Genre: Fantasy


Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Review: My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories Edited by Stephanie Perkins

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I received this book for free from St. Martin's Griffin in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Review: My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories Edited by Stephanie PerkinsMy True Love Gave To Me by Ally Carter, David Levithan, Gayle Forman, Holly Black, Jenny Han, Kelly Link, Kiersten White, Laini Taylor, Matt De La Pena, Myra McEntire, Rainbow Rowell, Stephanie Perkins
Published by St. Martin's Griffin on October 14th 2014
Genres: Contemporary, Fantasy, Romance, YA
Source: St. Martin's Griffin
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four-stars

If you love holiday stories, holiday movies, made-for-TV-holiday specials, holiday episodes of your favorite sitcoms and, especially, if you love holiday anthologies, you’re going to fall in love with My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories by twelve bestselling young adult writers, edited by international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins. Whether you enjoy celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah, Winter Solstice or New Year's there's something here for everyone. So curl up by the fireplace and get cozy. You have twelve reasons this season to stay indoors and fall in love.

I love the holidays, so when I was approached about reviewing this book I couldn’t pass it up. I also always love “feel good” stories and knew this would be filled with them. It didn’t disappoint. It has twelve different stories having to do with the holidays written by an amazing variety of authors. No matter what holiday you celebrate, this book will make you smile. Some even had me tearing up with happy tears. I always really have a hard time reviewing anthologies because I don’t want to have a review that is super long or too short, but I am going to try to do it as good as I can, but be assured, this is a book you want to read around the holidays or any time of year.

In this book we get stories about family, friends, romance, and just stuff that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Each story feels so full and lets you get to know the characters and their story enough so that you care what happens. It is always a pleasure when short stories can tell such a complete story that you are satisfied in such a small amount of words. I enjoyed each and every story in this book whether it was about getting a Christmas tree, getting that New Years Eve kiss, or making holiday magic through the joy of food. We even get a story about a sort of faerie, though it’s not really called that. Either way, we get a range of typical holiday stories and ones that include fantasy and magic. I don’t really want to get into each story and make this super long, but there is something for everyone in this book.

Whether you celebrate Christmas or other holidays, this story has a bit of everything. The best thing is since it’s short stories, you can read one quick story or read them all. When I am really enjoying a story, I don’t like to put it down until I finish. With this, I could finish a complete story rather quickly and not feel like I was missing something until I could get back to it. Not only is this book fabulous to read for yourself, it would also make a great gift for any of the readers in your life. So even though I haven’t gone much into the details of this book, it’s really great and I have a lot of love for it. Some of the stories I really loved, and some I just liked, but all together it was fantastic! Buy it for yourself or someone else. You won’t regret it.

four-stars

4 Hot Espressos

Read All About It: The Stunning New Fairy Tale You Probably Never Heard Of!

Posted by on 12/08/2015 • 8 Comments

Calling all Fantasy fans! I have the lovely Shayne Leighton here today to talk to us about her upcoming book, Of Light and Darkness, along with a chance to win! First, let’s see what this book is all about:

Guest post by Shayne Leighton

The Stunning New Fairy Tale You Probably Never Heard Of…

I’m a published author. By Amazon standards, I’m even considered a bestselling author. But recently, after re-reading my debut novel, I decided something was missing. After five years of working with a small press, publishing three full-length novels and one novella, I was still left feeling like I owed my characters something more. I’d poured my blood, sweat, and tears into a story that was simply sitting on a virtual shelf…collecting…

Review: Macbeth #killingit by William Shakepeare and Courtney Carbone

Posted by on 12/02/2015 • 3 Comments

I know that I have already review a few of these books, well actually all of them so far, and they are getting harder to review. I can only say how fun they are so many times. Macbeth is one of stories that I really enjoyed reading back in the day when I was in school, so I really liked getting to read it in this format. What’s even better is that the Macbeth movie comes out Friday. Yup, that’s right, December 4th and it looks pretty good. I can’t wait to see it. So, if you haven’t read Macbeth, you should check out the movie, then pick up this book when it comes out in January to see how entertaining reading in this format makes a dark story.

Review: A Midsummer Night #nofilter by William Shakespeare and Brett Wright

Posted by on 11/25/2015 • 1 Comment

Every time I have read one of these books I can’t help but smile. They are great fun!! I have actually never read A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I have read little bits, but never the whole thing. Of course, I knew what the story was about, but reading it in this way made it so much fun. Once again, I have to say that these books are amazing because they make learning about these stories entertaining, and in my case, want to read the real thing.

Text and social media are such prominent things today that this is such a great way to write a book. Especially books that some may find boring otherwise. Or have trouble understanding the language since we all know that Shakespeare can be a…

Review: Soundless by Richelle Mead

Posted by on 11/17/2015 • 13 Comments

A fantasy with a Chinese-inspired setting? An isolated village high up in the mountains, full of deaf people? A heroine who regains her hearing back and aims to use it to make a difference? WOW, BADUM-TSS!

On a perfect, ideal day, this would have been an absolutely great treat. Just from these few sentences, we can already feel the diversity of the premise!

But, alas, it is not a perfect and ideal day, because this book is boring and dull as hell. But hey, there’s one thing positive from this: I’m done with it! Yay!

First of all, let me just say that I’ve read the first book of Vampire Academy and I’ve read her GAME OF X series which I absolutely, absolutely adore (to the moon and back). I’ve seen what…

Audiobook Review: The Last Ever After (The School for Good and Evil #3) by Soman Chainani

Posted by on 10/08/2015 • 4 Comments

I am going to try to do this review with no spoilers for the previous books, but seeing as it’s the third and final book, no promises. You have been warned to continue at your own risk. I have to say that this series in general was fantastic and I was so excited for this last book. It totally lived up to my expectations! I have listened to the whole series on audio and it’s one of the best audiobook series. The narrator, Polly Lee, is the perfect voice for the story. She makes it very easy to tell between the characters, and brings a fantastic story to life. This book was full of all the build up off all the things that came before and all the new dangers…

Review: A Curious Tale of the In-Between by Lauren DeStefano

Posted by on 10/01/2015 • 2 Comments

This book was all sorts of fun to read. The characters were interesting and so was their story. What I love the most about middle grade books is that even if there is a bit of child romance, that is not the focus. Instead, the focus is more on what is happening or a building friendship. Initially I was thinking, “Oh boy, another ghost story.” but although it does have ghosts, it didn’t wear on me or feel like every other ghost book out there. There was a bit of creepiness to the story, and a lot of thrills. This is a great story for younger ones leading into Halloween season or anytime.

Pram is a very smart little girl who lives with her aunts. Her mother died when…

Review: Ice Like Fire by Sara Raasch

Review: Ice Like Fire by Sara Raasch

Posted by on 09/18/2015 • 8 Comments

Have you ever had one of those days where you feel like something was… incomplete? That things dragged on more than they should have had? Like the story could’ve been tighter, could’ve had the same essential elements and plot points, AND still give a sense of completeness, as if this small story arc of a bigger story arc has been reached?

This is one of those days – those days where I felt nothing but underwhelmed.

You guys might be well-aware of my love for the first book. I flailed over it, gave it 5-fantastic-stars, and shoved the book (and its pretty cover!) pretty much to everyone’s faces, imploring them, demanding them, that they read Snow Like Ashes as soon as they could, and that I wouldn’t be accepting any flimsy excuses. It was…