Books Archives - Page 18 of 50 - Brooke's Reviews and Sweeps

Rivals! Frenemies Who Changed the World

By Brookelorren on October 3, 2019October 3, 2019Leave a Comment

Over the summer, my boy and I listened to Rivals! Frenemies Who Changed the World by Scott McCormick. This Audible Original contains four entertaining stories about rivals whose feuds changed the way we live in the world today. All four stories were different, and it’s likely that you’ll learn something from this book.

The four stories in this book were as follows:

Cope vs. Marsh – these two rivals tried to become the most celebrated paleontologists in the land. They weren’t afraid to play dirty either. In their rush to be the best, some of their discoveries introduced confusion into the scientific world. But they did discover dinosaurs.
Queen Elizabeth vs. Mary Queen of Scots – their rivalry determined the fate of England. If Mary Queen of Scots (who sounded like a Valley Girl in this audiobook) had one, the country would have become Catholic, and history would have changed.
Adidas vs. Puma – This shoe rivalry split a town and created the sports industry we know of today. In this book we find out why Adidas has a three-stripe logo, how it got its name, and other interesting tidbits that you never knew you wanted to know about the shoe industry.
Hamilton vs. Burr – You may know that Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr. In this story, you’ll learn all you wanted to know about duels (probably), some interesting political facts, and that Burr probably wasn’t the bad guy we think he is.

Rivals! Frenemies Who Changed the World was entertaining and well-acted. There were sound effects that added to the drama and comedy. This book might not be too exciting for younger kids, but it is entertaining for upper Middle Grade/Lower YA listeners. Even though its intended audience is younger, there’s enough interesting facts to make this entertaining for adults too.

If you’re an Audible member, I wouldn’t waste a credit on this book, unless you get an amazingly sweet deal on credits. The book is less than $5 (at least for Audible members). This is a book I’d recommend for listening to in the car with your kids.

September 2019 Monthly Wrap-Up

By Brookelorren on October 1, 2019October 1, 20196 Comments

::Waves:: Hello! It’s October 1st already and it’s time to do the monthly wrap-up for September. It was a pretty good month and October should be great too.

Books Read

This month, I read fifteen books and four short stories/novellas. I was getting ready for the releases of Rebel and The End and Other Beginnings, so I reread the Warcross duology, all the Legend novellas, and finished the Carve the Mark duology. Eight of these were rereads.

City of Glass – Cassandra Clare (reread)
Dive Smack – Demetra Brodsky
Who Put this Song On? – Morgan Parker
Naughts & Crosses – Malorie Blackman
The Raven King – Maggie Stiefvater
“Opal” – Maggie Stiefvater
Shadow Frost – Coco Ma
The Fates Divide – Veronica Roth (reread)
City of Fallen Angels – Cassandra Clare (reread)
And I Darken – Kiersten White
Cilka’s Journey – Heather Morris
That Night – Amy Giles
The Fountains of Silence – Ruta Sepetys
American Panda – Gloria Chao
Warcross – Marie Lu (reread)
Wildcard – Marie Lu (reread)
Life Before Legend – Marie Lu (reread)
Life After Legend – Marie Lu (reread)
Life After Legend II – Marie Lu (reread)

Dive Smack counted for Massachusetts in the Read Around the World challenge, Cilka’s Journey counted for historical Russia, and The Fountains of Silence counted for historical Spain.

Blog Stats:

Twitter made a few gains this month, breaking the 2100 mark with 2101.
Blog users went up slightly again.

Writing:

I finished publishing Hero on AO3. Because it was a book that occurred after Champion and I wrote it before Rebel came out, I wanted it to come out before Rebel‘s release. I started writing Republican Runaways, the sequel to Republican Phenoms, and I’m on chapter 2. I tried to write a short story for a submission due at the end of the month, but that didn’t work out.

Life:

No trips to the hospital this month. Yay! It’s been pretty busy with school and trips to the doctor, but at least I can read while my family member is at the doctors. Other than that, not much has been going on.

So that’s about it! October is when a ton of amazing books are released. Don’t think much else is going on, but it should be a good month!

Rebel: The Legend Finale

By Brookelorren on October 1, 2019October 1, 2019Leave a Comment

At 10 PM my time, the stunning conclusion to Marie Lu’s Legend tetralogy, Rebel, came out. I stayed up all night to read it, and I wasn’t disappointed.

This review contains spoilers for the rest of the series.

When we last left Day and June, it was July 11, 2142. It had been ten years since Daniel (going by Day at the time) had nearly died and woke up with amnesia. After ten years living in Ross City, Antarctica, Eden was interviewing for an internship back in the Republic. At a train station, Daniel “met” June for the second time.

Rebel starts a month later. Daniel and June hadn’t talked much since that night, but June and the elector were going to visit Ross City. Despite their years apart and the amnesia thing, deep down, Daniel never stopped loving June. But are they too different now?

Eden

Rebel begins with Eden. I just want to give him a hug. He’s been living in his brother’s shadow his whole life. He’s hella smart, and shares the Wing boys’ compassion for the little guy. Even though Antarctica’s gamified level system is supposed to create a meritocracy, the way it’s implemented is unfair. Eden is bothered by this and is drawn to the dark side. Is he going down the path to self-destruction? Can his brother save him, or will their relationship be irreparably harmed? There’s some really great brother moments in this story.

Worldbuilding

I loved the worldbuilding in Rebel and how this book ties into the other books in the Luniverse. The Antarctican level system was obviously built on programming developed by Hideo Tanaka for the Warcross game. The book subtly mentions this game that once took the world by storm. The characters return to Los Angeles, which beautifully illustrates what the world might be like if it was recovering from a backwards dictatorship.

Daniel + June

If you read Champion (which you probably should before reading Rebel) then you’ve probably wondered whether Day and June really get back together.

So what happens? Daniel has never forgotten about her. There are some really cute moments in this book. Daniel, who has probably never had an awkward moment with a girl in his life, doesn’t know how to react around his former love. It’s absolutely adorable. They still have feelings for each other, but has too much changed? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

Conclusion

If you didn’t pre-order this book (and have already read the other three books in this series) then run to your nearest bookseller and buy it. I’m definitely going to read this book again sometime after my hardcover edition has arrived. Rebel has the satisfying finale that we’ve all been waiting for. I loved it. How much did I love it? It’s a contender for my favorite book this year. I stayed up past 7 AM to read it. To quote page 376, after reading this book, “the final puzzle piece of my heart has fallen into place.”

Book Titles with Numbers in Them

By Brookelorren on October 1, 2019September 17, 201913 Comments

Hello! It’s Tuesday again, and it’s also the biggest book release day of the year! I had three ARCs and two pre-orders for this day, and one of them is Rebel (which I’m probably reading right now or sleeping after staying up all night to read it, depending on when you’re visiting this page). Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is Book Title with Numbers in them. This sounds like such a fun topic! As usual, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

Veronica Roth’s Four was the first book I thought of when I heard of this topic. I read Allegiant after it was released, but Four was the one book in this series I had to wait for. It’s the only book from this series I haven’t read in Spanish, but I did plan to at one point. Lately I’ve really wanted to reread Divergent (but probably in English). Probably in 2020.

I absolutely love the cover to Four Dead Queens. The book was good too.

Sticking to the number four for just one more book, I loved The Fourth Turning. It’s a nonfiction book, but I think about this book a lot when I see things happening in the news or I think about Millennials and Zs and things like that. It’s one of those books that seems so fundamentally true in many ways.

I’m sure I won’t be the only person to list A Thousand Perfect Notes this week. It’s such a beautiful book! Both inside and out.

This week I have a lot more nonfiction books than normal, because so many nonfiction books start with years. 1421: The Year China Discovered America was such an interesting book to me. I still haven’t gotten around to reading 1434, but I want to.

The 5th Wave was so good! I’ll probably read it again someday. Unfortunately, the rest of the series didn’t live up to the first book.

It seems like some numbers pop up more than others in books. A Thousand Perfect Notes. The Thousandth Floor. Then there are all those Four books. There are a few more books I can think of that have a thousand in it too.

From Dawn to Decadence, 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present is a really long book title. It has two numbers in it though. This was one of those monster books that took forever to read.

The weather is starting to cool down, so it’s almost time to start thinking about My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories. I live in Colorado, so at this time of year, you never know which is more appropriate from day to day: this one, or its companion book, Summer Days and Summer Nights.

Leigh Bardugo’s publishers must like numbers in the titles. I thought of listing her book Ninth House (which is out next week) for my last book (or more appropriately, the ninth), but I figure everybody will list that one. Then I thought of listing Red Famine: Stalin’s War on the Ukraine, 1921-1933, but then I realized that I haven’t read that one yet. I figured I’d limit this week’s list to books I’ve read and liked. Six of Crows, also by Leigh Bardugo, will probably be on a lot of lists today too. Oh well.

So that’s this week’s list. Next week we’re going to talk about Character Traits I Love. I’ll have to think about that one for a bit. See you then!

The Fountains of Silence

By Brookelorren on September 30, 2019September 27, 2019Leave a Comment

I recently read The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys. Thank you Bookish First for the Advanced Reader Copy! Sidenote here: it’s a great way to get free physical ARCs! If you want to join and use referral code 56cf541090ca608b4 you can help me get free books and be on your way to getting free books too. Anyway, this book occurs during Franco’s Spain and I liked it a lot.

Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, but I don’t think Franco’s Spain got a lot of publicity (or maybe it’s because he died in 1975). I don’t remember ever learning about it in school, except for maybe a sentence or two. He was a brutal dictator for decades. It’s only been in the last year or so that I’ve started to hear details about how his people suffered under his rule. The Fountains of Silence paints a vivid portrait of what it might have been like to live during this time.

Ana was a maid at an upscale hotel that catered to Americans shortly after the Franco regime started to do business with them. Daniel is a son of an oil tycoon whose parents want him to follow in the family business. He wants to be a photographer instead. He needs to take some brilliant photos while in Spain in order to get a scholarship to go to the school he wants without his parent’s financial aid. Daniel stays at Ana’s hotel for several weeks while his parents conduct business. Ana helps him with his photographs, and they quickly discover that they are compatible. Unfortunately, Ana isn’t supposed to fraternize with hotel guests, and Daniel’s family would prefer him to be with someone in his class.

Ana and Daniel aren’t the only characters of note here. Ana’s cousin Puri works at an orphanage. Her brother’s friend Fuga wants to be a bullfighter. There are corrupt businessmen, a friendly photo developer, and people to watch out for at the hotel. All these characters work together to paint a picture that helps the reader see what it would be like to live in Spain during the 1950s.

I don’t want to give too much away, but there’s danger, love, and a satisfying ending. The book is well-written, and the characters are memorable. The puzzle pieces of this book come together at the end very nicely.

The Fountains of Silence comes out on October 1st (like so many good books are this year) and I highly recommend it.

ABC Book Challenge – M

By Brookelorren on September 29, 2019September 27, 2019Leave a Comment

Time for another episode of the ABC Book Challenge! We’re up to the letter M, which means we’re halfway through the alphabet. In this challenge, I go through my Goodreads books and find books that start with the letter. Some I really want to read, while others I read and thought were good. I first found this challenge over at Me, Myself, and Books, but it was started by The Thrifty Bibliophile (I think).

A Million Junes is described as Romeo and Juliet meets A Hundred Years of Solitude. Okay, maybe that’s not a ringing endorsement because I kinda hated A Hundred Years of Solitude, but I’m kinda interested in the whole “forbidden boy” angle.

I was already out of college before I realized that my grandparents were millionaires. Up until the 1990s, they had a tiny black-and-white television, they never had cable, they had a really old car, and my grandma would get upset when she had to pay $.32 to replace a part to the faucet. But they were the classic Millionaire Next Door that owned their own business and saved — a lot. This book has a lot of really good info on how to eventually have a lot of money. It’s not easy to follow, but it made me rethink my idea of what “wealthy” really means.

Most of us (if you’re reading this) are some of the luckiest people to ever walk the face of the earth. Despite the political bickering that seems to go on all the time, we tend to be wealthier and freer (and safer) than most people that have ever lived. We can thank little miracles that happened throughout history for giving us the society we live in today. The Miracle of Freedom: 7 Tipping Points That Changed the World discusses seven events, from ancient times to World War II, that were crucial to leaving us with the world we live in today. I haven’t read it, but it sounds good.

I had the opportunity to read My Real Name is Hanna last year. While this book didn’t make my favorite books of the year list last year, it was pretty good. It didn’t get enough publicity when it came out, as far as I’m concerned. It’s about a Jewish girl who survived Hitler by hiding out in a cave. The book is based on a true story. It’s definitely worth reading.

The last M book for today is My True Love Gave to Me. It’s hard for me to believe I’m already starting to think about Christmas stories when I was just considering whether or not to read Summer Days and Summer Nights just a few weeks ago. Both of these anthologies are great. It might be a little too early to start reading this one. It’s not too early to start planning your TBR, however.

Those are some of the M highlights from My Books on Goodreads. There aren’t as many N books, but we’ll see them next week!

Allegedly – Not What I Expected

By Brookelorren on September 26, 2019July 24, 20194 Comments

Allegedly by Tiffany D. Jackson was not quite what I expected. It was a twisty ride with high stakes, moral ambiguity and a (perhaps) unreliable narrator. I recently read it and thought it was great.

Mary is sixteen years old, but she’s already a criminal in the eyes of the justice system. At age 9, she killed a baby. Allegedly. If the baby hadn’t been white, and she hadn’t been black, her story probably would have turned out differently.

We don’t find out the entirety of what happened until the very end, but we are slowly given details about the night baby Alyssa died as the story unfolds. Mary is neither the demon that the press makes her out to be, nor is she the perfect saint she thinks she is. And her upbringing, prior to baby Alyssa’s death, was certainly lacking, to say the least.

Allegedly is a great story and Mary makes an interesting narrator. In addition to being an engaging story, it raises questions about the criminal justice system in general. How do the courts treat people of color compared to white people? What about when people age out of the foster care system? What about the way teens in group homes are treated? The story has several levels of depth.

The ending… well. I wasn’t expecting that. I can’t really say much about it without giving away spoilers, but it certainly made me think.

Overall, I definitely recommend this book. It’s not a feel-good beach read or a happily ever after, but if you’re in the mood for something a little dark, then perhaps you’ll want to check out this book. The main character is both sympathetic and a little disturbed at the same time, the supporting characters are mostly disturbed, but it’s a book you won’t want to put down.

Fall 2019 TBR

By Brookelorren on September 23, 2019September 23, 201939 Comments

It’s another Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl), and we’re once again talking about our seasonal TBRs. I love dreaming of all the books I’m gonna read!

First, let’s see how I did on my Summer 2019 TBR:

Allegedly – Tiffany D. Jackson: Read
Ash Princess – Laura Sebastian: Read
Rora – James Byron Huggins: Read
Obsidian – Jennifer L. Armentrout: Read
Truthwitch – Susan Dennard: Read
The Thousandth Floor – Katharine McGee: Read
Isle of Blood and Stone – Makiia Lucier: Read
And I Darken – Kiersten White: Read
Naughts & Crosses – Malorie Blackman: Read
Dive Smack – Demetra Brodsky: Read

10/10! I picked all of these books with the help of a random number generator.

So for the fall 2019 TBR, I had six pre-orders (eight if you include the Audible pre-order of The Guinevere Deception and the Batman Graphic Novel) which left four remaining spaces for other books on my TBR. There were 45 books I would have been interested in reading, but I had to narrow it down to four. So I used a random number generator again.

This is the list I came up with (in the order I’ll probably read them in).

At 10 PM on September 30th, I plan on starting Rebel by Marie Lu. I’ll be live-tweeting my (spoiler-free) reactions and will stay awake until I finish. Luckily for me, it’s the homeschool coop’s fall break, and I declared October 1st to be a school holiday. Uh, that’s less than 7 days and 12 hours from now. Can I start freaking out now? I’m thinking of rereading Warcross and Wildcard first, if I have time this week after finishing Fountains of Silence, another October 1st release I have to read (although that one I got as an ARC).

The other book that will be arriving on October 1st is The End and Other Beginnings by Veronica Roth (actually, the Batman graphic novel, another Marie Lu book, is also arriving). Ms. Roth is my other auto-buy author, and I already read one of her short stories, “Inertia” from Summer Days and Summer Nights. I can’t wait to read it again, along with two more short stories about Akos and Cyra, and some other stories.

When Leigh Bardugo’s newest book, Ninth House, was originally announced, it was supposed to come out on October 1st (along with the two books listed above). I’m already planning on having a mini-readathon with the two books above. I wasn’t really sad that its release date was pushed back a week. Chain of Gold and Kingdom of Back are going to do the same thing to me on March 3rd of next year. Anyway, I’ll probably start reading this one on its release date.

The problem with Ninth House being pushed back a week is that now it’s coming out on the same day as The Beautiful by Renée Ahdieh. Decisions decisions. They’re both coming, but I’ll probably read this vampire book after I read Ninth House.

After Ninth House and The Beautiful arrive and I have the chance to read them, there’ll be about two weeks before the next book I pre-ordered arrives, which will give me the chance to read another TBR lottery winner. I got a copy of Always Forever Maybe at the Colorado Teen Literature conference this year and haven’t read it yet.

And finally, after nearly a year of saying nearly every week “I have to read something by Victoria Schwab” I actually will. This Savage Song was another TBR lottery winner. So yay! I’ll get to read this one.

Maggie Stiefvater is another author that I found myself wanting to read week after week after week. I finally joined in with a Raven Cycle readathon, and now I’m pre-ordering Call Down the Hawk.

After Call Down the Hawk arrives, it’ll be two weeks before my next pre-order arrives, so I have a week to read another TBR lottery winner, Thousands. I read the first three books of this series this spring and never had the chance to continue.

On November 19th, The Queen of Nothing will arrive. There’s a good chance that this, along with The Wicked King will make my favorite books of the year list, but I normally group books from the same series together.

When I originally created this list, I drew That Night from the random number generator. Since I finished that book the day before this list was going to go up, I realized I needed to pick another book. Sea Witch ended up being the pick. It was another one of those books I got on sale for $1.99. It’ll probably be the last book from the Fall 2019 TBR that I read.

This fall is going to be great for books! Not very good for the backlist books, but definitely for new releases. I can’t wait to read these!

So what do you plan on reading this fall? Do you stick to your TBRs, or do you tend to wing it? Next week, while I’m reading Rebel, we’re going to talk about Book Titles with Numbers in Them. See ya then!

Cilka’s Journey

By Brookelorren on September 23, 2019September 22, 2019Leave a Comment

I recently read Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris. She is the author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which I’ve heard of before and haven’t had the chance to read yet. Evidently, some of the characters in this story are in her other book. This was an enjoyable book that brings to light events that nobody really liked to talk about after World War II: what happened to some of the survivors.

After the concentration camps were liberated at the end of World War II, survivors still had a harrowing journey ahead of them. For some, their horrors weren’t over. Some of the newly liberated women were further victimized by their liberators. While people like Corrie Ten Boom spoke about forgiveness in The Hiding Place, not everybody was willing to be so understanding. Cilka Klein was one of those people who did not receive forgiveness from her liberators. After being raped for three years in a concentration camp, the Russians accused her of “sleeping with the enemy” and spying and was sentenced to a further 15 years of hard labor in a Siberian gulag.

Cilka’s Journey is based on a true story. It does a good job of portraying life in the gulag. The prisoners faced backbreaking labor, poor food, and horrid living conditions. The men victimized the women further. It’s not surprising that many people died there. Eventually, Cilka improved her life somewhat, but she was still in prison.

Cilka is the kind of person you want to root for. She often thought about others before she thought about herself. In addition to being kind, she repeatedly demonstrates bravery. You do get to find out what finally happens to her, but I don’t want to give away the ending.

Even though Cilka’s Journey deals with difficult topics, it is not overly graphic. Still, it has violence and sexual assault, which could be a trigger to some people.

The book is well-researched and contains a lot of accurate history inside. I like how Ms. Morris included an author’s note at the end telling the facts about Cilka. She also included information about the gulag she spent time in. I thought they were good touches.

Overall, I really liked Cilka’s Journey. It’s an important story that tells about a part of history that is often overlooked: what happened to some Holocaust survivors. I recommend it to people that are interested in World War II. I didn’t read The Tattooist of Auschwitz before reading this book. The book would probably be better if I had read that one first, but it’s not necessary.

ABC Book Challenge – L

By Brookelorren on September 22, 2019September 26, 2019Leave a Comment

Hello! It’s a new week, and a new addition to the ABC Book Challenge: a six-month journey through my “My Books” section on Goodreads where I go through the more interesting books that I’ve either read or would like to read. I found it over at Me, Myself, and Books, but I think it was started by the Thrifty Bibliophile. This week, we’re on the letter L.

I can already tell that there are going to be a lot more L books than we’ve seen in recent weeks. The first book for today is Lady Midnight, the first book in The Dark Artifices. I love these Shadowhunter books. I’ve been rereading City of Fallen Angels and I can’t help but be impressed at how there were already glimpses of The Infernal Devices in this book. Anyway, this series is excellent as well.

There’s a link in my life between The Last Jihad and Lady Midnight, oddly enough. When I read the first Shadowhunter book, City of Bones, I wasn’t entirely impressed. I only gave it three stars on Goodreads. There was something about that book that I liked though. I continued reading the series because I accidentally read the last book in The Last Jihad series, Dead Heat, first. That book completely blew me away. Then I realized it was the last book in a series… and I read this book, and it was good… but it wasn’t amazing like the last book. So I decided to give City of Ashes a chance, and I didn’t regret it.

The Last Year of the War is such a beautiful story of friendship. It came out earlier this year and I don’t think people have talked about it enough. It’s one of those books that you should read with a supply of tissues nearby.

Oh Legend, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. The letter L could be full of books from this series: Legend the Graphic Novel, Life Before Legend, Life After Legend, and Life After Legend II. I’m pretty sure I’m going to need tissues for the conclusion of this series, Rebel, which comes out in… nine days. Although… since I ordered both the Kindle version and a hardback, I’ll start reading it Monday night, so it’ll actually only be eight days. Is it time to start freaking out yet?

Speaking of Legend, it was inspired by Les Misérables, which I haven’t read–yet. I just recently bought the audiobook (which is 60 hours and 26 minutes long). I’ve wanted to read it for a while, but haven’t gotten around to it. I plan on reading it as soon as I finish reading American Panda.

The Lion, the WItch, and the Wardrobe cover

I have to include another classic today: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The Chronicles of Narnia is a great series, although I haven’t read it in a long time.

There are actually two more classics on today’s list. The Little House on the Prairie series actually starts with Little House in the Big Woods, but this book is the best known of the series. I loved these books when I was a kid.

The final L book is Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein. I haven’t read this for a very long time, and when I did, I had aspartame poisoning, so I don’t remember it as much as I should. I have seen the movies though. Maybe I should read it again someday. Looking over at my TBR, it might be a while.

So those are some of the L books I have on Goodreads. There won’t be as many M books next week (mostly because a lot of my favorite M books are the second in the series and I try to avoid using them here). We’ll see them next week!