Books

Book 950: Kaleidoscope – Cecily Wong

Book cover of When someone from the publisher reached out about Kaleidoscope, this line caught me: “This book is heart-wrenching and hopeful and the characters truly shine on the page. It’s one of those books where I wish I could read it again for the first time all over again. And I’m so happy that you get to.”

And I downloaded a copy almost immediately, but of course sat on it for a few months, allowing me to forget about the blurb and the subject and go into this completely blind.*  This approach, if you’ve followed me for a while, sometimes works for me and sometimes it doesn’t. This time it sort of worked mostly because the intro was a little abrupt and different from the rest of the story, but that’s on me, not the author.

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Books

Book 926: Khabaar – Madhushree Ghosh

Book cover of "Khabaar" with Amazon Affiliate linkWhen the publicist reached out to me about this one, I wasn’t sure I had the capacity, but it was five months before it was published so I figured I’d make time!*

That sort of happened. Khabaar was on my TBR pile nonstop from February onward but between all the knitting I was doing and getting distracted by EVERY MM romance novel possible, I kept putting it off to my detriment.

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Books

Book 918: Prejudice Meets Pride (Meet Your Match #1) – Rachael Anderson

I am NOT happy with this book. I purchased it back in July 2015 and assumed, like many others on Goodreads, that this was a modern retelling of Jane Austen.

Like everyone else who read it with this assumption, this can be blamed on us not reading the blurb—nowhere does it say that it’s a retelling. HOWEVER, to take such an iconic title from such an iconic work of fiction and repurpose it without even mentioning Austen or her works in what you’re writing is either incredibly naïve/ridiculous or incredibly underhanded and manipulative.

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Books

Book 797: My Drowning – Jim Grimsley

Book cover of "My Drowning" with Amazon Affiliate linkJim Grimsley is probably one of the most depressing writers I’ve ever read, and yet I keep going back to him every 5-10 years. Depressing may not be the correct descriptor, he just writes such desolate books and truly embraces the southern gothic style and maybe that’s what draws me to him?

This was my first time reading My Drowning and it was very different from Winter Birds and Dream Boy but at the same time very similar (mostly through that southern gothic style). In addition to the style, he really excels at writing children’s voices.

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Books

Book 740: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (To All the Boys #1) – Jenny Han

Book cover of "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" with Amazon Affiliate linkWe watched this adaptation on Netflix when it was first released and when I noticed the second in the trilogy was released I realized I wanted to go back and read the source. And really, there weren’t that many differences which was refreshing.

The move rarely strays from the book and I enjoyed the opportunity to revisit with Lara Jean and her dramatic junior year of high school. The book, more so than the movie, better captured the emotions of the three young women growing up without a mother at what is obviously a momentous time in their lives. And I really enjoyed the extended family information and few interactions.

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