Book Review: The Paper Magician

Considering it’s Christmas time and Harry Potter is starting to air on ABC Family, I was excited to read a YA (young adult) fantasy novel. So I picked up The Paper Magician, the first in a trilogy about a young girl and aspiring magician who becomes an apprentice to a renown Paper Magician after graduating from Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined. 

However, Paper Magic, or Folding, is seen as a joke in the young magician community. Our character, Ceony, initially wanted to study Smelting, or Metal Magic. So when she gets an assigned apprenticeship to a Folder named Emery Thane, she has to learn to deal with it, because the material you bond with during an apprenticeship is a lifetime commitment.

However compelling this magical world seems, I don’t want to mislead you. This is not a generous review.

Book Review: Girl Online

If your Facebook feed looked anything like mine this week, then I think you have heard of the book I am reviewing today. Headlines described a 24 year old girl in the UK whose debut novel has outsold any other author in the UK in its first week. That is an insanely impressive statistic, made especially obvious by the list of names she has beat (J.K. Rowling? Dan Brown?). When I clicked the link to discover this juggernaut of the literary world, I was pleasantly surprised to see Zoe Sugg staring back at me. I have been an avid viewer of her vlogs for a couple of years now, and I have always found her to be a delightful breath of fresh air in the YouTube community. Knowing what I already knew about her, I was anxious to get my hands on a copy of her book, and that I did.

Book Review: Without You, There Is No Us

Everything has been so hushed for decades that if you press your ear to the stillness, you can almost hear the muted cries.

That is how Suki Kim, the author of the newly released non-fiction Without You, There Is No Us, describes North Korea, a place shrouded in mystery, fear, and pain.

This deeply touching memoir gives an emotional, rare, and brutally honest glimpse into a world that few on the outside have seen. 

Book Review: Station Eleven

This is one of those books that I have been dying to get my grubby paws on. I have seen countless positive reviews of this novel and the synopsis peaked my interest, but I have to admit that the cover pulled me in the most. I know it is a reader's SIN to judge a book by it's cover, but the tents surrounded by a starry night sky looked so peaceful! Peaceful is not a word I would use to describe this book now that I have read it, but the cover did not lead me astray nevertheless. 

Book Review: The Cruelest Month

Kneeling in the fragrant moist grass of the village green Clara Morrow carefully hid the Easter egg and thought about raising the dead, which she planned to do right after supper.

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny wastes no time getting right down to it's eerie business. A beautiful, terrifying murder mystery with a supernatural twist, this book rivals the best of the best and could very well be one of the best mystery crime novels I have ever read.

Book Review: John Dies At The End

...or does he?

If I’m being honest, this is either the worst book I have ever read. Or the best.

Book Review: Famous Last Words

I myself am not usually a fan of scary things. I avoid scary movies at all costs, but I do find it easier to read something that I normally would never want to watch unfold in front of my eyes. This month, when the girls and I decided we would tackle a spooky book for the month of October, I was hesitant to pick something to read, knowing that whatever I chose might give me nightmares. Luckily, I was informed that a friend of mine, Katie Alender, had a new book out that perfectly fit the description of what I was looking for: a murder mystery with a supernatural edge aimed at teenagers. I figured I was safe in assuming that since I knew the author, I live in the city that the story takes place in, and I was older than the characters involved, I would come out nightmare free. I may have been wrong.