Star Friends – Energy Thief by Linda Chapman. Illustrated by Kim Barnes
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.
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 am always up to some new series and items to read from Little Tiger UK, so when this had a fox and a cute premise I requested it and got a copy to review.
Now, I did not realise this was many books into the series, so I was missing some context when I started reading it, however, it was also ok, because it was slowly filled in as needed.
Maia and her friends have magic that is seen through their Star friends, who are animal companions that assist with their magic. So when Maia starts having visions of accidents happening in their town, they all get to investigate what is happening.
What they don't count on is that somehow their investigation will keep getting stalled and derailed by the same type of accidents that she herself was seeing. There seems to be someone influencing the people of the town in causing them accidents, but also in their behavior because adults are behaving a bit more odd than usual.
This was very cute, and it made me add the series to the books I will go get from the library when I have the chance to binge read them.
The friendships were lovely and the town was cute as was the fact that there's a lot of adults involved and it isn't just the kids being ultra magical and solving everything without an adult ever involved. Instead here they consult with adults and involve them in parts of their adventure which was nice to read about.
If you're into magic, animal companions, and a plucky set of friends who are ready to solve chaos and mysteries, this is a great series to go through. Very enjoyable.
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.
All Hail Chaos was one of my most anticipated reads for this year, and if you're too impatient to read the review, the short thing is that it did not disappoint. You can read my review of Long Live Evil before this one if you're interested in it.
I am going to try my best to avoid big spoilers for this book because I think getting to the last few chapters and making those discoveries is an experience you can only get once when you read it and it's not worth spoiling. This does mean I will be writing one of those insane reviews that are a bunch of nonsense. I mean the title is all about chaos, so we might as well embrace it. All Hail Chaos!
We left Rae engaged to her favourite character, the Emperor, whom is not whom she thought actually was. And she is afraid. Being the villainess was fun when it you think that it's just characters and not people like you, but once you cross the line, it becomes harder to make villainous decisions and things are a lot deadlier.
Rae is trying her best to survive and for that she needs to continue her villainess chaos and to continue trying to not be predictable, and to challenge things. And at the same time she wants to free the Emperor and to free herself from the mess that has become.
She also has Cobra trying to discover secrets and preempt some of the plot that they know happens, trying to make changes. And there's also Emer and Lia, who have escaped simply to stay in the town and start stoking a revolution.
There's indeed a lot of chaos going on here, but the main thing they all have to grapple with is that there are constants for this story, and this plot, and they can try to change things, but they will come to happen one way or another. And sometimes the bargains, the fake engagements, the bravery, they backfire into something you can't predict or that maybe you hoped would not be the case.
That part of them all trying to understand what the plot wants, how much they can push and pull at it and bend it to their will, and where it just won't budge was super fun and really cleverly done. This adds tot he twists and turns, and you know that there are going to be many, but they turn in on themselves as you hope something will happen and boom, something else ends up becoming the plot because it just won't bend that far and the bounce of trying to make it do things it just won't gets interesting. Navigating these many plot points and what the "original" plot was versus the many variations that slowly unravel, the butterfly effect of it all is a lesson in how to be a master in writing, and Sarah does it amazingly well.
Another part of this was that as I read this, I kept thinking a lot about a phrase I live by, which is that you either become the person you needed most during a crisis or you become the villain and closer to those that caused you harm than the other way. And that at the end of the day, what you do, is a choice you make.
All Hail Chaos is full of those moments where each character has to face the music and realise that the choice they are making will impact more than just this moment but also they only have a moment to decide.
There is still a lot of sadness in this book, but whereas the first one was marked heavily by grief, here the grief has shifted more into vulnerability and pain. And in this book that pain makes some beautiful and beautifully ugly things.
My recommendation is to definitely read this book and enjoy the ride, then despair because the third book is not out yet and you will need it immediately after you finish reading this.
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 heard Bless was being made into an anime and the little snippets that were seen reminded me of Paradise Kiss (one of the first manga and anime I consumed and I was won, it's all about fashion and modelling), and Princess Jellyfish (also about clothes and fashion and being yourself), so one about makeup and modelling sounded right up my street (and the snippets were utterly drop dead gorgeous)
The first volume is a good introduction to the two main characters: Aia, who has been scouted as a model and is utterly stunning, but what he really cares about is makeup and is always dreaming up makeup for others. The other is Jun, who is the quiet tall classmate who is always hunching and hiding to be less noticeable, particularly as she has a bunch of freckles.
They end up being the ones representing their class in the school runway fashion contest, low expectations for them, but he convinces to her to be the model and let him do the makeup and look, an as they team up they discover they are both very similar in having secret ambitions of wanting to be more than what everyone assumes for them and also different in one is super organised and the other chaotic and distracted.
Now, the premise is really awesome, with Aia wanting to do makeup but being stuck as the model and Jun wanting to be a model but thinking she's not the right fit, and then reversing those roles and putting themselves out there. The whole plot/story that follows them while they complete the challenge in school and their first tempting steps attempting to go outside of the school with those dreams was superb. The one downside is that makeup benefits from colour actually being used and the manga is black and white, so the descriptions don't match what you end up seeing on the page and therefore you're less amazed (though some of it is done beautifully).
The other thing for me was that once the main challenge goes, with the school competition happening and suddenly realising they each wants to pursue this further, we get a bit of Jun pursuing modelling, but we mostly get Aia being super confident and yet not enough, the balance is ood where he doesn't seem entirely true to himself through the two volumes. The Aia you encounter int he first, is not exactly the same throughout the second volume, and we barely see Jun in the second volume. We mostly focus on Aia and makeup, but barely anything for Jun and it almost seems like she was there purely to advance his plot and that's it (which fair but the premise and summaries hint that it's about both of them).
There are some fun moments thoughout boht volumes particularly as they try to figure out what the focus of their school contest entry will be. But also as Aia continues trying to find what he wants to do with makeup and how he wants to approach.
My overall verdict was that it's a story that for once I think I'd rather watch as an anime than read as a manga and I will wait for it to come out to continue the story.
Blind Date with a Werewolf (A Novel in Stories) by Patricia Briggs
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.
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.
Probably not obvious but I am a big fan of Patricia Briggs, have been since I first read The Hob's Bargain (I should probably re-read it and review it properly here) back when I was a teenager. She was my introduction to urban fantasy (or paranormal or whatever you want to call it now, to me it will always be urban fantasy), and yes I am aware that the Hob's Bargain is not urban fantasy but that was the gateway and Mercy Thompson won my heart and I had a soft spot for her Alpha and Omega books too.
So when Orbit (a while back) said they were publishing the collection of short stories about Asil's blind dates, I jumped at the chance (and then kinda moved house and lost the book and had no pictures and didn't review it until now, my bad).
Asil is a deadly old werewolf, he's lived a long time and lives a reclusive life since he lost his own mate. But his friends are challenging him to go on five blind dates in the span of three weeks. They even made it easy and chose the people, everything is organised and perfectly scheduled, all he has to do is show up and be a good date.
Now, these are five short stories, one per date, that make up a bigger one, but you don't need to technically read them all to know what's going on, and for me it had been a while since I had read the Alpha and Omega books, so I had a vague memory of the characters but couldn't recall everything.
Despite having some blanks, this was pure fun. The dates are actually nicely planned with well meaning people and each one just gets more chaotic and more hilarious than the last, and yet they are also very serious and show you well that Asil is very true to himself through and through no matter the chaos. And there is a lot of chaos thrown at him. There's people feeling stood up or on a joke, and then there's big felines and other old magic flowing through and showing up at inconvenient times during the date.
Honestly I breezed through this and it was such a joy to read, reminded me why I fell in love with urban fantasy and why I loved the Alpha & Omega series, but also why I enjoy Patricia Briggs' books so much.
All I can say is that you should read them for a good time in chaos dates and an impeccable werewolf who is trying to do his best for this challenge of blind dates. There's a little bit of everything here for everyone. And if my books weren't packed, I would've just ignored everything and gone to binge read the Alpha and Omega series after finishing this book because it was a delightfully enjoyable read.
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.
Surprise, this is the book I read first of the series but it is actually the third one which comes to show one of the strengths of this series, that each book is in itself a standalone despite making references to what has happened in the previous ones (since the partners are "new" to the team they won't have context so this is handled nicely o the reader gets context without feeling like overexposure).
The reason I chose this book was because it wasn't just hockey but it had artistic skating. But why was that relevant? Because for part of my teenage years I start with artistic roller skating and then moved to inline hockey (as I couldn't find a partner and the coach also coached hockey). And of course because both where done on ice at official levels, I would try to skate loads in ice rinks when I could afford it.
So I came at Revolve with cautious hopes, could it talk about two things I loved deeply and also give me a good romance?
The answer was yes. So much that I would end up really liking the whole series and going back to the other books.
Revolve follows Sierra Romanova who had an accident during a competiton on the ice and that left her with panic attacks when she enters the rink, but she wants to reclaim what that accident took from her and prove that she can do it. But her previous partner has a new partner and no one seems to want to partner up with her, and it's too late in the season...
Enter stage (rink) left, Dylan Donovan, playboy hockey player and the bad boy from the team, who goads her back into skating and proving him wrong. And maybe he also has something to prove as he is kicked out of the team for his chaos. Hockey is his dream and he wanted to follow Aiden and Elias, so he needs to win his way back and maybe skating with Sierra will help this happen.
Dylan seems to just love pushing Sierra's buttons but then he starts caring and at the same time, it is one thing to push her buttons and another to let her suffer a panic attack, for which he seems well versed in handling, whcih shocks Sierra. And as Sierra slowly tackles her panic attacks, her fear and starts becoming once again a star in skating, Dylan also has to face his own reasons for being so reckless and for acting out so much.
I enjoyed both the hockey and the figure skating, and both Sierra's and Dylan's story was really sweet and chaotic (Dylan reminded me a bit of my current partner, he seems super chaotic and feisty but is very sweet and caring at his core, and Sierra was a bit like myself in some ways).
This is also the hardest review to write becuase I read the book the longest ago so I remember less specifics and the ones I do are pretty much plot spoilers I'd like to avoid since they were important to the story, but I will say that Sierr'as previous partner gets his comeuppance given he was the reason she had her accident.
And their epilogue to me was actually the sweetest of them all.
So I hope you get to love this series and enjoy it, while I go dive into Embrace and get a review ready probably in a few weeks.
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.
We're now on the second book from the Off the Ice series.
In this one we follow Elias Westbrook (Aiden's best friend) just after Collide, when they've been drafted into the Toronto Thunders, but somehow he has become quite popular for his good looks and the perception that he is a ladies man, and yet he has not made his first career goal at all, just a lot of assists. And he honestly just desperately wants to escape the attention and focus on the game.
On the other hand we have Sage Beaumont, a ballerina who has dreamt since she was a kid to be like Misty Copeland and therefore wants to perform in the Swan Lake. But it turns out that your social media popularity matters when it comes to being able to secure the lead role for it.
So when the chance present itself, and they get photographed together with speculations that she's his new conquest and potentially a more serious one, they both react very differently. For Sage this is the chance to get that media attention she needs while helping deflect the speculation on Elias' love life. Whereas Elias remembers how bad it was for everyone who has been caught int he press and his won experience with it, so he doesn't want to pursue a fake relationship since he doesn't think the pressure is good on Sage.
But he can't seem to get her out his mind, with her blunt tongue, her incessant teasing and her approach to life, he may be less into faking it and just trying his best to not fall head over heels for her. Whereas Sage is practical, she just aims for independence and that ballerina position and Elias is throwing some changes into her life that she doesn't know who to react and what to do about them.
I liked this one a bit better because it's very obvious from the beginning that the fake dating is everything but fake, but it was also super interesting to see how the fact they call it fake takes some pressure off on some aspects of the relationship and then on others it causes a lot of worries of how they are "performing" that relationship. For me that part and how it is written made me ponder a lot of what we tend to perceive as a good relationship whereas what may actually be one that is just not as flashy or good for social media.
This one felt way more homey and cuter than Collide. Where Collide is indeed a collision of personalities, Spiral is all about that spiral into love and both of them are spiralling fast and without any brakes on.
It is not my favourite but damn it was so close to being top of the list from the series. And honestly, I finished it and the fourth book arrived so I cannot wait to continue with the series (perfect timing). I can't remember the last time I was into a romance series as much as I am loving Off the Ice.
Elias is actually such a softie and he is so sweet, whereas Sage is a lot of spikes and attitude in part because she has had to be the responsible one and ot protect her life and her brother. IT was really lovely to see the softening the nicenes from Elias, and also to understand slowly why Elias is so soft and wants to protect others.
So I guess the short one is that Spiral is soft fake dating that'll make you feel like a hug.
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 been fighting WordPress for a while since their silly paragraph block won't load or let me write, so I am using their "verse" one, so, sorry for the weird formatting if this shows weird.
I will admit Collide was not my first read from the Off the Ice series, but rather I came to it after reading another one out fo order, woops. But I wanted the reviews to be in the right order.
Collide follows Summer Preston who is utterly dedicated to her lifelong dream of becoming a sports psychologist, so much that she chose a very hard professor to be the one that lets her submit her research and promotes her, because she believes what she is trying to work on is worth the eye of her professor. But she instead gets told that she has to do a specific paper and that causes her to have to work with Aiden Crawford.
Aiden is the captain of the hockey team, and he takes the hits for the chaos his team mates cause, which means he is the firing line and may not be able to play if he doesn't participate in Summer's research.
Summer doesn't love hockey and has some issues with it due to things that have happened in her past that make her consider it a problem and not something she wants to be involved in so having to deal with a cheerful life is simple attitude Aiden drives her mad, whereas she has everything set to schedule and working like clockwork.
But as they start working together on the research they start understanding each other a bit better, but they still don't want to admit that they may be a good fit.
The read was quite fun and I liked that despite the college life view and the fact that sex is prominent, Aiden was courteous and Summer was fully fleshed, She wants to achieve her dream and she cannot understand why there are so many blockers. She has good faith and believes in merit, whereas Aiden understands merit is but one part and there's more to things.
Admittedly, Summer had more plot pieces to show than Aiden but it just meant her complications threw some interesting challenges for him, not that she was trying to do so, but the way some of the issues get resolved was also really good and at least one of them was something I was like "I wonder if" and it totally was, but I didn't feel frustrated that I was right, the romance was sweet and I already knew they'd end up together and what type fo relationship they have since I had read ahead (because the supporting characters for each story have their own story and show in the other books, so you get an almost continuous line of their life stories and the lense just focuses more on one specific set of characters).
As the first book to introduce you to the world, I liked it quite a lot and still wanted to read more, and it does show you a lot of what is to come not just for Summer and Aiden but for the rest of the team.
So I'd recommend this as one of those just Romance series and it is something very rare for me to do in regards to books as I don't readmuch Romance, but Bal Khabra has won me over for her series.
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 am a year behind almost with this book, but I had this feeling that I had to be ready to read it. And I am glad I waited to do so.
For context, so that if you ask yourself why I loved it, I am a big fan of the manga Food Wars (and when I heard of this being pitched as Attack On Titan my mind also pitched it against Food Wars), most of my TV watching is things like Iron Chef, Culinary Class Wars, Chef and my Fridge, and any show similar to them (I am not big on the ones that ridicule too much the cook, it is all about the food for me). I also read a lot of manga and used to watch a lot of anime (a lot less now).
Now with that as a context and backdrop to my review, I have to say that this was a superb read. Paprick is a young man that has the job of being a butcher in a society that has a huge class divide and that also has magical beasts that when you cook specific recipes can give you powers. So he is part of the lower class who are almost indentured to the higher class (defined as “Rares”). And our story is about Paprick telling his backstory to an archivist (who he knew and was partly in his own story) while he is about to be condemned to death for his “crimes” and becoming “The Butcher” a figurehead for the Revolution.
This to me was an interesting mode of telling the story, because you are not getting the here and now story but what got Paprick to be called “The Butcher” and “Chef King”, and how he a common being somehow was able to make recipes that granted powers beyond the ones known already by the Rares.
And boy does Paprick take you on a wild ride. And I enjoyed this ride. It was super interesting to see him go from butchering to being able to create a recipe on the go because he wanted to have someone “do something”. He is a “hero” not because he particularly wanted to, but rather because circumstances put him in the place “someone has to do this” and when no one did it, he realised that the only someone that could try and that was going to try was him. This trait of him will already put off some people from this book, those who have so much privilege that they do not understand Paprick’s stand at all or how there is a need for someone, because people like this will always have other people to do whatever they need due to privilege.
Then there is the food, Paprick loves and lives for food. All he wants is to be a chef, to be allowed to learn and cook, and not to stay as a butcher. He butchers because that’s his assigned job and is better than other potential jobs, not because it is his choice. And the way the food and cooking is described here makes you hungry.
One other thing that may split people is that this book questions identity. It questions what makes a certain type of culinary experience more refined or “better” than other (why is a lobster bisque better than tacos con nopales by the fire?), and it asks some interesting questions about what the conqueror does and how they tell history and define the “right” way and the “cheap” and bad way of things, when neither is inherently better or worse. As I read about this conversation throughout the book I kept thinking on how a lot of the diet advise and nutrition is based on a Western view of the “perfect diet” and it only opts items from other cultures to make them into Superfoods.
Like avocados (or ube or matcha). Avocado toast being the rage when many Latin American cultures already ate a version of that for breakfast or lunch and where shunned for years for it, and suddenly it is now “healthy” but as I have learned myself, most of the Western view of avocados doesn’t know how to eat them or even prepare them properly, and what they consider refined is unripe avocados that barely have a taste and lack a lot of the richness and delight of a ripe avocado. And don’t get me started on the definitions of tacos, or how eating with your hands is dirty until you’re having a burger and then it is perfectly fine but other cultures using hands and food (like tortillas, naan, chapati, roti, etc) to eat is seen as unclean or “poor” or bad.
And you can see this conversation happening for Paprick as he is exposed to the world of Rares, and the culinary classes and how it asks some very interesting questions not just about food but the setup of society.
And yes, there is a revolution happening and brewing, and there’s a lot more on going in this book, but I think it is worth the reading of it and avoid the spoilers.
Overall, it was superb and I am looking forward to the second book coming soon as this was an absolute treat to read (do be mindful that this is very violent and graphic, so find the trigger warnings for it since you also need to come to it prepared for everything that will be in it). And if you can read it, I hope it is as delightful for you as it was for me.
The Very Serious Diary of Glam & Beardy Volume I by Ruby Clyde & Rachel WD. Illustrated by Vincent Batignole.
Rating:
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.
We start by getting to know Glam who is the last child of the Glamour family and is hoping to get the most glamorous familiar, since all kids get one around her age, except her. Hers just doesn’t seem to come at all. We get to know her family and that the kingdom has several “families” with different skills, like glamour or wisdom or strength.
It is also not common but not a bad thing if your familiar is from a different family (like Glam’s mum, who was born into Wisdom but has a glam familiar). Glam gets sad that she can’t find a familiar, and she’s not very glamorous, until she does meet her familiar Beardy, who is definitely a not glamorous familiar, but even worse, they’re not a defined skills from the kingdom, so Glam is convinced she has the wrong familiar.
This leads to an adventure to try to find a way to find the right familiar for Glam and the right kid for Beardy.
One of the things I really liked was that Glam’s family isn’t absent, on the contrary they are there for her even if she doesn’t always believe it or actually feel like it. I love stories where the parents/family are supportive and part of the story and not just absent or there for plot points.
There was also a lot about friendship, belonging and about skills, and the nice thing is that Glam is very much interested in history and anthropology rather than glamour, but still tries to be as glamorous as she can.
It was super cute to read, the illustrations are spot on and really fun, and there’s a lot f the world and story yet to find out, so I am very curious for the next volume. If you enjoyed any of the series I mentioned above, this is a must read for sure!
Dungeon Runners – Level 1: Hero Trial by Kieran Larwood and Joe Todd-Stanton
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 love middle grade fun series and Dungeon Runners starts with a bang for sure.
Kit is a small little gnorf (part gnome, part dwarf), which means he’s pretty small and doesn’t have any particularly great advantages for playing as Dungeon Runner, but he has always wanted to, since his own grandfather was one of the amazing teams back in the days.
So when a space opens up for a new team to join the Dungeon Runners, Kit is ready. Except that he has no team, so he finds new friends and a new team in Sandy, a sea witch who only knows one spell and Thorn, a vampire who loves knitting. Every team must have a healer, a fighter and a magic user, so they’re perfectly balanced to take it on.
The story is very cute and interesting, with Kit trying to be brave and fit as a fighter because it is one thing to dream you want to be part of a wonderful team, and then actually have to be an amazing team member is another thing. But what Kit may not have in strength he has in being a good gnorf, compassion and even courage when needed, and he will figure out the teamwork with Sandy and Thorn so that they can qualify to be the team selected.
I loved it, between the art, the “dungeons” the narrating of the actual “dungeon running”, and the three friends finding their strengths and weaknesses and the fun and clever ways. It is also a “fair” book in that they’re not perfectly winning all the time, it is an actual competition and therefore not everything goes their way just because they’re the main characters.
It’s a lovely little series and a good start for it, I am very intrigued where it intends to actually go, but so far (I have read up to book 3) it is very delightful and will be a recommended one for kids (one of my work colleagues’ kid is enjoying them too, so even kid approved for sure).
