Bibliocity

Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner My rating: 5 of 5 stars I'm doing library collection management, and came across this series in my fiction rounds. I had a hard time getting into this book, but love the way Whalen Turner very subtly offers clues that reveal the hidden side of the story. She is a master of this, and makes Eugenides such a wonderful character. View all my reviews

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson My rating: 4 of 5 stars View all my reviews

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong My rating: 3 of 5 stars View all my reviews

The Court of Mortals by A.J. Lancaster My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews

The Prince of Secrets by A.J. Lancaster My rating: 5 of 5 stars View all my reviews

Deacon King Kong by James McBride My rating: 5 of 5 stars I love McBride's ability to weave these stories together. All the brothers and sisters in the Causes stick together despite the incoming and terrible drug wave. You love Deacon Sportcoat for his ability to survive a brutal past, then you love him because he's kind, then you love him because even though he's a drunk, he has a seemingly supernatural ability to avoid danger, then you love him the most because all these things make him a wonderful person. I laughed out loud SO MANY TIMES reading this book. Poor Earl. View all my reviews

A ​Sky Beyond the Storm by Sabaa Tahir My rating: 4 of 5 stars I love Sabaa Tahir. Thanks for a great ending to the Ember in the Ashes series. You'll need to start with book one to enjoy. My favorite arc was the Soul Catcher's, but I love how Laia takes some good advice and sticks with Elias even though he seems unreachable. If you like this series, check out Renee Ahdieh, Leigh Bardugo, V.C. Schwab, and N.K. Jemisin. View all my reviews

Dark Tides by Philippa Gregory My rating: 4 of 5 stars I was really looking forward to this second Fairmile book. The story takes place in the early years of King Charles' II Restoration. In Tidelands, we saw the effect of Cromwell's puritanistic rule on the poor Ferryman family. In Dark Tides, Alinor and Alys Ferryman have made their escape to London where they've toiled away for twenty years to build a small, honest warehouse on the grubby end of London. Alinor's brother has escaped to North America where he hopes to live for himself away from the rule of a king he can't respect. I appreciate the way Gregory moves us from Ned in the New World to Venice to England. I liked Ned's story a bit more than the melodrama taking place around the London wharf. If you like books by Philippa Gregory, you'll probably enjoy the Fairmile series, but you need to start with Tidelands. View all my reviews

The Lord of Stariel by A.J. Lancaster My rating: 4 of 5 stars I love a good, light, new fantasy series about Fae and humans. I especially enjoyed the family dynamic. It reminded me of a fantasy version of Downton Abbey with the upstairs/downstairs feel. When you think a book is going to focus around a love match, it's refreshing when you see that the heroine Hetta Valstar is just as dependent on her brothers, neighbors and cousins as she is on the butler. I look forward to reading the rest of the series. View all my reviews

Earwig and the Witch by Diana Wynne Jones My rating: 5 of 5 stars Cute children's book by an everlasting favorite. Earwig only disappointed in length. I would have loved to read more about the Mandrake and Thomas the cat. Film adaptation by Gorō Miyazaki out this month, but I heard the reviews were unfavorable. I look forward to judging for myself. If Studio Ghibli changes up the story like it did for Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle, I might like it just fine. View all my reviews

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware My rating: 3 of 5 stars Mystery/Suspense. Ware does a great job with developing an unreliable narrator (Leonora Shaw) who, though smart, endures trauma that makes her an unreliable witness. Surrounded by equally suspicious characters, I think Ware does succeed in showing that Leonora's attempt to isolate herself from the past works for and against her in this novel. I hate to say that I guessed at the murderer quite early on and hate it worse that I was right. That's why I give it three stars. View all my reviews

I'll Be the One by Lyla Lee My rating: 5 of 5 stars What a fun read. Thank you Ms. Lee for providing the world with a lovely plus-size icon. Skye is powerful and utterly memorable, and she has some awesome advocates. I hope this gets optioned for film! It was fun to be excited about Skye's journey, and I caught myself laughing out loud several times, cheering her on. View all my reviews

Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram My rating: 4 of 5 stars I loved this book. I appreciated that reading #1 wasn't a requirement to really enjoy this one. Darius is a queer half Iranian, half white teen in Portland, ORE --the book follows Darius as he navigates a new relationship, gender and racial discrimination, and treatment of his depression, among other things. Throw in a new job, parents struggling to make ends meet (his father also struggles with clinical depression), a little sister experiencing racial discrimination as a third grader, a grandfather who is not only in hospice, but far away in Iran, and a best friend (also in Iran) who, while super supportive of Darius, has his own problems. Darius is immensely loveable and an incredibly sensitive and tender-hearted person. My mother heart reached out to him as he faced all of the challenges that came his way, and I was so happy that he had an awesome network of support: supp...

Parachutes by Kelly Yang My rating: 4 of 5 stars I sometimes get books and don't bother reading the backs or insets to get the general summary. This book came up as a top read on several lists --one compared this to Moxie, which I really loved, and I decided to add it based on that and the fact that I'm a librarian at a public school with a large Asian population. Kelly Yang is an amazing author. She effortlessly switches between narrators from chapter to chapter -- we have Claire, a Chinese immigrant from a wealthy family who send her to California to finish high school and Dani, an American Filipina whose mother decides to host Claire. The book moves from Claire's difficult acclimatization to America and Dani's difficult path as a full-scholarship student at the school they both attend, American Prep. Unfortunately for both, the girls face very serious challenges that shape their futures for worse before they shape them for better. ...