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Caraval Invites You to a Magical World

By Brookelorren on 6 Comments

Welcome to the exciting world of Caraval!  That is what my library could have told me when I found out it was available for download after a short time on the waiting list.  Caraval is a book full of magic, mystery, danger, and love (mostly between sisters).

Scarlett had always wanted to experience the magic that was Caraval.  From the age of ten, she wrote to Legend, the Master of Caraval, hoping to get tickets for her and her sister Donatella (Tella).  Her grandmother had told her stories and made it seem wonderful.  It seemed like a wonderful dream, while in her own life…

Her father was abusive, he wouldn’t let them leave the island that they lived on, and she decided to get married to someone that she had never met just to escape.  One day, she finally gets tickets to Caraval, after she had given up.  She no longer wants to go, thinking that her marriage will save her from her toxic life.

She ends up going anyway; you’ll just have to read the book to find out how.  After she gets there, she discovers that it’s not quite what she was expecting.  It seems to be a magical, more dangerous version of Las Vegas, where everything that happens in Caraval is supposed to stay there.  We find out that not everything stays there, however.  Scarlett’s sister is kidnapped, and she has to find her before it is too late.

She ends up partnering up with Julian, a brash sailor who is definitely not Scarlett’s type, although deep down inside, she finds him to be devastatingly handsome.  Over the course of the search, Scarlett grows as a person, and comes to the realization that maybe she’s putting her hopes into the wrong things.

In the end, we find out the truth about what went on in Caraval.  Maybe… Scarlett wasn’t actually saving Tella after all.  Perhaps Tella was saving her.  Maybe Julian isn’t actually a sailor.  Again, you’ll have to read to find out.

What I Liked

I enjoyed this book.  The characters were likeable, and they grew as people as they struggled through the book.  Scarlett is very practical (maybe a little too much so) and protective of her impulsive sister.  Tella is a little too impulsive.  The love between these sisters is what drives the story, which I found to be a really sweet underlying theme.


There was a lot of mystery to this book, and as I read, I couldn’t help but to wonder what was really going on.  In Caraval, nothing is exactly as it seems.  The book reveals much of its mysteries by the end of the book… but then we realize that there is one more mystery to be solved.  Now I can’t wait to read the next book, which I’m on the waiting list to read at the library.

Anything I Didn’t Like?

I can’t think of anything that I didn’t like about this book.  Maybe at the beginning of the book, Scarlett seems a little hopeless and clueless, but as she grows throughout the book, she becomes a strong person in her own right.

I enjoyed Caraval quite a lot and am looking forward to reading the next book, Legendary, as it becomes available.  If you haven’t read it yet and choose to check it out, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Origin: Not as Good as I Originally Hoped

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

Origin by Dan Brown coverThe other day I was at the library and I found Dan Brown’s book Origin on the shelf.  When it came out last year, I thought it sounded interesting, so I decided to pick it up.  I really enjoyed the puzzles in his book  The Lost Symbol, and I was hoping for a book that had a similar feel to it.  Sadly, I was disappointed in this book.

Our main protagonist, Robert Langdon, is a professor who was invited to an event by a former student and friend of his, Edmund Kirsch, who promises to unveil earth-shattering news that would destroy religion forever.  Unfortunately, the event ends with a horrific crime, before the earth-shattering news could be delivered.  Professor Langdon and the future queen of Spain, Ambra Vidal, need to find out a way to release this information to the world… before it is too late.

I didn’t feel the whole sense of puzzle-solving and excitement in this book that I thought I would.  There was some symbology and some poetry to decipher, but there wasn’t as much in this book as I would have hoped.  There were some drawings in this book, but the symbols printed weren’t really critical to solving the character’s problems.

The future queen, Ambra Vidal, didn’t really seem to be that interesting of a character, I thought.  I just didn’t connect with her.  When they finally are able to make the big reveal about the origin of life that was supposed to be so earth-shattering?  That was a little disappointing as well.  Rather than being an amazing discovery, it seemed to be something that futurists have been talking about for years… and as part of the presentation, the author made jabs at more conservative religious people, which I found to be unnecessary.

At the end, we find out who the criminal was that orchestrated the crime, and while it was surprising, it wasn’t incredibly shocking.

I did like some things about this novel.  Since the novel is set in Spain, I like the liberal use of Spanish throughout the novel.  It’s used in such a way that even if you don’t know Spanish, you can still figure out what is going on.  I enjoyed translating it.  If you’re an art lover, there is plenty of art talk.  I found the buildings, description of architecture, and some of the concepts in here that are real (like the inclusion of the Palmarian church, for example) to be interesting as well.  Even though the overall plot didn’t grab me, there were some elements that I found to be intriguing.

Although Origin wasn’t my favorite Dan Brown book, I think that there are people that will like it.  It just wasn’t my favorite.

Wildcard Pre-Order Info! And My Wonderful Day!

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

Wildcard Pre-Order Gifts

I know that I just posted my Top Ten Tuesday post, but I was so excited to tell you all about this that I just had to post it tonight before I went to bed.  Sunday I mentioned that Life After Legend II was going to be offered as a pre-order gift, but now I have pictures!  And a link!

So here’s all of the details.  Not only do you get Life After Legend II when you pre-order Wildcard, but you also get some Wildcard buttons and a postcard with a thank you note from Marie Lu.  They look completely awesome.

You can get your own pre-order gifts by filling out the pre-order gift form.  If you still haven’t ordered your copy of Wildcard, you can click on this Wildcard link.

Oh, and if anybody has a copy of the original Warcross pre-order gift Life After Legend that they want to part with, I’d be happy to buy it off of you for a reasonable price.  I’d be willing to send money via Paypal, or I could send you a finished copy of another book (I’m sorry, I only have two physical ARCs and they’re not for really sought after books), or I would be happy to pay it forward and fulfill a #bookishwish for someone else if you’re interested.  It’s probably a long shot because I never see it up for sale on eBay, but you never know.  You could either email me, or you could send me a DM on Twitter @Brookelorren.

Part 2:  My Great Day!

So that was only part of my wonderful day today (I already knew what the gifts were because I saw Penguin Teen’s video on Friday).  Anyway, it started out kinda boring because I had to finish rewriting the booklet I hand out to my Spanish students, but then, I had a short amount of time to write fiction after that.

And I finished chapter 22 of Like Normal People!  Yay!

You have NO CLUE how much writer’s block I had with that chapter.  Ugh.  I literally wrote two novellas, four short stories, and most of the first draft of another novel while I was trying to overcome writer’s block with that chapter.  And for the last week or so, I’ve had a hard time writing anything at all… on the days that I had time to write, I could crank out a sentence or two if I was lucky, and on a few days, “writing” consisted of highlighting passages that I wanted to expand upon.  And then I did this!  I was doing the happy dance on my way to work today.

Chapters 23 through 25 should be really easy to write too (it only will have 25 chapters).  I came up with what I want the rest of chapter 23 to look like while I was at work today, and I’ve known what I wanted chapters 24 and 25 to look like for months.  So I’m so excited to be wrapping this one up.

I hope you have a great day!

Books To Get You Out of a Reading Slump (Top Ten Tuesday)

By Brookelorren on 22 Comments

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) is Books to Get You Out of a Reading Slump.  I don’t know if I’m the best person to write about this topic, since I don’t really think that I experience reading slumps, but I’ll try to take on this topic anyway.  More than specific books, I’ll recommend some ways to get out of reading slumps.

Caraval coverListen to an audiobook: most of your favorite books have been made into audiobooks, and a lot of them are available at your library (okay available might not be the right word for it, because there’s usually a waiting list for most popular YA books at my library, but you know what I mean).  Caraval is available in audiobook, as an example.

I’m not big into audiobooks myself, but I was thinking about checking one out from my library to listen to while I’m at the gym… but then I realized that there’s a waiting list for almost all the books, so maybe not today, at least.  Maybe in six months.

Legend Graphic Novel coverRead a graphic novel.  I’m not really a graphic novel person either, but if you’re in a reading slump, then maybe a graphic novel might help.  Doesn’t this Legend graphic novel look cute?  And can you believe that I don’t have these yet?  I might have to go out and buy them now… or maybe I’ll just ask for these as a Christmas present.  Otherwise they might have to excommunicate me from the Marie Lu fan club.

Wired magazine coverRead a magazine.  One magazine article might only take a few minutes to read, and doesn’t take a ton of your attention span.  There are tons of good magazines; Wired is one of the magazines I subscribe to via Zinio.

Summer Days and Summer Nights CoverRead Short Stories.  So I realize that summer is quickly fading away (where I am it feels like it’s been fall for weeks already) but I haven’t read too many short story books, so Summer Days and Summer Nights it is.  At least if you want a short story recommendation from me.  Short stories might be able to break you out of a reading slump because you don’t have to get too invested in any one particular storyline.

Read Something Useful.  Maybe you’re in a reading slump because you’ve just gotten bored by stories that are meant to entertain.  Perhaps you can read something useful instead.  A book like Friction can help you learn more about attracting customers (which is useful if you have a blog, run a small business, or are in some sort of management position).  If, perhaps, you don’t have a business, surely there’s something else you can learn that would be useful to your life.  You can keep on reading, yet not feel the expectation of being entertained.

Kiss Quotient coverRead Something Light.  A few months ago, I had just finished reading the first three books of the Ember Quartet, then I read a book about the Holocaust.  Those definitely weren’t light reads!  Plus, none of the couples were together at the end of the book!  So I needed to read something a little lighter.  That’s why I downloaded The Kiss Quotient.  So if you’re in a situation where everybody that you’re reading about seems to be dying or getting injured, perhaps you might want to try something a little lighter.

Twitter logoTake a Short Break.  Maybe you just need a break from reading in general.  It’s okay to take a short break, for an hour or two, at least.  I mean, let’s not go crazy and leave our collection of books at home when we go on vacation (or to the doctor’s office, or to work) or anything silly like that, but the books will still be there when you’re done taking a break.  Sometimes you need to do something other than reading for a while, right?

Learn Something New.  Maybe you’re just bored with fiction in general for the moment.  If you still want to read, you could always learn something new.  Like why the Apple logo was designed the way that it was.  Or what was Thomas Edison like?  Dreamers and Deceivers was a pretty interesting book that talks a little bit about those two subjects and more (I particularly found the story about Alan Turing to be interesting, but maybe that’s because I majored in computer science and love my Apple products).

Red Queen CoverRead Something Popular.  A few weeks ago, we had a Top Ten Tuesday post about books that were hyped up a lot.  I wrote about Popular YA Books That I Loved instead.  I found out that week that some people are afraid to read popular books because they’re afraid that they might not be as good as some people say they are.  A lot of times though, books might be popular because they’re good.  If you’ve been afraid of reading a popular book and you’re in a reading slump, maybe you should try one out instead.  The Red Queen series is pretty popular.

Unbroken coverTry a New Genre.  Maybe you just need to read something completely different for a change.  If you’re always reading young adult, or fantasy, or whatever you normally read, maybe you just need to try something different.  I really liked the story of Louie Zamporini, Unbroken.  Maybe I’m just biased because he went to the University of Southern California (I don’t think so, but I do like the fact that he’s a Trojan like I am) but this is a really good story about a runner who was captured during World War II and eventually ended up forgiving his captors that tormented him.

So these are my ten ideas of how you might break out of a reading slump.  Do you get into reading slumps?  What are your ideas of how to get out of them?  Next week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is “Back to School”, so I’ll be posting ten of my favorite nonfiction books.

When Elephants Fly Was Good, But I Could Have Gotten More

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

I recently received a copy of When Elephants Fly, by Nancy Richardson Fischer.  I forgot that I had entered a sweepstakes to win it, and I was pretty excited to see it in my mailbox.  It is a wonderful story about a girl, Lily, whose mother had schizophrenia and tried to kill her.  She just turned 18 and thinks that if she just keeps a stress-free life between now and the time she’s 30, then she’ll be able to prevent getting it herself.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t quite work out that way.  Living a life without stress means that you also miss out on a lot of good things in life.  She’s reluctant to apply for any college other than her local community college (her therapist convinces her to apply for a good college anyway, and she decides to apply to the best college out there, USC).  She had been reluctant to apply for the internship at the local newspaper as well, but as our story begins, she had already been accepted and is working there.

At the internship, Lily gets to write little pieces for her local newspaper on local interest events, like the new baby calf being born at the zoo.  Unfortunately, after the baby calf is born, its mother rejects the calf and tries to kill it, which brings up her own memory of when her mother tried to kill her.  This triggers a series of events that changes Lily’s life forever, as she tries to save the baby elephant.  It brings more excitement into her life for sure, but also causes the risk of mental illness to increase.

I thought this book was pretty good.  I really enjoyed Lily’s friendship with her best friend, Sawyer, which unfortunately becomes strained during this book.  Sawyer is going through his own problems with detached parents, and Lily doesn’t see that for a while because of her own problems.  I would have liked to have seen more of their friendship though.

Lily meets a guy in this book that she develops a relationship with, but I don’t particularly feel it all that much.  Maybe if they would have spent more time together, I would have shipped them more, but as written, they were just okay together.  This part of the book could have gotten a little more attention.

The ending of the book leaves a lot unresolved.  Does Lily get into USC?  Does she develop schizophrenia?  What happens to her friend?  What happens to her and her new boyfriend?  What happens to the baby elephant?

Overall, I thought When Elephants Fly was good.  The subject matter is really important; there are so many people these days dealing with mental issues, so this book will be helpful for a lot of people.  The story was good, the characters were interesting, and the friendship in this book was represented well.  It goes on sale on September 4th, but you can pre-order it now.

The Life Choices Write Tag

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

I decided that I wanted to do the Life Choices Write Tag, where we talk about one of our works in progress.  I have several WIPs at the moment, all in various stages.  I originally was going to do this tag with the NaNoWriMo book that I’m planning, but I think I’ll just answer those questions to myself, for now, because I don’t even have all the main characters named yet!  I have a pretty good idea of where that story is going, but I’m still planning it.  Instead, I’ll be talking about Hero, which is a Legend fanfic… my first draft is at least 2/3 done, but I know exactly where the end of the story is headed.

RULES

  • Thank the person who tagged you but also link back to the original post! (I want to see all your lovely answers, people!)

I found this tag over at Drizzle and Hurricane books.

  • Provide a short description of your WIP/story!

Hero is a continuation of the Legend trilogy written by Marie Lu.  It is not canon with Life After Legend or Life After Legend 2 (oops, did I just give something away that I wasn’t supposed to ;-)?  It’s going to be one of the Wildcard pre-order gifts.  Penguin Teen talked about it in a video they put out on Friday).

Anyway, Day, now going by Daniel again, returns back to the Republic with his brother Eden.  He runs into June on his first day there, and ends up going to her 27th birthday party.  Daniel of course is interested in her right away, but there’s one small problem… she has a 10 year old boy.  The party pretty much ends when the boy, John, unwittingly announces that his dad is Day.  Everybody has to get over that little snag, but after they all get to know each other, John is kidnapped.  They have to rescue him, but after they find him, they also find someone else that needs their help…

  • This is pretty focused on main characters but don’t hesitate to use several characters for the answers if you want to! (We want to get to know as many of your characters as possible)

Just for clarification… I’m using the questions in the original form, but I never consider Day, June, Tess, Pascao, or any of the original Legend characters to be “my” characters.  I’m just borrowing them.  John (the boy), Rosie, and some of the other assorted characters in the story are mine, because I made them.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Where does your main character (MC) live? Were they born there or did they move to that place?

This story has three Point of View (POV) characters, plus Rosie, a girl that John runs into after he is kidnapped.  Daniel, June, and John were all born in Los Angeles, CA, while Rosie was born in Salina, Kansas (in the Colonies).  Daniel lives in Antarctica for the first chapter, but for the rest of the story he lives in Los Angeles, where June and John live for the entire story.  Rosie lives in Salina, Kansas, until she moves to Los Angeles.

Does your MC have a dream career? What (if anything) stops them from pursuing it?

Daniel and June are both military people.  They are pursuing their dream careers.  John and Rosie are too young to think about their dream careers… and up until now, Rosie has been too busy trying to survive to even think about a career.

Did any of your characters ever go against their parents/family’s wishes? How did that change their relationship?

Daniel and June’s parents are dead, so there’s nothing happening there.  Rosie did run away from home… but her father was a child molester that had killed her mother, so I really don’t blame her.  She no longer has or desires a relationship with her father.  She doesn’t even know if he’s alive or is in jail or anything like that.

If faced with their greatest fear – would your MC try to overcome it or run the other way?

I think they all have to try to overcome their fears out of necessity.  Their biggest instinct is survival, and, in Daniel and June’s case, the survival of their son.

Did any character have to cut a person out of their life? Why?

Rosie had to cut her father out of her life.  He was so toxic that it’s better to live on the streets than to live with him.

What is your main character’s biggest regret?

In hindsight, June probably regrets not contacting Daniel sooner.  There wasn’t much they could do to prevent the kidnapping, however; it wasn’t a random kidnapping.

Which character is most likely going to help a stranger, even if they got nothing out of it in return?

Daniel.

If your character got good/bad news, who would be the person they first tell?

At the beginning of our story, Daniel would tell his brother, Eden.  June would probably tell Tess, and John would probably tell his best friend, Tanis.  Rosie really has nobody at the beginning of the story, but later on, she’d probably tell John.

BONUS: Make an aesthetic for your MCs life if there had been no obstacles (money, geographical, etc.) and they had everything they wanted. (It is up to you if you want to explain it or not!)

I’m skipping this one.

I TAG THEE
If you want to do this, there is no obligation!

I’m not going to tag anybody, but if you want to do this one, then go ahead.  🙂

Strange the Dreamer is Like a Beautiful Dream

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

Strange the Dreamer CoverJust recently I finished reading Strange the Dreamer, by Laini Taylor.  Her writing has been described as beautiful prose.  If you’re unfamiliar with her writing, you’ll just have to read her works to see it.  I didn’t want to put down this book, and I’m looking forward to reading the second half of this duology, Muse of Nightmares, later on this year.

Lazlo Strange is an orphan.  He was originally raised in a monastery, but he is drawn to stories.  When he gets the opportunity to deliver books to the library, he decides not to leave.  He becomes an apprentice librarian, reading books in his spare time.  With his head in a book and his mind in a fairy tale all the time, he becomes known as Strange the Dreamer.  Above all other stories, he is fascinated by the story of a city called Weep.  Or at least, that’s what everybody calls it now.  Lazlo knows that it had another name… once.  He felt it disappearing from his mind.

Lazlo would have continued this life indefinitely, living out his life as a lowly librarian, until fate intervened.  He decides to take a chance and do something bold, which is a move that will change his life forever.

In the city of Weep, there is a girl called Sarai.  She lives with a few other people, isolated from the rest of the world.  Until the day that she finds herself in Lazlo’s dreams.  This is the beginning of an unlikely romance.

Lazlo and Sarai are from two different worlds that don’t understand each other.  Will their relationship ever evolve from anything outside of dreams?  You’ll have to read the story to find out.

The characters in this story are outstanding.  Lazlo is not particularly handsome on the outside, but he’s an interesting character that more than one avid reader will probably be able to identify with.  In contrast to Lazlo’s rough exterior and beautiful insides, the people that are beautiful on the outside aren’t always the most beautiful people on the inside.  Our other main protagonist, Sarai, is also a wonderfully complex character, who has changed over time as she gains understanding about the people around her.

Like the prose of this story, the world of this story is also beautiful.  Ms. Taylor’s writing is wonderfully descriptive, which makes the deserts and cities and library come alive.  Even though this world contains creatures and magic not present in our own world, it’s not hard to imagine.

Strange the Dreamer seems to have underlying themes to it.  Revenge and hate is not the answer.  Good people sometimes do bad things.  Often, both sides of a conflict have good reasons to have grievances against the other, but if we let hatred simmer forever, it hurts everyone.  If those aren’t messages that we need more than ever, I don’t know what are.

If you’re looking for a beautiful story in an imaginative world that you won’t want to put down, consider getting this book.

Favorite Bookish Websites and Blogs: Top Ten Tuesday

By Brookelorren on 30 Comments

It’s Top Ten Tuesday again, and today’s topic is “Favorite Book Blogs/Bookish Web Sites”.  For today, I’d like to take a journey back in time… back to some of my favorite bookish web sites to the present, with a few blogs.  While I can’t really say that I’ve developed a list of absolute favorite bookish blogs yet, I’ll randomly include some that I’ve seen and tend to visit regularly.  As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Amazon logoIf I didn’t include Amazon.com, then I’d be leaving out one of my favorite bookish web sites.  They have some amazing Kindle deals… like the other day, I got One Thousand Perfect Notes for just $.99!  I still haven’t had the chance to read it yet, but I cannot pass up sales like that.  I love to pre-order books from my favorite authors and see them sitting in my mailbox on release day.

Archive of Our Own (AO3):  Several years ago, I had just finished the Divergent Series.  I read most of the three books in three days, and I went to bed devastated… but even that night, I refused to believe the ending.  The next morning, I started looking for alternative endings to Allegiant, and I stumbled upon AO3… and fanfiction in general.  Never mind that I had actually written two fanfic novellas in high school without realizing it.  But AO3 started me on a journey that has taken me on the path to where I am today.  At the moment, I keep two AO3 tabs open on my browser almost all of the time.

My local library:  While I’m sure that the Pikes Peak Library district is not of much interest to people outside of the Colorado Springs area, I would be dishonest if I made a list of my favorite bookish web sites without including it.  I’m here almost every day.  I currently have about a dozen books on hold, and check to see the progress of these holds regularly.  Plus, there’s so much that goes on at the library.

While theoretically, I could place Goodreads right after Amazon.com on my bookish journey back into time (I’ve been a member since April of 2013), I’m placing it here because I didn’t take advantage of its amazing goodness as much as I should have until earlier this year.  I had just finished reading The Fates Divide and was looking for another fun book to read, and I ran across their Listopia list of YA Novels of 2018.  You mean there’s 960 YA novels coming out in this year alone?  And they already know that Marie Lu is coming out with another book next year?  I was blown away.  So… I started clicking around, finding some of the popular books to read… but some of them are the third or sixth in a series, so I have to start with the first one (of course)… and I’m finding all of these new books to read… and I still haven’t recovered yet.  Like Amazon and AO3, I almost always have a Goodreads tab open now.

Now we’re almost to the present day, where I can talk about a few really nice blogs that I’ve found.  I found NetGalley shortly after I was blown away by how awesome Goodreads actually is.  You mean that I can actually read some books before they’re released to the public?  I don’t even have to pay for them?  It was around that time that I decided to once again start posting regularly to this blog and focus on book reviews.  After all, if my book blog is doing well enough, I’ll be able to read some of these really cool books early!

In the process, I’ve discovered that this book blog might also be able to help me as an author.  I’ve been a writer for nearly my entire life.  I went to the Young Author’s conference in my local area in both 3rd and 5th grade.  I won NaNoWriMo in 2014 with my fanfic, Dauntless.  But all of this reading and being around book bloggers and authors has inspired me.  Yes, my planned NaNoWriMo novel for this fall is technically a fanfic of a fanfic, but it’s really exciting me, and unlike Dauntless, which is basically an alternate history of Insurgent where Tris chose Abnegation instead of Dauntless, this is morphing into a brand new story.

All of the above web sites are leading me into dreams that I haven’t thought much about since high school (or perhaps before that, even).

Which leads me to the last five bookish web sites for Top Ten Tuesday.  These are some awesome blogs I’ve been reading.  There are so many more, but I can only pick a few… so please realize that I might love your web site as well, and not have room for it here.  These aren’t even a top five, they’re just some that I’m thinking about at the moment.

We Live and Breathe Books (WLABB) always has some great posts.  Plus, Sam (who I think tends to write most of the posts over there) has some pretty good taste in books.  I tend to see her Top Ten Tuesday posts almost every week, and I sometimes will run into some of her other posts at other times throughout the week.

I think I see AJ from Read All the Things all over the place.  She has excellent taste in books and is constantly updating her site with new content.  If you haven’t taken a look at her blog, you should.

It Starts at Midnight is another blog that I see all over the place.  Maybe it’s because I read a lot of the Top Ten Tuesday posts and she usually writes them, maybe it’s because I don’t get home from work until around midnight, so her blog opens up right about the time I get home (okay, probably not the last one).  At any rate, this is another blog that gets updated regularly that you might want to take a look at.

That Artsy Reader Girl LogoI’m always over at That Artsy Reader Girl‘s site.  She hosts Top Ten Tuesday, and it’s a great way to find other people’s blogs.  I usually keep this tab open all week long, because I’m always taking a look at what other people are posting and her TTT linkup is a great way to find other people’s blogs.

Candid Cover logoI visit The Candid Cover‘s web site regularly as well.  This summer, she’s been sponsoring a Summer TBR Wipe-Out; it’s pretty fun to link up with all of these other amazing readers to talk about the books that we’ve been reading over the past few weeks.  She also sponsors contests, various reviews, and keeps her web site regularly updated.

So, that’s a stroll through a little of my bookish history through the use of web sites!  Stay tuned for the next episode of Top Ten Tuesday, where I talk about books to get out of your reading slump (even though I’m not sure if I’ve ever had a reading slump… but I have some ideas anyway).

George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire Paints a Realistic Portrait

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

I recently was given a copy of George Whitefield: Evangelist for God and Empire, written by Peter Y. Choi.  Like a lot of people who know a lot about the history of the American colonies or of religious history, I knew who George Whitefield (pronounce WIT-field) was.  Whitefield is often portrayed as a preacher who played a huge part in the Great Awakening.  He’s often painted as a saint.  This book seems to paint a more balanced portrait of the preacher.

George Whitefield:  Evangelist for God and Empire tells of the life of Whitefield, not just as a preacher, but as someone who also was a flawed individual, like all of us.  Yes, he preached to the masses during the Great Awakening, but he also owned slaves, had questionable practices with regards to his orphanage, tried to found a college, and involved himself in politics during the War of 1812.

Even though I knew some things about Whitefield before reading this book, there was a lot more to this book that I didn’t know.  Although a lot of things in this book (looking from a 21st century perspective) were not good, like pushing for slavery in Georgia, it was good to learn about these other aspects of his life as well.

The book was a fairly scholarly book, so it wasn’t one that I could read straight through.  It wasn’t a book that I couldn’t put down, and I did read a few other books while I was working on this one, but the information in this book was interesting.  The book is worth reading if you want to learn more about this preacher.

I realize that there have been several non-YA book reviews over the last week and a half, and unfortunately, that’s just how it worked out… I really couldn’t move the dates of my reviews because I wanted the ARCs to get out in a timely manner, and I also wanted to keep my upcoming Throne of Glass and Red Queen reviews together.  On Thursday, we will resume our normal YA reviews with Strange the Dreamer.

Wrap Up Post to the Summer TBR Wipeout

By Brookelorren on 10 Comments

Summer 2018 TBR Wipeout Challenge

It’s hard to believe, but today is the final day to the Summer TBR Wipeout Challenge, hosted by The Candid Cover.  Although summer isn’t completely over, the TBR Wipeout is, and it makes me a little sad.  This is the first challenge that I’ve done as a book blogger, and so it will probably be a little special to me, and it’s sad to see it end.  I’m sure that there will be plenty of new challenges to come.

So without further adieu, I’d like to give my final report:

Since My Last Update:

Since my last update to the Summer TBR Wipeout Challenge, I’ve read five books:

Glass Sword and Crown of Midnight were on my TBR when this challenge began.  The George Whitefield book was an ARC from Netgalley, and the other two books were ARCs that I won through various sweepstakes (my first two physical ARCs!).

Overall Challenge:

Overall, I read 15 books for the Summer TBR Wipeout Challenge.  My reading pace has slowed since I had to go back to work, but since my goal was 10 books, I can say that I reached the goal and that’s a good thing.

I plan on writing reviews for all of the books that I read for this challenge and haven’t been posted yet.  I plan for the weekend of September 13th to be Sarah J. Maas weekend, where I post my reviews for the first three of her books, and the weekend of September 27th will be Victoria Aveyard weekend, where I post the first three books of The Red Queen series.  Yes, I realize that I haven’t read the third book in either series, but since I’m first on the waiting list for both books, I doubt that that will be a problem.

Thanks for reading my updates, thank you to The Candid Cover for hosting this challenge, and I hope that you’ll keep visiting my blog to see my future reviews and hopefully new challenges in the future!