Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits, and it’s where we get to discuss certain topics, share our opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! Check out all the past topics if you want to join in the bookish discussion fun.
This week’s topic is actually a mid-year reading check-in but since I just posted my Mid-Year Check-In Tag earlier this week, I’ll be doing last week’s topic:
Favourite Topic Freebie! Celebrating 5 years of Let’s Talk Bookish
Prompts: It’s the fifth Friday of August and this month, Let’s Talk Bookish turns 5! How long have you been participating in LTB? What was the first LTB topic you wrote a post for? Have your opinions changed since then? How did you first hear about LTB? If you have a favorite LTB topic from the last few years, go ahead and write about that!
Hi friends, as part of the blog tour hosted by TBR & Beyond Tours I’m excited to share my thoughts on Are You Nobody Too? by Tina Cane. Thanks to the TBR team for having me on tour and to Make Me A World (Random House Children’s) for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Click the banner above or here to check out the other incredible bloggers on the blog tour!
Are You Nobody Too? Publisher: Make Me A World Publication Date: 27 August 2024 Genre: Contemporary Middle Grade Rep: Chinese, Asian, Adoption
Rating: (3 pandas)
📖SYNOPSIS
After years of discomfort as the only Chinese student at her private middle school, Emily transfers to Chinatown’s I.S. 23 for 8th Grade and ends up feeling more disconnected than ever. In this coming-of-age novel-in-verse, will Emily be able to find her way or will she lose herself completely?After a year of distance-learning, Emily Sofer finds her world turned upside she has to leave the only school she’s ever known to attend a public school in Chinatown. For the first time, Emily isn’t the only Chinese student around…but looking like everyone else doesn’t mean that understanding them will be easy–especially with an intimidating group of cool girls Emily calls The Five.When Emily discovers that her adoptive parents have been keeping a secret, she feels even more uncertain about who she is. A chance discovery of Emily Dickinson’s poetry helps her finally feel seen… but can the words of a writer from 200 years ago help her open up again, and find common ground with the Five?
⚠️CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS
Racism, bullying, pandemic, microaggressions, mentions of miscarriage (in the past)
TL;DR:This was a unique middle-grade contemporary told in verse. The author had a unique way of expressing the main character’s experiences during and after the pandemic. It touches upon evergreen themes such as coming-of-age, identity and belonging. Emily was an interesting main character—she’s very much a teenager—and I think many young readers whether they’re middle schoolers or just starting high school.
Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of WWW Wednesday, a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World of Words, which means I’ll be answering these questions:
This week’s topic is Posts I’ve Written That Give You the Best Glimpse of Me(Share the blog/Insta/Twitter posts or YouTube/TikTok videos you’ve made that showcase your personality the most and offer the clearest window into your personality. These are the posts you wish everyone would read!)
We’re back with another Sundays in Bed With… meme! This meme dares to ask you what book has been in your bed this morning and is hosted by Midnight Book Girl. Come share what book you’ve spent your time reading in bed or wish you had time to read today!
I’m spending my Sunday night in bed reading Are You Nobody Too? by Tina Cane. I’m reading this MG novel in verse for a blog tour spot next week. I’m roughly 20% in and while reading in verse makes it a fast read, I’m not sure I’m connecting to it as much as I expected. Keen to see where it goes though!
Happy Saturday, friends! I’m very excited to share my review for A Rose Among Thorns by Ash Fitzsimmons as part of the BBNYA blog tour hosted by The Write Reads.
Special thanks to the tour organisers for having me on tour and to the author for providing a digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review!
About the Book Blogger’s of the Year Award (BBNYA)
The BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner. If you are an author and wish to learn more about the BBNYA competition, you can visit the official website or Twitter. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.
Rose Thorn should never be left unsupervised around plants. Potted things tend to die around her as if on principle. But when her great-aunt calls and asks Rose to watch her garden nursery for a few days, Rose can hardly say no. After all, Aunt Lily is the closest thing Rose has to a grandmother — and the only family she has left — so Rose doesn’t mind driving out to her tiny mountain town to look after the place.
Aunt Lily never mentioned anything about an inspection, however.
Rose is taken aback when an agent from an organization she’s never heard of arrives and panics to find Aunt Lily missing. As it turns out, Aunt Lily hasn’t been entirely straight with Rose. She’s not visiting a sick friend — she’s in danger and on the run. She keeps a hidden greenhouse on the property in which she grows highly regulated magical plants. And she’s an elf…as was Rose’s grandfather.
Though stunned to witness magic at work and shocked that no one ever divulged the family secret, Rose refuses to abandon the nursery until her great-aunt is safely home. But as she and the agent, now awkward housemates, try to keep up their cover story and find the missing grower, they realize that whatever led to Aunt Lily’s disappearance might not be the only magical crime in progress.
And while Rose has no green thumb, another talent of hers may be budding…
⚠️CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS
Kidnapping, captivity, death of parents (recounted), bullying (recounted), gun violence, imprisonment, compulsion (magical)
TL;DR: A Rose Among Thorns is a great beginning to a cosy fantasy mystery series. The characters were entertaining, the banter was pretty cheesy but so fun, and the fantasy elements were rather light, making it perfect for those who want to read more fantasy but don’t want to get bogged down by expansive world-building. It has great appeal for a wider audience and I can see why it got second place in the BBNYA competition! 😍 I enjoyed this much more than the start led me to expect and I’m keen to continue with the series!
Happy Friday book lovers! We’re back with another First Lines Friday, a weekly featurefor book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?Here are the rules:
Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
Finally… reveal the book!
First lines:
“First, there was only Sol among a sea of stars. Alone, they formed the world by gathering stardust in their hands. From the dust pressed between their fingers, mountains grew.”
The first book in the Between Earth and Sky trilogy, inspired by the civilizations of the Pre-Columbian Americas and woven into a tale of celestial prophecies, political intrigue, and forbidden magic.
A god will return When the earth and sky converge Under the black sun
In the holy city of Tova, the winter solstice is usually a time for celebration and renewal, but this year it coincides with a solar eclipse, a rare celestial event proscribed by the Sun Priest as an unbalancing of the world.
Meanwhile, a ship launches from a distant city bound for Tova and set to arrive on the solstice. The captain of the ship, Xiala, is a disgraced Teek whose song can calm the waters around her as easily as it can warp a man’s mind. Her ship carries one passenger. Described as harmless, the passenger, Serapio, is a young man, blind, scarred, and cloaked in destiny. As Xiala well knows, when a man is described as harmless, he usually ends up being a villain.
⚠️CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS
Slavery mentioned, abandonment, child abuse & neglect, emotional & physical abuse. suicide, alcoholism, alcohol consumption & abuse, drug use, blood depiction, physical injury, beheading, graphic dismemberment, forced blinding, scarring, grief & loss depiction, death of a parent, death of a child, mass murder, poisoning, kidnapping, physical assault, imprisonment, cults, animal death
TL;DR: Holy grandfather crow! This was amazing and I’m kicking myself for putting it off for so long. I don’t even know where to begin because everyone else seems to have already said it best but I will say that I 100% get the hype. Black Sun is a testament to Roanhorse’s brilliance as a writer. She has a great ability to create culturally rich, diverse and spellbinding epic fantasy worlds, and compelling well-rounded characters. It was so easy to immerse myself in the setting and by the end, I was fully invested in our character’s arcs. I can’t wait to see what happens next! 😍
Hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of WWW Wednesday, a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Taking On A World of Words, which means I’ll be answering these questions:
This week’s topic is actually Relationship Freebie (Pick a relationship type and choose characters who fit that relationship as it relates to you. So, characters you’d like to date, be friends with, be enemies with, etc. Bookish families you’d like to be a part of, characters you’d want as your siblings, pets you’d like to take for yourself, etc.)
dinipandareads 