Genre: Magical Realism

ARC Review: The Seven Year Slip

Posted June 19, 2023 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments
ARC Review: The Seven Year Slip

I’ve loved Ashley Poston since her YA book days a few years ago. Her foray into “adult contemporary fiction with a sprinkle of magic” has been LOVELY so far – THE DEAD ROMANTICS was one of my favorite books last year and I can still remember the feeling of sitting on the amazing porch at our Airbnb and reading so much of it in one sitting. While that story gets the half-star edge over THE SEVEN YEAR SLIP, I clearly loved this one too. The story centers around Clementine and her somewhat boring life in NYC, six months after her beloved aunt and travel partner passed away. She was willed her apartment and has been living there ever since, despite how painful it can be. Her aunt always said the apartment was a bit magical and Clementine finds out firsthand how true that was. Somehow timelines overlap, and you may return to your apartment one day and find yourself seven years in the past… yes, including whoever was living there seven years prior. One summer, that turns out to be Iwan, a gorgeous Southern guy that her aunt sublet the apartment to when she was overseas (oddly enough, with Clementine) at the time. The two connect very quickly but Clementine isn’t sure how to tell him exactly what’s happening with their time-related disconnect. Some other ~things~ progressed in this story that were not what I expected when I read the synopsis, but I actually liked it way better than what […]

Review Round Up | One Italian Summer, All Good People Here, and The Final Gambit

Posted September 8, 2022 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments
Review Round Up | One Italian Summer, All Good People Here, and The Final Gambit

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I picked this one up from my shelves on a whim when I was trying to read 7 books in 7 days. It was short and had an audiobook available on Scribd, so I was able to read it in a day and feel good about my progress! I was pleasantly surprised for the most part, after really enjoying Serle’s other adult fiction books (and not loving her YA lol). She writes such unique and creative concepts! The book starts with a lot of raw grief as Katy is mourning the loss of her mom, Carol. Her mom was legitimately her best friend and it sounds like she really relied on her for pretty much everything. I don’t usually gravitate toward books where someone is actively grieving like this – I don’t mind books with someone trying to move on but usually not right after, if that makes sense… I try to stay away from sad reads! I also couldn’t relate to her relationship with her mom. I really love my mom and get along well with her, but she isn’t my go-to person for every problem or question. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the way Katy spoke about her, but it was clear they […]

ARC Reviews: The Dead Romantics and The True Love Bookshop

Posted July 22, 2022 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
ARC Reviews: The Dead Romantics and The True Love Bookshop

Man – this was excellent. I really enjoyed the initial books in the GEEKERELLA series but still have to finish the series off. I haven’t read Poston’s fantasy books or anything else but I think I’ll have to. I believe this was her adult debut as well? This story is about Florence and her family as they navigate the loss of their larger-than-life father. She escaped her small town to NYC 10 years prior without ever returning, and now she’s forced to face it all head-on. The Day family has run a funeral home for many generations in their community and Florence and her father even have a special connection to the dead – they both can see and communicate with ghosts. They’re able to help people with unfinished business pass into the afterlife. When Florence heads home for the funeral services and to help out her mom and siblings, she encounters the ghost of Ben – a man she just started working for at the publishing house. The two of them can’t figure out why he’s there but he helps her get through the difficult week at home. There are lots of things going on in this story that I loved. I mean, is she really going to fall in love with a ghost? This can’t end well! The family vibes were excellent – I loved reading about Florence’s mom and two siblings. (There may even be a hint of a companion novel involving her sister…?!) Funeral homes definitely […]

ARC Reviews: Pretty Dead Girls and As You Wish

Posted January 18, 2018 / Book Reviews / 2 Comments
ARC Reviews: Pretty Dead Girls and As You Wish

I was looking forward to this book but I’m always nervous about mystery/thrillers. I’ve said in the past how I’m not really great at figuring them out, so if I DO happen to determine whodunnit too early… the book gets a little ruined for me. Frankly it’s because I don’t read a lot of murder mysteries; I tend to think all of the ones I read are SO good because they always manage to blow my mind. I wish I could say that was the case here. So aside from that element, which I’ll get to after, I didn’t love a lot of the OTHER parts of this book either. The main character, Penelope, is characterized as this perfectionist with parents who push her into doing everything. She has siblings who suffered the same fate but they’re all apparently well-adjusted kids still. I thought this sounded like a recipe for disaster, but instead it was completely glossed over and barely discussed. It’s the kind of thing that could lead to some major character flaws or a showdown later in the book. Unfortunately, Penelope just completely fell flat for me. Her internal monologue and constant need to start fights with Cass was increasingly annoying with every fight she instigated. I totally get being cautious because you barely know the dude and there’s a murderer out there… but this was so excessive and REPETITIVE. She accused him of the same things and they had the same conversations all the time, as if […]

ARC Review: The Best Kind of Magic

Posted May 11, 2017 / Book Reviews / 6 Comments
ARC Review: The Best Kind of Magic

Initial Excitement I love heading into books with zero expectations. I saw this on Goodreads and added it a long time ago, then randomly hopped on the ARC tour for the book. The premise seemed like it was more magical realism than paranormal, so I was eager to see how matchmaking and witchcraft were related in this particular world. When I got the book, it sat around my apartment for a week while I ignored it for Netflix. I finally picked it up and got reading… and really couldn’t stop myself! Quick Summary Amber and her mom, a witch, own a magic shop in Chicago. The whole witch thing skipped a generation because Amber is just a “lowly” matchmaker. She can look into someone’s eyes and see glimpses of their future with their true love. She’s never had luck in her own love life though, as she can’t see her own romantic future. The Mayor’s son, Charlie, comes to Amber with a problem. She finds herself falling for him even though she knows who his match will be (aka not her). She, Charlie, and her best friend Amani (who can see the future) band together to find a missing person and deal with many other magical people along the way. Storytelling, Setting, and Feels This was super cute and so fun to read! I loved reading about all the different kind of magical beings and their ancestors. I thought this was magical realism at first, but I think with ALL […]

Mini ARC Reviews: Letters to the Lost, Pretty Fierce, Zenn Diagram, and Done Dirt Cheap

Posted April 3, 2017 / Book Reviews / 9 Comments
Mini ARC Reviews: Letters to the Lost, Pretty Fierce, Zenn Diagram, and Done Dirt Cheap

Am I the only one with a million ARCs of books releasing this month?! (Even this week in particular!) I wanted to bring together a few reviews here because there are just too many to include. I read some of these a long time ago and a couple of them more recently, but I’m going to pat myself on the back for getting a good portion of them done before their release date. All of these ones were mostly enjoyable – a few more than others – so be sure to read on! 😉 S H O R T  &  S W E E T   A R C   R E V I E W S I enjoyed this one quite a bit. Declan and Juliet were definitely interesting characters who were going through a LOT of shit. The premise of writing letters to each other was really sweet; I love the whole “hidden identity” letter-writing/online-chatting trope. There’s always the torturous waiting game to see when one or both of them realize who the other person is. In this case, it was fairly complicated as they grew to know each other IRL too. Like I said, both had a lot going on. Juliet was dealing with the unexpected death of her mother from earlier that year. Declan was dealing with community service requirements and big family-related issues. He was always angry and closed off from literally everyone, and Juliet was fairly similar except she was sad instead of mad. It […]

Last Book of 2016 & First Book of 2017 | Reviews: The Night Circus and The Secret of a Heart Note

Posted January 23, 2017 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments
Last Book of 2016 & First Book of 2017 | Reviews: The Night Circus and The Secret of a Heart Note

I thought it would be appropriate to put my reviews for my last read of 2016 and the first read of 2017 together. I ended up cutting it very close with my Goodreads goal because I decided to be lazy with my final book. I ended up finishing it 20 minutes before I had to leave for New Jersey for my NYE plans… whoops. That’s what happens when you tell yourself to meet your Goodreads goal exactly – no more, no less. I started my first book of 2017 on New Years’ Day while Chris and I were hanging out at home before bed. I was hoping to spend a good portion of the day reading but I ended up watching lots of football (duh). In any case, here are the books that ended one year and started another! I had pretty high expectations for this book. It ends up on a LOT of people’s all-time-favorites lists. I bought this on Scribd forever ago with one of my credits, solely because it was narrated by Jim Dale. The story itself intrigued me because I find circus settings to be fascinating, but I really only went through with the purchase because of Jim Dale. He is perfection. His narration did end up being a major highlight for me. It was jarring at times because he used similar voices to the Harry Potter characters (like one character in this book sounded a lot like Dumbledore) and the book had some similar words I […]

Review: Between the Lines

Posted June 12, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments
Review: Between the Lines

This was my book club’s pick for May, which was really the only reason I was motivated to read it! (And even then, I only picked it up a couple of days before the meeting… YOLO). I started a YA book club because there weren’t any near me, and this is what we agreed to read for the first meeting! We thought it would be good for those who aren’t experienced YA readers, since Jodi Picoult is a popular and recognizable adult fiction writer. Soooo, about this book. I have somewhat mixed feelings. I didn’t actively want to sit down and read it that often, but I did find myself pretty engaged as I was actually reading it. The concept itself is probably my favorite part. It’s like Toy Story for books! What happens to the characters in a book when you close it? In this case, they’re all essentially “actors” in the book and lead regular (very different) lives when the book is shut. Delilah reads this book and starts to fall for the main character, Oliver, and he finds a way to communicate with her. The two of them spend the book trying to get him out of the story so they can be together. Pretty cool, eh? Otherwise, the book felt suuuuper young to me. The writing definitely didn’t feel Picoult-esque, and that’s probably because she wrote it with her young daughter, but there were some parts that had me majorly rolling my eyes. A lot of it […]

Blog Tour Review: The Summer of Chasing Mermaids

Posted May 29, 2015 / Book Reviews / 5 Comments
Blog Tour Review: The Summer of Chasing Mermaids

The Summer of Chasing Mermaids by Sarah Ockler Publisher: Simon Pulse Release Date: June 2nd 2015 Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance, Retellings, Chick Lit The youngest of six talented sisters, Elyse d’Abreau was destined for stardom—until a boating accident took everything from her. Now, the most beautiful singer in Tobago can’t sing. She can’t even speak. Seeking quiet solitude, Elyse accepts a friend’s invitation to Atargatis Cove. Named for the mythical first mermaid, the Oregon seaside town is everything Elyse’s home in the Caribbean isn’t: An ocean too cold for swimming, parties too tame for singing, and people too polite to pry—except for one. Christian Kane is a notorious playboy—insolent, arrogant, and completely charming. He’s also the only person in Atargatis Cove who doesn’t treat Elyse like a glass statue. He challenges her to express herself, and he admires the way she treats his younger brother Sebastian, who believes Elyse is the legendary mermaid come to life. When Christian needs a first mate for the Cove’s high-stakes Pirate Regatta, Elyse reluctantly stows her fear of the sea and climbs aboard. The ocean isn’t the only thing making waves, though—swept up in Christian’s seductive tide and entranced by the Cove’s charms, Elyse begins to wonder if a life of solitude isn’t what she needs. But changing course again means facing her past. It means finding her inner voice. And scariest of all, it means opening her heart to a boy who’s best known for breaking them . . . This book was one […]

Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Posted January 29, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments
Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest

This is definitely not going to be an easy book to review! I got to the end and wasn’t even sure how to pull my thoughts together enough for a rating. I mean this in a very good way, but Holly Black’s books can just be so delightfully weird that half the time I don’t even know if I fully understood it. This was certainly a unique read with lots of nuances and secrets; it had a slow and steady plotline that didn’t really have a formal “climax” with a lot of action. I enjoyed that though. I completely forgot how much I love Black’s writing style; I know it’s not for some people. She is the absolute QUEEN of magical realism, this I know for sure. It gave the book an old-school folklore feel while also being set in modern day. The Darkest Part of the Forest takes place in a very unique New England (yay!) town that happens to have faeries living in the forest. I won’t get too much into the actual plot, because I feel like the action is very slow-burn and I wouldn’t want to spoil any of the plot points aside from the ones in the summary. Ben and Hazel are siblings who have spent their lives in love with a horned boy that has slept forever in a glass casket in the forest. Things start getting a bit crazy around the town as the faeries, who usually leave them alone, start injuring the townspeople. […]