Category: Book Reviews

House of Salt and Sorrows by E..

Posted 07/13/2023 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I bought House of Salt and Sorrows when it first came out and started reading it right away. But I didn’t finish it. I started reading it again a few months later, but again, didn’t finish it. Finally, after finding out that House of Roots and Ruin, the sequel to House of Salt and Sorrows, was coming out, I got off my butt and read it. I have no idea why on Earth it took me so long to read this book. Part of it might have been because I’m actually not familiar with the fairy tale of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, of which House of Salt and Sorrows is a retelling. But whatever the reason, it absolutely shouldn’t have taken me this long to read this book! I loved Annaleigh! She’s strong but also shows vulnerability, especially when certain events take place. I also loved most of her sisters […]

The Vinyl Underground by Rob R..

Posted 07/10/2023 by Charli in Book Reviews / 2 Comments

Today is my stop on TBR & Beyond Blog Tours’ blog tour for The Vinyl Underground by Rob Rufus. This is a YA Contemporary novel set in 1968, during the Vietnam War. There will be some anti-war sentiments, racism, racial violence, and other possibly upsetting things in this book, so please, check the content warnings before reading. When I first saw The Vinyl Underground, I thought it was going to be a book about music. And it is… kind of. Music figures heavily into the book, but the main message of the book and the main plot have nothing to do with music. I should preface this by saying that my uncles both fought in Vietnam. Both of them volunteered and one of them actually volunteered to go over there twice. My family was lucky – both of my uncles came home. But a lot of my grandparents’ friends lost […]

Their Vicious Games by Joelle ..

Posted 07/04/2023 by Charli in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Their Vicious Games is nothing short of amazing. Think Squid Games meets The Hunger Games but in this case, the stakes are more than you might think. I’m going to say this now, Adina and Saint have my heart for the female characters. They’re strong, resilient, and while they may take crap at the beginning of The Finish, the certainly won’t take it forever. As far as the male characters go, the only one we see a lot of in the story that I actually like is Graham. He may be misguided and blinded by his love for Pierce, but he also appears to truly care about Adina at the very least. The rest of the characters honestly made me want to reach through the pages and slap them a few times. And can someone please tell me how you’re supposed to pronounce Penthesilea’s name? This story had a very […]

Blood Kings by Shade Owens

Posted 07/02/2023 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I love when a book moves through several genres and Blood Kings does that and does it well. As I read through the book, the dystopian vibes became very clear – the manner in which life-sentence prisoners are dealt with is very dystopian in nature. Then you have the horror, which is readily apparent in the way people are treating each other on these islands. I like Leo – he’s the kind of character that you want to root for. You want him to find a way out of the predicament he’s found himself in. You want him to get away, to win. Even if you haven’t got a clue what he’s actually winning if he does win… you want him to win. I also enjoy Niles. He’s a great “best friend” for Leo. Even though it seems like Leo cares more about Niles than Niles does about Leo, I’m […]

The Umbrella Maker’s Son..

Posted 07/01/2023 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

Today is my stop on the book tour for The Umbrella Maker’s Son by Katrina Leno. This is a middle grade fantasy novel that is really fun. The tour was organized by TBR & Beyond Tours, thanks for allowing me to participate. Ok, I’m not always a fan of middle grade books but I liked the synopsis and decided to give it a chance. This is a really cute book! We open with a really bad storm, but we’ve gotten ahead of ourselves, so we’ll have to backtrack a bit. And that’s OK. Sometimes that irritates me in books, but this time, I really liked it. I enjoyed Saige and Oscar. They were a great team and I just thought that it was great to reinforce that boys and girls can be friends, best friends even, and not have to have romantic feelings for one another. They just worked as […]