A fantastic and magical book, first in a trilogy I look forward to reading the next book. Shadowshaper is a book about family, culture, secrets, and history. The audiobook narrator was phenomenal, definitely recommend this book in audio format.

Jennifer MacMahon's most recent book is now my favorite of their work. Set in 2 timelines you follow Vi as a child in 1978 Vermont and Shelly as an adult in 2019 returning to Vermont, and learn how the two connect. I had predicted the plot twist pretty early on but that in no way took away from my enjoyment of the story. The story was creepy and when you find out the twist a bit sad tbh.

This book was a ride, Miss Christie's brain is definitely an interesting place. I've read 10 books by her so far this year and this is the one that has definitely stuck with me the most. Last year I read Murder on the Orient Express and I thought that one had a twist ending but this book beats that one out.

A really interesting non-fiction book about a female code breaker, Elizebeth Smith, and her incredible life. Historically her husband has been remembered as the code breaker among them but they were a team and excelled both apart and together and this book recognizes and celebrates her contribution to code breaking.

This cozy fantasy story filled a need I didn't know I had. Such a good story with great characters, I loved it. Can't wait to buy a physical copy for my shelves.

Chilling Effect by Valerie Valdes is the first book in this funny/nerdy sci-fi, space opera trilogy. This book was fun, full of pop culture references and pokes fun at tropes.
This book has my favorite trope of all time found family, and if you're still not sold they have psychic cats on their ship as well, how can you not be intrigued?

I adore this manga series. There is some heartbreak and drama but love is at the heart of this story. It is so soft and joyful and full of love for cats, friendship, and music. What's not to love? This series is still ongoing but I recommend it.

"It was a long time ago now. And it was yesterday." Ursula keeps dying and starting over. Sometimes it's a change she affects that saves her, other time it's just the flap of a butterflies wings that saves her (not literally).
This book was fascinating. Yes, it did get a bit repetitive but for me I enjoyed how one little change affected a previous scene or didn't maybe.
I definitely ended up loving it a lot more than I thought I would have.

A fantasy standalone middle grade novel. This book is full of magic and so many wonderful things (the gargoyles were my personal favorite), and while it felt a bit flat to me and overall rushed I can definitely see younger readers loving this book. There were some really cool elements in this book but it felt like there was too much going on in such a short time for me to really find it as an overall enjoyable read.

Probably one of my favorite poetry/prose collections I have read so far this year (Courtney Peppernell‘s All Dogs Are Good is giving it a run for its money though.) A reflective collection following the start of lockdown over covid and how it changed everyone‘s plans for 2020. It addresses mental health, loneliness, love and kindness. My favorites in it were “ City, Ruins and You” as well as “And Even Through This”.

My best friend is 3 years old. Her best friend is the big bad Wolf 😂 the sacrifices we make for our favorite little people, taking second to a fictional character that wants to huff and puff and blow my house down is a hit to the ego 🤣. Found this delightful book though and have read it a couple times with her, it‘s a cute fun book.

A YA fantasy historical fiction story. This was a fun story.
One night Kit Bristol finds out he is the unwitting servant to the notorious highwayman Whistling Jack when his master comes back wounded, then through a series of several incidents finds himself mistaken for and then posing as Whistling Jack, on the run, and tasked with saving a fairy princess. Totally a normal day for a servant.
Really nice illustrations throughout the book as well.

A really interesting read that tracks the history of cops into being and the events and laws that have shaped them into what they are now and the power they have. It was both an eye opening and somewhat terrifying read. I read the revised and updated edition that was released this year (2021).

Liam has just lost their brother in a tragic accident, is struggling in school, and feels like they‘re losing touch with their best friends (who are dating one another) and feeling left out. The whole story is the process of grieving and looking back at the moments shared with their brother.
This story is the ugly side of grief, Liam is hard to like because their grief is raw and ugly and mean but it also is a very good depiction of it.

Our Clamp manga collection, I have more in boxes back home being kept by my sister in law. Wonderful, beautiful, and achingly painful stories are found in these books.

A wonderful dark supernatural mystery. Logan‘s dads are supernatural investigators that drag her along with them to their old hometown where Logan realizes something dark and insidious is killing the children of this town and she needs to find out what it is to protect her family.
#TheDeadAndTheDark #WednesdayBooks #Netgalley
Happy book birthday, August 3rd.

I usually like Hopkins work and how she tackles tough topics and shines a light on the ugly and painful because they exist and need to be seen but this one just didn‘t work for me. I don‘t know if it‘s the way she tackled it, the characters themselves, or what but I just did not like it 🤷‍♀️

WW2 novel, 15 year old Lina and her mom and young brother are taken from their home by Soviet soldiers and deported to Siberia and the harrowing experience of the journey there and the deplorable conditions she has to live in and the things she goes through in the camp paint a picture of the war a lot of people probably don‘t know about.
Historical fiction has been so important to teach me more than my history high school classes ever did.

Picked this up while looking for a different book 😂 beautiful cover, very excited to read this sometime soon-ish.

Quick easy read, I like the edition with Chris Riddell‘s illustrations the most because I‘m just a huge Riddell fan but the Brett Helquist edition is still cool too. Drawing on both Norse mythology and historical Vikings it tells a fun story of small and clever Odd who goes on an adventure with the animal shaped gods Odin, Thor and Loki to help them return to Asgard and regain their human forms again.

The second volume of Hex Vet is still just as cute (and unfortunately short) as the first. Nan and Clarion find themselves up in the flying surgery to help Dr. Talon meet her clients in the air where they are more comfortable. Nan is stressed with news of her brother coming back and Clarion just wants to confront Nurse Ariel about what he said to her grandfather last volunteer day. Meanwhile a flying pig is in need of care and
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This was a cute beginning introducing us to Nan and Clarion, two apprentice veterinarians in training as they learn their way around the care and treatment of magical creatures. Clarion is sweet, friendly and bubbly. Nan is stressed being around people, and apparently comes from a family of dark magic users that everyone judges them on. Cute art and plenty of pastels, this is an adorable series so far.

Started this beast yesterday. Putting it on pause for a readathon challenge event but at least made a dent in it. Not entirely sure how I feel about it, it‘s interesting but something feels off, pacing maybe? I don‘t know. Will keep plugging away at it though.

I‘ve read a couple Karin Slaughter so far this year and I don‘t know if I‘ve just grown out of her or if my tastes in mysteries have changed but they weren‘t my favorite reads of the year so far. I still have some more on my shelf, have to decide if I‘m going to read those or just pass them on.

Beautiful novella. Nnedi Okorafor creates such a painful, beautiful story of a young woman who walks with death and searches for answers and purpose. I loved this book.

Books were an important topic in my relationship with my mom, and I always enjoy learning about other peoples book journeys so this was a good read. I loved the author‘s relationship with his mom and while a lot of the books talked about aren‘t typically high on my want to read list there were a couple I did note down for future reading.

I think this is the fifth bio of someone famous I‘ve read so far this year and I gotta say, I don‘t think it works for me. I just feel like there tends to be a lot of names they use that it feels like I should know who they‘re talking about, but I don‘t because I just don‘t follow anyone that closely. Interesting inside look at the person but I think I‘m not going to do famous people bios anymore.

I like Ally Carter, her books tend to be quick easy reads with smart, witty female leads. When Maddie and Logan were kids an attempt on the president (Logan‘s dad) cost him his mother and Maddie and her father (the secret service agent guarding them) left for Alaska not long after and Maddie and Logan fell out of touch. Years later they‘re in each other‘s orbits again after Logan got in trouble one too many times and is sent to Alaska.
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“It's not always easy to convince someone a need exists, if they don't have that need themselves.”
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Probably my favorite non-fiction read so far this year.

Survival story and coming to terms with ones own self this was a great YA novel. After a fight with her boyfriend Ashley storms off from her camp in a drunken rage only to wake up the next morning realizing she has no idea where she is and what she thought was a minor wound is anything but, it‘s now a race against time. Ashley has no idea where she is and is going to have to use all her outdoor survival skills to make it out of this alive.

I found this to be a really fun book. Stevie is someone I found to be enjoyable and relatable and I loved her relationship with Nate, who was my favorite side character. He‘s just so grumpy ☺️

I loved this book, I really don‘t have much more to say then that. It was terrifying and terrific and I loved it.

I love animal stories, and find working dogs fascinating. I grew up with a drug detecting dog in my house and watching his training and drive was always so enthralling even if the dog himself was a big old butthead 😂 Interesting read, you can tell the author really loves dogs and what she does.

Anna Cicconi, recent arrival to a small town, has confessed to the murder of missing teen Zoe Spanos. Martina, friend of Zoe‘s younger sister, who runs the Missing Zoe podcast isn‘t entirely sure that‘s true. What you get is an unreliable narrator and another one who is determined to find out the truth.
This is a slower paced book, it‘s a lot of weeding out answers and digging into the past to discover just what happened to Zoe and why.

I had a chance to meet the author once and she was hilarious so have been keeping her book in mind for awhile to see if it was as funny as she was in person. It was an interesting book and while not as funny maybe as she was in person it was still pretty humorous.

Three siblings get in touch with one another after realizing that one another exists, adopted (or in Joaquin‘s case foster care) at young ages they‘ve all been recently made aware of one another. It‘s a beautiful story of family, connection and love. I was surprised at how often I found myself crying throughout this book, I‘m not usually a crier.

My June reading. I read a stupid amount of fanfic in June so that I read this many books is actually blowing my mind right now. Some really good books though.

Violet is sent off to stay with her uncle over the summer while her parents focus on Sam, her brother, after his suicide attempt. This book is about family, history and looking forward instead of back, and particularly Violet learns she might have been looking for love in all the wrong places (she really, really was) prior to this as she gets close to amateur local historian Liv.

I had suspicions of where this story was going considering how book 1 ended but man it felt a bit more tragic as I worked my way through it. Kyoshi had a rough start at the beginning of her Avatar-hood but she had great allies. Really enjoyed this series.

Witches, Frankenstein‘s monster, vampires, this story had a lot of really cool things smashed into it (oh, can‘t forget the Japanese corpse-eating demon cat) but it didn‘t really grab me the way I had hoped it would with all these neat things inside of it.

First book in a series, a bit of a rollercoaster of a read. I wasn‘t a big fan of the main character but she‘s interesting and does grow throughout the books. In this book beauty is a hot commodity and very controlled, the belles have the ability to reshape a persons beauty but there is a very ugly side to all of this as well. Intriguing world.

Just grabbed this from the library and jumped into it while sitting at the park waiting to go to an appointment. So far so good, interesting start.

Interesting idea but didn‘t really get into it. Also, it was pretty messed up what the MCs father did and threatened to do throughout the book. Probably not picking up the second book.

I‘ve had the ARC sitting on my shelf forever from a book show I‘d gone to years ago now and decided to finally jump into it. Not necessarily my favorite of Ally Carter‘s books but still fun enough all the same. Had some suspicions for where it was headed that were mostly proven true in the second book. Still need to pick up book 3 to see how it concludes.

This book was so incredibly dark and messed up but also, so good. I think I was expecting more of a mystery but what I got was even better and crazier.

I had a productive reading month in May considering I‘d just started my job at that time but weekends were helpful and with the wonder that is audio books I was still doing at least a book a day. I‘m slowly making my way through the Stormlight Archive series and it is so good.
Some really good reads and some not so much, overall a great month though.

My inner self as I read this book.

I love animals, they tend to be some of my favorite non-fiction reads. I found this book an interesting read.

After my third memoir by a famous person I‘ve since realized that I don‘t watch enough entertainment to really follow the shows and other people they talk about in their memoirs. No big deal, but just not apparently for me.