All the Books.

"Pan's sardonic wit brings real humor to her retelling of the year she threw herself out of her comfort zone by forcing herself to be extroverted. By embracing the fear and fully committing to her project, she does things she never would have imagined and her overall message of courage and hope are fun and inspiring. A fun and funny read that anyone could enjoy." ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pros: From the very first page I could tell Pan was going to be hilarious and she didn't disappoint/She's funny but she gets at the deeper/darker parts of life, depression, feeling stuck and her idea, though radical was an interesting one.  Cons: Once I got about 3/4 of the way through the book, it started to get repetitive, which is a trend in "self-help" books, at least for me.  Full Review:  Jessica is what has apparently been dubbed a "Shintrovert" or a shy introvert.  When she decides to move across the Pond to London and marry her boyfriend Sam, she falls into a depressio...

“The gut-wrenching and sometimes soul-crushing conclusion to an incredible, fast paced, action packed, no holds barred and no feelings spared series. Collins has made her mark and will be a name well remembered in Dystopian Fiction.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pros: All the characters attempts to help Peeta were genuine and kind/The ending though crushing was acceptably bittersweet.  Cons: Katniss’ blatantly disobeying every single order she's given and refusing to cooperate gets tiresome/Again, the Katniss/Peeta/Gale love triangle goes on and on/Finnick 🤯, I will never be okay with that.  Full Review;  ***Disclaimer - If you have not read  The Hunger Games  or Catching Fire  by Suzanne Collins, please do so and then feel free to read this post at your leisure. That way, you'll know what I'm talking about 🙌.*** After the explosive cliffhanger of Catching Fire, Katniss finds herself safe and healing in the previously thought destroyed, District 13. The underground rebel...

“Though the Katiniss/Gale/Peeta love triangle made me want to scream, the story itself was fast paced, action packed and exciting. Collins is great at laying on the pressure and keeping those pages turning.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pros: Collins is fantastic at pacing and pressure/Finnick Odair is right up on top when it comes to favorite characters.  Cons: I abhor love triangles! Peeta/Gale/Katniss’ indecision about who to love but I have to remind myself they are only teenagers after all, everything IS the end of the world 🙌💯🙄 Full Review  ***Disclaimer - If you have not read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, please do so and then feel free to read this post at your leisure. That way, you'll know what I'm talking about 🙌.*** Katniss and Peeta are safely back in District 12. They've tried, with varying degrees of success to adapt to life after the Games. It's not easy though. Plagued by nightmares of what they were forced to do in the Arena to survive, they now understand why Hay...

“In punishment for rebelling, the Districts of Panem are forced to send two Tributes to the Capitol every year, to fight in the Hunger Games. Katniss has managed to avoid being chosen for 4 years but now, the odds are not in her favor and her life, along with everyone elses, will be changed forever. An incredible, intricate, dark and deeply moving read."  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pros:  An absolutely terrifying premise but Collins has built her world well. It is true Dystopian fiction/Peeta, I have always loved Peeta as a character because he is a genuinely good person, Rue as well.   Cons: Oh the convoluted and confused fumblings of awkward, teenage hormones/The Gale/Peeta/Katniss love triangle, I abhor love triangles.  Full Review: Katniss lives with her sister Prim and her mother on the Seam. It's the border of Ditsrict 12, the last District in the grand nation of Panem. District 12's chief export and payment to the Capitol is coal. So it's a dark and dreary place to live....

“An interesting premise with some fun parts but I almost DNFed it because I didn't feel connected to the FMC and this novel seemed to have a hard time deciding whether it was humor or mystery."  ⭐⭐ Pros: It was an interesting premise/Gore is a saucy man and he and the FMC have a fun repartee Cons: The FMC had no name so, I felt disconnected from her/The FMC seemed to go from being catatonically depressed, to terrifyingly bewildered, back to depressed but even then her emotions felt forced and fake/It was hard to keep all of the "Expats" straight since they referred to each other by name while also sometimes referring to each other by the years they were taken from/This tried to be a thriller but Bradley's sardonic writing style just didn't work for me.  Full Review: FMC lands a job as a “Bridge” at The Ministry of Time. They've managed to extricate a handful of people from the past. She’s to help Commander Graham Gore, who was taken from a failed Arctic ...

"As heartwarming as it is heartbreaking, this story was an intimate and genuine look at life, love and the bonds we form with family, found family and friends. And how sometimes, even when we want to, there are just some secrets we can't share. Vuong is a beautiful storyteller and I'll be picking up more of their books very soon."  ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pros:  There was the sense that Grazina and Hai really cared for one another/How Hai helped Grazina through the rough nights was touching but at the same time, unnerving/Hai's relationships with the others who work at Home Market are all touching in their own ways.  Cons:   I think I wanted more history behind his childhood, what may have happened that led him to start using pills to escape reality though, sometimes there is no reason, unfortunately/Though Hai was a complex character, there were times where I wanted to shake him for his lies and deceit.  Full Review In the backwoods of Connecticut, Hai, a twenty-something year o...

"This was a true Rabbit hole of a book, filled with pop culture references, theories about parallel universes and many other mind bending twists. The beginning had real potential and there were definitely parts where, like Alice, I found myself murmuring, "Curiouser and curiouser." By the end though, I'd lost interest as the narrative/characters became repetitive and overdone." ⭐⭐ Pros: Miles has a quick, sardonic wit that was fun to read/K is relatable in his anxieties and eccentricities.  Cons: I started losing interest when the multiverse got involved and there were magic lines you could use to travel through time/It all became rather repetitive by the end/K never stopped asking the most asinine questions again and again.  Full Review: There's a secret game that exists in the world. It's shrouded in mystery, darkness and danger and only those who are intimately familiar with the dark web and conspiracy theories seem to know anything about it.  It...

“Another scenic and beautiful photographic road trip through places time forgot. Desoriser brings history when she can and her own insight and musings allow the reader to wonder as well. What caused these once thriving places to be abandoned? We'll never know but Desrosier gives us small glimpses of the lives that were lived in these places and some of the stories that hide behind their crumbling walls."  ⭐⭐⭐ Pros : Beautiful photography, some gorgeous architecture and interesting histories/As with all the places in these books, the reader is left to wonder why these houses were abandoned when someone obviously loved them once.  Cons: It's sad to see so many buildings left to ruin, shows how quickly things can change/There was an understandable melancholy air to some of the places pictured.   Full Review: Ranging from the White Mountains of New Hampshire to the Green Mountains of Vermont, we're taken on another photographic road trip through places time forgot. Desor...