As you may have noticed, I’ve been a little absent from the blogging world and social media in general. In case you were asking where has Moon been? Here is your answer:
If you don’t do twitter or anything like that, the short version is that in December I had a health incident (I have a chronic condition and disability) and my housemate left me on the floor despite knowing my condition. This was a wake up call and I realised I was safer on my own and near friends than where I was currently. For various life reasons, making the move and changing my circumstances required a lot of planning that took over my life and then the move took over my life too.
However, I have finally moved house and I am now unpacking my books! This means that I will be back in full swing here very soon. For now, we will have a post or two a week and then slowly back to three a week. Hopefully you are all excited for the content here and to see what I’ve been reading!
Horizon Zero Dawn: Liberation by Anne Toole, Elmer Damaso, Bryan Valenza and Jim Campbell
Rating:
Read before: No
Ownership: A friend requested it form the publisher for me because I love Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Frobidden West and the whole story and world.
Disclaimer: Receiving a review copy from the publisher does not affect my opinion of the book. If you think I review it highly it is due to me knowing my taste well and therefore not requesting books I won’t enjoy. And I am not obligated to review the book if I do not like it, so you may not see bad reviews due to me preferring not to hype down a particular book. I only do reviews of books I disagreed with if I think it is worth bringing a topic or warning to light.
If you have read the first main book on the Sunhawk and a little bit of a taster before Horizon Forbiddne West came out, I reviewed the volumes here. It was a good book delving on Tallanah and finding new beasts, which gave a good introduction to what the new game would bring.
Liberation is different in that it is instead giving us more backstory, the parts of Erend’s story and how his sister became the amazing person she was, how they ended up being part of the Oseram who helped Sun King Avad dethrone his father, and all that. The art as usual is amazing, and the story was interesting as we have Erend trying to tell his story while they track one of the relevant characters to the past of him and his sister. Aloy is being very much herself, which I liked because she definitely sometimes feels like she has bigger priorities and bigger things, and then it is her friends who love her who bring her down back tot he world and go “hey, you have things to worry about, but so do we, and we can help each other, no one is an island”.
It was just a very very nice comic for me to read, it added to the lore, explained the relationship and love Sun King Avad had for Ersa, and just how much everyone could admire her and why. It showed too why Erend has big shoes to fill and how unfit for it he is and yet how hard he tries. And of course, it shows us how different Aloy is to this and how much she tries to understand this part fo the story and world that she was never a part of because of how she was an Outcast and set aside and then suddenly had to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders without really choosing to. And yes, we know she could have said no, but that would not be true to herself. She ahs a big heart despite sometimes forgetting it.
Highly recommend adding this book to your comic collection and to your Aloy and her friend’s collection. It is as good or even better than the first one.
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
Rating:
Read before: No
Ownership: Copy provided by the publisher. They asked if anyone wanted one to review and I felt I had to given I am Mexican and I knew this would be a book I could talk about. I just didn’t realise how much I would understand this book.
Disclaimer: Receiving a review copy from the publisher does not affect my opinion of the book. If you think I review it highly it is due to me knowing my taste well and therefore not requesting books I won’t enjoy. And I am not obligated to review the book if I do not like it, so you may not see bad reviews due to me preferring not to hype down a particular book. I only do reviews of books I disagreed with if I think it is worth bringing a topic or warning to light.
I have just finished reading this book, and woah. I will start by saying that the whole fact that Julia’s mum expects her daughters to be perfect and to behave as if they were in Mexico and everything as she wanted to, is very much something I get. My own mum had her dreams of what my future should look like and it had incredibly intense consequences on the decisions I made around Julia and Olga’s age, and that in turn caused consequences I wish I could have avoided. Sometimes Mexican mums think they know best because they have imagined a full future and suddenly something clicks and they hold unto that.
But our story starts after Olga dies, the perfect daughter who is always helping her mum, who is studying to be a secretary and has a job but still lives at home, everything Julia is not. And without Olga to hold the high standards of their mother, Julia’s world quickly becomes suffocating and even harder to live in. And not only that but there are small hints that maybe Olga was not exactly who she said she was, that maybe she had carefully constructed a bunch of lies and there was more to what Julia considered a boring meek life as the perfect daughter.
Overall, the book is quite intense and paints a picture that I actually never felt was not Mexican enough or that was trying to romanticise it or anything. Instead it was factual, you can see how Julia judges some of it because she doesn’t understand the reasons, the culture, the traditions behind, or the hardships. And you can also see how the family does not get Julia and this American dream they hoped for either. The dream was not actually a dream, and in a way they are too afraid to make it be more. But you get all the little details that make it be true, be real, be genuine, and I liked that. I had no complaints on how Mexican this felt.
Overall, the one thing I have to say is that this book deals with a lot of intense topics and therefore it is worth coming to it prepared. Among them it deals with depression, death, attempted suicide, drugs, drug dealers, violence, pregnancy, abortion, affairs, parental abuse. There is a lot going on and it is an intense book, but it is also very nice to see Julia slowly find herself, and get out of the shadow of her perfect sister that was not actually that perfect or good and was trying just as Julia was, to live a life that would make their parents proud and make her happy, and that is a very hard balance and a lot of pressure to be under.
standing near the edge, a place where water and sand converge, waves of melancholy gently kiss my feet.
they come to shore full of vibrancy, trying to take the earth whole, yet as they retreat reluctantly, one can hear the sea cry.
me and the waves, blow kisses to the wind that playfully catches in between my hair.
a whiff of you in my curls, a spell unlocked by nature, magic that sings a blessing with the whisper of a curse.
blessings that filter through treetops, as sunshine glows in the woods of memories while the river of our story flows
it gently carries the weight of you, i and us. tears and fears, awe and hope it takes it all in, it takes it all
and a curse that whispers, “you are alone, all alone, lost in the woods, without a place to call home”.
pour salt in my wounds; roots that go deep, ground me in this world, and are made to seek
make a poultice for my soul, from the garden that grows inside that heart of yours, shade that keeps it cool
i smell the sea, it’s a blessing i smell the woods, reject the curse
take a breath catch your scent, you hold me close, and i am content…
I sometimes forget some of the things I wrote, this is one of those poems that has some lines I would like to work into something and then a lot of lines I am unsure about, but the pace is interesting and I love how it deals with blessings, magic and curses. Sometimes you know things before you know them. (This was written again in 2015/2016, old words)
Ownership: Subscribed on their 6 boxes option. If you are interested in purchasing a Tales by Mail subscription, you can do it on their website.
Tales by Mail is a bi-monthly middle-grade book box that comes with two books, some activity pages you can collect, or copy or use in various ways, a pin and one or two items.
Who doesn’t like a good quest and adventure? So let us venture into this box and see what was inside, starting from the far left and going clockwise:
The Chime Seekers promotional bookmark
Sister of the Lost Marsh by Lucy Strange, an intriguing quest for a set of sisters
On A Quest review and activity pages, these are always fun to collect and I like the ideas they have or the puzzles or whatever the activity is.
The Chime Seekers by Ross Montgomery, a more magical quest than the sisters had but also intriguing.
Sisters of the Lost Marsh promotional bookmark.
Do not disturb wood sign to hand around the door or a wall or somewhere.
Walker Books Calendar for 2022, with lots of adorable illustrations
A Penguin sticket
And the collectible pin
Overall a good end of year box with even a surprise calendar and some very interesting stories.
Ownership: Review copy provided kindly by publisher. This does not influence my review, it just means I can read and review before it is published.
If you like Dark Academia, The Atlas Six is definitely a good one to add to your list! I am not someone that hangs out much in TikTok or booktok so this had flown under my radar, however, once the synopsis showed up, it sounded quite a good book.
We meet six chosen ones, each with a specific magical ability that raises them above and beyond the usual magical beings. Making them exceptional, but the Alexandrian Society, offers them an invitation to join, and only five will make it in. The point, in general, is to pit them against each other and yet ask them to work together and at the same time, they are there to learn and study and become better. Sounds like a tall order of the day for all the candidates!
And honestly, some of the plot twists were quite epic and thankfully not as utterly predictable. Most of the characters are not nice people, which is understandable because if you had that much power, you don’t win by being nice or rather it is harder to stay nice. For me, this was both a strength and a weakness of the book. Why? Because some of the characters I genuinely stopped caring or even really wanting to read about them from the first few pages. The only reason I read more was that they had a point of view of certain things others didn’t since obviously they were the ones that hung together or at least had similar things to show. However, it was also a strength as it gave me characters to consider interesting without fully rooting for them, and then there were a few characters that were mysterious or intriguing and some I liked almost instantly despite their flaws and prickly parts.
Overall the book was quite interesting, I very much want to read the next one and know what happens next and there was a lot of interesting pacing going on alongside some interesting takes on powers and magic that was refreshing to see. Recommended because it is a good magical dark academia vibe and we are here for it.
The Wizard and Me: More Misadventures of Bubbles the Guinea Pig by Simon Farnaby and Claire Powell
Rating:
Read before: No
Ownership: World Book Day buy
So I have a soft post for book switch magic and I had my eye on the original book from which this one is based, however I will say that as much as the artwork is adorable, this was not the book for me.
Why was it not? There is a lot of poop and that kind of humour that I just didn’t get behind, it isn’t my thing and I get why it is done but I don’t agree with it and prefer not to read about it. The guinea pig also has a particular type of being which is annoying and meant to be a bit of rubbing the wrong way and being too amazing to deserve to be treated that way etc when they are not, also a point lost there.
However, I did see how this book was focused on you know pet ownership and kids may be getting a guinea pig from a pet shop and potential adventures and misadventures that could happen which I thought was fun and cute and well done for the book. So it was not all bad, just unfortunately it didn’t amaze me or make it one I would like to keep
But if your little one enjoyed the main book, this is fun add on or if they are into this kind of humour then do take it, it is a quick read and good on pet ownership!
Look, if I was going to buy one book for World Book Day, it’d be this one because it has foxes on the cover. I have not read the original book of Grimwood, so this was my introduction to this world.
As such I really liked that it comes with a little character introduction with funny commentary, which helped set the mood of what was to come in the little tales around the campfire. And I liked that a lot.
The short little book is all about a special festival in Grimwood where people do fun activities and at the end tell stories around a campfire. So we go through the characters and they each tell stories, some are true, some are almost certainly not even if they claim they are but it is funny to read and see where they exaggerate or make it up or in some cases where the story ends up being quite short. I loved the variety of stories and that their stories very much tell you a lot about who the character is overall. Interesting to see that the way one tells a story will change the story or how a story told can tell you a lot about the teller.
A hilarious little book with cute illustrations, and lots of laughing moments and silly moments. Good introduction to pique your interest for the book of Grimwood.
Ownership: Subscribed on their 12 boxes option. If you are interested in purchasing a Book Box Club subscription, you can do it on their website.
Book Box Club is a young adult subscription box, the unique thing is the Clubhouse where you can chat to the author a month (or so) after the box was shipped and ask questions and just chat around. It also includes several goodies and usually, the choice of book is one that is unique and not in other book boxes so very few chances of duplicate books and a lot of new reads discovery power.
Entering the cold winter months and we get a very on point box, starting from the bottom right and going clockwise:
Theme card, it matches the book and the theme well.
A pin set to match the book with the title and ballerina.
Midnight in Everwood, a magical tale set in winter by M. A. Kuzniar
Promotional bookmark.
Sleeping mask with a winter theme, this is very silky soft and even has a slight part to cover the gaps around your nose which I thought was clever.
Dark Materials tea towel, not a big fan of the series but I do like tea towels and the artwork.
A little room spray to smell of winter and it is gorgeous
And finally a witchy hot chocolate that is decadent and delicious and to be fair who doesn’t like a hot chocolate mug in winter?
Overall a cosy feeling box that makes you want to hibernate at home with a book, hot chocolate on the side and a fire roaring in the background keeping you warm while it snows outside and you just feel safe and can escape into a fantasy world!
Dip my toes into this current, the one that flows from you, whispering sweet nothings and promising to never budge.
You insist it’s a big forever in an ocean full of lies, but now i know better and i won’t consider you my lifesaver.
Treacherous waters up to my waist, they reach and try to convince me that i want to go for a swim and join in this little whim.
How did i let them rise so quick? why did you let your dam run free? couldn’t you’ve waited until i had my footing and was ready?
But you had to run and rush let the waves of your feelings crash against my lips and skin trying to find your way in.
I’m drowning, drowning in you.
Try to rise to the surface, take a deep breath, just to feel like myself again, to remember i wasn’t ready for this.
Why, oh, why couldn’t you wait, and avoid this tragedy, the death of us in your sea?
Shall i release the storm, or still try to rise above? i wonder if there’s a happy ending to this catastrophe.
Will i be able to be me, if i try to surf through it all and learn to ride a hurricane, navigating back to safety.
Washed ashore in the aftermath, can’t help but wonder if this was never meant to be, for i was drowning in your sea.
A poem I wrote about someone who isn’t in my life anymore because I was definitely drowning in who they were and losing myself. But some parts of this poem feel a little too on point to life right now. Funny how words can mean many things…
