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Save the Cat! Story Course and Cards

By Brookelorren on March 10, 2021March 9, 2021Leave a Comment

Oh no! The cat is in trouble and it’s up to YOU to save her! If you’re a fiction author like I am, then you know that it’s your job to put your protagonist into perilous situations and then help them find a way out of that mess. One tool you can use to make your novel look like an actual story is to use story beats. One of the best methods to get those beats down is to use the Save the Cat model. I was invited to review the Save the Cat! beat and scene cards, as well as the online course, as part of their latest Save the Cat! Blog Tour.

I’ve reviewed the book Save the Cat! Writes a Novel previously, but today I’m going to talk about the Save the Cat! online class and the Save the Cat! beat and scene cards.

I had written nine novels (or novellas) before I had ever heard of story beats. I wrote the first two books in high school (don’t remember the full details of those stories), but I think I got lucky with the next seven stories I wrote. If you’ve read books or watched movies before, you’re probably familiar with story structure, even if you’ve never used it before. Story structure probably was used even as far back as cavemen around the campfire. If you want your story to shine, then using the Save the Cat! beats as a guideline will probably make your books stand out.

When I started my tenth (still unfinished) novel, I ran into some problems. I knew where I wanted my story to go, yet it kind of ran off the rails. This is probably why this story is… still unfinished. I love the main characters, but not having clearly defined story beats when I started the story caused the middle to turn into an unfocused mess.

If you want to enhance your storytelling skills, Save the Cat! might be able to help. Some of the tools you might be interested in are Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, Save the Cat! beat and scene cards, and the Save the Cat! online course. I’m reviewing the last two today.

Save the Cat! Beat and Scene Cards

The Save the Cat! Beat and Scene cards are adorable! These can help you focus on what you want to write about in each beat. They’re big enough to make plans, but not so big that you’re going to outline EVERYTHING.

I probably should add more to the beat card above, because I know what the final image is going to look like, and I want it to mirror, in many ways, the final image. With my unfinished 10th novel, which I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2019, I could definitely put some more thought into what I want the opening image to look like, as well as the final image. I’m already using these cards to plan my NaNoWriMo novel for this November, so hopefully it won’t run off the rails.

You probably have heard before that every scene should move the story along. The Save the Cat! Scene cards can help you make sure that each scene should be there, and that there’s some conflict in each scene. They come in different colors. You could use them for different books or different acts.

Sure, you could probably use regular notecards for these, but these cards already have everything you need in here. It’s easy to plan your story with these, because everything is already laid out for you.

Save the Cat! Online Class

The Save the Cat! Online Course outlines a lot of what you’ll find in Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, in an easily digestible video course. You can go through the course at your own pace, working on your own story ideas. The class starts out nearly opposite to how many writers create their stories: create a title and logline to your story first. A lot of times, writers will write the story, then try to figure out the title and logline. And then when they try to write the synopsis when they get around to querying, they have difficulty. Using Save the Cat! will help you write a story that works, rather than one you have difficulty querying when it’s done.

The Save the Cat! class works in conjunction with the book. If you have the book, great! The chapters you’re assigned as homework will reinforce what you’re learning when you watch the video. If you don’t have the book, you won’t be able to do that part of the homework, but don’t worry. You’ll still be able to put together all your story beats.

The online class is designed with screenplay writing, not novel writing, in mind, but the same story beats that work well in movies work well with novels too.

Does Save the Cat! Work for Pantsers?

A lot of people like to sit down at their keyboard with a blank screen and just write whatever comes to them. These are commonly known as “Pantsers.” Can you use Save the Cat! if you’re one of these people?

Yes! Well… probably. We all have different writing methods, but Save the Cat! can probably work for you. There are a couple ways this course can work for you: 1) If you’re a pantser and know about story beats, you will have a “milestone” that your characters can work towards, or 2) You may want to use these beats to help edit a book–especially if the story’s all over the place.

Whether you’re looking to fix a story that’s gone off the rails (like my still-untitled NaNo19 novel), trying to improve an already good story, or trying to create a story from the ground up, Save the Cat! can probably save you a lot of pain and suffering. It’s worth checking out.

The full Save the Cat! Blog Tour information is below:

Books I May Spring Clean

By Brookelorren on March 9, 2021March 8, 2021Leave a Comment

Hello! It’s Tuesday again, which means it’s Top Ten Tuesday! Time to talk about books again! Today is a Spring Cleaning Freebie. I decided to talk about books that I may end up spring cleaning, or giving away. It’s amazing how many books a book blogger tends to pile up. I have so many books in my garage, and while I’ll probably want to get rid of some of them eventually too, books seem to multiply in my house as well. I literally only have a shelf in a closet as a formal “bookshelf;” the others are scattered throughout my house. The books on this list are typically books that I’ve read but have no intention of reading again.

1920: The Year of the Six Presidents – David Pietrusza. I learned a lot from this book. It was well written and humorous at times. However, do I think I’ll read it again? Probably not. There are some books, even in the nonfiction genre, that leave me with a feeling of awe and that I must read it again. This one–probably not.

Hanger Management – Susan Albers. This was a book I got for free from Bookish First (thank you). While it was interesting, a lot of the information in here is fairly basic. While there are some health books I don’t plan on getting rid of, like Deep Nutrition, because there’s so much I might want to refer to later, this one is a little too basic for me to hang onto forever.

A History of Wales – John Davies. While I’m glad I read this book, the topic is fairly narrow and I’m unlikely to read it again. I got it at a library book sale. I have so many unread books from library book sales that I have to stop going to those things. Anyway, while I learned a lot, this book isn’t engaging enough for me to keep.

Listen to Your Heart – Kasie West. For today’s list, I’ve been going through my Goodreads profile and have been picking books that I own in physical form. A lot of books I own on Kindle and I’m keeping those, whether I ever plan on reading them again or now. Listen to Your Heart was a good book, but I don’t think it’s one I’m going to read again. It’d be nice to pass this along to someone who would like to read it.

The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life – Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray. This was another book I got at a library book sale. It’s highly unlikely I’m going to want to read this book again. While some of its findings, like our society can sometimes be a little too complex for some people to navigate through, are interesting, others–like there might be a correlation between race and intelligence–seem a little off to me. Especially as someone who’s married to a black person who’s probably in the top decile of the intelligence scale.

Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine – Anne Applebaum. This one I’m a little unsure of. I know I should free up space and donate it, but do I want this as a reference? Maybe? It’s one of those books, like The Great Influenza, that I may want to refer to later. I’ll hold off on this one for now, but I may want to donate this one.

Japan: From Prehistory to Modern Times – John Whitney Hall. This is not the edition I have; the one I have has a yellow cover and came out in the 1960s. I found it to be difficult to read and very narrow in scope. Maybe if I knew a lot about Japanese history it would have been easier for me to read, but it wasn’t.

There’s been a lot of talk about “cancelling” older works of media recently, and while I’m not in favor of destroying art, there are some things that just aren’t relevant to today, and need to be viewed through a different lens. As far as I can tell, there isn’t anything sexist or racist about this work, but it is 50 years old, and perhaps that is why I had such difficulty reading it. It’s more interesting, IMO, from a historical perspective than as something useful for today. And perhaps the same is true of these older works that seem to be horribly outdated today.

Stop Missing Your Life – Cory Muscara. While this book was interesting enough, do I really think I’m going to read this again? Probably not. I know there are a ton of nonfiction books on this week’s list–believe it or not, I actually have tons of nonfiction books that I love and will probably never get rid of–but this book isn’t something I’m likely to want to refer to, or read again. Some books you can read, absorb all you’re going to want to get out of it in one reading, and then you’re ready to move on. I think this is one of those books.

Light from Distant Stars – Shawn Smucker. I liked the book, but out of the thousands of books that I could read, do I want to read this again? Probably not. I’d rather pass this on.

My Mother, Barack Obama… – Keven Powell. While I found this book to be interesting and a glimpse into a life that is completely foreign to mine, I’m probably not going to read this one again. I’d rather pass this on to someone that hasn’t read it yet and would like to.

So there’s 10 books I’m thinking of donating. As my books pile up, I’m trying to make use of the library and my Kindle more, which reduces the amount of books I have to donate. There are some books that I’ll hang onto for years, of course, but these tend to be ones that are either signed or that I plan on rereading.

What did you write about today? Are your shelves overflowing like mine? Do you end up bringing home a bag of library books from those sales and find a lot that need to find new homes?

Next week we’re going to talk about our Spring TBRs. I think these are some of my favorite posts.

Chain of Iron

By Brookelorren on March 3, 2021March 3, 2021Leave a Comment

I finished Chain of Iron an hour or so ago.

So… I just have to review it. Considering it’s March 3rd, the book released yesterday (although I got it Monday evening), the book is 688 pages, I’ve had work duties for the past couple of days, and I’m already 5 books behind in my Goodreads reading challenge, I suppose you can guess that it was a book I couldn’t put down. In fact, I stayed up until 3 AM two nights in a row to read it.

But… wow. That ending.

This review assumes you’ve already read Chain of Gold (click the link for my review of that book).

Lucie is on the cover of Chain of Iron, but this book spends a great deal of time on James and Cordelia. Which I love, because they’re my favorite couple in this series. The book begins right before their wedding. And after that… everything falls apart.

There’s a killer on the loose again, and James is having dreams about the murders. Elias, Cordelia’s dad, returns, but he’s still drinking. Matthew’s still drinking–if you’ve read “Cast Long Shadows” from Ghosts of the Shadow Market, then you know why he started drinking, although Matthew does tell someone what happens during the course of this book. Lucie and Grace are working together, trying to resurrect Jesse.

It’s hard to say too much without giving away spoilers. But… we have some of our suspicions (if you have them) confirmed about Grace, some of the relationships in the Shadowhunter’s Found Family tree are foreshadowed, Belial makes a comeback, and Lucie turns out to be a little more conniving and interesting than she was in Chain of Gold. Grace and Alastair are shown to be… sympathetic characters? Chain of Iron doesn’t excuse their actions, but it does give reasons as to why they behaved the way they did. Maybe they’ll even be redeemed in the last book?

And then there’s the elephant in the room. The ending. It’s not as bad as the ending to that one Shadowhunter book where a major character is literally stabbed to death in (I think) the last chapter, but it comes close to it. If you don’t like cliffhangers–wait to read this one. There isn’t a major death at the very end, but there is a–misunderstanding–that could easily be cleared up under normal circumstances, but Cassandra Clare literally throws every obstacle in the way so that it doesn’t, and now we have to wait a year to see it resolved.

That being said, I’m willing to bet that Chain of Thorns is going to be MONSTER sized (like pretty much all of her last books in trilogies are). There are so many things that have to be done in that book. Matthew’s secret is going to have to come out, all the characters that are supposed to get together and have kids in the Found Family Tree are going to have to find love together, and the epilogue will probably end up showing us how they live happily ever after. Clare has said that after The Last Hours, she’s going to write The Wicked Powers (which deals with the modern-day timeline) and that’s going to be it. Since this will be the end of our London timeline, I’m sure she won’t leave us with loose ends. I’m sure I’m going to ugly cry hard like the end of Clockwork Princess.

In a nutshell–amazing book, noooo!!!! ending because of the cliffhanger. I need Chain of Thorns ASAP. Chain of Iron will most certainly get a reread before next March.

Book Characters Whose Job I Wish I Had

By Brookelorren on March 2, 2021March 2, 202110 Comments

Hello! It’s Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl) and I’m so excited because my copy of Chain of Iron arrived early! Sadly, I have a ton of work to do, so I can’t read it this second. It’s staring up at me teasingly. Anyway, we’re talking about book characters whose job I wish I had. I think this may be difficult. We’ll see if I can come up with 10!

Cordelia Carstairs – Shadowhunter. Yes, I know that’s a picture of Lucie on the cover of Chain of Iron, but I’m excited to read it, okay? Cordelia is one of my favorite characters in The Last Hours. She is so caring about her family, and she is willing to sacrifice so much for her friend James, even though her love for him is unrequited. I probably wouldn’t be a very good shadowhunter, but it might be fun to kill demons.

Eliza – Writer. There might be a few writers on my list this week, LOL. Anyway, Eliza writes a weekly webcomic, and she’s very successful at it. While I probably wouldn’t be good at doing a webcomic, I would like to write and be successful at it.

Nannerl and Wolfgang – Composers. It would be cool to write music for a living. As an added bonus, Nannerl and Wolfgang got to travel to different courts and visit kings and queens. Nannerl had the unfortunate situation of being a girl in a world where girls weren’t really allowed to compose, and were expected to give up their careers when they were old enough to get married, but we’re going to give her credit, k? It’s very likely that she inspired some of Wolfgang’s compositions, so maybe we’ve heard some of her work before without even knowing it.

Jake – Time-Traveling Teacher. I teach a small Spanish class once a week (7 students) and also homeschool my son, and teaching the class of high schoolers can be stressful, but I don’t get to time travel. I don’t think I’d bother attempting to prevent John F. Kennedy’s assassination (things happen for a reason, after all) but getting to go back and experience a time I never lived through would be awesome.

Daniel – Photographer. I love taking pictures, and it would be an adventure to document a place like Franco’s Spain, even though it might be a little dangerous. I’d have to be very careful not to get caught.

Annika – Tech Entrepreneur. I love computers, and majored in computer science in college, so I could definitely be a tech entrepreneur.

Ana – Princess. Now, I’m not saying I want to be on the run and be an exiled princess, but I wouldn’t mind being a princess. Who wouldn’t? Sometimes their lives could be dangerous (in real life even, a lot of them ended up in the dungeon), but other than that, it might not be a bad life.

Jo – Writer. One of the things I loved about this book was that Jo was a writer, and I could identify with some of her struggles.

Samantha – Plant cataloger. If I was in Veronica Roth’s Divergent and I had to choose a faction, it would be Erudite. Anyway, I think it would be interesting to catalog plants, although I wouldn’t be too excited about the whole end-of-the-world thing.

Stella – Data Analyst. Stella’s job involves a lot of math, and it pays well, too. One of my first reactions to a review of The Kiss Quotient was “you had me at math” (Erudite, remember?). It may not be something I could do right now, but I wouldn’t mind doing this. I actually am using a little bit of math when I trade cryptocurrency, but probably not on the scale that Stella does.

Whew! I actually did it! I had to go back to books I read all the way back in 2018 to do so, but I found 10 jobs that I’d like (even though I had to use writer twice). I’m kind of happy being a homeschool teacher that writes and dabbles in cryptocurrency trading (even though the last one is the only one I really make any money from).

What kind of jobs did you pick this week? Did you find it as hard as I did? Next week is a Spring Cleaning Freebie. I’m not 100% sure what I’ll do for that one yet.

Books That Came Out Before I Was Born

By Brookelorren on February 23, 2021February 22, 202113 Comments

Hello! It’s Tuesday, which means it’s Top Ten Tuesday Time! Today is the day we get together with all our book friends and talk about books. Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Today’s topic is supposed to be “Books that Made Me Laugh Out Loud” but I’m not sure if I can come up with 10. I know there are more than that, but there aren’t a lot of books I can come up with that I think “Oh my that was funny!” Today’s post would be full of Sandhya Menon and Cassandra Clare books. Since I missed a couple weeks, I’m going to go back a couple weeks and do “Books That Came Out Before I was Born” instead, which was the topic for a few weeks ago. I’m going to start with books on my TBR, then move on to books that I’ve read.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – William Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s plays are classics. I saw this play when I was in middle school (I think). Maybe I read it then too? Either way, I’d like to read this play.

Up From Slavery – Booker T. Washington. I’m sure many of you have heard of Booker T. Washington. He started life as a slave and later went on to found what is now Tuskeegee University. I’d love to read his autobiography someday.

Война и мир (War and Peace) – Leo Tolstoy. While this is often thought of as the quintessential long book, it’s only between 1150 and 1400 pages, depending on what edition you get. And I’m sure the translation matters too. While I’d love to read it in the original Russian and French someday, I kinda should finish reading Дивергент (Divergent) first. It’d be much easier to read, and it’s less than 1/2 the length.

And that’s all the books on my TBR that were made before I was born! That being said, there are plenty of other books that were made before I was born, that I either have read or would be interested in reading.

Decline and fall of the roman Empire Gibbon cover

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire – Edward Gibbon. I’ve actually been reading the unabridged version of this book for several years now. I’m 29% of the way through the book. It’s 3,672 pages. I don’t read it every day, and it’s a difficult book. But it is interesting to read about all of these emperors. It also gives me ideas for fictional books I might want to read. Another thing that I like about it is that it reminds me that–politically, things can get a lot worse. I can feel fortunate that they’re not.

Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy. I read Anna Karenina a long time ago. I don’t remember much about it, so I’d like to read it again. I had aspartame poisoning when I was in my 20s, and it affected my memory from that time. I would watch a movie and couldn’t keep track of the characters in the movie while I was watching it. I forgot a lot about the books I read too.

Little House on the Prairie (series) – Laura Ingalls Wilder. I’d love to read the entire Little House on the Prairie series again someday. There are a couple more books written after The First Four Years, which I’ve never read, and I’d like to read someday. Ms. Wilder was an inspiration to me; someday I’d like to write my autobiography as well. She fictionalized a few details, and I probably would too.

Anne of Green Gables (series) – L. M. Montgomery. I’d love to read the Anne of Green Gables books again (although my favorite is Rilla of Ingleside). When my grandma died, I really wanted to inherit her Anne books. She loaned them to me when I was in middle or high school. I haven’t read them since, but they definitely need another read someday.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame – Victor Hugo. I read Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables in 2019, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame is “only” 553 pages in comparison. This is a book I’d love to get around to reading someday.

The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas. I have a copy of this book somewhere in my garage, but it looks a little thin, considering that the book is 1138 pages and the copy I have doesn’t look like a brick. I’ve seen the movie, but I’d love to read the book someday. Books contain so much more information–especially if they’re over 1000 pages, you know there’s a lot in the book that never made it to the movie! One of the things I love about old books is that it takes you back into that time period in a way that books written about older time periods cannot.

The History of the Franks – Gregory of Tours. I’ve actually read this book twice already, but I’d read it again someday. It has fantastical stories about the early Frankish kings (that would be, kings that ruled what is now France). It wasn’t meant to be a fantastical story either. I love to read it and wonder what actually happened and was miraculous, and what was just made up. Reading these stories after being more familiar with the characters in the stories I think would change the way I saw the book.

So there are ten stories that were written before I was born, that I’ve either read before and would like to read again, or I’ve never read but would like to. Did you write about funny books this week? Maybe I need to read some of the books on people’s lists this week! Especially as the pandemic is getting close to a year now.

Next week Chain of Iron comes out! Here, we’ll be talking about “Characters Whose Job I Wish I Had.” I think I can do a better job with those than funny books. I mean, there have to be at least 10 books about princesses or authors or something, right? But I’m sure I can find a few others too.

Melody and Quintus Meet

By Brookelorren on February 22, 2021February 22, 2021Leave a Comment

Hello! I hope you’re doing well. I already know what I want to write for NaNoWriMo this year. It’s a best friends to lovers story. Over the weekend, I decided to write a short story about how they met. Here’s the beginning:

Melody wanted to see them again.

Last night, Daddy took her to the top of the hill just outside the village to see the stars. The moon was a sliver in the sky, and it was so dark, she had to hold his hand to make sure she didn’t trip over anything. They lay down on the dry grass and stared upward.

Most of the time in the summer, Mommy and Daddy made her go to bed before it was even dark. Melody thought it was unfair because she was never tired that early. When they closed the shutters, the room was mostly dark, but she could still see a sliver of light through the middle, teasing her.

Above her, the stars were strewn about the sky like countless pinpricks of light. She knew there were lots of numbers in the world, but she could only count to ten. Mommy and Daddy could count higher, but even they probably couldn’t count all the stars.

“Watch,” Daddy said.

“What am I looking for?” Melody whispered. She didn’t know why; they were far enough away from all the houses in the village that a normal speaking voice wouldn’t reach them, but somehow she felt like she needed to be quiet, almost as a form of reverence.

“You’ll see.”

She was in awe of all the beautiful stars in the sky. Daddy had told her that in the capital, the king had an astronomer whose only job was to watch the stars and look for signs in the sky. When she asked if she could have that job, he told her that boys usually had that job. When she told her she wanted to be the first girl, he ruffled her hair and said that maybe she would.

If she was going to be the first female astronomer to the king, she’d have to be more familiar with the night sky, right?

After Mommy and Daddy put her to bed earlier that night, she lay awake, insistent on not falling asleep. She listened to their quiet conversation in the main room, waited until they were in their beds, and glanced over at the crack of light streaming through the shutter until it dimmed into darkness. They weren’t going to check up on her. They were asleep.

She got up, put on her clothes from earlier that day, and unlocked the shutter. There was no glass in her window—only the king and nobility were wealthy enough to afford that—so she climbed through the window, careful to place her feet on the wood of the flower box instead of in the flowers. Mommy would find out—and yell at her—if she stepped on her flowers.

She looked around before heading toward the road out of town. It was a dirt path wide enough for wagons and carts. Most of the time, the path was packed hard with the footprints of horses and people from the village’s earliest beginnings, but in the middle of the summer, like today, it was dusty, although in the rainy season it could turn into a muddy mess. There weren’t any people out, which was good for her. If she was caught, any adult would send her home to her parents, and her parents would probably spank her for sneaking out.

A sniffle behind her caught her by the ears.

It wasn’t the cry of an adult. Whoever was crying was a child, just like her. She couldn’t leave another child crying in the middle of the night, so she turned towards the noise.

A boy about her age was huddled behind her family’s barn. He looked a little familiar—perhaps she saw him on one of her trips to the middle of the village with her daddy, or maybe she saw him before at the Midsummer festival.

He looked up as she approached. He had dark brown hair that curled at the ends, olive-toned skin, and dirty smudges on his face. A high contrast to her wispy blonde hair, pale skin Mommy washed before bed, and clear blue eyes.

“Are you okay?” She sat in the dust next to him, not worried about dirtying her dress since it was the one she had worn earlier that day.

You can read the rest of the story on Wattpad.

Books with Green, Yellow, and Purple Covers

By Brookelorren on February 16, 2021February 16, 202118 Comments

Hello! Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday! Sorry I haven’t been around for a couple weeks. Two major things have been draining my time: QuizUp is discontinuing, and it’s been my goal for years to become the best in the world in the Divergent Trilogy category there. Only problem is, there was one lady that was way ahead of me. So I had less than 2 months to make up that difference (and I did, so now I’m the best in the world, but I have to retain my lead for another month). Second, I sold a bunch of DOGE (a cryptocurrency) that I mined several years ago for about $4000. So I bought a new laptop and had some money to trade.

Anyway, today we’re talking about books with yellow, purple, and green colors. It’s Mardi Gras, I guess. When I worked at Walmart I’d kinda know because they’d sell stuff in those colors right around this time. Are people doing anything for Mardi Gras this year? Covid is kinda taking everybody’s parties away. I’m listing my most recently read books using “My Books” on Goodreads. Which color did I read the most covers of in the last nine months? Let’s find out:

Oooh, a purple cover in one of my most recent reads! Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman is a great book. I wrote a story over the weekend, “My Embarrassing Secret,” about Satoshi Nakamoto, the unknown creator of Bitcoin; I created a wife for him and named her Akemi.

Are all my covers going to be purple this week? We’ll see. A Sky Beyond the Storm is the final book in Sabaa Tahir’s An Ember in the Ashes tetralogy. It is such a wonderful end to the series, if you haven’t had the chance to read it yet.

I read Keeper by Kim Chance last November, and it has a green cover (so I guess I’m not going with just purple). This book is a lovely blend of contemporary reality with some magic thrown in.

I thought about not using two Sabaa Tahir books for this list, but I’m going in order of when I read them. Too bad An Ember in the Ashes series doesn’t have a yellow cover too, or they’d have the whole Mardi Gras thing going on! A Reaper at the Gates has a green cover. I read the first three books last year in preparation for the release of A Sky Beyond the Storm, so that’s why there are two here among my most recent reads.

Our first yellow cover! Opposite of Always is a story about a boy who meets the love of his life, but she’s sick and dies. Only–then he goes back in time and meets her again and she dies again. The love interest, Kate, has sickle cell anemia, which is something my husband has.

I’m not intentionally grouping these colors by cover, but it seems like they’re grouping themselves. Last summer I reread Summer Days and Summer Nights on audiobook. Considering it was -15º last night, I’m kinda looking forward to the return of those summer days and summer nights.

The Bride Test is yet another yellow cover. I wonder which color will have the most covers? I’m pretty sure I’m going to borrow the third book in this series, The Heart Principle, from the library. The hardcover is still selling for $26! That’s way more than I can spend on most books. The Kindle book is a more reasonable $9.99, but I can wait and save myself the money.

Our fourth yellow cover in a row means that in the recent past, I have read more yellow covers than any other. Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour is a story about two late-teens driving across the country and getting to experience life. It’s a trip I’d like to take. Actually, I have kind of taken trips like this, although not so spontaneous (I knew I wanted to stop at Yellowstone and The Great Salt Lake, etc.). I wish everyone the opportunity to drive across the country, stopping at places that interest them. Not now though, because covid. But soon. According to Worldometers, the Daily New Cases and Daily Deaths have started to decrease! Yes! But we have a long way to go.

Last year, I read the Divergent trilogy again, including Insurgent, the second book. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read these books. I’ve forced myself to only read these every other year so I don’t burn out. I absolutely adore these books.

When I started looking through these covers, I wouldn’t have guessed that the color with the most covers read since last June (out of the colors yellow, purple, and green) would be yellow. But out of these colors, half of them were yellow! I wonder if I’d get different results next year, or if I just read more covers with yellow covers. King of Scars makes the fifth yellow book I’ve read since last June.

That’s it! I hope you’re all staying warm. And that you have power! I’m sure our Australian friends are very happy they’re not in the US right about now. Next week we’re going to talk about “Books that Made Me Laugh Out Loud.” Wow, that’s going to be a toughie. But I did miss two weeks so maybe I’ll do one of those if I can’t think of enough books. Assuming I’m not in a battle to the death over Divergent trilogy on QuizUp.

The Ribbon Duet

By Brookelorren on February 5, 2021February 3, 2021Leave a Comment

The Boy & His Ribbon has been on my radar for a couple years. I finally drew its name in the TBR lottery, and–this duology may just be one of the best books I’ll read in 2021. It’s still early in the year, but this book had all. The. Feels.

The blurb doesn’t give away much; however, I think that to get an idea of what you’re getting yourself into with this book, you’ll want to at least know what happens by the second or third chapter. From the blurb, I imagined The Boy & His Ribbon was a story about a boy who had been sold, and he fell in love with his owner’s daughter while he was still “their property.” Nope.

This story begins with the boy running away from the people that bought him. With the monsters’ baby daughter in his backpack, stowing away. Ren is ten years old, and he not only has to worry about surviving after escaping, but he also has to worry about taking care of an infant. He can’t take her back because they’ll kill him, he’s too kind to leave her to the wolves, and he’s too distrustful of people to leave her to Social Services.

And they fall in love. Not immediately, but as they grow up. Perhaps you’re thinking this is really weird–I mean, do you fall in love with someone who you grew up with that is almost like a cross between your dad and your sibling, even though you’re not technically related? This is addressed in the books. The Boy & His Ribbon is mostly about the first 18 or so years of their life together, watching this relationship evolve. The Girl & Her Ren is about the next 20ish years of their life.

A Tragedy

This duology is not a happy story; it is a tragedy. While A Boy & His Ribbon isn’t a tragedy, The Girl & Her Ren is, and you’re not going to want to read one without reading the other. This is why I’m reviewing them together. You don’t want to start reading the first book without being prepared for having your heart ripped out in the second. I don’t want to say too much about what exactly happens here (although I do plan on writing a second, spoilery post on my thoughts later), but I was weeping for almost the entire second half of the second book. But there were some beautiful parts to this love story as well.

This book is true-to-life, and sometimes life is heartbreaking. But even when life is heartbreaking, there are plenty of good times too. That is probably what makes this book so good and so painful in the end. It doesn’t paint life with a rosy brush and try to pretend everything is always wonderful.

Kind of Funny… An Anachronism

This book was published in 2018, but it runs into the future, ending in 2032. Of course, the characters go through 2020. Of course, there are no mentions of the pandemic. It could take you out of the story if you think too much about it, but if you see this as an alternate universe where the pandemic never happened, then the references to 2020 and no masks or lockdowns is a little comical.

Not A YA Book

Don’t look at the description and think this is a YA book. It is definitely not. Yes, the story starts out with a ten-year-old boy and a baby, but they grow up. Even in the first book. I wouldn’t recommend this to my fourteen-year-old.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an adult book that will break your heart, you may wish to give The Ribbon Duet a try. It wasn’t what I expected, but it was sooo good. I think it was highly underrated. At the same time, the blurb really didn’t give enough information to give me a good idea of what it was about.

Make Up Break Up

By Brookelorren on February 1, 2021February 1, 2021Leave a Comment

I’m so excited because Make Up Break Up comes out this week! In case you didn’t know, Sandhya Menon has a pen name in order to write adult books: Lily Menon! Her first full-length adult romance Make Up Break Up, comes out on Tuesday. She also wrote the novella “Booked for Christmas” which was excellent. And there’s more to come!

Make Up Break Up is about two tech entrepreneurs: Annika, who created a computer program called Make Up, which has a premise of getting people back together, and Hudson, who created a program called Break Up, which helps people break up.

Obviously, they have two different philosophies on life. Their two businesses aren’t exactly compatible. As the story progresses, they will end up bumping into each other at work.

The only problem is–Hudson is hot. And Annika thinks he’s a complete jerk. Why does she have such a negative reaction to him? As you read the book, you’ll find out that they have met before.

I enjoyed how Ms. Menon slowly reveals the details of their story. I don’t want to give out too many details, but we eventually find out why they have such an animosity towards each other. I was so surprised at the final revelation. And of course, since this is a romance, there’s a happily ever after.

I did find Annika to be a little immature at the beginning of the story, considering she’s an adult, but some people are like that. Especially when they become emotional about something.

If you’re looking for a cute romance and the tech industry is your thing, I definitely recommend Make Up Break Up. It’s definitely an adult book, so I don’t recommend this to younger Sandhya Menon fans, but if you’ve loved her YA books and would like something a little steamier, you may enjoy this book.

Books On My TBR Lottery The Longest

By Brookelorren on January 26, 2021January 26, 20219 Comments

Hello! I hope you’ve been having a great week. It’s Tuesday, and time for Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl). I did today’s topic (New To Me Authors) last week, so this week I’m going to do last week’s topic (Books I Meant to Read In 2020 but Didn’t Get To). I actually didn’t have a lot of books that I had to read last year. There were a few new releases, but I pretty much pre-order those and start reading them release day. Most of the other books I’m interested in, but you know what? There’s about 50 other books I’m interested in reading just as much.

That’s why I started the TBR lottery. It’s a numbered list of books I’m interested in reading. When I want to read a book but don’t have one I have to read (like Chain of Iron on March 2nd) then I use a random number generator to pick my next book. As long as I have access to that book (some I have to get from the library, as an example) I’ll start reading it. I’ve been doing this for about a year now, and some books just don’t get picked. So today, I’m going to go over the books that have been patiently waiting the longest.

I found The Boy and His Ribbon through book blogging. I’ve read most of Pepper Winters’ Dollar series, and they were always so addictive. This book is a forbidden romance that sounded interesting from the first time I heard about it. Although this book has the lowest number on the TBR lottery (the higher numbers are newer), it did get picked for my winter TBR so I’ll be reading it soon.

I read the first book in Jennifer L. Armentrout’s Lux series, Obsidian, back in 2019. I haven’t had the chance to read the second book, Onyx, yet. And it hasn’t been picked by the TBR lottery yet.

One of the Amazon Prime benefits I take advantage of every month is picking up their free book every month. Sometimes I just end up collecting these books though. I’ve been adding them to the TBR lottery though. The Boy Between Worlds is about a biracial boy in the Netherlands who lives through World War II. It sounds really interesting, but it’s number hasn’t been drawn yet.

I got The Night Circus for $1.99 on Amazon when it was on sale. I figure for that price I couldn’t pass it up. Anyway, it went onto the TBR lottery and hasn’t been heard from again. I’m sure it will get picked someday.

Once & Future is another book I got on sale. I was interested in reading it when it came out, but it wasn’t one of my top priority books. So it went onto the TBR lottery, and has been sitting there ever since.

Meet Cute was another book I got on sale. That’s a common theme for a lot of these older books, I think, because I’m interested in them enough to take advantage of the low price, but not quite so much that I want to read it right away. Anyway, this book (about a girl who has a meet cute with an actor she had a teenage crush on) is still waiting for its big break.

So Hope Nation was on sale, and I had to pick it up, because it had an essay by Marie Lu in it (and a lot of other amazing authors). I have read the Marie Lu essay in this book, but the book is on my TBR lottery and I’ll read the rest of the authors when this book gets picked.

All the Little Lights is another book I got on sale. Actually, the majority of these books I either got on sale or I don’t own. Anyway, this book is about two friends who are forced apart, reunite, and then trouble happens that keeps them apart.

Millions is the last book in the Dollar series by Pepper Winters. I said earlier that this series is addictive. If I owned this book, I probably would have read it earlier. It’s not that expensive ($3.99) but I guess I’m waiting for it to win the TBR lottery to buy it. Then I can finally find out what happened to these people!

I really liked Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer, so when I saw that Daughter of Smoke and Bone (you probably guessed it) was on sale, I had to pick it up. So now it’s been on my TBR lottery for a while.

So that’s today’s list! Are there any of these you think should jump to the front of the line?

Next week I won’t be a rebel and I’ll post about Books that Were Published Before I was Born like everyone else. Maybe I’ll narrow it down to books that I’ve read. They’ll probably end up being mostly classics. See you then!