Tag: saturday

Giveaway-Win an ARC of Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko!

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A paperback ARC of Redemptor is being held in front of a gray blanket. Bea, a dilute calico cat, sniffs the corner of the cover.

Alexis:

Hi, everyone! I’m grateful that I received an ARC of Redemptor, the sequel to Raybearer. And I was given an extra copy to pass on to someone else!

Raybearer was one of my favorite reads of 2020, and I’m looking forward to reading Redemptor. Its publication date will be August 17th.

🎉TO ENTER :

-Head over to our Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/takestwotobookreview/

-Follow our account
-Like and save the giveaway post
-Tag a friend or two in the comments and tell me one of your favorite reads from this year so far!

🎉RULES:
-US only (This giveaway isn’t affiliated with the publisher, so it’s me covering shipping costs)
-Must be 18 or older
-Must be a public account
-Giveaway ends August 9th at 6 pm EST

Good luck, and happy Saturday!

DNF: Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

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A Kindle cover of Girl, Serpent, Thorn, is held up in front of a Good Morning mug and a small pot of yellow flowers.

Alexis:

The goods news: I’m officially done with grad school! I don’t graduate until next week, but I finished classes, my comprehensive exams, and turned in my thesis! I feel like I’ve been in school forever, so it’s a bit strange but exciting at the same time.

The not-so-great news: I had to DNF Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust. It’s been on my TBR for a long time, so I was excited to pick it up. It’s a Persian retelling of Sleeping Beauty, which sounds right up my alley.

This is not a bad book by any means. However, I just don’t think it’s for me.

The pacing was rather slow, which I don’t mind as long as I enjoy the characters. But I got 50% through the book and realized I didn’t care as much about the characters as I should. The writing style also wasn’t my favorite, and I had a hard time visualizing the world and a lot of what was going on. The actual plot was interesting, but I kept having to put this one down, and I decided it was best to DNF.

Maybe I’ll try picking up a physical copy sometime, and see if that helps move things along!

Review: Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw

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Alexis:

“The forest sticks to me.”

Happy day after Christmas, everyone! If you celebrate, I hope you had a wonderful day despite this very strange year.

Now, I’m always down for a story with a spooky forest.

Winterwood follows Nora, a seventeen-year-old girl who comes from a long line of Walkers: women with witch-like powers who live next to the creepy Wicker Woods. Nora finds a lost boy named Oliver alive in the woods despite a massive snowstorm, and works to unravel the mystery of how he survived. 

Things I liked:

I love Ernshaw’s writing. It’s lyrical and enchanting, reminding me of a dark fairy tale. It perfectly fits the lovely, cold, and haunted aesthetic of this book.

I loved the setting. Nora’s house sounds homey and witchy, and I enjoyed the descriptions of it, alongside the forest, from Nora’s perspective. 

Things I didn’t like as much:

Besides Nora, I never felt like I got far enough below surface level with the other characters, and sometimes I couldn’t pin down motivations. Usually, I love dual perspectives, but I felt like Oliver’s perspective didn’t reveal enough about him for me, and his amnesia didn’t help.

I loved the magic, but I wanted it to be talked about/explained even more. I never really understood how it worked, even with the many pages dedicated to the Walker ancestors.

While I loved Ernshaw’s writing, it was too repetitive sometimes. Even though it fits the nature of this story (by the end), and I usually love repetition, I think it was utilized just a little too much.

Lastly, I guessed one of the main plot reveals very, very early on, and it’s already a slow-moving story. On top of that, the book’s conclusion felt a bit like a cop-out.

Despite that, I really enjoyed reading this book, and I sped through it. I love Earnshaw’s writing, and I look forward to reading her future books, where hopefully the plot and characters will be a little more refined.

VERDICT: 🌲🌲🌲/5

Review: The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jimenez

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Alexis:

The Happy Ever After Playlist was another beach read chosen by my mom. When she finished reading it, she handed it to me and said, “Wow, I actually really liked that one!”

For fun, I looked it up on Goodreads, only to find out that it’s actually a sequel. But at the end of the book, Jimenez said that she wrote this one first. Regardless, I don’t think you need to read the first one at all to enjoy this one!

This was such a fun read. Under each chapter title is a song to go with the aesthetic of the chapter. I was so excited to find a number of some of my favorite songs included in the playlists. I ended up listening to most of the songs on Spotify when I started each chapter. Turns out, there’s an actual playlist for this book, so I definitely recommend checking it out!

Sloan’s fiance died two years ago, and on the anniversary of his death, she almost runs over a dog named Tucker. She takes the dog in and learns that his owner is a musician currently on tour in Australia. The chapters alternate in POV between Sloan and Jason as they get to know each other and fall in love pretty quickly.

This is pretty much everything you could want in a rom-com: dogs, drama, flirting, chemistry, music, and complete with some classic rom-com tropes later down the road.

The dialogue was hilarious, the chemistry between Sloan and Jason was certainly there, and I loved the whole playlist idea. The second half was a little more dramatic than I usually like, but I enjoyed reading this book until the end.

VERDICT: 📚📚📚📚📚

Review: The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd-Jones

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Alexis:

The Bone Houses is a historical fantasy novel, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite subgenres. It’s set in medieval Wales, and follows two main characters: Ryn, a gravedigger, and Ellis, a mapmaker.

Due to remnants of lost magic, the dead are rising in the forest neighboring Ryn’s small village of Colbren. She and Ellis, each for their own reasons, team together on a journey to eradicate the undead, known as bone houses.

I loved every page of this book. It was dark and gritty and full of death, but the characters were a joy to read, and the dialogue was great. I love dark books that take small scenes, small moments, to let the characters relax, enjoy themselves, and crack jokes.

This story is about home, family, and loss. I loved learning the stories and Welsh-inspired folklore of the world. I loved that Ryn’s sister’s pet goat became a main character; I’m a sucker for an animal sidekick!

Lately, it’s been a little rare for me to find two characters that I’ve enjoyed reading about and rooting for, but this book was it. And I haven’t read a lot of books lately with a cringeless romance, either. I appreciated the slow-burn romance in this book, and the fact that the characters actually took the time to become close friends first. It was a subplot, and it didn’t get in the way of the main story. It didn’t feel forced in the least!

And, finally, I loved that this story was well-written. Lloyd-Jones’ prose feels almost effortless to read, while also being lush and evocative.

“She was half a wild creature that loved a graveyard, the first taste of misty night air, and the heft of a shovel. She knew how things died. And in her darkest moments, she feared she did not know how to live.”

VERDICT: ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️/5

Review: Bone Crier’s Moon by Kathryn Purdie

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Alexis:

I’ll be honest: this book wasn’t my favorite.

Synopsis: In the Lands of South Galle, Bone Criers are a myth, except to Bastien, whose father was killed by a beautiful woman in white when he was a kid. Bone Criers are young women who must lure their soulmates to them, only to kill them as a sacrifice. This rite of passage allows Bone Criers (or Leuress, as they call themselves) to become Ferriers. Ferriers ferry dead souls to the afterlife. 

Bastien vows to take revenge on the Bone Criers, only for him to end up as the soulmate to the same Bone Crier he’s trying to kill. Ailesse is trying to complete her rite of passage in order to one day become the matriarch when she becomes entangled with Bastien, even though she knows she’s destined to kill him.

The plot becomes more complicated from there, but the story is told from three different points of view: Bastien, Ailesse, and Sabine, Ailesse’s best friend.

I found the overall world and the fantasy worldbuilding really intriguing, and the idea of the Bone Criers— and their rites of passage, and the idea of grace bones (bones that the Bone Criers take from wild animals, which grant them certain abilities)—was awesome. The mythology, the lore, and the history, all based off of France, was interesting, and I appreciated the originality. 

Normally, I’m not a fan of more than two POV shifts, but I actually think Purdie did a great job.

There were three main aspects of this book that put me off. 

One: I had a hard time rooting for the characters. Bastien and Ailesse just weren’t interesting to me, and even though I knew their backstories and motivations, I didn’t really click with either character. They felt a little flat, and a lot of the secondary characters also fell flat.

That being said, Sabine was my favorite character. She had the most emotion, and she had the best character arc. 

Two: The romance felt forced. Obviously with the doomed soulmate storyline there was going to be some sort of forced romance, but my point is, there weren’t any real reasons for Bastien and Aliesse to fall for each other outside of: Oh, I think she’s hot. Oh, I think he’s hot. I didn’t think the chemistry was there.

Three: Even with the mythology and the in-depth look at the Bone Criers, I still found myself a little confused hundreds of pages in. I felt like some aspects of the Bone Criers were left unexplained, and so a lot of Ailesse’s solutions to problems felt like they came out of nowhere to me. I often found myself thinking: How does she know that will work? Overall, I thought the plot was good, but Ailesse and Marcel’s deductions just felt off to me. 

On top of that, Purdie’s writing wasn’t my favorite. Sometimes the dialogue felt a little too cheesy and predictable, and it took me about 100 pages in for me to start caring about the story.

Overall, this was just an okay read for me. 

VERDICT: 🌙🌙 and ½ moons /5 

 

A chill Saturday morning read

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Anna: I’m so excited for this chill weekend! Have you read My Sister, the Serial Killer? My library hold FINALLY came in, and I’m really enjoying the to-the-point writing style and intriguing story/mystery so far! I love stories about sisters, even murderous ones!

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I hope you have fun (or chill!)  weekend plans?

Alexis’ May Book Haul

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While I was in Kansas City this week, I visited a used bookstore and got these two books: The Blood Flower by Anita Amirrezvani and The Star-Touched Queen by Roshanki Chokshi.

I can’t wait to read them!

What are your weekend plans? I went to my cousin’s bridal shower today and I’m going to a Lebanese food festival tomorrow. I hope you all have a great rest of your weekend!

A Small Thrift Haul

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Anna: I love a good thrift haul! Here’s a small one from yesterday. I think it’s safe to say I found a new favorite spot. Not only did I get to dresses for spring, but I picked up a new romance and an old favorite both for under a dollar!

 

What’s your favorite weekend activity?