Beau and Bett by Kathryn Berla
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This left me underwhelmed.

There was some dialogue that left me bored, they spent a whole page talking about mundane stuff that doesn't really drive the plot forward. The plot seemed to speed ahead while dragging along simultaneously.

I liked that this was a modern retelling that didn't rely on the use of magical realism. Not that I don't like magical realism but that seems to be the only way to make a modern beauty and the beast retelling work.

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For Time & Eternity by Allison Pittman
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Since becoming exmormon I've been loath to use the term "antimormon" but I'll use it for this book.

I was intrigued by protests of the author's use of exmormon forums for research. Despite this I ended up disappointed with the author's "research". The mormonism she portrayed was only somewhat accurate. For instance, Mormons do in fact read the bible. The author clearly had an antimormon pro-christian agenda and cherry picked what she chose to portray to make the mormons look bad.

I wouldn't even call this book a romance. Just straight up Christian Literature with a "mormons aren't christian" bias. I'm sorry I wasted hours of my life reading this drivel.

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House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm a sucker for fairy tale retellings so despite not being familiar with The Twelve Dancing Princesses I was excited to read this. I went ahead and read the synopsis on Wikipedia so I at least knew a little about it.

I don't know why but fantasies have a high dnf rate from me, unless they're fairy tale retellings, of which I will happily ride all they way to the end. Not being familiar with the OG tale put the book in the former camp and my attention did drift some and I put off reading. However, whenever I picked it back up I was sucked right back in. The world building was top notch.

It was part murder mystery and part romance and part something else, with some parts shining brighter in some places. The murder mystery was on-the-edge-of-your-seat compelling and the romance was nice and sweet, the other part was sort of blah.




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The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

You'd think Romy Silvers was someone amazing, the first person born in space and captaining a spaceship at the age of 16. But really, she's not. She's a regular teenage girl thrown into extraordinary circumstances. Aside from the being able to do astrophysics part.

I liked how well the author portrayed her loneliness, she has literally not seen another person since her dad died, that is unthinkable.

No spoilers, but I really liked what the story turned into at the end.

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Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive by Stephanie Land
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Has there ever been a small detail in a book that made you angry every time it came up? For me it was the "ocean views". Camano Island is not on the ocean, its on the Puget Sound and trust me, they are not the same thing.

My family grew up in poverty so I'm no stranger to it. However, its not something I've had to face as an adult. And I enjoyed reading about it on the other side. I knew we were poor but I never thought about what it meant for my parents.

The insights she gave into the homes she cleaned were pretty funny. She gave some of them names like "the porn house." I'm tempted to drive over there and see how these people live.

➼4.5 stars



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Something Like Gravity by Amber Smith
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Without the dead sister and being transgender, its a cute summer romance. With it though it becomes something extraordinary.

Told from both the POV's of Maia and Chris we get to see their romance blossom and hide their secrets. I loved getting in Chris's head, I don't really know all that much about being transgender. I also liked watching Maia take her sister's camera and try to see what she saw, in an effort to feel closer to her.


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The Gamer's Guide to Getting the Girl by Kristine Scarrow
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Despite the title, the romance is only secondary to the plot. He's trapped in a mall with other people and he spends most of his time trying to make sure everyone else is safe. I guess thinking about it that makes sense? In a game like Mario he spends most of his time jumping over things or trying to vanquish his enemies, it isn't til the end he saves Princess Peach. So I guess you could say its following video game conventions instead of novels? Mario doesn't try to bill itself as a romance though. It is fun to see the main character work out problems like its a video game though.

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Akela by Ryan Uytdewilligen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I'm not sure where to start so I'm just going to spit it out: some of the things that happened were unbelievable and the constant philosophizing annoyed me.

After being separated from the love of his life, Akela spends a good portion of his life trying to get back to her. The things that happen to him get more and more fantastical as the story goes on. Am I really supposed to believe he caused Watergate? Also, there are animals that have sworn off eating meat.

Akela has way too much self reflection. Dropping wisdom every page isn't really needed and gets tired at times. Just telling his story is enough.   His constant pining for his love doesn't come across as romantic, its just whiny.

The cast of characters is excellent though. I loved getting to know all the people and animals he met.





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When Summer Ends by Jessica Pennington
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm really glad I was reading this when we had some rare sunshine because it made it feel like summer.

It was a cute romance and would make for a great summer read.

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Starworld by Audrey Coulthurst
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

*is wondering why she thought this was going to be a lesbian romance*

*is thinking about Zoe possibly being asexual*

Zoe doesn't think about sex or how attractive she finds somebody while talking about how much she loves romance. That's what allosexual people do, right? I might be reading into it though.

*is wondering why she didn't see the thing coming*

*is thinking about Zoe being adopted and her feelings about it*

My dad was adopted and never wanted to meet his birth parents. I understand that its his decision to make but I always felt like there was a piece of me missing. Its my history too. For Christmas, I got myself a DNA kit. The ethnicity results were enough to fill the hole that was missing. (99.3% european). I've never actually stopped to think what actually being adopted would be like.

*is glad at all the Doctor Who references included*

*likes seeing 2 teens whose home lives are far from normal*

*likes that it was set so close to home*








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Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm not sure if I read it in a day because it actually was unputdownable or because it became available from the library on the day I felt like crap.



It was great sick day read. Instead of focusing on how crappy I felt I was immersed in the world of rock'n'roll. I actually felt like I was right there with Daisy Jones partying and trying to put an album together.

However, about a quarter of the way through I realized that it was reading like The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band and I couldn't stop the comparisons once I made the connection.

While Daisy Jones makes for an interesting read at the end of the day its just a story. The Dirt had me feeling every emotion from queasy to heartbroken and is a true story. If you want to read about a rock band I would recommend The Dirt over this.





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Pride by Ibi Zoboi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This has to be the best P&P retelling I've read yet.

A couple of days ago I read that P&P was meant to be more of an anti-romance. Usually someone's a jerk and she finds another dude who doesn't like him and they run off together. That's not what happened. The other dude ends up being the jerk and the first guy's the hunk. That's exactly what happened in this novel.

At the beginning Zuri was put off by Darius and was getting it with Warren instead. I was totally shipping Zuri and Warren for a hot minute.

While staying true to the source material, it managed to make it feel fresh, like I was reading a new book. Almost, I still knew how it was going to end.

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Ogre Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is not about Ella. This is about Evie and the story has little to nothing to do with Ella.

I was excited to get more Ella when I first heard about this but lowered my expectation on what I was getting. I knew this wasn't going to be about Ella and would probably be a different kind of story than Ella was and I was right. Its a good story on its own.

This one's a bit more Lucinda heavy and we get to see more of Lucinda's exploits. I didn't realize how much Lucinda did and its almost like a dystopia. I would love it if Levine did more of these stories so we could see more fallout from Lucinda's "gifts".

The tone of the narrator bothered me, she was only supposed to be 15 but she sounded like a pretentious middle aged person, not the teenager of humble background that she is.

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Lovestruck by Kate Watson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was pleasantly surprised by this.

The beginning of this book played out like a regular contemporary YA romance, albeit with a twist, but it went places I was not expecting.

Kali's not a regular YA protagonist. Most YA protags have relatively few years of experience. Kali is a Greek Goddess so she's been around longer and she's got a bit more wisdom behind her.

When we first meet Kali she's disillusioned with the whole matchmaking process. She believes you can't fight fate. Without giving too much away, the book deals with the theme of "choosing your fate".

This book is a fun way to learn about some Greek Mythology.




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Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Last year when Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom came out I became obsessed with the Jurassic Park Franchise. I watched all of the movies and watched fan theory videos on Youtube. However I did not read the book. I'm drowning in my TBR, I can't just read a book whenever I want, there are other things to read. It took me months to get to my reread of Ready Player One so I could watch the movie.

I have to say I like the movie more. Its not the book's fault, the movie is a cinematic masterpiece. Also not the book's fault is that its just not my taste. I have said before and I'll probably say it again that action is not my thing. I have a hard time keeping up with it, at some point it just becomes a blur of words. This books relies heavily on its action scenes. Regardless, I had fun reading it, well as much as I could with trying to keep up with the action scenes.

The novel lost some of it magic with just being words on a page, with the movie we could actually see the dinosaurs. However, the novel was able to do way more scenes with the dinosaurs. Horror movies don't scare me (Jurassic Park was one of the movies my mom used to desensitize me to horror), but my heart was pounding during some of the scenes.

If you're a fan of Jurassic Park like I am check out the Klayton Fioriti Channel on Youtube.

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I Was Anastasia by Ariel Lawhon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this one.

Anna's story is told reverse chronologically starting with the final court decision. The author did a beautiful job of taking her from a batty old woman to a lonely/confused young woman. But it was strange. I did like the thrill of reading about something and then finding out what she meant in the next section.

Now to watch that Ingrid Bergman movie mentioned in the book.

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The Beast's Heart by Leife Shallcross

The Beast's Heart by Leife Shallcross
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you're anything like me you won't be able to help comparing this to the Disney version of Beauty and the Beast.

First of all, the Beauty's name was changed. Instead of Belle, it's Isabeau. That took some getting used to.

There are no dancing candlesticks in this one. Instead, the Beast has "unseen servants". They don't really add anything to the story, unlike the singing teapot, they're just kind of there.

Isabeau has 2 sisters. The magic allows Beast to look into the lives of Isabeau's family. They're story is just as compelling, if not more so, than Beast and Isabeau's. I really enjoyed their character development.

There is no Gaston, nor anyone who could be considered close to a Gaston.

The prose was so beautiful. Beast is so eloquent, my heart ached along with his. A book hasn't made me feel this way in a long time.

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Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States by Samantha Allen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Expected Release March 5



Samantha Allen embarks on a road trip to show us how LGBTQ live in seemingly LGBTQ unfriendly areas. Along the way she visits LGBTQ hot spots and interviews the people who run them or some other noteworthy people about what drives them, why they stay, etc. I don't identify as LGBTQ (heteroromantic asexual in a hetero marriage) but it seemed like a good portrayal of LGBTQ life.

The places she travels to are : Provo Utah, Texas, Bloomington Indiana, Johnson City Tennessee, Jackson Mississippi, and Atlanta Georgia. I might be biased (I'm totally biased) but my favorite was the Provo one, which made reading the rest of the book kind of a let down, but that's a me problem.

I definitely think that anyone can get something out of this book: be they LGBTQ, cis/hetero, red state, blue state, liberal or conservative. Even those not living in America could find some value in it.

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Top 5 Disappointing Reads of 2018

1.   Herding Cats by Sarah Andersen

I loved the other 2 in the Sarah's Scribbles  collection. This one however had Sarah stray from the usual format for the last   part of the book and it fell flat for me.

2. Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright

I try not to get high hopes for nonfiction because I never know how its going to turn out, but I  did for this book. Unfortunately it read all of the other boring, dry nonfiction books out there.

3. What Happened by Hillary Clinton

A lot of reviewers said it didn't make them sad or mad so  I gave it a shot.  Well  guess what, I did get sad and mad reading it!

4. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

I'm starting to think Neil Gaiman's stuff just isn't my taste which makes me sad because he's such a phenomenal writer.

5.  Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

Basically  my criticism for  Why Buddhism is True . I heard such good things about it about how eye-opening and enlightening it was, but it just didn't do it for me.

Dear Martin by Nic Stone

Dear Martin by Nic Stone
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I would recommend this to someone who doesn't want to read The Hate U Give because its too long.

One of the first scenes in the novel takes form in a screen play format which I didn't like, but then the author just drops that format and its never used again. I get that the conversation flowed better, but then why not use the format at least one more time so it doesn't feel so out of place?

The book is titled Dear Martin but there is a paucity of letters written to Martin, at least for a novel titled so. If the author fleshed out this Martin experiment more, or made it a school project or something it could have been awesome.



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