Review: I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid

Publication: June 14th 2016
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Canada
Pages: 224 pages
Source: Bookmobile
Genre: Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Canadian
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤⛤

You might have to read this book twice.

This is more of a warning than anything else, and one I’ll go into later on in my review for anyone who’s curious about this strange book that seemingly popped out of nowhere. It’s just a warning, but be prepared to start over.

Just be ready.

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Review: Bird Box by Josh Malerman

Publication: May 13th 2014
Publisher: Ecco
Pages: 262 pages
Source: Bookmobile
Genre: Fiction, Horror, Thriller, Mystery
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤

So I did the “bad bookworm thing” and watched the movie Bird Box before I read the book, but is that really such a bad thing? I obviously understand the importance of reading the book before the movie, because the book is often SO MUCH BETTER! But sometimes you can’t help it and sometimes the library holds are so long, you just have to go for it! For what it’s worth, I liked both of them, but let’s focus on my thoughts on the ink and paper copy.

Review: The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges

Publication: March 30th 1957
Publisher: Vintage Red Spine
Pages: 172 pages
Source: Birthmas Gift (Thanks Ashley!)
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Mythology, Classics
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤⛤

I stumbled upon this book in a used book store many years ago and didn’t end up buying it, convincing myself that I would find it the next time I visited. Well, I visited and it was gone and I’ve learned my lesson about making purchases in used book stores.

But my friends know me very well and when one of my friends was visiting the U.K. she got me this book as a present because it reminded her of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander (J.K. Rowling) and she thought it was something I would like, and she of course was right.

Review: Literary Witches by Taisia Kitaiskaia (Illustrated by Katy Horan)

Publication: October 10th 2017
Publisher: Seal Press
Pages: 128 pages
Source: Christmas Gift
Genre: Non-Fiction, Feminism, Biography
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤

Literary Witches is an odd book. When one thinks of women writers one doesn’t usually think of them as witches (or at least all of them, arguably some of them have that aura about them). But Kitaiskaia and Horan saw something in women writers that was magical, and after reading their book I can’t help but see it as well.

Review: The Cake House by Latifah Salom

Publication: March 3rd 2015
Publisher: Vintage
Pages: 336 pages
Source: Birthday/Christmas Gift
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Retelling, Contemporary
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤

A Hamlet retelling where Hamlet is a girl? Yes please!

The Cake House has been on my TBR pile for at least four years and was a surprisingly hard book for me to find. Not online, it’s easy enough to find on Amazon. But I was never able to find it at my library or at Indigo/Chapters which surprised me. Luckily I got it as a birthday/Christmas gift and made it one of my first reads of 2019 and it did not disappoint!

Review: Dead Girls by Alice Bolin

Publication: June 26th 2018
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Pages: 288 pages
Source: Christmas Gift (Thanks Dad!)
Genre: Non-Fiction, Essays, Feminism
My Rating: ⛤⛤

Well, this book was disappointing. Maybe my most disappointing read of 2019 and I know that’s a big thing to say because Dead Girls is just the second book I’ve read this year but it truly was a disappointment.

Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession is about dead girls in the vaguest of ways in which Bolin introduces her book as being about dead girls and violence against women, luring us in with her introductory essay and opening essay and completely derailing after. Because contrary to its title, Dead Girls is not about dead girls.

Review: Sadie by Courtney Summers

Publication: September 4th 2018
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Pages: 311 pages
Source: Bookmobile
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Young Adult, Contemporary
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤⛤

CW: Pedophilia, Rape, Child Abuse, Drug Abuse, Murder

My God this book was amazing.

Thirteen-year-old Mattie Southern is dead and now her sister nineteen-year-old Sadie is missing. Podcast host West McCray doesn’t find these facts interesting. Sad, but these things happen, “girls go missing all the time.” But when West gets a call from someone begging him to find Sadie, his boss sees a story and sends West on a hunt to find Sadie. While West is researching where Sadie went, Sadie is out for revenge on the man who murdered her sister, and she will stop at nothing until he’s dead.

Review: The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White

Publication: September 25th 2018
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 304 pages
Source: Bookmobile
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Retelling, Horror, Historical Fiction, YA
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤

Published two hundred years after Mary Shelley’s immortal Frankenstein, Kiersten White seeks to retell the story we all know and love from an unlikely new perspective.

Elizabeth Lavenza owes everything to the Frankenstein’s for bringing her into their home and away from the cruel life she used to live, but mainly she owes her life to Victor. He is the reason she was brought in by the Frankenstein’s, to keep him happy, to be his Elizabeth, and Elizabeth is more than happy to be his. Being Victor’s is better than being poor, or on the street, or being abused as she was as a child. But Elizabeth hasn’t heard from Victor in two years and she doesn’t hold the same affection in Judge Frankenstein’s eyes as she does Victor’s. So Elizabeth must save herself by saving Victor, but will she be able to?

Review: City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

Publication: August 28th 2018
Publisher: Scholastic
Pages: 272 pages
Source: Bookmobile
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal, Middle Grade
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤

“People think that ghosts only come out at night, or on Halloween, when the world is dark and the walls are thin. But the truth is, ghosts are everywhere…Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there,” (Schwab 1).

So begins Schwab’s foray into the middle grade genre, and she does so as spookily and addictively as ever.

Review: Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand

Publication: July 31st 2018
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages:  384 pages
Source: Library
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Young Adult, Thriller, Contemporary
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤.5

“What I’m saying…is that girls hunger. And we’re taught, from the moment our brains can take it, that there isn’t enough food for us all,” (Legrand 261).

Sawkill Girls is a book I didn’t know existed and heard no hype for until it oh so casually popped up on my bookstagram feed and intrigued me. A feminist story with diverse characters who hunt monsters and there are moths?! It sounded exactly like my kind of book, and it didn’t disappoint, though I do have some criticisms about it.

On the island of Sawkill girls have gone missing for many years, but the residents never linger on the tragedy for long. Sawkill Girls follows three different girls on the island of Sawkill: Marion who has recently lost her father and has moved to Sawkill with her mother and sister as she tries to keep them stable, Zoey who is a misfit and eager to find out what happened to her missing friend Thora, and Val who is rich, beautiful, and dangerous and she knows it. But a monster lurks and watches them from the shadows and like it or not they’ll have to come together to defeat it.