P.S. This post contains affiliate links.
Welcome to my very first Friday Favorites post! Every Friday, I will be posting my favorite bookish links from the previous week. These are in no particular order, and they are all fabulous.
This week, they happen to be almost all from BOOK RIOT, which (I will admit) is definitely one of my favorite sources of bookish news!
By Danika Ellis at BOOK RIOT
By Laura Sackton at BOOK RIOT
Image courtesy of BOOK RIOT
By Danika Ellis at BOOK RIOT
Screenshot courtesy of BOOK RIOT
Giveaway from BookRiot ending August 31, 2018
Screenshot courtesy of BOOK RIOT
By Yaika Sabat at BOOK RIOT
Screenshot courtesy of BOOK RIOT
By Vanessa at The Bookish Deer
Image courtesy of The Bookish Deer
Any other fun (or serious) bookish links you think should be added? Please comment and let me know what they are!
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“Should I count audiobooks toward my reading goals?”
Want to start an argument? Enter a book-related space and ask this question.
Yasss. We are all busy, myself included. Any time that I can fit in a story is a win in my book (pun intended). Listening to audiobooks while doing otherwise mundane activities makes said activities so much more exciting and worthwhile. That’s why I love those Audible ads so much. #StoriesThatSurroundYou
This guy isn’t sitting at his kitchen table eating breakfast; he’s a guest in Marie Antoinette’s court. This woman isn’t on her couch, folding laundry; she’s a fair heroine standing in a forest, wrapped in the hero’s strong embrace.
If I know that I can listen to a great story while doing chores, I’m gonna look forward to those chores that much more. (Bonus: since discovering audiobooks, my house is cleaner!) I’ll be honest: sometimes, I get so caught up in the story, I have to stop what I’m doing and just stand there and listen. Alternatively, my mind does sometimes get away from me, and I have to press the rewind button. Still, it’s worth it to be able to get sucked into an amazing story while I’m doing dishes, or during my commute.
Note: The only time that this can be a problem is if a book is so powerful that it makes you cry. This happened several times with Glennon Doyle Melton’s Love Warrior. I was listening to it on my way to and from work everyday (a fifty-minute round-trip). One day, I actually had to pull into a gas station, turn off the book, wipe my eyes, and gather myself together before I could continue driving.
This is valid. Just the other day, I was listening to The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir on audiobook while driving to an appointment. Sure enough, I got drawn into the book and ended up missing the turn, thus arriving a few minutes late.
I love listening to audiobooks while driving, but usually only when the drive is familiar and/or monotonous. Like when I’m on my way to and from work, a route that I drive everyday and can pretty much do in my sleep. Or on long road trips, when the highway is stretched out before me and I don’t have to worry about taking an exit for many miles. But I have definitely been known to place my book on pause when I’m driving through heavy traffic or trying to navigate an unfamiliar area. (Except for that one time, as mentioned above.)
Also valid. It’s the same reason that movies are rarely better than the books, because what you can imagine in your head is almost always better than whatever Hollywood can create on a screen (or in a recording studio).
But, in audiobooks’ defense, the authors often do different voices for their characters. It was a joy to listen to Trevor Noah imitating his great-grandmother in his memoir Born A Crime: Stories From A South African Childhood, his voice high-pitched and raspy. Alternatively, in The Book of Essie, the story is told by three different characters. As such, the audiobook utilizes three different narrators, which lent another kind of intimacy to the experience.
Of course, it can go the other way, and the narrator can be terrible. Unfortunately, I have found that this often happens when the author reads his or her own book. (Not always. There are lots of authors who are great readers, such as Glennon Doyle Melton and Neil Gaiman!) An example of this is the original audiobook version of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Hours, narrated by the author. (Note: a new version is being released on August 2, 2018 from BBC, with a full cast dramatization, which you can pre-order now for just $7.63!) It wasn’t absolutely horrible, but his voice didn’t draw me in. I would have much preferred a livelier reader, perhaps someone who actually does this for a living.
Um. What?! So what if all that someone can do is listen to a book? What if someone is blind? Or a quadriplegic? Just because they cannot hold a book in front of them and use their eyes to read from it, doesn’t mean that what they are doing is not reading. To not consider audiobooks a form of reading comes from a place of ableism and privilege. You may be privileged enough to have time to sit down and read from a book, but not everyone has that luxury. What about the single mother who loves literature but works two jobs, and the only time she can fit in any reading time is while doing dishes and laundry? What about the elderly man who used to devour paperbacks voraciously, but whose eyesight has deteriorated so much that he can barely see to read anymore, and for whom audiobooks have been a godsend?
I proudly count audiobooks toward my reading goals, and I count myself lucky to live in an age in which audiobooks are available to those who would otherwise not have the opportunity to read a book at all.
P.S. This post contains affiliate links.
P.S. This post contains Amazon affiliate links.
P.S. This post contains affiliate links.
Publisher: Little Whimsey Press
Release date: June 21, 2018
Genre(s): Medieval Fantasy
Pages: 67
Image courtesy of Amazon.com
The mysterious Cheval triplets live a peaceful life in a secluded cottage on the edge of the Mystic Wood. Yet when their mother’s illness creeps her closer to death, the three sisters, Morganne, Amara, and Fae must leave their quiet sanctuary in search of a rare cure within the darkened forest.
But they are not the only ones lurking in the midnight shadows, so when fiendish witch hunters capture the sisters, their search for a cure turns into a desperate escape attempt. Their only hope rests with the exhausted, worn out horses pulling the cart to the witch trial, and the secrets the sisters keep locked in the deepest chambers of their hearts.
When they unleash the truth will it set them free, or send them closer to the burning witch pyres?
As a fan of both witches and horses, I was disappointed by this novella. At just 67 pages, it didn’t exactly drag on, which was nice. Within just a few pages, we are thrust into the center of the action—the sisters being captured by witch hunters.
“Got’cha!” growled a gruff voice.
A net whipped through the air, bundling the three sisters together and catapulting them high into the trees.
“We’ve gor’em, Boris! We’ve captured them witches!” cried a hunchbacked man. He giggled and dribbled beneath the trap filled with the struggling sisters, rubbing his hands together with greed and mirth.
Okay. Let’s dissect that, shall we? The scene is cartoonish in its artlessness. The sisters are all three entangled in a net that, in all likelihood, was only meant to capture one witch at a time. There they are, swaying from the limb of a tree, the way we have seen many animated unfortunates do so many times. The Russian name Boris—because no one in the English-speaking world has ever encountered a Russian villain. Also, of course the lowly lackey is hunchbacked. And there he stands—er, hunches—rubbing his hands together “with greed and mirth,” just like the stereotype that he is.
As for writing style, it seems that Rees’s favorite method of description is to use similes and metaphors. Fae’s voice, for example, is described in numerous ways. First, it is “a threatening summer storm,” her eyes “wide as the low full moon.” Later, she whispers “as sadly as a late autumn breeze stripping the last leaf from a tree.” Finally, her voice is “as soft as wind from a butterfly wing.”
Rees’s writing is often less than subtle. At one point, Amara thinks “of the witch trials and all the innocent women and children who came before her, just to line the pockets of the infamous Witch Hunter General. The witch trial had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with power; the power of gold coins.”
Later, one of the witches is asked, “Should you be judged just because you are different? Should our differences not be celebrated?”
Not exactly any hidden meanings there…
As I said, Rees does a great job of dropping us right into a sense of urgency with the sisters. Their mother is deathly ill, and they venture into the woods near their home in order to find a cure to save her life. The story quickly builds to the climax, after which we are granted a few pages of falling action.
Warning: the end of this novella is a cliffhanger! This was another reason that this book just wasn’t for me. I’m not generally a fan of any series in which the individual novels cannot stand alone.
For many fans of witches and horses, this would probably be a great read. In fact, that statement is proven true based on all the four- and five-star reviews that Witch Hearts has received on Amazon. It just wasn’t for me.
P.S. I received a free copy of this book from Hidden Gems in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are 100% my own. This post contains affiliate links.
Image courtesy of AngharadThompsonRees.com
Angharad Thompson Rees is a comic scriptwriter, author, and emerging scriptwriter of all things magical. When Angharad is not lost in enchanted forests searching for tree fairies or unicorns, you’ll find her on the sunny shores of Sydney, Australia with a notepad, a coffee, and a curious expression on her face as she images unseen worlds for her next story. Visit her website, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, and Goodreads!
P.S. This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links.
Image courtesy of Amazon.com
“As a future leader of the female-led regime her grandmother fought hard to establish, Alice Kearns is no stranger to pressure. Being the best in a society where women are expected to be high achieving is the only option her powerful mother has ever accepted for her. But fortunately, as of her eighteenth birthday, Ali now has a place to blow off steam: she’s finally allowed into the Choice Clubs.
Filled with an enticing mix of music, drinks and gorgeous guys, the Choice Clubs were founded to ensure that smart girls wouldn’t get distracted in their real lives by anything as trivial as a shallow crush or a handsome face. Choice guys are fun, flirty, and the perfect eye candy, but Ali would never dream of actually falling for one – until she meets Tag.
Tag MacPhail is Top Choice. With his mischievous grin and chiseled abs, he is exactly the kind of boy that Ali’s mother believes needs to be kept contained. But after he kisses Ali at the Choice Club, she suddenly sees him everywhere – and she’s surprised to learn that there’s more to him than his perfect looks. Tag is sweeter, smarter, and funnier than Ali ever expected. And, she soon discovers, he’s also dangerous… because Tag leads a double life: when he’s not working at the Club, he’s part of a rebel group trying to overturn the girl-power society that the women in Ali’s family have worked so hard to put in place.
Getting closer to Tag upends everything Ali thought she knew. But will she betray everything she was raised to protect for a guy she’s not even sure she can trust?”
As I say on my review policy page, I’m not usually one for science fiction. However, when I read the description of Top Choice—in which a society exists where men and women’s power roles, as we know them, have been switched—the curious feminist in me couldn’t resist. And that curious feminist was not disappointed.
The pacing was extremely well done. In so many romance novels, I feel like the instant electricity between the two main characters is so exaggerated that it’s almost laughable. However, Sophie McAloon manages to create a story in which the hero and heroine are given the chance to truly get to know each other and form a connection—both emotionally and physically. The pace is believable but not so slow that McAloon risked losing my interest. Ali’s mother also forbids them from being together, which of course adds a good bit of fun!
However, as Ali and Tag grow closer, Ali struggles with knowing whether Tag truly has feelings for her or whether he is simply manipulating her with ulterior motives in mind. In other romance novels I’ve read, the author will switch between the hero’s and the heroine’s respective points of view, but not here. McAloon’s choice to tell the story only from Ali’s point of view allows us to wonder about Tag’s motives right along with her, which had me constantly guessing what was going to happen next.
As a woman and a staunch feminist, I’m used to identifying with the underdog. However, I had an odd feeling throughout the novel of being torn. On one hand, I wanted the Violent Sentinels’ (the rebel group mentioned in the Amazon summary) cause to triumph and for men to gain the right to vote and be educated. That’s democracy. That’s human rights. However, on the other hand, I didn’t want the Sentinels to win. I didn’t want the women in this society to be forced to cede any power to the men. Part of this is my own pettiness. Like, haha! Now maybe you’ll realize how it feels to have your rights stripped and then dictated to you by people who have no idea what it’s like to live inside of your oppressed body. Another part of it is knowing that men had their chance with the world, for thousands of years, and they ruined it. Now it’s our turn to see if we can do better. Like I said, the entire novel is told from Ali’s point of view—descended from a long line of powerful females who have been instrumental in the seizing of power from men—so what I know of the society is biased. She tells us how Rape Culture and incidents of domestic violence have all but disappeared, how the number of murders has decreased phenomenally. It seems better. But still, in the back of my head is the voice: but it’s not equal. Like I said, I was torn throughout the novel regarding which side I would be on, were I a member of this particular society. Not only was that fascinating to think about, but it also added layer after layer to McAloon’s work.
One memorable passage along these lines:
“You know what they’re doing is wrong.”
“Yeah,” I pause. “But so is what you guys are doing. It’s not about equality anymore. It’s about power now. For both sides.”
He drops his head back and exhales, then lets his swollen lids fall closed. His breathing slows and it makes me wonder how long it’s been since he slept. Then he speaks again.
“It is about power. About taking it back – making them pay for all their messed-up rules, and their power-trips, and all the barriers they put up to keep us down.”
I wish that we had learned more about the actual women-led society in which they were living. We are given snippets here and there. Men cannot vote. Men are largely uneducated. Forced sterility for criminal men is apparently a thing. But I wish we knew more than just those small bits. I wanted details! This is a good thing, because it means that I found the setting so interesting that I was craving more!
McAloon briefly describes the dystopian aspects of the novel here: “The rows of apartment complexes and townhomes here are all covered in ad Flashes. Commercials and giant images play across the entire surface of each street-facing wall. It’s only in the richer neighborhoods that homes are completely Flash-free. Anywhere else, people willingly offer up their exterior wall-space for extra income. It takes a lot of money to go non-digital, from smaller items like books, games, and vintage appliances, to the bigger possessions – like wall space.”
Ali’s mother also acts as a symbol of their dystopia. Her constant, eerie repetition of the phrase, “We’re doing the right thing,” is to her city and her people, what George Orwell’s unforgettable mantra of “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength,” is to the poor inhabitants of his novel 1984.
One problem I had was that bisexuality isn’t really treated as being a real thing. So as to avoid spoilers, I won’t name names, but… At one point, a high-profile man is seen coming out of a VIP room with a Choice guy. Ali (having thought the Choice guy was straight up until this point) immediately changes her mind and assumes that he must be gay. The option of bisexuality is not even entertained as a possibility. For such a liberal society, their ideas regarding the spectrum of sexual identity is still clearly lacking.
Still, my complaints are few. Overall, Top Choice kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way through, wanting to find out what would happen next. Not only that—it also had my mind constantly wrestling with ambiguous ethical dilemmas, as well as questioning any feelings it brought up that weren’t 100% politically correct. I would definitely recommend Top Choice by Sophie McAloon. It appeals to a wide range of readers, from romance lovers to science fiction junkies.
P.S. I received a free copy of this book from Hidden Gems in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are 100% my own. Amazon affiliate links are contained within this post.
Image courtesy of SophieMcAloon.com
Sophie McAloon was born and raised in small rural towns across the East Coast of Canada, and now lives in historic Saint John, NB (quite possibly the friendliest, most awesome city in Canada) with her husband, three amazing kids, and Waldo the dog. She has explored Antarctica and Africa and a bunch of places in between, moved more times than she can count on both hands, and worked at a handful of jobs – many of which she hated, but none of which she regrets. She has always loved to write, and she is grateful that she gets to fill so much of her free time now playing on paper (okay – so it’s a laptop, but paper sounds so much more poetic). She is an introvert by nature, so what better way to experience the thrill of being the boldest guest at the party or the toughest leader during a wild revolt – without even having to raise her voice! Visit her website, and follow her on Goodreads, Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram!
Elizabeth May 