This blog meme is hosted by Book Date. It is a place to meet up and share what you have been, are and about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit and comment, and er… add to that ever growing TBR pile!
What I just finished:
This weekend I finished Sister Dear by Hannah Mary McKinnon.
What I’m currently reading:
I’m currently reading Recipe for Persuasion (The Rajes #2) by Sonali Dev.
What I’m reading next:
Next I will be reading Out Now: Queer We Go Again! by Saundra Mitchell (editor).
What are you guys reading this week? Have you read any of these books?
The meme that dares to ask what book has been in your bed this morning? Come share what book you’ve spent time curled up reading in bed, or which book you wish you had time to read today! This meme is hosted by Midnight Book Girl.
This Sunday I’m reading Sister Dear by Hannah Mary McKinnon.
Goodreads Synopsis:
Beauty. Wealth. Success.
She’s got it all.
And it all should’ve been mine.
When Eleanor Hardwicke’s beloved father dies, her world is further shattered by a gut-wrenching secret: the man she’s grieving isn’t really her dad. Eleanor was the product of an affair and her biological father is still out there, living blissfully with the family he chose. With her personal life spiraling, a desperate Eleanor seeks him out, leading her to uncover another branch on her family tree—an infuriatingly enviable half sister.
Perfectly perfect Victoria has everything Eleanor could ever dream of. Loving childhood, luxury home, devoted husband. All of it stolen from Eleanor, who plans to take it back. After all, good sisters are supposed to share. And quiet little Eleanor has been waiting far too long for her turn to play.
Title: Romanov Author: Nadine Brandes Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fiction Publisher: Thomas Nelson Source: Publisher via NetGalley Format: Ebook Release Date: May 7, 2019 Rating: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
The history books say I died.
They don’t know the half of it.
Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them, and he’s hunted Romanov before.
Nastya’s only chances of saving herself and her family are to either release the spell and deal with the consequences, or enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya has only dabbled in magic, but it doesn’t frighten her half as much as her growing attraction to Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her.
That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad . . . and he’s on the other.
Review:
When her parents and sister were sent away from her home, Anastasia’s father, the Tsar, gave her the task of smuggling a special Russian doll with a hidden spell to their new hideaway. However, the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them and he knows that Anastasia has the secret magic. Her situation is further complicated by her sudden attraction to one of the soldiers who is guarding her family. Anastasia will only be able to use the spell when the moment is right, so she has to hang onto the doll until she can save her family.
I knew of the Romanov’s before reading this book, but I didn’t know the details of what happened to them. It was a tragic story. I kept looking up the details of the real Anastasia’s life while I was reading, to find out what was fact and what was fiction. This story follows the real history of what happened to the Romanov’s quite closely.
One part that is fictional is the fantasy aspect. Anastasia wasn’t the keeper of a special spell to save her family. However, the fantasy aspects serve to fill in a gap in Anastasia’s story. Her body wasn’t discovered with her family’s bodies. There were women over the years following their death who claimed to be Anastasia. That was a fascinating story to read about! I don’t want to give anything away, but this story attempts to give an alternate history for Anastasia Romanov to account for the reason her body wasn’t buried with her family.
This was an amazing historical fantasy story!
Thank you Thomas Nelson for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
What to read next:
Fawkes by Nadine Brandes
My Lady Jane (The Lady Janies #1) by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows
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: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
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.
Review:
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.
What to read next:
Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen
Rules for Being a Girl by Candace Bushnell and Katie Cotugno
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:
The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn
Beast: A Tale of Love and Revenge by Lisa Jensen
The Reckoning of Noah Shaw (The Shaw Confessions #2) by Michelle Hodkin
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: ★★★★★
Goodreads Synopsis:
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.
Review:
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.
What to read next:
They Went Left by Monica Hesse
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
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.
Goodreads Synopsis:
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?
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