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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The Fragile Ordinary by Samantha Young

The Fragile Ordinary by Samantha Young
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I picked this up for the social anxiety rep. Unfortunately, it failed to deliver.

Yeah sure at first I was totally seeing myself in Comet, someone who doesn't know how to stand up for herself and prefers fictional worlds to the real one.

But then it took a turn.

She meets a boy and she finds her voice and the allure of the real world.

I'm all for getting over social anxiety but because of a boy?

After the boy comes along she's much more like a normal teenager and the book gets sort of boring. There's nothing compelling about the story anymore.

My other issue with the book was the Scottish accents. Scottish accents are the one accent I hate to read. I either try for way too long to understand what it saying or I gloss over it and don't understand what they're saying. I also don't understand why Comet and her friends and her parents didn't have Scottish accents? Did only the secondary characters have Scottish accents? That makes no sense.

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Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was expecting speculation about the future. While that did occur it was only about the last quarter of the book. The first three quarters made me think I was reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind again.

I'm not saying it was boring, although I was bored at times. I really enjoyed the future speculation, I just could have used less of the build up to the speculation.

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Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott

Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm not crying, I'm cutting onions, while reading...

I felt like I was reading The Fault in Our Stars again.

➼Boy and girl meet at a place relating to their mutual disease, girl is immediately disgusted by boy
➼Things heat up between them
➼And so on.

It would be a great novel if the concept hadn't already been done before. Hell, even the CF romance thing was done on Grey's Anatomy. That was actually the first thing I thought of when I first heard about this book.

Great romance novel, but not ground breaking.

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Star of the North by D.B. John

Star of the North: A Novel by D.B. John
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've read books about North Korea and watched documentaries, I thought I knew a lot. Turns out I don't. Reading this novel prompted me to do some research and I found my knowledge lacking. Oh well, you can't know everything.

D.B. John managed to write an exciting compelling novel true to what I've read about North Korea, even giving me more information along the way.

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Shannon's Choice Awards 2018

Best Book:



Best 2018 Release:




Best YA:



Best historical fiction:



Best nonfiction:



Best memoir/autobiography:



Best Comic/Graphic Novel:



Nicholas Sparks award:



Movie award:



LOL Award:



Snooze award:



Read before you die award:



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Heretics Anonymous by Katie Henry

Heretics Anonymous by Katie Henry
My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I really like the overall question this book asked:

Is it better to leave a religion you disagree with or stay in and hope to change things?

This book is written about Catholicism but my experience with the question is about ,Mormonism, but the problems are the same.

I related more to Lucy than to Michael because I was Lucy at one point in my life.

Winner Shannon's Choice Awards 2018:
Beset 2018 Release
Best YA

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Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe by Melissa de la Cruz

Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe by Melissa de la Cruz
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

*Note to self, in the future trust Goodreads ratings and don't get a low rated book just because you're curious about it.*

As a P&P retelling, it missed the mark.

This was supposed to be a gender swapped retelling from the POV of Darcy. So, the main character was supposed to be a male Mr. Darcy and the love interest was supposed to be a female Elizabeth Bennett. I was a little confused because it seemed like both characters showed traits from the original characters. At the beginning of the book Darcy talked about wanting to marry for love which is something Elizabeth Bennett wanted as well.

It didn't exactly follow the plot and I got lost trying to keep up. I think it was more like 2 people who are kind of like Elizabeth and Darcy get into a situation that sort of resembles the one they got into in the book.

The one good thing I have to say about it is that it made sense for it to be set during Christmas. Usually stories set during a particular time of year would do just as well being set during any other time. But this book actually used Christmas traditions as part of the story. Darcy went caroling, Darcy and Luke kissed under mistletoe...

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Shunned: How I Lost my Religion and Found Myself by Linda A. Curtis

Shunned: How I Lost my Religion and Found Myself by Linda A. Curtis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was an excellent view into the worldview of a Jehovah's Witness. I could actually place myself in the shoes of a JW, though I'm not sure if that's because of my mormon background or Linda's excellent writing. I was able to learn things from this book that I wasn't able to from lurking r/exjw.

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Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The thing that jumped out to me most when reading this was the abundance of fertility problems. Pretty much everybody had some kind of fertility problem. If it wasn't inability to conceive or carry to term, it was an unplanned pregnancy (which is its own kind of fertility problem). There was only one couple we met who didn't seem to have fertility problems.

Pachinko is about giving people just enough that they come back for more. That theme is prevalent throughout the book and fertility is just one of the ways it was present. To be honest the fertility problems got old and were tiring. Fertility problems aren't that prevalent in the real world.

I just went on a two paragraph rant but really I enjoyed it. I couldn't wait until it was time to pick up my kindle and continue reading. I live in my american bubble and don't really know all that much about what happens outside the borders, hell I barely know what happens inside our borders. It was really nice getting a glimpse into what people around the world face.

Winner Shannon's Choice Awards 2018:
Best Historical Fiction

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