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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