![]() ![]() ![]() “Though magic can shape life and death, love is the one thing it cannot control” The underlying concept of the novel is very strong. Not the Princess Ariel but the story of Ursula, the iconic sea villainess we all hated as children for stealing Ariel’s voice. The Sea Witch by Sara Henning is a twisted spin on the beloved fairy tale ‘The Little Mermaid’. We begin to question this, are villains really evil ? or are they the creation of the world around them? Are they always wrong? Or just wronged by people? A villain is born or are they created? As a reader, I have always been interested in the other side of the story. However, Fairy tales are one-sided, one perspective which always seems to be enough for us as kids but as we grow up this changes. This is the blueprint of stories we grow up with. We all have a fairy tale that we connect to – memories of staying curled up in bed as children reading these classic tales of romance – The Girl Meets Boy, Obstacles keep them away, A Sacrifice, True Love’s Kiss, A Happily Ever After. Coolly watching as we don black and add tears to her waters when she is wicked.”įairy-tale, who does not love one? It is in our sweetest memories and for many of us the stepping stone to becoming reader’s ourselves. Filling our bellies and our coffers when she is generous. Beautiful and cruel, and every glimmering wrinkle in between. She is just as likely to bestow a kiss as to steal the breath from your lips. ![]()
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![]() ![]() ‘ Unstoppable Us is the book that I wanted to read as a kid,’ says the author. From explaining how fire shrank our stomachs to analysing what football teaches us about our species, this book is a delightful exploration of the rise of the human race. While it’s aimed at young readers, this book is just as intelligent and informative as Yuval’s multi-million bestselling adult book, Sapiens. With gorgeous full-colour illustrations and approachable language, the book dives into each of these key points, illuminating a whole new side of history. The first in a four-volume series, Unstoppable Us touches on four key themes. ‘The answer to that is one of the strangest tales you’ll ever hear. ![]() ![]() ‘We humans aren’t strong like lions, we don’t swim as well as dolphins and we definitely don’t have wings! So how did we end up ruling the planet?’ the book asks. Have you ever wondered how we came to be the unstoppable species we are today? ![]() ![]() ![]() Agatha tells them not to since she will be out of town at a NowNext retreat for members and guests. She suggests that they go to the United States for a holiday to visit Agatha, who now lives in California. Wayward Son begins with Penelope wanting a change of scene. There are interludes from new characters as well, including Shepard. The story is narrated by multiple characters, including Simon, Baz, Agatha and Penny. Wayward Son opens about a year and a half after Simon Snow's final showdown with the humdrum and shows that a lot has changed since he fell from grace as the "Chosen One". The novel is the second book in the Simon Snow trilogy, which is a spinoff of the novel Fangirl. The story is narrated by multiple characters. The group finds themselves in the United States under the guise of visiting their friend, Agatha, in California, but the story takes the characters on a road trip filled with cryptids, self-discovery, and a new friend. ![]() It explores their young adult lives and how they navigate them now that Simon destroyed the biggest threat to the World of Mages, the universe's British sect of magic. ![]() The story follows Simon Snow and his friends a year and a half after the end of the first book of the trilogy, Carry On. Wayward Son is the fourth young adult novel written by Rainbow Rowell, published in 2019. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() But after a decade, the weight of secret resentments has grown too heavy for the group’s tenuous nostalgia to bear. The trip began innocently enough: admiring the stunning if foreboding scenery, champagne in front of a crackling fire, and reminiscences about the past. Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead. They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands-the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves. ![]() One of them is a killer.ĭuring the languid days of the Christmas break, a group of thirtysomething friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. and murder and mayhem ensue.Īll of them are friends. “My favorite kind of whodunit, kept me guessing all the way through, and reminiscent of Agatha Christie at her best - with an extra dose of acid.” - Alex Michaelides, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Silent PatientĮveryone's invited.everyone's a suspect.įor fans of Ruth Ware and Tana French, a shivery, atmospheric, page-turning novel of psychological suspense in the tradition of Agatha Christie, in which a group of old college friends are snowed in at a hunting lodge. Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks Reprint edition (March 3, 2020).For more stops on this tour, check out this link. ![]() ![]() ![]() In the midst of juggling life as a high school student, testing her wings as an actress, and dealing with friends who don't always understand, Lupita desperately wants to support Mami in whatever way she can. Suddenly Lupita must face a whole new set of challenges, with new roles to play, and no one is handing her the script. ![]() But when she discovers Mami has been diagnosed with cancer, Lupita is terrified by the possibility of losing her mother, the anchor of her close-knit Mexican American family. As the oldest of eight siblings, Lupita is used to taking the lead-and staying busy behind the scenes to help keep everyone together. Morris Award for YA Debut Novel Finalist, American Library Association (ALA) Best Teen Books, Kirkus Reviews Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award, International Literacy Association (ILA) Lupita, a budding actor and poet in a close-knit Mexican American immigrant family, comes of age as she struggles with adult responsibilities during her mother's long illness. ![]() Pura Belpré Author Award Winner, Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Notable Children's Book, Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Notable Books for a Global Society, International Literacy Association (ILA) Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award Finalist, Assembly on Literature for Adolescents William C. ![]() ![]() ![]() Goal #7: Stop wasting my breath on lectures and start annoying the quad hell squad every time they annoy me. ![]() Goal #6: Get a new name that’s more badass. ![]() Goal #5: Get out of hell’s belly without letting my ungrateful charges die. So, I’ve checked off some life goals and added a few new ones to my list. It was slightly awkward, and it had me wondered if it would be all about sex, but thank god, it wasn’t, and in this book, Keyla and the guys haven’t advanced to that stage yet. The mysteries to who Keyla and the four guys were, their origins, what sort of powers await them once they finished with the leveled-up, and who’s behind all the ruckus were what made this book fascinating. At this point, the four guys had named her Keyla, based on the badass female character in the Zombie show on telly, which she liked. It’s not like anyone else is perfect either.įour psychos? No, make it five, including the female phantom who didn’t have any memories or name □. Goal #3: Figure out who/what I am and why I can’t remember anything past the five years I’ve been haunting this quad. Goal #2: Convince the four men I’ve been haunting for the past five years to pick me to be their new toy after goal one is complete. Goal #1: Become a real girl instead of this invisible ghost thing I currently am. ![]() ![]() ![]() Because of this fact, we are hooked in by a story of a skinny white kid from California transplanted to Hawaii, a tropical surfer’s paradise, where life is both glamourous and harsh. ![]() The author’s father lands the job of production manager for all those Hawaiian-based TV series that splashed across TV screens in the ’70s. This is a travelling surfer’s life story, told not through the prism of the desperate need to win heats in professional competition, but of a man wrestling with an activity that has him: “floating between two worlds, between society that had no rational content … there was a deep well of beauty and wonder in it … My enchantment would take me where it would”. Barbarian Days, A Surfing Life by William Finnegan. However, Finnegan has made a valiant attempt to argue our case. ![]() I suspect this is why William Finnegan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning surfing biography is called Barbarian Days. It’s in that moment when your partner catches you looking out the window at the toetoe plants for wind directions, and checking the tides at the most inconvenient times of the day. “Surfers are self-centered arseholes sometimes.” I’m sure the surf obsessed among us recognise this sentiment. ![]() ![]() ![]() It starts off as a typical good-vs.-evil type of story, but as you read on, you realize its more of a group of morally grey characters, which to me, always makes for a more interesting story. It’s got some Russian (Kalyazin) and Polish (Tranavia) inspiration in the ways of the two sparring countries, and fellow readers are really drawn to the different types of religions and how they’ve been such a huge driving force of the larger, outer conflict this story represents. ![]() Heavily compared to the Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo, this YA-Fantasy trilogy has also been said by fans who shipped Alina Starkov with The Darkling will really enjoy this story, to which I can definitely agree with!įans of the genre have been drawn to this darkly gothic tale of a nation torn in half because of a holy war, and even Owlcrate created their own special editions of the books that honestly look even better than the originals. ![]() To see my Fancast/Dreamcast of the series – Click HERE Total Star Rating: 3.75 Stars ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() The strength of Amal is beautiful and she is a great role model for teenage girls, struggling to stand up for themselves in a world of peer pressure and designer clothing trends. This is an incredibly powerful book that is perfect for teens, no matter what they believe in terms of religion. She stands up to people that scorn her and when upset, only lets it show to her closest friends and family. The headmaster at her private school is not too keen on Amal messing up the uniform system with the hajib, Tia, a snotty girl in Amal's class is set on making her feel like a loser, and Adam, the one boy Amal has had a crush on, seems to like her back, but also is somewhat uncomfortable with the whole religion thing.Īmal stands by the decision she made to wear her faith, quite literally, on her body. When she does decide to go forth with her plan to wear the hajib everywhere, except in the company of family, she knows she is setting herself up for prejudice. ![]() No, her parents are not forcing her, in fact, they are almost wary of her doing so, this is completely Amal's choice. Being a Muslim of strong faith, Amal wants to wear her hajib head covering all the time. In, Does My Head Look Big in This, by Australian author Randa Abdel-Fatthah, Amal, a typical 11th grade girl, is struggling with a very personal decision. It was on a topic that needed to be written about, at least in the YA genre, for quite a long time and I am so glad that it was this brand-spankin new author that decided to take on the task. ![]() ![]() ![]() Lovecraft is a genius (if a horrible sexist, Anti-Semite, and racist), and beyond that I know that Richard Layman is a person who exists and writes books (thanks to and beyond even that I read Goosebumps when I was around eight. I'm not overly familiar with the scene in any format - I know Stephen King sells quite a few books and has written quite a few books (I struggled mightily through It and *The Dark Half), and that H.P. I will be quite honest with you: I'm not much of a horror reader or watcher. ![]() This copy of the book does not include "The Saved," "The Black Phone: The Missing Chapter," or the author's Story Notes, which were present in the U.K. ![]() He chose to write under a pseudonym out of a desire to succeed on his own merits, rather than as a son of Stephen King, who is, of course, one of the world's best-selling and well-known authors. Joe Hill is, in fact, a pseudonym for Joe Hillstrom King, son of Stephen King. This is a collection of short stories written by author Joe Hill and first published in 2005. In this, the first short story collection by Joe Hill, both horror and beauty alike abound in fourteen fascinating tales. ![]() |
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May 2023
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