The Constellation of Moon

Darlings and Deception LitJoy Crate Unboxing

Posted on May 12, 2018

I admit I had completely forgotten that my LitJoy Crate was on the way, so it was such a nice thing to realise that it was at the post office (it was less nice that postie didn’t leave it at home and made me go pick it up next day, which means waking up at silly o’clock).

Starting from the bottom left corner, and going clockwise:

Theme card, it gives me a Disney vibe and I love it! It also includes a photo challenge, and explanations on why each item was chosen (this is one of my favourite things about LitJoy, they always explain why they chose the items and how they match the theme/book).
Suitors and Sabotage by Cindy Anstey. I didn’t have this book in my radar but it looks interesting and I have instant cover love. It also included a letter from the author and a signed bookplate.
Double-sided colouring page (I love the book side, the other side is flowers).
A Midsummer Night #nofilter, it is a weird and funny amusing look at Shakespeare. Not exactly up my street but interesting nevertheless.
Out of This World Swoon bookmark.
Colouring Pencils to help colour the page (and I like that the box is like a colouring page).
Bee Brave bee pin. This is my absolute favourite item in the box, and I think I got very excited while I was unboxing this particular item. It is so cute and awesome!
Underneath it all is a Marie Antoinette apron, which was awesome because my usual apron is in dire need of repair and I have been in need of a new one, so this came at perfect timing!

I was happily surprised by this box and it was a good way to start the day.

Subscription Boxes

Eat, Drink & Be Merry Fanmail Unboxing

Posted on May 10, 2018

I love food, I have been craving teacakes for the whole previous week due to a book I read (review will come, promise). So food in fiction definitely has an effect on me, what about you guys?

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The fanmail box was full of nice things and I was very pleased with it. Let’s go around clockwise starting on the theme card:

Eat, Drink and Be Merry theme card, it includes shows and activities to see/do/eat.
Fandom Foods book, which has a series of possible foods to cook, from a couple of food nerds which I absolutely love and want to cook from.
A sampler Menu from The Book of Dust, it is all fancy fancy.
Mushu engraved chopsticks, they are metallic and beautiful and the cute engraving is at the top of the chopsticks and they came in a handy sleeve to hold them. Probably my favourite item in the box because I really find Mushu fun.
Three Broomsticks lunch bag(box?), it is insulated which is awesome because it is and I am happy for this since I only have a japanese lunch “bag” and now I have this one too!
Pop’s pot holders, made me very happy because we needed some new ones and it was just awesome!

All in all I was very happy with the box and definitely recommend it if you like fandom things that are thought well.

Book Review

Oliver Twist meets 1984 in this dystopian surveillance adventure

Posted on May 8, 2018

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Outwalkers by Fiona Shaw

In near future England, the Coalition has taken over the rule of the country, and is now implanting small chips into all citizens in order to “keep them safe from cradle to grave”, which also makes them easy to track and, further more, to keep on track.

At the beginning of the book, Jake has almost miraculously managed to escape from the Home Academy where he’s been kept more or less in custody since the dramatic and somewhat mysterious death of his government employed parents. Almost alone in the world, ’cause he’s at least got his childhood companion Jet the Dog by his side, Jake soon finds a new existence and family in the gang of children called Outwalkers that he stumbles upon. Together they begin a dangerous journey towards Scotland, and the possibility of a life in actual freedom.

Rating 🐖 🐖 🐖 🐖 🐖

I received this book via BookBoxClub and to be perfectly honest, I hadn’t heard of it before. So when picking it up I felt both very thrilled because OMG DYSTOPIAN ADVENTURE GOING DOWN but also a bit sceptical. ‘Cause these kind of plot driven, adventurous novels (especially if the main character is a boy) quite often tend to unravel in heroic and macho quests with a lot of attitude but not so much political analysis or relationship focus.

To my utmost happiness, this contained very little of world saving missions, action packed dialogue or black/white visions of what would make a better world. ‘Cause even though Outwalkers is adventurous and plot driven, it’s also all about relationships, survival, living as a refugee, and feelings ranging between those of tearing hunger, paralyzing sorrow and glints of hope of a better world – or just of a bed with clean linen.

At the same time as it does ask those big existential and societal questions, Outwalkers is nothing of a heavy read. It’s fast paced, plot driven, and full of those thrilling cliffhangers that just makes you wanna keep reading. So even if you’re more into underground rail rides than what this world is turning into-scenarios, you will probably enjoy this novel.

Dr. Bea approves

If “big brother is watching”-adventures are right up your alley, I can really recommend Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. And if you like some techy stuff and a bit of virtual reality added to those governmental conspiracies, Layers by Ursula Poznanski might be just your cup of tea.

Announcements

Introducing you to Dr. Bea

Posted on May 6, 2018

Hi all,

Starting in May and from now onwards, I will have a collaborator to the blog, Dr. Bea (she isn’t actually a Doctor, but rather a Librarian and I am very fond of her). Everyone say Hi to her

*queue “Hi Dr. Bea” in singsong chorus*

Dr Bea is part of the book box club but she is in a colder country, Sweden, and she is a delightful fun person who doesn’t like whales or dolphins, but does like fire, theatre and books (obviously). She will be posting some of the reviews for Book Box Club books, and also she will add more books to the review list (specially Mystery and Thriller, we want to broaden the spectrum of what is reviewed here).

But I’d better let her introduce herself a little bit more and better…

🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖

HELLO INTERNET. HELLO BLOG READERS. This is Dr. Bea, also known as The Spiderpig, writing.

Well, Moon kinda’ got all the important facts about my being down in print already, so I’ll just extend them a bit.

I do love Mystery and Thriller! But I’m also a sucker for Science Fiction. Not the travelling between different universe’s kind of Sci-fi, but the more (literally) down to earth, possibly near future with available technology kind. (I apparently also love long sentences, but I’ll work on that.) In fact, my first review on Moon’s blog is gonna be up next, and if you’re into governmental conspiracies and futuristic yet realistic adventures, this might very well be THE READ of 2018 for you.
Although I’m for some unknown reason terrified of whales, my favourite animals of all times are turtles.
At my work as a librarian, I’ve specialized in multilingual reading and Swedish for beginners, focusing on adults rather than children.
2018 has so far been an amazing year reading wise for me, and if you haven’t read them already please give Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, The Hate U Give and Everything Beautiful is Not Ruined a shot. (Realizing now that they’re all contemporary, which usually isn’t my favourite. But all the more reason to check them out.)

Okay, enough rambling on my part! I just once again wanna thank Moon for letting me be a guest blogger here. If you like what you hear from me, you can stalk me at @aspiderpigsreadings on Bookstagram. A lot of bookish pictures as well as longer and shorter reviews going on there as well. Cya’.

Wrap-ups and Tags

Moon’s 1st third of 2018 Round-up

Posted on May 4, 2018

Let’s do a fun sum up of this quarter of the year (can anyone believe it is already May?!). It has been an interesting start of the year for sure.

Our Whatsapp Book Box Club group got more hype and we’re doing a lot of fun things. You can check out more of the shenanigans on this post. But trust me, that we have enjoyed meeting other bookish people. First rule about our club is you need to have purchased at least one Book Box Club and attended a Clubhouse meeting.

I have had successful buddy reads of several books thanks to this. And thanks to the buddy reads that sparked me out of reading funks, so I have been reading more.
I have preordered several books, trying to support authors and publishers alike (54 preorders placed by 29th of April).

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Blog and twitter have grown a lot and I am glad, I even have one surprise coming up my sleeve about the blog, which I am sure some of you will be quite excited to hear about!
I moved jobs, changing from one industry to another quite drastically but full of opportunities. Coworkers at my previous job were very kind and gifted me a few things including a Porg (squishie!) and some books.

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I had a small holiday and visited a water-mill (and bought a lot of flour because I love baking and fresh flour is amazing). It was a moment of being in the middle of nowhere and enjoying just being without actually having to be doing anything. This is hard for me, but it was very relaxing. And we fell in love with a wood burning stove.

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I have had the very first fitting for my “Knit” dress. If you’re unsure what I am talking about, you can check my Meet The Character post about her. When I designed Knit’s dress, I had always envisioned making the dress become a reality, and yes it may not be exactly as I first drew it, but it is already looking amazing and I am all excited about fabrics and looks (it may be hard to imagine but trust me, it will be grand).

On the not as great news, my bookmark shop has been on “holiday” for a while due to all the changes and stress happening this quarter. Hopefully it will be reopened soon once I have a few more designs up and ready.
And I have been diagnosed with several little things that add up to the fact that I am “disabled”. It has been hard, working with this but I may post more on this at some point.
It was also a good time because I met Loish who is one of the artists I admire, and that was wonderful too! (Please excuse the over tired face, it was late and I was extremely tired but really happy, it was also too hot in the room so we were all just melting away).

All in all, it has been a wonderful first quarter of the year, with a lot of things coming up, a lot of fresh changes. The new job is promising and we shall see what this next 4 months bring in.

How has your 2018 been so far?

Book Review

Furyborn Review

Posted on May 2, 2018

This book was provided through a Fairyloot box as an advance copy

Furyborn by Claire Legrand

Follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world…or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, the crown prince, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing her ability to perform all seven kinds of elemental magic. The only people who should possess this extraordinary power are a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light and salvation and a queen of blood and destruction. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven trials to test her magic. If she fails, she will be executed…unless the trials kill her first.

A thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a mere fairy tale to bounty hunter Eliana Ferracora. When the Undying Empire conquered her kingdom, she embraced violence to keep her family alive. Now, she believes herself untouchable–until her mother vanishes without a trace, along with countless other women in their city. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain on a dangerous mission and discovers that the evil at the heart of the empire is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world–and of each other.

Rating:

There was a lot of hype for this book so I was looking forward to reading it. It has an intense start where you find Rielle so interesting, and then you get Eliana. I struggled a lot to get into Eliana’s chapters, and even when it finally got better (around page 350), I still didn’t care very much for her. The reason I was reading her chapters was because of Simon, or Remy (definitely one of my favourite characters of the book!), or Navi or another character in there. I couldn’t feel for her and I just couldn’t immerse myself properly into her world view. Rielle’s chapters on the contrary where much more interesting, and that never helped poor Eliana’s one as they contrasted too much with hers.

I loved the elements and the strange empirium which made me think of atoms making up everything in the world (except empirium is golden here and I don’t think atoms are exactly a certain colour).

But it bugged me that there is a lot of explanations and reasons missing that just don’t make sense. Who decides who is the Sun or Blood Queen? Why is Rielle so powerful and so special? What does Corien want with her and if he so much needs her, why kill her? Most of it doesn’t make sense, and despite the “joining” of the plots, it still has too many gaps.

The writing itself is immersive and I did enjoy the flow of the writing and I had no problems with it or the style, all good there. So i look forward to reading the next book and to read more books from her, but I just feel an overhype for this sadly.

Moon recommends

Preorder Furyborn if you like stories that have two separate generations (by however many generations in between but you know, a past and a present or a present and a future views) and fantasy that has a dark tinge to it.

Subscription Boxes

Fallen Angels Book Box Club Unboxing

Posted on April 30, 2018

Turns out this was a very blue box apparently (I only really noticed once I put everything ready for a picture). And I have to say that as per usual, this was a lovely box from Book Box Club.

Let’s unbox starting from the top right corner:

Jace notebook (from Shadowhunters) by A Traveling Sketchbook. I am not a fan of Shadowhunters but I do love the artwork and it is a notebook, I won’t complain at all.
On top of the notebook is a wooden feather bookmark that was an absolute stunner (the detail is so gorgeous!)
Theme card (feathers, feathers, feathers)
Publisher’s extras which were a bookmark for “More Than We Can Tell” and “Letters to the Lost“, and a postcard for State of Sorrow.
Slayer sticker by Quotify, referencing Buffy which I squealed when I saw and is now on my laptop (obviously).
The book, Out of The Blue by Sophie Cameron, which was in my list of possible preorders and thankfully I guessed it’d be part of this box and didn’t get doubles! (Go me!)
Angel Veil Body Butter by Shimmer Luxe. Sadly you can’t smell it but it is so yummy and perfect that I was salivating over it (yes, I know it is not edible, but still).
Karou & Akiva candle by Bookish Burns. I enjoyed Daughter of Smoke and Bone a lot (the series in general) so it was a lovely surprise to see this one in there, and it has glitter too!
A teacake in a silver box (which somehow survived despite my best efforts to clumsily drop it while unboxing, woops). This is related to the book but since I haven’t read it yet, I can’t say what the relevance is, but I am sure there is one (a friend who has read it bought a box of teacakes because of the book so I guess there definitely is something there).

If you liked the box and it’s contents, you can try Book Box Club and use code MOON17 for 5% off if you’d like 🙂

Book Review

The Wicked Deep Review

Posted on April 28, 2018

We have had our clubhouse meeting so this review is definitely due now!

The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw

Welcome to the cursed town of Sparrow…

Two centuries ago, in the small, isolated town, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town. Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return from the depths, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them down to their watery deaths.

Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters’ return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into or the fact that his arrival will change everything…

Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. The townspeople turn against one another. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters.

But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself.

Rating:

This is a spooky and dreamy read, and I was so glad to read it. You meet Penny just before the Swan seaosn starts, and things are being slowly explained as they happen yet you always feel like you aren’t actually sure.

The setting was lovely, Sparrow was a wonderful spooky, coastal town that just kept me half wanting to be there, and part not wanting to at all because of the sisters.

And Penny is such an interesting character on her own.(This is a hard review without spoilers!!!!! There is so much I’d gush about but can’t really because it’d spoil this story and this is the kind of story you shouldn’t be spoiled before you read).

So, I can say the writing was gorgeous and dreamy and I just kept wanting to keep reading (and I did do that after a few buddy reading sessions, and got told off for that but it was just irresistible).

Moon recommends

I recommend The Wicked Deep, and all previous Book Box Club books with similar styles like The Memory Trees or The Disappearances, which have that kind of dreamy melancholic feel to them that just wraps you and takes to a different world, one slightly tinted with dreaminess, melancholia, old life.

Discussion

Moon Goes to: A Taco Party!

Posted on April 26, 2018

Last Saturday I hosted a taco party with friends, and met a few more fellow Book Box Clubbers.

If you wondered what box to buy, I can’t help but recommend Book Box Club. It is not just a book subscription box, it is so much more. It gives you a community, it gives you friends, it gives you new books to read.

I met my best friend thanks to Book Box Club, and I also have a lot of friends added to this with whom I have gone to signing events, book launches and soon will also attend YALC together.

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Obviously, you also get the benefits of having me around, and getting invited to Taco parties or any other party shenanigans that come to mind. This year we’ve already had taco and piñata parties.

(Doesn’t all that food look amazing?)

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But it is not only about food but about friendship, about community. I have to admit, Kate & Libby wanted not just a book box but a community and have made it! Girls, thank you so much from all of us.

We have slowly come out from behind our books and socialized between us and become friends that meet up (from several places in the country, someone travelled quite a lot to come to the taco party) when possible, but we also support each other.

We have had a few “drunk texts” from a few of us, which has made our weekend nights fun and makes us feel a little like part of it. We have gossiped about dates and life and work. We have counseled each other through bad things. We have celebrated success for one another.

We even started a “birthday elf box” where we send a box of goodies curated by one of us to another one on their birthday. And obviously we unbox them for all to see in a video.

And we have a “trade” and swap way, where we send books and goodies to each other, or pass along books we recommend or things we think someone else might prefer in their tastes.

It has become a wonderful group of friends, a great community, and we all owe it to Book Box Club.

Ps. Everyone in this picture is a confirmed not-serial killer, Dr. Bea approved, and Moon validated.

Book Review

The List of Real Things Review

Posted on April 24, 2018

The List of Real Things by Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

A poignant and big-hearted story about love, loss and believing in the magic of the imagination. The fourth novel from bestselling Waterstones Children’s Book Prize shortlisted author Sarah Moore Fitzgerald, following BACK TO BLACKBRICK, THE APPLE TART OF HOPE and A VERY GOOD CHANCE.

Grace knows the difference between what’s real and the strange ideas that float around in her little sister’s mind. Their parents died – that’s real. A secret hotel on the cliff-top where their parents are waiting – definitely NOT real. So when grief strikes again, Grace is determined not to let her sister’s outlandish imagination spiral out of control. But the line between truth and fantasy is more complicated than it seems…

Rating:

I won this book on a giveaway by Team BKMRK, and the premise sounded interesting enough. However sadly it didn’t live up much, the story was confusing in trying to “confuse” you yet at the same time leave you wondering.

Gracie seems to love Bee and then she turns on everyone, and it doesn’t make much sense in general, except maybe the fact that everyone is trying to deal with grief in their own particular way and trying to cope with it. That was the bit that saved the book.

It is definitely geared to younger readers rather than older ones which makes it a quick read for me.

(As a note to myself, I am definitely picky with my contemporary reads).