Posted on by Meghan G

TBR Thursday: Cravings

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One of my goals in 2017 is to try a new recipe at least once a week and I felt that a new cookbook would help to accomplish it.  I have heard a lot of good things about Cravings by Chrissy Teigen and while I don’t know much about the author of this cookbook other than she’s married to John Legend and she’s also on Lip Sync Battle, I can genuinely say I’m not interested in purchasing this cookbook because of the celebrity behind the book.

I haven’t bought Cravings yet I’m going to pick it up on my next trip to the book store. If any of you have tried a recipe out of this cookbook let me know in the comments if you liked it and what recipe was your favorite.  Perhaps I’ll even share on the blog how one the recipes turns out for me.

Happy Reading,

Meghan

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The Vanishing Throne: Book Review

*There may be some spoiler’s about the first book in this series, The Falconer.

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“I’m not a creature of vengeance any more. I’m not just the girl whose gift is chaos. I’m the girl who endured.”–Elizabeth May, The Vanishing Throne

Title: The Vanishing Throne (Book 2)

Series: The Falconer Trilogy

Author: Elizabeth May

Date Published: June 21st, 2016

Genre: Fantasy/YA

Book Format: E-book

Summary:

After failing to close the fae portal, Aileana Kameron is now prisoner to the evil fae Lonnrach. She is imprisoned and her memories are stolen by Lonnrach as he tries to find away to save his fairy world. As Aileana begins to weaken she is rescued and returned to her world were she discovers it lays in an apocalyptic state and years have gone in the human world while she was held captive for several weeks in the fae world. Now Aileana must access her falconer powers in order save her world and the fae world.

My Review:

I don’t know what it is about series, but usually the second book will turn out to be my favorite. At least that’s been true for a few including this one. The Vanishing Throne took me two days to read because I couldn’t put this book down.

Book two takes place immediately after book one, The Falconer, and the main character Aileana is captured by the evil fae leader Lonnrach in the fairy world.  The book doesn’t linger with this part of the story for too long, but long enough that as the reader you can see the affects it takes on Aileana while she’s there and how it affects her through the story line.  Then the book is pretty quick paced after the first few chapters.

The sense of humor that is in the first book is still there in The Vanishing Throne and all the characters are back with a few new characters.  However this book is much darker than the first book as Aileana deals with the PTSD associated with her being captured and tortured in the beginning of the book. I felt that this was handled well by the author and it wasn’t magically fixed or suddenly disappeared along the way, but an obstacle she must tackle continuously.

The Vanishing Throne also has more romance in it and I liked a lot since I ship the main character and her fae mentor, so reading their love story unfold a little more was something I was hoping for in the second book. There was also just as much action in this one as there was in The Falconer but with a more clear cut enemy in the second book I was cheering for Aileana and her friends a little more than in the previous book.

I love this series and it topped my list of favorite books last year.  If you love YA fantasy then please read this series. The last book in the series comes out in the summer of this year and it  may very well be my most anticipated read of 2017.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Happy Reading,

Meghan

Posted on by Meghan G · 1 Comment

Fangirl: Book Review

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“To really be a nerd, she’d decided, you had to prefer fictional worlds to the real one”–Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl

Title: Fangirl

Author: Rainbow Rowell

Date Published: May 12th, 2015

Genre: YA/Contemporary

Reading Format: Hardcover Book

Summary:

Cath is a massive fan of the Simon Snow Series. Her and her twin, Wren, use to do all the Simon Snow fandom stuff together, but now that they are heading off to college Wren has decided she wants nothing to do with Simon Snow anymore and doesn’t want to be college roommates with Cath either.  This leaves Cath wondering if she can make it on her own without her sister in an environment she isn’t use too.

My Review:

So funny story, it took me over a year to read this book; and it wasn’t because I didn’t like Fangirl because before finishing it I’d gotten all the way up to the last 80 pages. But for whatever reason (I think I lost the book at one point. Oops!) I didn’t finish it until a couple of weeks ago when I did my first 24 hour read-a-thon.

My overall feelings about Fangirl is that I really liked it. Was it one of my favorite books? No, but Cath is a relatable character when it comes to going to college for the first time. Now I’m personally about 10 years removed from my freshman year at North Georgia, but I still remember how it felt leaving home for the first time and experiencing the world that is college (or university, if you like).  It’s scary and a hard adjustment in the beginning but you do move past it eventually and Rainbow Rowell captured that pretty well with Cath and her twin sister Wren.

The book was also fairly funny to me with the quick, witty banter between the characters. There were also moments that dealt with serious topics, such as, the mental health of Cath’s father and Wren’s dramatic moment towards the end.  These topics blended into the story well without seeming out of place or being random dark moments thrown in for some drama.

The only thing I didn’t love and started to skip toward the end is the fan fiction parts that reflect the Simon Snow fan fiction Cath has written. Simon Snow in this book is more or less a Harry Potter type of book series in the novel. This is were the title Fangirl comes from as Cath through most of the book is deeply involved with the fandom. The main reason why I eventually stopped reading the fan fiction parts was because I didn’t feel that it added to the story at all and I wasn’t missing any plot points if I didn’t read them. Of course others probably love this about the novel, I personally could have done without it.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

 

Happy Reading,

Meghan