the family is cursed by the gods.

Disturbed by a series of ghostly visions, Annaleigh becomes increasingly suspicious that her sisters’ deaths were no accidents. The girls have been sneaking out every night to attend glittering balls, dancing until dawn in silk gowns and shimmering slippers, and Annaleigh isn’t sure whether to try to stop them or join their forbidden trysts. Because who – or what – are they really dancing with?

When Annaleigh’s involvement with a mysterious stranger who has secrets of his own intensifies, it’s a race to unravel the darkness that has fallen over her family – before it claims her next.

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Alright, so I’m gonna be doing these reviews a little bit differently moving forward. I am no longer going to provide the lengthy breakdown of why I chose my rating. Hopefully, my review alone will be enough to indicate why I rate a book the way I do.

With that being said I gave House of Salt and Sorrows . . . 5 Stars! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I read this book as part of a buddy read with BabyGotBooks over on instagram. She is a wonderful human and you should go check out her page!

The book opens with a funeral of Eulalie, the 4th sister to die a tragic death among the Thaumas sisters. Their way of life in the Salt requires that her body be delivered back to the Salt. “We, the People of the Salt, commit this body back to the sea” (page 1).

In my opinion, the opening of a book is very important. Craig did a great job of drawing me in with the first paragraph. . .

Candlelight reflected off the silver anchor etched onto my sister’s necklace. It was an ugly piece of jewelry and something Eulalie would never have picked out for herself. She loved simple strands of gold, extravagant collars of diamonds. Not . . . that. Papa must have selected it for her. I fumbled at my own necklace of black pearls, wanting to offer her something more stylish, but the battalion of pallbearers shut the coffin lid before I could undo the clasp.”

opening paragraph, page 1

Erin Craig does a wonderful job at showing her audience instead of telling her audience and that alone could have earned this book its 5 star rating.

The remaining 8 Thaumus sisters go into mourning for the 5th time (their mother, Ava, Octavia, Elizabeth and Eulalie). However, this time is a little bit different. The family is forced to come out of mourning barely 1 month later instead of the “normal” one year.

For me, this set the stage for me to be suspicious of every character . . . and I was. I was absolutely not prepared for a fantasy mystery but I enjoyed it until the very last sentence of this book.

Not only was I trying to figure out who or what was killing the girls, I was trying to figure out why Verity (the youngest) could see ghosts and the other girls couldn’t, I was trying to figure out how they were getting to all of these magical balls, and I was trying to figure out who Cassius was and why he seemed to be such an important character.

Speaking of Cassius…he is my new fictional boyfriend and if you have read House of Salt and Sorrows then you COMPLETELY understand me.

But I digress . . .

I had no clue what was going to happen in this book from one chapter to the next. Was I reading a murder mystery? A terrifying ghost story? A paranormal book about demi-gods . . . wellllll . . . IM TRYING TO HARD NOT TO RUIN THIS BOOK BY GIVING SPOILERS and I am having a HARD time.

There were so many casualties in this book I felt like I was reading a YA George RR Martin book. ha!

It’s been at least a week since I have finished this book and I can confidently say that I still think about it. I did not see the ending coming at all, but it felt right. I can’t stress enough how important it is for me to not be able to guess the ending but for it to also make sense, like I should have known the whole time.

The only thing I wasn’t keen on was at the Churning Dinner at Highmoor Annaleigh’s Papa starts a challenge for the young men to find out why the daughters’ slippers are being worn through so quickly and nothing really becomes of that.

However, the good outweighs that one tiny negative so I still give this book 5 stars.

I am in love with the characters in this book and I am so sad that it is a standalone. I want more of the Thaumas sisters. I want to find out what happens after the end.

The Thaumas sisters have captured my heart. I recommend this book to all fantasy lovers, fairy tale dreams, and mystery solvers!

xoxo,

Shannon

PS Don’t forget about the YA Book of the Month special offer that is running until the end of September! If you sign up with my link: http://book-of-the-month.ixmz.net/X9XjG and code ‘YALIT’ you can get any of the 5 September YA picks for $5!!! These books normally run for $15 ($10 for your first box) so you are saving $10. You seriously cannot beat that 🙂

After the Flood by Kassandra Montag | Book Review

Book 17 of 2019

“From the water we came and to the water we will return, our lungs always hungering for air, but our hearts beating like waves.”

Synopsis:

A little more than a century from now, our world has been utterly transformed. After years of slowly overtaking the continent, rising floodwaters have obliterated America’s great coastal cities and then its heartland, leaving nothing but an archipelago of mountaintop colonies surrounded by a deep expanse of open water.

Stubbornly independent Myra and her precocious seven-year-old daughter, Pearl, fish from their small boat, the Bird, visiting dry land only to trade for supplies and information in the few remaining outposts of civilization. For seven years, Myra has grieved the loss of her oldest daughter, Row, who was stolen by her father after a monstrous deluge overtook their home in Nebraska. Then, in a violent confrontation with a stranger, Myra suddenly discovers that Row was last seen in a far-off encampment near the Artic Circle. Throwing aside her usual caution, Myra and Pearl embark on a perilous voyage into the icy northern seas, hoping against hope that Row will still be there.

On their journey, Myra and Pearl join forces with a larger ship and Myra finds herself bonding with her fellow seekers who hope to build a safe haven together in this dangerous new world. But secrets, lust, and betrayals threaten their dream, and after their fortunes take a shocking—and bloody—turn, Myra can no longer ignore the question of whether saving Row is worth endangering Pearl and her fellow travelers.

A compulsively readable novel of dark despair and soaring hope, After the Flood is a magnificent, action packed, and sometimes frightening odyssey laced with wonder—an affecting and wholly original saga both redemptive and astonishing.

rating breakdown:

Storyline: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Writing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Characters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Emotion: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Review:

I changed my mind on my rating again…

When I swiped to the last page of Kassandra Montag’s book After the Flood, my initial thought was, “Man that is just a 4 star read for me.” My main reasoning was I found it hard to connect to Myra as a character. But, that shouldn’t stop me from rating a book what it truly deserves.

I found it difficult to relate to Myra because of her overwhelming need to get her daughter back. I am a 24 year old childless adult. There is NO WAY I CAN RELATE TO THAT FEELING. But, then I thought about it a little bit more….

I am the eldest of 5 children. I have one younger brother (22) and 3 younger sisters (19, 15, and 13). While they are all older than Pearl who is 7, Row would have been 12 in the book. So then I thought about Abby (the 13 year old), possibly alone near the Arctic Circle, about to board a breeding ship for the rest of her life, and needing me to save her. Well, that completely changed how I looked at Myra’s character.

Myra is a strong, independent mother of two, trying to do the best she can to raise her daughter in extreme circumstances while trying to rescue the other. Talk about a power character. While the story does show us some of Myra’s stress and inability to let her guard down I cannot even imagine being in her shoes.

Now I want to talk about Pearl really quick. Keep in mind that she is 7 years old and has basically spent her entire life aboard a ship and on water.

She is a badass child. And I mean, considering how much of a bad ass Myra is it is only fitting that Pearl be the same. Without giving too much away…

CAN YOU IMAGINE A 7 YEAR OLD CHILD WITH VIPERS?!?! (and other less threatening snakes)

You can’t. It’s not normal

Unless you’ve read After the Flood

Because for Pearl, snakes are her life. To me that is both amazing and terrifying at the same time. She is a 7 year old bad ass. You will NOT find me holding unknown quantities of snakes even in post-apocalyptic water filled life as we know it.

Then there is Daniel and Abran. Myra’s two…”love” interests if you will 😂

I just want to say that I am #teamDaniel and a day 1 Daniel fan. He is tough and sweet and gentle and caring. Man. I need me a Daniel.

Abran seemed to be all of those wonderful things at first but, he is really just a whiny alcoholic and…..

**SPOILER ALERT**

…I’m glad he’s dead.

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I am a BIG fan of dystopian, apocalyptic, and post-apocalyptic storylines.

But, I tend to find they are all kind of the same.

Not, After the Flood.

It is as refreshing as writing about the human race on its last limb as it can get.

I haven’t read a dystopian novel that is set mainly at sea ever. Actually, I don’t think I read many novels set at sea period.

It took awhile for me to get use to some of the lingo, but that did not take away from the story for me at all.

I loved when they stopped at trading posts and we got to see what kind of life people have built on what land is left.

I found myself getting nervous and anxious right along with Pearl when I storm would crash over the boat. I kept thinking, “What will they do if they sink?”

The suspense of trying to get to the Valley, staying afloat, and the possibility of being overthrown by raiders really drove the plot onward.

I felt things for the characters like they were real people. I mourned the loss of a finger, crew-mates, and a daughter we never met.

After the Flood is a great tale of human perseverance and hope and possibly one of my favorite books of the year.

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Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow books for this electronic advanced reading copy in exchange for my honest review.

Get your very own copy here!

Book Review | Spellslinger by Sebastien de Castell

Book 15 of 2019

synopsis:

A would-be mage with no magic of his own has to defeat powerful enemies with only cunning and deception in the first book of an exciting adventure fantasy series from Sebastien de Castell.

Kellen is moments away from facing his first duel and proving his worth as a spellcaster. There’s just one problem: his magic is fading.

Facing exile unless he can pass the mage trials, Kellen is willing to risk everything – even his own life – in search of a way to restore his magic. But when the enigmatic Ferius Parfax arrives in town, she challenges him to take a different path.

One of the elusive Argosi, Ferius is a traveller who lives by her wits and the cards she carries. Daring, unpredictable, and wielding magic Kellen has never seen before, she may be his only hope.

The first novel in a compelling six-book series, bursting with tricks, humor, and a whole new way to look at magic.

Rating Breakdown:

Storyline: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Characters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Writing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Emotion: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Alright, I kinda changed my mind about my rating after I sat and thought about it some more. When I finished the book I automatically gave it 5 stars on Goodreads. But….after letting it marinate in my mind I took half of a star away.

For a book to get 5 stars from me I have to really feel a connection to the story, the universe it is set in, or a character. And that just didn’t happen for me.

I really enjoyed the story and the characters, even the side characters. But, I just didn’t find myself thinking about the book once it was over.

But, even though I didn’t find myself wandering back to this magical universe in my spare time, I still throughly enjoyed this book and will be picking up the others in the series. (yes, that noise you hear is my bank account sobbing)

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I really did not know how this book was going to end. In that aspect I was always on my toes picking up every detail to try to see where the story might take me.

I was expecting tons of magic and I was not disappointed. I also loved how Castell weaved trickery and “unconventional magic” into the storyline as well.

I WISH I COULD TALK ABOUT THE PARTS I DIDN’T SEE COMING…but then I would ruin it for you. But OMG. There were SEVERAL points toward the end of the book that I did not see coming at all. I devoured the last half of this book because crazy things just kept happening!

I enjoy when I am shocked by a change in events or a major reveal and boy did this book mark off those boxes.

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Ferius might have been my favorite character. She was always showing up at the right time to save Kellen’s ass. She never gave Kellen the answer straight up and made him figure it out which I loved.

I found Kellen to be very smart and cunning. He was always trying to persevere even without magic.

His sister fit the role of annoying little sister so perfectly. But, she was also very helpful when Kellen needed her.

I was not expecting romance in this book at all. And I hate when I book just randomly throws in a romance that doesn’t fit and seems out of place. This wasn’t the case with Spellslinger. I enjoyed the tiny bit of romance that Kellen builds in the beginning of the book and it was nice to see it come to fruition at the end. It wasn’t my favorite, but I am happy it was a part of the story.

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Castell’s writing made the magical world come to life and I felt like I was watching things unfold before my eyes. He captured his characters’ personalities so well! I even found myself laughing out loud at some of Kellen’s thoughts and that never happens!

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and it was a great way for me to finish August! (yes, I am only now getting to my review, let me be)

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Get a copy for yourself here!

XO, Shannon

Book Review: Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this read when I picked up the book.

I finished reading in 2 days and I have some thoughts to share…

Book 14 of 2019 – Source

Book description:

“It thrills us and torments us. It controls our thoughts, destroys our lives, and it’s all we live for. Yet we almost never speak of it. And as a buried force in our lives, desire remains largely unexplored – until now. Over the past eight years, journalist Lisa Taddeo has driven across the country six times to embed herself with ordinary women from different regions and backgrounds. The result, Three Women, is the deepest nonfiction portrait of desire ever written and one of the most anticipated books of the year. 

We begin in suburban Indiana with Lina, a homemaker and mother of two whose marriage, after a decade, has lost its passion. She passes her days cooking and cleaning for a man who refuses to kiss her on the mouth, protesting that “the sensation offends” him. To Lina’s horror, even her marriage counselor says her husband’s position is valid. Starved for affection, Lina battles daily panic attacks. When she reconnects with an old flame trough social media, she embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming. 

In North Dakota we meet Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student who finds a confidant in her handsome, married, English teacher. By Maggie’s account, supportive nightly texts and phone calls evolve into a clandestine physical relationship, with plans to skip school on her eighteenth birthday and make love all day; instead, he breaks up with her on the morning he turns thirty. A few years later, Maggie has no degree, no career, and no dreams to live for. When she learns that this man has been names North Dakota’s Teacher of the Year, she steps forward with her story – and is met with disbelief by former schoolmates and the jury that hears her case. The trial will turn their quiet community upside down. 

Finally, in an exclusive enclave of the Northeast, we meet Sloane – a gorgeous, successful, and refined restaurant owner – who is happily married to a man who likes to watch her have sec with other men and women. He picks out her partners for her alone or for a threesome, and she ensures that everyone’s needs are satisfied. For years, Sloane has been asking herself where her husband’s desire ends and hers begins. One day, they invite a new man into their bed – but he brings a secret with him that will finally force Sloane to confront the uneven power dynamics that fuel their lifestyle. 

Based on years of immersive reporting, and told with astonishing frankness and immediacy, Three Women is a groundbreaking portrait of erotic longing in today’s America, exposing the fragility, complexity, and inequality of female desire with unprecedented depth and emotional power. It is both a feat of journalism and a triumph of storytelling, brimming with nuance and empathy, that introduces us to these three unforgettable women – and one writer – whose experiences remind us that we are not alone. “

Wow, what a mouthful! However, I felt it was completely necessary to place the entire book summary here for those that have read this book and for those that have not.

Are you still with me? You are? Good.

ratings:

Storyline: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Characters: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Writing: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Emotion: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Overall: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Yupp, that’s right. ANOTHER 5 STAR READ!

Most people do not like to talk about sex and desire. You don’t openly discuss your sex partners with your family on Thanksgiving. Sex and desire are still relatively taboo subjects to talk about. That’s what makes Three Women so great in my opinion. Lisa Taddeo is not only reporting on these women’s stories but she is creating a topic for everyone else to talk about.

Now more than ever we need to talk about our bodies, our wants, our desires. Why? Because this world is trying to control what we do with them! We have to talk about what we want! By now we should all know that men cannot read our minds and that we have to ASK for what we want.

These three women, Lina, Maggie, and Sloane, broke through the taboo through Lisa Taddeo. They told their stories not just to her, but to the world.

I am a big fan of people’s individual stories. Tell me where you grew up. Who was your best friend? Tell me why you and your Aunt have a rocky relationship that started when you were 12. TELL ME.

That’s one of the biggest reasons I loved this book so much, I got to hear these women’s stories. From their mouths and through Lisa. The patriarchy did not silence them even when it seemed like their own demons were going to keep them quiet.

Ladies, if you did not like this book that is okay. But, may I suggest you think about a few things.

Think back to a time where you were completely head over heels for a man or a woman. Think about how that felt. Those feelings in your blood that boil all day long because all you do is think of that person. Now think about that person slowly pulling away – losing contact. What would you do? Let those feelings go? No, why would you? You want to feel good. That’s what we really want right? So maybe now you understand Lina a little bit better. She thought Aiden was all she was going to have in terms of connection, affection, basic human interaction. It’s no wonder she came to his beg and call. If she said no to his texts what would that mean for her feel good feeling? When you don’t get something you need you will find it in other ways, and that is what Lina did. While, I did cringe at some points during Lina’s story, I had to put myself into her shoes to understand why. To understand why she would do that to herself for some hillbilly high school crush. It didn’t matter who it was – it matter what she was getting out of it.

Now, think back to high school. For some of you it may have been awhile and for other super recent. But, think about how lost you felt and searched for others to lead you along. Those that were older, had older siblings, knew the ropes. What if you had a teacher that was guiding you not only through school but through life. That would have been nice right? Now, what if they were cute? Made your heart pound and your hands sweat. You would follow along with what they say because they are older than you, know what life may bring. Now you can feel for Maggie.

For Sloane’s case, I had a hard time trying to relate to her story so I really don’t have a scenario to give you. But, that does not make her experiences less valid or her feelings less true.

We as women need to understand that we all come from different situations and mindsets. We need to fight together and not against each other.

And that my friends, is why I loved Three Women. I feel connected to these women and their stories. I feel the taboo slipping away. I feel a breakthrough.

I seriously recommend this book to every woman. But, young readers be wary, there is a lot of sexual content and descriptions.

Happy Reading!

XOXO, Shannon