This is a weekly meme hosted Devouring Books. This week’s prompt is Books With Flowers. Here’s my list:
(All book covers from Goodreads)
If you’d like to do this list too, consider yourself tagged!
Did you make a Top 5 Saturday list?
Title: Parachutes
Author: Kelly Yang
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Source: Publisher via Edelweiss
Format: Ebook
Release Date: May 26, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★
Speak enters the world of Gossip Girl in this modern immigrant story from New York Times bestselling author Kelly Yang about two girls navigating wealth, power, friendship, and trauma.
They’re called parachutes: teenagers dropped off to live in private homes and study in the US while their wealthy parents remain in Asia. Claire Wang never thought she’d be one of them, until her parents pluck her from her privileged life in Shanghai and enroll her at a high school in California. Suddenly she finds herself living in a stranger’s house, with no one to tell her what to do for the first time in her life. She soon embraces her newfound freedom, especially when the hottest and most eligible parachute, Jay, asks her out.
Dani De La Cruz, Claire’s new host sister, couldn’t be less thrilled that her mom rented out a room to Claire. An academic and debate-team star, Dani is determined to earn her way into Yale, even if it means competing with privileged kids who are buying their way to the top. When her debate coach starts working with her privately, Dani’s game plan veers unexpectedly off course.
Desperately trying to avoid each other under the same roof, Dani and Claire find themselves on a collision course, intertwining in deeper and more complicated ways, as they grapple with life-altering experiences. Award-winning author Kelly Yang weaves together an unforgettable modern immigrant story about love, trauma, family, corruption, and the power of speaking out.
Claire’s parents decide to send her to an elite American prep school for her final years of high school to give her a better opportunity for university. She becomes a “parachute,” which is what they call Chinese students who are sent to the United States to study. Most of the students stay with a host family, unless they can afford to live in their own home. Claire moves in with Dani and her mom. Dani attends American Prep on an academic scholarship, and she works with her mom’s cleaning service after school. Dani is a star on the debate team, so she spends a lot of time getting private lessons with her debate coach, until he gets too close to her. Claire appears to have a great life at that school, since the most popular “parachute” boy likes her, but things aren’t always what they seem. Though Dani and Claire don’t really get along, they both have similar problems they have to deal with.
There was a trigger warning at the beginning of the book that warns it will contain scenes of sexual harassment and rape. I was glad to see this warning at the book. I still chose to read it, but I liked that the warning was right there in the book. Sometimes I think that trigger warnings can be spoilers, because they give away things that will happen in the book. However, warnings are important to protect the readers from upsetting triggers. I was actually surprised at how the assault happened. It wasn’t the situation I expected.
The way the international students, like Claire, were treated was appalling. They were abused by teachers and their home hosts. Just because they were at a disadvantage because they weren’t in their home country, the teachers and hosts thought they could do anything and say anything to them. The school also separated international students from American students. That defeats the purpose of going to an international school, since the students end up only mingling with people from their own countries. That was only one of the problems that the school had.
The injustice in this book was upsetting and made me uncomfortable. There was racism and sexism. For some reason, the racism seemed easier for the authorities to punish than the sexism and harassment, which I found strange. I guess that was because the sexual harassment and sexism was often physical, so it is a larger issue, rather than words written down that are easy to erase.
I appreciated the author sharing her own personal connection to the story at the end of the book. This was an upsetting and disturbing story, yet it is an unfortunate reality that is important to share.
Thank you HarperCollins for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Have you read Parachutes? What did you think of it?
This is a weekly meme hosted by Laurie Reads and Niffler Reads. Every Friday, they post a list of bookish things based on the prompt they provided. The prompts for Feb to May can be found here.
This week’s prompt is Disappointing Books. Here’s my list:
Did you make a list for Bookish Friday?
Title: The Paper Girl of Paris
Author: Jordyn Taylor
Genre: Young Adult, Historical Fiction
Publisher: HarperTeen
Source: Publisher via Edelweiss
Format: Ebook
Release Date: May 26, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★
Now:
Sixteen-year-old Alice is spending the summer in Paris, but she isn’t there for pastries and walks along the Seine. When her grandmother passed away two months ago, she left Alice an apartment in France that no one knew existed. An apartment that has been locked for more than seventy years.
Alice is determined to find out why the apartment was abandoned and why her grandmother never once mentioned the family she left behind when she moved to America after World War II. With the help of Paul, a charming Parisian student, she sets out to uncover the truth. However, the more time she spends digging through the mysteries of the past, the more she realizes there are secrets in the present that her family is still refusing to talk about.
Then:
Sixteen-year-old Adalyn doesn’t recognize Paris anymore. Everywhere she looks, there are Nazis, and every day brings a new horror of life under the Occupation. When she meets Luc, the dashing and enigmatic leader of a resistance group, Adalyn feels she finally has a chance to fight back. But keeping up the appearance of being a much-admired socialite while working to undermine the Nazis is more complicated than she could have imagined. As the war goes on, Adalyn finds herself having to make more and more compromises—to her safety, to her reputation, and to her relationships with the people she loves the most.
Alice and her parents take a trip to Paris to visit the apartment that her grandmother left her in her will. The apartment was a surprise, because they didn’t know her grandmother had an apartment in Paris. They discover that the apartment has been preserved in the same state since the 1940s, and that her grandmother had an older sister named Adalyn. Alice is curious about her grandmother’s mysterious sister so she starts to translate her diary. However, when she finds a photo of Adalyn at a dinner with Nazis, she wonders if she wants to keep exploring this family history.
I loved this story! I’ve read stories that are similar to this one for adult readers, where a contemporary woman travels around the world to discover her family’s secrets from an important time in history. I’m so glad this one was for a young adult audience, because it will teach young people about things that happened in World War II.
The story followed two narratives, Alice’s point of view in 2020 and Adalyn in the 1940s. Though they were both sixteen, they had very different lives. Alice’s life was relatively safe, with her going around the city, researching Adalyn’s life. However, Adalyn was involved in dangerous relationships and espionage. It’s amazing to see how different their lives were between the different decades, though they were the same age and in the same place.
This story was fast paced, with romance and suspense. I couldn’t put this story down. Many chapters ended with a cliffhanger, and I had to keep reading. I was surprised at the ending. It didn’t end the way I thought it would, but I liked it.
This is a great historical fiction novel!
Thank you HarperCollins for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Have you read The Paper Girl of Paris? What did you think of it?
TBR Thursday is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly Faye Reads, where you post a title from your shelf or e-reader and find out what others think about it.
My pick this week is Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw.
Be careful of the dark, dark wood…
Especially the woods surrounding the town of Fir Haven. Some say these woods are magical. Haunted, even.
Rumored to be a witch, only Nora Walker knows the truth. She and the Walker women before her have always shared a special connection with the woods. And it’s this special connection that leads Nora to Oliver Huntsman—the same boy who disappeared from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago—and in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. He should be dead, but here he is alive, and left in the woods with no memory of the time he’d been missing.
But Nora can feel an uneasy shift in the woods at Oliver’s presence. And it’s not too long after that Nora realizes she has no choice but to unearth the truth behind how the boy she has come to care so deeply about survived his time in the forest, and what led him there in the first place. What Nora doesn’t know, though, is that Oliver has secrets of his own—secrets he’ll do anything to keep buried, because as it turns out, he wasn’t the only one to have gone missing on that fateful night all those weeks ago.
For as long as there have been fairy tales, we have been warned to fear what lies within the dark, dark woods and in Winterwood, New York Times bestselling author Shea Ernshaw, shows us why.
From New York Times bestselling author of The Wicked Deep comes a haunting romance perfect for fans of Practical Magic,where dark fairy tales and enchanted folklore collide after a boy, believed to be missing, emerges from the magical woods—and falls in love with the witch determined to unravel his secrets.
Have you read this book? What did you think of it?
Title: The Egyptian Mirror
Author: Michael Bedard
Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy
Publisher: Pajama Press
Source: Publisher
Format: Paperback
Release Date: May 20, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★
A darkly fantastic middle-grade mystery with the ominous atmosphere loved by fans of Jonathan Auxier and Jonathan Stroud
Thirteen-year-old Simon’s life has been knocked askew ever since his family moved into his deceased grandfather’s house. First there’s his eccentric neighbor Mr. Hawkins, who is laid up with a broken leg. Simon’s mother begins sending him over there with dinner for the elderly man, and soon Mr. Hawkins is depending on Simon to fetch old books and manuscript pages from all over his eerie, mirror-filled house. There’s one mirror in particular, an ancient Egyptian piece, that keeps showing Simon visions of a disturbing figure emerging from its depths. No one else sees the figure, though—just like they don’t see the huge, gaunt dog lurking in Mr. Hawkins’ bushes. As Simon himself becomes increasingly plagued by a mysterious illness, he is powerless to help as his neighbor descends into paranoia about dark forces encircling his house.
The terrible part is, Mr. Hawkins is right. Everything is about to get much, much worse.
Simon’s family moves into his grandfather’s old house after he passes away. When the old man across the street breaks his leg, Simon brings him food and helps him around his house. His house is filled with mirrors, because he was an archeologist who collected mirrors. Simon is fascinated with an Egyptian mirror in the house. After examining it, Simon starts seeing things that aren’t there, like a mysterious dog in the yard. He then gets an illness that confines him to his house. Simon has to figure out the mystery behind the mirror.
I love ancient Egypt, so I was so excited to read this book. There was some history of ancient Egypt in the story, but there was a lot about the history of mirrors and what they symbolize. Mirrors represent a person’s double, since it is a copy or reflection of yourself. In many cultures, mirrors are believed to capture a person’s soul when they die. That makes mirrors mysterious and dangerous objects, like in this book.
This book was very creepy and suspenseful. Mr. Hawkins was a mysterious figure at the beginning, because he seemed to have some secrets hidden in his home. His home was also full of mirrors, which sounds very creepy. The illness that Simon had was also quite mysterious. He couldn’t do anything but sleep, yet the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him. It’s scary to imagine having a mysterious illness that no one can figure out.
I really enjoyed this story.
Thank you Pajama Press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Have you read The Egyptian Mirror? What did you think of it?
This is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine. In this post we highlight a book that’s highly anticipated.
The book that I’m waiting on this Wednesday is The Woman Before Wallis by Bryn Turnbull. The expected publication date is July 21, 2020.
This novel is the fictionalised story of the American divorcée who captured Prince Edward’s heart before he abdicated his throne for Wallis Simpson.
In the summer of 1926, when Thelma Morgan marries Viscount Duke Furness after a whirlwind romance, she’s immersed in a gilded world of extraordinary wealth and privilege. For Thelma, the daughter of an American diplomat, her new life as a member of the British aristocracy is like a fairy tale—even more so when her husband introduces her to Edward, Prince of Wales.
In a twist of fate, her marriage to Duke leads her to fall headlong into a love affair with Edward. But happiness is fleeting, and their love is threatened when Thelma’s sister, Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt, becomes embroiled in a scandal with far-reaching implications. As Thelma sails to New York to support Gloria, she leaves Edward in the hands of her trusted friend Wallis, never imagining the consequences that will follow.
What books are you waiting on this week?
Title: Cat’s Café: A Comics Collection
Author: Matt Tarpley
Genre: Comics, Humour
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Source: Publisher via NetGalley
Format: Ebook
Release Date: May 26, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★
Serving up more than just coffee and tea, Cat’s Café provides its cast of adorable characters a gentle, supportive space and a hefty serving of the warm and floofies.
Welcome to Cat’s Café, a neighborhood coffee shop where all are welcome! Based on the popular webcomic, Cat’s Café introduces readers to the adorable denizens of this world. There’s Penguin, who has a bit of a coffee problem; Rabbit, whose anxiety sometimes overwhelms him; Axolotl, whose confidence inspires his friends; the always-supportive Cat, who provides hot drinks made with love and a supportive ear for anyone’s troubles; and many, many more. With a sensitive take on real issues and a gentle, positive outlook, Cat’s Café is about the power of acceptance, friendship, and love … and delicious cups of coffee.
This book has a series of comics, each about one page long, about a café run by a cat. All kinds of different animals go to the café, including a penguin, an elephant, and a snake. They each have their own problems and challenges in life, but they can all be themselves at the Cat Café.
There were some hilarious comics that really made me laugh. The penguin loved coffee. He asked for the biggest size, so that he could sit in it. Another funny comic was when an armadillo thought that a five out of five rating wasn’t right for the café. He thought it should be six or seven out of five, because it was so good.
Many of the comics were also about mental health and self esteem. The snake was quite lonely. One day, someone asked if the seat at his table was free, and he got excited because he though they would sit with him. When they took it away to their table, he was disappointed until they invited him to sit with them. These comics use real life examples to teach kids about mental health. The animals in the comics make them universal characters.
I really enjoyed this comic collection!
Thank you Andrews McMeel Publishing for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Have you read Cat’s Café: A Comics Collection? What did you think of it?
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and it is now hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s theme is Reasons Why I Love (insert book title). I decided to make a list of my favourite books of all time. Here’s my list:
(All photos taken from Goodreads)
What’s your list of books on your Top Ten Tuesday?
Happy Pub day to all of these new books!
What books are you most excited for this week?
Jill's Book Blog 