Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
I love Annalise Jensen’s art, and had already kickstarted and enjoyed her previous fairy anthology art book, so backing this one was going to happen.
This is an anthology that compiles art, comics, and short stories about fairies, transformation, and queer desire. It does have a dark theme overall, and I think it is a wonderful little collection of various artists in it (You can read the Kickstarter project here).
What can I say about it? I liked the previous one more, but this one had gorgeous artwork, some dark and creepy stories, some really good comics (some were not up to my taste or really my topics) and it is a great quality book.
It just makes me feel like I need to get back to creating art after going through this lovely anthology and which gives you art, comics, and one fo my favourite things was that the short stories had artwork or headers or side graphics which made it a stunning piece reminding me of old illustrated books. IT is a beautiful piece of art and very magical.
Theme/Month: Look What You Made Me Do, August 2024
Ownership: Subscribed on their 6 boxes option. If you are interested in purchasing an Illumicrate subscription, you can do it on their website.
Illumicrate is a book subscription box, it usually features fantasy and sci-fi but not exclusively young adult, sometimes it features adult too. It usually contains a new release and several bookish goodies.
August box definitely had a distinct colour vibe going on here. So let’s go from the featured book and clockwise:
Mistress of Lies by K.M. Enright which I still have to read, I just haven’t felt particularly compelled to, and so I don’t know when I will get to it.
A weekly pill box inspired by Ruthless Remedy. I like this one but I had one in use already so haven’t used it yet.
Silver Under Nightfall inspired snack bowls. I love these and they are perfect for snack sizing. I generally love almost everything that is dishware they bring out.
Underneath it we have a black and a red packing cube, which I gifted out as I didn’t need any but these were gorgeous.
Then we have the usual monthly leaflet of contents
And finally a replica dagger from The Serpent and the Wings of Night which I didn’t read so no clue. I generally don’t keep these since they’re too heavy to use as hair pins (if they were good as hairsticks, then I’d be all over them, but they’re much too heavy) and I don’t have much reason to keep them otherwise.
Overall, it was definitely a box in theme but I didn’t keep much from it, even if the snack bowls were absolute winners (they are still a winner). Part of me wishes the collectible was more useful but I get the nice unique factor here for the replicas.
Jupiter Nettle and the Seven Schools of Magic by Sangu Mandanna. Illustrated by Pablo Ballesteros
Rating:
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
I think I found this while searching for Sangu Mandanna’s new book which I couldn’t remember the title exactly, and then saw there was a cute graphic novel, and had to get it!
Jupiter Nettle and the Seven Schools of Magic does not disappoint. Jupiter has always dreamed of joining one of the Schools of Magic, so when she tries all the tests for all seven schools, feels like she has failed them all and then gets a visitor to say she has made it is not the School of Earth Magic, she does not know what to do.
She decides to go anyway, despite knowing that the School of Earth Magic is looked down by the rest of the students, doesn’t seem to involve any “cool” magic spells and her main tutor and teacher is too serious and demanding. She still sticks it out and somehow starts carving a place for herself in the school, but then an old enemy of the school and magic in general returns, testing Jupiter and her own magic.
IT is a lovely artwork and the story was adorable. I liked the view of the different schools which is a different approach to subjects or houses and here it is more about affinities, including ghosts (which if you are not a ghost, you can’t join). And Jupiter finding her place and figuring things out was also nice, and the way she almost gives up but then finds a way to find her own voice and magic was quite nice too.
Can recommend as a quick sweet read full of magic.
Ownership: Subscribed on their 6 boxes option. If you are interested in purchasing an Illumicrate subscription, you can do it on their website.
Illumicrate is a book subscription box, it usually features fantasy and sci-fi but not exclusively young adult, sometimes it features adult too. It usually contains a new release, a pin and several bookish goodies.
Sometimes the items go beyond my backdrop and then you get a weird photograph. I probably need to better my picture taking skills. But in the meantime, starting from the leaflet on the left and going clockwise:
Magical Menagerie leaflet
Hidden Ones magnetic critter bookmarks (adorable as always). I don’t use magnetic bookmarks a lot because I find after clipping and unclipping them they break and wear down too much and too quickly.
Birds of a Feather desk mat. I love desk mats and this one is gorgeous, so it has been used (though it is not the one currently in use).
Mythical Creature reading journal. super gorgeous both inside and out. I just wished it was a plan sketching notebook rather than a reading journal. I don’t really journal my reading.
The featured book, which was The Phoenix Keeper, is still to be read (sometimes I read the book, sometimes it takes me a while to get to it).
A lipstick holder, which was interesting because I have never even thought about using a lipstick holder, but it was cool even if currently unused.
The items were very much in the theme, but sadly about half of them aren’t in use or haven’t been used which is a bit sad for me, but I still like them and think they are lovely items, just not as useful for me overall. I think the biggest miss is the reading journal, because we keep being sent reading journals and I don’t need more of those, I want notebooks that have epic nice paper to sketch on instead.
For some chaotic reason (I think health and house move) I had not posted my review for this entry into one of my favourite middle grade series!
Diary of an Accidental Witch follows Bea who moves into a new village with her dad who studies the weather, and the weather here is all funky, but it may have to do with the magical school nearby rather than just natural phenomenon.
Bea ends up going to witch school and turns out she is a witch, so we follow her shenanigans through a series of books (I have reviewed all of them and I love them so much!). Magic Ever After is what looks to be the last of the series. This is the one bad thing of this book, that it is the last so far and I am heartbroken!
Bea’s ready for magical plans over the school holidays and then she realises her dad is obsessed with trying to do magic, and Taffy is being too serious and thinking hard. So Bea is here to help her Dad and Taffy with their not so secret wedding. She then has extra secrets to keep, magic to teach, and a party to plan full of magic, chaos happens, but also, it is a very sweet book.
I enjoyed the relationships showing up and the friendship and everyone pulling up to help make this memorable, including Bea still panicking about things and her dad’s chaos happening, but in the end the wedding is so cute and very much in line with the chaos of the family.
Very cute, a nice “ending” for the series and with lots of potential for picking back up if they ever do!
Ownership: Subscribed on their 6 boxes option. If you are interested in purchasing an Illumicrate subscription, you can do it on their website.
Illumicrate is a book subscription box, it usually features fantasy and sci-fi but not exclusively young adult, sometimes it features adult too. It usually contains a new release, a pin and several bookish goodies.
I am still super far behind on this, but one day I will catch up, I promise. This is still really the only book box I buy and I enjoy it enough to keep it going so far. Apparently for about ten years. How does time by so fast?
Anyway, let’s dig into the contents of this one:
At the top we have two mechanical pencils (I have not used these, mostly because I am particular on the mechanical pencil I use for drawing, and otherwise I don’t really use them) inspired by Empress of Salt and Fortune.
Bandits of Liagnshan enamel pin inspired by The Water Outlwas. I like the pin, it has been added to the ever growing collection.
The monthly leaflet with the photo challenge and contents description. I used to keep these but have been recycling nowadays.
A metal bookmark inspired by The Bone Shard Daughter (I haven’t read that one yet), which is super cool.
The main book, which was Of Jade and Dragons by Amber Chen and I have yet to read it. It somehow didn’t become a priority amongst the choices I have made to keep around in my super minimal bookcase.
And finally a print album inspired by Girls of Paper and Fire (that was a good series). I like these albums because I actually use them for prints and they are awesome for keeping them tidy and I can browse them nicely.
Overall, it was super on theme and very well tied together for pictures and showing off all the elements. Most of the items were good and useful (the mechanical pencils would’ve been in use if I was taking more notes and going places). So can’t complain on this box, I like it when they items all look good together and seem to stick incredibly well with the theme and each other and that was a win here for sure.
Zatanna: The Jewel of Gravesend by Alys Arden and Jacquelin de Leon
Rating:
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
I am not huge on superhero type of comics and stories, but Zatanna always seems to win me over. I read another story a while back, Zatanna and the House of Secrets, and since then I keep trying to find more of her.
In comparison to House of Secrets this is an older teenager almost adult Zatanna, and it still has touches on her identity and who she is. There is as always a lot fo magic and weirdness and that carnival festival. I think those two things, the magician and magic act feels that come from Zatanna being the child of famous magicians, and the carnival vibes definitely are big reasons for my love fo her stories.
My dad used to always do magic and even had a few years when he did magic at events. I learned a bunch of tricks and how to escape two types of cuffs for some of the tricks, and so I can think of maigicnas with joy, even if it is all in tricks.
This jewel of Gravesend is a bit darker and more mystical, which questions Zatanna’s parents, her history and what she is willing to sacrifice to save what she loves, and at the same time she isn’t sure she wants anything to do with magic, but feels pressured into it, there is also her attempting to become her own person and be independent and her love for the carnival and her odd life, and the artwork here was perfectly suited to the story.
It is definitely a favourite story of magic, mystery and intrigue and with Zatanna at the front of it. So can definitely recommend it as another good read to add to the collection.
Ownership: Subscribed on their 6 boxes option. If you are interested in purchasing an Illumicrate subscription, you can do it on their website.
Illumicrate is a book subscription box, it usually features fantasy and sci-fi but not exclusively young adult, sometimes it features adult too. It usually contains a new release, a pin and several bookish goodies.
Now we’re back to our regular posting schedule and somehow we are on the right month for illumicrate, just a year behind. Woops. But let’s check the contents, starting from the top left and going clockwise:
The featured book which is Goddess of the River, which I have read and reviewed already. And absolutely loved it. Big win here.
We then have some little clips, which I have been using for bags of crisps and other little things like that, very handy, even if a tiny bit big.
Anther one of the storybook setting magnets, which live on my fridge happily holding recipe cards of the things I tend to need the recipe often enough.
The usual content booklet.
Another lovely mug, which I cannot for the life of me remember what the fandom was, but they are generally my favourite style of mugs and I love them very much.
And finally, a book carrier. These are so so amazing, I have them all over the house, they’re the perfect thing to be at the base of the stairs to put things that need to go upstairs, and to have in the office for things that need to move form here to another room, and you get the idea, right?
This was a big winner box with lots of useful items and fun things that I have loved having, and that are regularly being used at home, so nothing really has ended up gathering dust or making me feel like it was wasted on me.
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
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.
As you may have gleaned from the two previous reviews, I like Rachel Gillig’s books, and as soon as I knew The Knight and the Moth would be in existence I have wanted it, so very amazingly, Orbit sent me an early review copy to read (I have read it twice already, and love it), and I can’t wait for my final copy to arrive (preordered).
As you can gather, I really enjoyed this one and can only say the writing gets better with each book.
The Knight and the Moth follows Six (Sybil Delling), one of six Diviners that live in a cathedral in the center of the kingdom of Traum. And she divines through dreams and visions she receives from six figures called the Omens and upon which the kingdom is built.
But then, a king and his knights, and one particularly “rude” one came into the cathedral for a divination. This triggers a sudden disappearance of the other Diviners, one by one until Six is the last one left. So she takes matters into her hand and decides to seek the rude knight Rodrick and try to find her missing Diviners.
She gets way more than she ever bargained for.
The characters are interesting, starting with Sybil, who is strong and big and not the perfectly dainty damsel in distress, which was refreshing to read. And we have Rodrick, our knight who is an unusual and unexpected knight. Of course, we all know there will be romance happening between them. But the rest of the main characters, the ones we keep seeing and that are a regular part are fascinating, including an older female knight and a gargoyle.
The gargoyle is my favourite character. I absolutely loved him to pieces, but I couldn’t get enough of him.
And of course, we have the Omens, all six of them, which each have their own powers, their own little piece of the kingdom that they govern and their region-specific lore to give you a varied world, with some odd customs, some charming ones and some horrid ones too because nothing is perfect. And of course, the overall world and how it treats Diviners as Six encounters more fo the world she had never seen until her “family” started disappearing.
The ending was deadly. I won’t say it surprised me (except that in my head I kinda thought this may be standalone and well, with that end it for sure isn’t) because I could see a lot of it coming and could put the pieces together, but the way it surprises some of the characters was well done and it made sense for them to not see it. I did hope it was going to be different, and I now will have to wait to read whatever comes next because I need it. That is the worst part, the needing to read the next book because why leave me on that ending like that.
If you like romantasy, magical worldbuilding that at times makes you ponder spirituality and be a little philosophical, knights and prophecies and magical objects, alongside a lot of lore and thoughts of gods (kinda like Trudi Canavan’s Age of Five trilogy, which is my favourite of her series), then this is the book for you, but beware because it will take over your mind and heart and you won’t want to put the book down.
Nothing is perfect, and as such, the reviews in this blog are chaotic. My main aim is to share my thoughts, joy and opinions on a book, not make a publication perfect review. This blog endorses authenticity, showing up and joy over perfection.
As I mentioned in my previous review, I am doing a Rachel Gillig series, so this is the second one with the second book in the series “The Shepherd King”. This is the conclusion to the story and I will admit there was something satisfying about it being a duology.
In One Dark Window, we end with Elspeth making some really difficult choices, giving control to the Nightmare, which absolutely devastates Ravyn, but he is going to keep going and he’s going to keep trying to connect with her and get her back.
At this point, we have all but one card, the one for which there is only one copy made, and the most important one of the set (I did not say this in the past review but for each card it has a number and there are as many copies of it with their magic as the number it has). And of course, Nightmare is the only one who knows where it is, because of reasons that may be a blatant spoiler and therefore I will avoid mentioning.
Anyway, this book we follow Nightmare and Ravyn, and also we follow those left behind in the kingdom, trying to wrangle the kingdom from the king and desperately have something to save when the 12 cards are found.
The balance in viewpoints on this one was a lot harder to achieve and is probably the thing that made me frustrated. We get a bit of both sides, the adventure triyng to find the card and the kingdom and politics, but we barely really understand how Elspeth is doing given that she is now trapped inside Nightmare and her own body.
In exchange we get a lot of the back story for most characters. We get to understand Elspeth’s family better, the founding of the Kingdom and where the king comes from, and we also learn how the cards came to be and the cost they incurred in being made. I loved learning about it, but again, as we learn more fo the past and how it came to be, I wish we had some more depth into some of the characters we encounter frequently through it.
As the story is tying a lot of pieces together to drive to the end, it felt at times a bit rushed or trying to expose more than it should. And so it was a little bit less effective at the story telling and chokehold on me than the first. I still was captivated and wanted to get to the end, but I noticed those things more than I wished I had.
Regardless, I still recommend it, it was a lot of fun, the worldbuild was spot on and very magical, it was dark but also like a fairy tale, and the lore was superb.
