Review: All Of This Is True

Read if you like: messed up mysteries, deeply flawed characters, and stories that keep you guessing right to the end.

All of This is True | Lygia Day Penaflor

Series: N/A

Genre: Young Adult, Mystery
Released: May 15th 2018
Pages: 432
Format: Ebook
Source: Publisher

Miri Tan loved the book Undertow like it was a living being. So when she and her friends went to a book signing to meet the author, Fatima Ro, they concocted a plan to get close to her, even if her friends won’t admit it now. As for Jonah, well—Miri knows none of that was Fatima’s fault.

Soleil Johnston wanted to be a writer herself one day. When she and her friends started hanging out with her favorite author, Fatima Ro, she couldn’t believe their luck—especially when Jonah Nicholls started hanging out with them, too. Now, looking back, Soleil can’t believe she let Fatima manipulate her and Jonah like that. She can’t believe that she got used for a book.

Penny Panzarella was more than the materialistic party girl everyone at the Graham School thought she was. She desperately wanted Fatima Ro to see that, and she saw her chance when Fatima asked the girls to be transparent with her. If only she’d known what would happen when Fatima learned Jonah’s secret. If only she’d known that the line between fiction and truth was more complicated than any of them imagined. . . .

This book is messed up. I enjoyed it ... I think. I liked some characters but others were just ... odd. But then there's some serious brainwashing going on in this book. And so many secrets. Basically: a group of teens befriend their favourite author, and she manipulates them into doing things she can write a book about. Super creepy and unsettling, but really well written. You'll never read anything like this, I can promise you that.

4.5 stars

Review: Heart of Iron

Read if you like: snarky, lovable rogue characters, books that are horrible and break your heart, and fast paced adventure stories.

Heart of Iron | Ashley Poston

Series: Heart of Iron

Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Royalty
Released: February 27th 2018
Pages: 560
Format: Ebook
Source: Publisher

Seventeen-year-old Ana is a scoundrel by nurture and an outlaw by nature. Found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09, Ana was saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09—one of the last remaining illegal Metals—has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him.

Ana’s desperate effort to save D09 leads her on a quest to steal the coordinates to a lost ship that could offer all the answers. But at the last moment, a spoiled Ironblood boy beats Ana to her prize. He has his own reasons for taking the coordinates, and he doesn’t care what he’ll sacrifice to keep them.

When everything goes wrong, she and the Ironblood end up as fugitives on the run. Now their entire kingdom is after them—and the coordinates—and not everyone wants them captured alive.

What they find in a lost corner of the universe will change all their lives—and unearth dangerous secrets. But when a darkness from Ana’s past returns, she must face an impossible choice: does she protect a kingdom that wants her dead or save the Metal boy she loves?

This book is so many things. Excellent and genius and so much fun. Sarcastic and smart and well-executed. Heartfelt and rebellious and UNCALLED FOR in the way it made me fall so fast in love with the characters before tormenting them cruelly. I loved everything, and everyone, (except for you, Rasovant), and every single line in every chapter. The writing is honestly beautiful, and every character stands out, and why would the author DO THAT to Di (I am not over it - either of the two huge, uncalled for Its that happened to my precious angel of a Metal - and I will not be for a while.)

One of my favourite books this year. I need MORE.

5+ stars

Review: City of Lies

Read if you like: poisoners and poison-testers, fantasy sieges and wars, and characters that are fleshed out and easy to love.

City of Lies | Sam Hawke

Series: Poison Wars

Genre: Epic Fantasy
Released: July 3rd 2018
Pages: 560
Format: Ebook
Source: Publisher

I was seven years old the first time my uncle poisoned me... 

Outwardly, Jovan is the lifelong friend of the Chancellor’s charming, irresponsible Heir. Quiet. Forgettable. In secret, he's a master of poisons and chemicals, trained to protect the Chancellor’s family from treachery. When the Chancellor succumbs to an unknown poison and an army lays siege to the city, Jovan and his sister Kalina must protect the Heir and save their city-state.

But treachery lurks in every corner, and the ancient spirits of the land are rising...and angry.

Genuine characters you can root for, a main character with (well-written) anxiety, a main character with chronic illness (who's a super badass), religion represented well and honestly, and a secondary-world siege? Plus MAGIC and GODS at the end? And POISON the whole way through? This is everything I wanted. Plus it wraps up very nicely at the end so you could read it as stand-alone if you're not into series. This book is so good, honestly.

4.5 stars

Review: Voices In The Air

Read if you like: authentic, heartfelt poetry that speaks to the soul.

Voices In The Air | Naomi Shihab Nye

Series: N/A

Genre: Poetry
Released: February 13th 2018
Pages: 208
Format: Ebook
Source: Publisher

Acclaimed and award-winning poet, teacher, and National Book Award finalist Naomi Shihab Nye’s uncommon and unforgettable voice offers readers peace, humor, inspiration, and solace. This volume of almost one hundred original poems is a stunning and engaging tribute to the diverse voices past and present that comfort us, compel us, lead us, and give us hope.

Voices in the Air is a collection of almost one hundred original poems written by the award-winning poet Naomi Shihab Nye in honor of the artists, writers, poets, historical figures, ordinary people, and diverse luminaries from past and present who have inspired her. Full of words of encouragement, solace, and hope, this collection offers a message of peace and empathy.

Voices in the Air celebrates the inspirational people who strengthen and motivate us to create, to open our hearts, and to live rewarding and graceful lives. With short informational bios about the influential figures behind each poem, and a transcendent introduction by the poet, this is a collection to cherish, read again and again, and share with others. Includes an index. 

To read this book, every day I took a few minutes of quiet time. It became a ritual to read these poems of love and resistance and frustration and love. There are poems I loved and poems I didn't, but I loved the simple act of reading them either way. Worlds and lives come to life in these pages, in such few words and sparse lines - I want to read more.

4 stars

Review: Bone Driven

Read if you like: original urban fantasy stories, interesting casts of characters, and plots that get better and better, full of mysteries, secrets, and shocks.

Bone Driven | Hailey Edwards

Series: The Foundling Series

Genre: Urban Fantasy
Released: May 31st 2018
Pages: 352
Format: Ebook
Source: Publisher

The bayou is burning, the battle is just beginning - and Luce Boudreau is smack in the middle of no-man's land . . .

Life as a cop in Canton Town, Mississippi, is never dull - particularly when hiding deep within you is a demon bent on the apocalypse. Luce is doing her best to pretend her two worlds aren't crashing into each other, but what should be a routine arson investigation takes a shocking turn when Luce discovers a link between the suspects and her own dark secrets. There's no turning back, even though her search for the truth threatens to burn her old life down around her.

Lines are being drawn in a war Luce barely understands, and she just might be on the wrong side of them. Now she must embrace her powerful destiny, or the ones she loves most will pay the ultimate price.

This series gets better AND BETTER. I'll be honest, I didn't think there was a way to top Bayou Born, but this is every bit as strong as the first book. It maintains the investigative cop element and builds on all the fantasy charun bits from the explosive end of book one. I actually love the new character (I totally pegged him as Ezra though, and was wrong.) Plus the coterie bonding and spending time together is everything I wanted. I could not have asked for more from this book - answers to some questions, even more questions raised, awesome supernatural stuff, action, cop drama, and Cole Heaton. This book is awesome.

5 stars