Tag Archives: 2019 books

Book Review: Five Dark Fates by Kendare Blake

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Book: Five Dark Fates by Kendare Blake

Published September 2019 by HarperTeen|464 pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the e-book from the library

Series: Three Dark Crowns #4

Genre: YA Fantasy

After the battle with Katharine, the rebellion lies in tatters. Jules’s legion curse has been unbound, leaving her out of her mind and unfit to rule. Arsinoe must find a cure, even as the responsibility of stopping the ravaging mist rests heavy on her shoulders, and her shoulders alone. Mirabella has disappeared.

Queen Katharine’s rule over Fennbirn remains intact—for now. But her attack on the rebellion exacted a high price: her beloved Pietyr. Without him, who can she rely upon when Mirabella arrives, seemingly under a banner of truce? As oldest and youngest circle each other, and Katharine begins to yearn for the closeness that Mirabella and Arsinoe share, the dead queens hiss caution—Mirabella is not to be trusted.

In this conclusion to the Three Dark Crowns series, three dark sisters will rise to fight as the secrets of Fennbirn’s history are laid bare. Allegiances will shift. Bonds will be tested, and some broken forever.

The fate of the island lies in the hands of its queens.

I liked Five Dark Fates.  Not as much as the other books but I did want to know what happened, and if all of the queens made it through alive.

This book was definitely full of twists and turned, and while I wasn’t surprised by some of the things that happened, I did enjoy the book a lot.

Well, what I remember.  It’s been a while since I’ve read it, so I’m having a hard time remembering it.  I did like the ending and I thought, overall, it was pretty fitting.  I was glad things worked out for the island, though there are a lot of changes in store for them.

Things are definitely going to be different for them, and part of me wishes we got to see what happened decades later.  But I’m also glad we didn’t, because it means I get to come up with my own version of how things changed.

I’m having a hard a time with this review.  That’s what I get for putting it off, and now I feel like I can’t remember anything about it.  Clearly, this book didn’t stick with me, and for a series finale, that’s not a good thing.  You’d think there would be some excitement or something that would really stand out but the book was pretty slow.  I wanted more action and excitement, especially because we had that in the other books.  I wanted a more exciting conclusion, and this was a lot less interesting than I thought it would be.

Katharine was interesting- the dead queens didn’t seem to have the same hold over her in this book, and it makes me wonder why we didn’t see it before.  I don’t know if it took some time for it to happen, and I’m not completely sure what to make of it.  It was different but I don’t know what to think of it.

Not everyone makes it out alive, which didn’t surprise me.  I think I would have been disappointed if they had.  I wasn’t necessarily surprised by some of the deaths, but with a series like this, I felt like it had to happen.  And I feel like, to a certain extent, it had to mirror what had happens hundreds of years earlier with the Blue Queen.

3 stars.  I liked Five Dark Fates, and I liked seeing what happened to all of the characters, but it wasn’t the exciting finale I thought it would be.

ARC Book Review: All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney

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Book: All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney

Expected Publication Is November 12, 2019 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux|Expected Number Of Pages Is 256

Where I Got It: I received an e-ARC from netgalley.com in exchange for a fair and honest review

Series: None

Genre: YA Contemporary

Allie Abraham has it all going for her—she’s a straight-A student, with good friends and a close-knit family, and she’s dating cute, popular, and sweet Wells Henderson. One problem: Wells’s father is Jack Henderson, America’s most famous conservative shock jock…and Allie hasn’t told Wells that her family is Muslim. It’s not like Allie’s religion is a secret, exactly. It’s just that her parents don’t practice and raised her to keep her Islamic heritage to herself. But as Allie witnesses ever-growing Islamophobia in her small town and across the nation, she begins to embrace her faith—studying it, practicing it, and facing hatred and misunderstanding for it. Who is Allie, if she sheds the façade of the “perfect” all-American girl? What does it mean to be a “Good Muslim?” And can a Muslim girl in America ever truly fit in?

ALL-AMERICAN MUSLIM GIRL is a relevant, relatable story of being caught between two worlds, and the struggles and hard-won joys of finding your place.

I really liked All-American Muslim Girl!  I loved Allie and she’s a great character.

Allie struggles a lot with faith and I love that we get to see her explore her faith.  Having to hide my faith and heritage because of how other people see it is something I will never have to experience.  Unfortunately, we live in a world where people are treated differently because of what they look like or what they believe, and Allie has to deal with that as well.  She recognizes she has a lot of privilege, and it was interesting to see her as she started to stand up to the Islamophobia she sees around her.

I loved Allie’s integrity and determination.  She was open to exploring while wanting to do the right thing.  I felt like we saw her change over the course of the book, and she went from hiding who she was to standing up for herself and others.  We see her figure out what she wants, even when things get a little bit different with both her dad and the people around her.

I loved the friendships Allie forms, and her family was great too.  I wish we saw more of her extended family because they seemed pretty awesome when we did see them.  I especially liked her parents, and I get why her dad is concerned.  Things were rough between them for a while, but hopefully, they’ll be able to work it out.  I really think they will, because they have a pretty good relationship.

Accepting who you are and finding your own path were really strong and great messages in the book.  And even within different groups, you see a wide range of beliefs, which was nice.  I liked that her study group had different takes and relationships with Islam, and the author does a great job at showing how different a group of people can be.  I know it may be simple and maybe even a little bit obvious.  But she really does do a wonderful job at showing how different the girls are.

This book is a great read and I definitely recommend it!

My Rating: 4 stars.  I really liked All-American Muslim Girl and it’s worth reading!  It has great characters and a great story.

ARC Book Review: Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw

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Book: Winterwood by Shea Ernshaw

Expected Publication is November 5, 2019 by Simon Pulse|Expected Number Of Pages: 320

Where I Got It: I received an advanced reader copy from netgalley.com in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Series: None

Genre: YA Fantasy

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wicked Deep comes a haunting romance set deep in the magical snow-covered forest, where the appearance of a mysterious boy unearths secrets that awakens the enchanted, but angry, woods.

Be careful of the dark, dark wood . . .

Especially the woods surrounding the town of Fir Haven. Some say these woods are magical. Haunted, even.

Rumored to be a witch, only Nora Walker knows the truth. She and the Walker women before her have always shared a special connection with the woods. And it’s this special connection that leads Nora to Oliver Huntsman—the same boy who disappeared from the Camp for Wayward Boys weeks ago—and in the middle of the worst snowstorm in years. He should be dead, but here he is alive, and left in the woods with no memory of the time he’d been missing.

But Nora can feel an uneasy shift in the woods at Oliver’s presence. And it’s not too long after that Nora realizes she has no choice but to unearth the truth behind how the boy she has come to care so deeply about survived his time in the forest, and what led him there in the first place. What Nora doesn’t know, though, is that Oliver has secrets of his own—secrets he’ll do anything to keep buried, because as it turns out, he wasn’t the only one to have gone missing on that fateful night all those weeks ago.

I really enjoyed The Wicked Deep when I read it around a year ago, and I’ve been looking forward to read Winterwood for quite a while.  I liked it but not as much as I thought I would.

I really liked the atmosphere.  There’s something quiet, creepy and isolating about the woods and the houses that are nearby.  With the snowstorm, and not being able to leave, it felt suffocating.  Gothic comes to mind, and there were times when I forgot that this book wasn’t set decades ago, but was set in our present.  Something about the woods and lake felt so old.

The setting is as much as a character as the actual people we see.  I’m amazed Ernshaw was able to do it, and do it well but this book was the perfect book to read this time of year.

I knew something was going on with Oliver but I wasn’t sure what it was.  You think you know what happened, but you really don’t.  Unless you’re better at guessing and figuring things out than I am, which is possible.  In all honesty, I’m not sure how I feel about him.

I don’t have strong feelings either way, and I honestly couldn’t tell you much about him.  Even though he does narrate part of the book, not a lot stands out.  You do see him struggle with telling Nora about what happened the night that led him to being in the woods, and seeing the mystery unravel was interesting but I wasn’t super-interested in that part of the book.

Don’t get me wrong, I was interested in unraveling the mystery of Oliver but it wasn’t what kept me reading.

What kept me reading was the magic and the forest.  Nora’s family had quite the history, and I loved seeing the sections of the book that described someone in her family.  I was wondering if Nora had anything magical, and it turned out she did, but it’s not something we see until the end of the book.  I was surprised by her abilities, and it makes me wonder why we didn’t see it before.  But maybe there wasn’t a need for her ability to make an appearance until the events of this book.

Some things were repetitive- like how weird people thought her family was, and how her mom didn’t acknowledge they were witches.  It didn’t detract from the book, but it did get tiring to hear it throughout the book.

3 stars.  Winterwood is definitely slow-paced, and not a lot happens in terms of plot, but the atmosphere and the setting were amazing.

Book Review: Slay by Brittney Morris

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Book: Slay by Brittney Morris

Published September 2019 by Simon Pulse|323 pages

Where I Got It: I own the hardcover

Series: None

Genre: YA

By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is an honors student, a math tutor, and one of the only Black kids at Jefferson Academy. But at home, she joins hundreds of thousands of Black gamers who duel worldwide as Nubian personas in the secret multiplayer online role-playing card game, SLAY. No one knows Kiera is the game developer, not her friends, her family, not even her boyfriend, Malcolm, who believes video games are partially responsible for the “downfall of the Black man.”

But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, news of the game reaches mainstream media, and SLAY is labeled a racist, exclusionist, violent hub for thugs and criminals. Even worse, an anonymous troll infiltrates the game, threatening to sue Kiera for “anti-white discrimination.”

Driven to save the only world in which she can be herself, Kiera must preserve her secret identity and harness what it means to be unapologetically Black in a world intimidated by Blackness. But can she protect her game without losing herself in the process?

I loved Slay!  I randomly picked it up at Mysterious Galaxy one day because it sounded really interesting, and the title got my attention.  I was glad I did, because it’s a great book!

I loved Kiera, and you could tell how much the game meant to her.  You see her deal with the guilt she feels over a dispute that ends in someone being murdered, and how people see it as racist and violent because people see it as anti-white.  She didn’t have the best experiences playing video games, and Slay was a safe place for her and other people of color.

I’m not a huge video game person, but I thought Slay sounded like an amazing game, and I loved what we saw of the game.  It really made me wish we spent more time in the game.  I also loved seeing how supportive people were of Kiera and the game after it hit mainstream news.  While the book is mostly told from Kiera’s perspective, we also see a few chapters from Cicada’s point-of-view, as well as chapters from people who play Slay.  I loved seeing how much the game meant to them too, and you could tell that it was a really great community of people who love gaming.  We all need a space where we can be ourselves, and I loved that Slay was that safe space for so many people.

I loved the relationship Kiera had with her sister and with Cicada.  Both were great characters, but in particular, I really liked Cicada.  It seems like she and Kiera have a great friendship, and I hope it stays that way long after the book is over.

I didn’t like Malcolm at all- the way he went into Kiera’s game and threatened to sue, and how he revealed her as the creator of Slay.  Not to mention he threatened her and told people to go after her.  It just wasn’t cool, and I honestly think she deserves better than that.

Something that didn’t surprise me but was so frustrating to read was how people assumed the creator of the game was a guy.  Slay was something that Kiera and Cicada worked so hard on, and it just made me sad and angry that there’s this assumption that females can’t code or create video games.  And while this was in the acknowledgements, and not the book itself, I loved that Morris acknowledged the girls in STEM and black gamers who want a safe place to play.  That really shone throughout the book, and it really felt like this book is for them.  Slay is an amazing book, and I think everyone should read it but I really felt like Morris wrote this book with a specific audience in mind.

5 stars.  Slay is an amazing book, and I’m glad I read it!

Book Review: Sorcery Of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

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Book: Sorcery Of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

Published June 2019 by Margaret K Elderberry Books|456 pages

Where I Got It: I own the hardcover

Series: None

Genre: YA Fantasy

All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.

Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.

As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.

I liked Sorcery Of Thorns.  This was one I wanted to like more than I did, because the plot is pretty cool.  And it really seemed liked it would be a series, but I was so wrong on that one.

I liked the plot- books that can become grimoires if provoked.  That’s something you don’t see very often.  At least, I haven’t, and the idea is pretty cool.  There are different classes of these books, and the more dangerous they are, the more restricted they are.  It seemed like a pretty interesting system, and I wish we got more about how they came up with it.  Did it take some time, as they learned more about these books, or was it always the same from the beginning?

Since it’s a stand-alone, we got just enough about the world to know what’s going on, and how it’s set up.  We actually got a pretty good amount of information, considering it’s just one book.  It’s a book I could easily see as a series, and even though I liked this one, I don’t know if I’d want to read a sequel.  Mostly because I liked it but not enough to read a sequel, if there were one.  There’s a lot to explore in this world, and with the plot, it could easily have been a duology or trilogy.  I really liked what we learned about the world, and it definitely caught my interest.

I don’t know how I feel about Elizabeth.  I mean, the library is the only thing she knows, and everything that happens in the book definitely changes her future there.  It was interesting that at the end of the book, she wasn’t sure if it was what she wanted.  She did see that there’s a lot in the world outside the library, and I can see her wanting to explore that a little bit more.

I’m glad the library took in kids who had no home, and that it was a safe space.  It reminded me of how people can leave kids at firehouses and hospitals if they don’t want to keep them.  I’m wondering if that’s where Rogerson got that from.

I actually really liked Silas, and for a while, I was honestly convinced that Silas and Elizabeth were going to end up together.  There really wasn’t any romance, but it easily could have been Silas or Thorne.  Considering what happened to Silas, that’s not going to happen.  Unless Elizabeth ends up with someone we haven’t met.  But I feel like it was set up for her to end up with Thorne, considering how much they work together in this book.

3 stars.  Overall, I liked this book but I didn’t love it.  The characters were okay but I really liked the setting and the overall story.

Book Review: Archangel’s Prophecy by Nalini Singh

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Book: Archangel’s Prophecy by Nalini Singh

Published October 2018 by Penguin|368 pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the e-book from the library

Series: Guild Hunter #11

Genre: Adult Paranormal Romance

Return to New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh’s darkly passionate Guild Hunter world, where human-turned-angel Elena Deveraux, consort to Archangel Raphael, is thrust center stage into an eons-old prophecy….

Midnight and dawn, Elena’s wings are unique among angelkind…and now they’re failing. The first mortal to be turned into an immortal in angelic memory, she’s regressing. Becoming more and more human. Easier to hurt. Easier to kill.

Elena and Raphael must unearth the reason for the regression before it’s too late and Elena falls out of the sky. Yet even as they fight a furious battle for Elena’s very survival, violent forces are gathering in New York and across the world.

In China, the Archangel Favashi is showing the first signs of madness. In New York, a mysterious sinkhole filled with lava swallows a man whole. In Africa, torrential monsoon rains flood rolling deserts. And in Elena’s mind whispers a haunting voice that isn’t her own.

This time, survival may not be possible…not even for the consort of an archangel.

I really liked Archangel’s Prophecy!  There was a lot going on, and I didn’t want the book to end.  It makes glad that there’s another book, because I really want to know what happens to Elena and Raphael.

There’s a lot going on with Elena, and everything going on with her wings, and the owls had me intrigued.  Obviously, a prophecy is going on, and I wish it had been a little more resolved in this book.  Still, knowing there’s another book after this one really helps because I’m hoping we’ll get some answers.  I did like seeing Elena try to figure it out and try to work around it.

Singh is pretty good with that, so I’m hopeful we’ll get more on what’s going on with the prophecy and the angel who predicted it.  Is Elena completely mortal now, or is she something else completely?  Is she going to be like Holly?  Inquiring minds want to know, but I suppose I’ll wait and see.

I actually wanted more about Cassandra.  It seems like prophecies was not a good thing for her, and for some reason, it reminded me of Cassandra from Greek mythology.  I didn’t get the impression people didn’t believe her prophecies, but I am wondering if Singh pulled from Greek mythology for Cassandra.  I’d really like more backstory on Cassandra.

I did think everything going on with Favashi was interesting.  It seems like there’s always an archangel showing signs of madness, and Favashi is just the latest.  I did want to know more about it, because it was a pretty important part of the book.  Is it because China is her territory, or was it going to happen regardless?

If it is China…what the heck is going on over there that those archangels end up power hungry and setting themselves up to take over the world?  We know what happened with Lijuan but it’s still too early to tell for Favashi.  Still…it does not look good for Favashi, especially if she does end up following a path similar to Lijuan’s.  Hopefully, they’re able to stop it before it gets worse and she gets really powerful.

4 stars.  I really liked Archangel’s Prophecy, and I can’t wait to read the next book!

Book Review: The Candle And The Flame by Mafiza Azad

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Book: The Candle And The Flame by Mafiza Azad

Published May 2019 by Scholastic Press|391 pages

Where I Got It: I own the hardcover

Series: None

Genre: YA Fantasy

Azad’s debut YA fantasy is set in a city along the Silk Road that is a refuge for those of all faiths, where a young woman is threatened by the war between two clans of powerful djinn.

Fatima lives in the city of Noor, a thriving stop along the Silk Road. There the music of myriad languages fills the air, and people of all faiths weave their lives together. However, the city bears scars of its recent past, when the chaotic tribe of Shayateen djinn slaughtered its entire population — except for Fatima and two other humans. Now ruled by a new maharajah, Noor is protected from the Shayateen by the Ifrit, djinn of order and reason, and by their commander, Zulfikar.

But when one of the most potent of the Ifrit dies, Fatima is changed in ways she cannot fathom, ways that scare even those who love her. Oud in hand, Fatima is drawn into the intrigues of the maharajah and his sister, the affairs of Zulfikar and the djinn, and the dangers of a magical battlefield.

Nafiza Azad weaves an immersive tale of magic and the importance of names; fiercely independent women; and, perhaps most importantly, the work for harmony within a city of a thousand cultures and cadences.

I liked The Candle And The Flame!  I definitely wanted more from it but I did enjoy it.

I really liked the world and the magic.  I liked learning about all of the djinn clans, and I actually really wanted to know more about them.  We get a lot about the Ifrit and the Shayateen, but other groups are mentioned, and I found I wanted to know more about them.  It’s too bad this book is a stand-alone, because I think there’s a lot in this world that can be explored.

Another thing I really liked about the world was naming, and how it gave the Ifrit a human form.  That was really interesting to see and it really made wish that we got more about the djinn clans and their world.

The characters are also great, and the characters felt fully formed- like living, breathing people.  I really liked Fatima, and it was great to follow her story and see how much she changed over the course of the book.  She had a lot to deal with, and surviving what she did really changed her.  Some of them, she had no idea about, and she was definitely pulled into a world she was not expecting.  She really stands out, more than any of the other characters.

She’s my favorite character, though I did like Zulkifar too.  He was intriguing, and it seemed like he wanted to keep his distance, yet he still seemed to care for her and wanted to help her.  I wasn’t sure of his intentions, especially at the beginning.  It never went away, but it did lessen over the course of the book.

The book moved pretty slow, and if you’re expecting action, just know this book doesn’t have it.  I was expecting more action, but if you like books that are more focused on characters, this is the book for you.  I did struggle with it, especially later on, because I just kept expecting action.

One thing I thought was strange was how narrators seemed to change.  It seemed like it randomly switched from Fatima to Zulkifar to the prince and it seemed really sudden and out of place.  I wish it had been a little more obvious, because it made it hard to follow what was going on.  I did have some trouble keeping track of who was who, and I did have to refer to the list of characters included at the beginning of the book.  It made me glad it was there, especially when I couldn’t remember who was who…even at the end of the book.

Going back to something I really liked…I really liked the descriptions.  I could picture everything really well, and Azad did a great job at describing the setting.  The prologue was especially great, and it made me so interested in what was going to happen.  It did a great job at drawing you in, and it made me wish I liked the book more than I did.

3 stars.  I liked The Candle And The Flame but I wish I liked it more.  I can see why so many people love it, and I wish I were one of them.

Book Review: Archangel’s Viper by Nalini Singh

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Book: Archangel’s Viper by Nalini Singh

Published September 2017 by Penguin|361 pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the e-book from the library

Series: Guild Hunter #10

Genre: Adult Paranormal Romance

Enter New York Times bestselling author Nalini Singh’s breathtakingly passionate Guild Hunter world with the story of a woman who isn’t a vampire or an angel…or human…

Once a broken girl known as Sorrow, Holly Chang now prowls the shadowy gray underground of the city for the angels. But it’s not her winged allies who make her a wanted woman–it’s the unknown power coursing through her veins. Brutalized by an insane archangel, she was left with the bloodlust of a vampire, the ability to mesmerize her prey, and a poisonous bite.

Now, someone has put a bounty on her head…

Venom is one of the Seven, Archangel Raphael’s private guard, and he’s as infuriating as he is seductive. A centuries-old vampire, his fangs dispense a poison deadlier than Holly’s. But even if Venom can protect Holly from those hunting her, he might not be able to save himself–because the strange, violent power inside Holly is awakening…

No one is safe.

I liked Archangel’s Viper!  I had actually forgotten about both Holly and Venom but I was glad to get their story.  Especially Holly’s story.

I really liked Holly, and it was good to get her story and to see how she was doing.  Now that I think about she has been randomly mentioned since the first book, but she hasn’t come up a lot since then.  This is actually the most I think we’ve seen her since the first book, where she gets caught up with Uram.  I really felt for Holly, and in this book, we really see the damage that has been done.

Speaking of Uram, I was not expecting him to come up as much as he did.  Holly is a pretty important person in this book, so it makes sense Uram would come up.  I just didn’t expect how he came up.  That threw me for a loop, and I really hope he’s gone.  Then again, the same thing could be said about Lijuan, but it seems like Uram is gone for good.  I really thought he was gone before, but it seems to be especially true after this book.

Holly and Venom are okay together.  I didn’t love them, but they do seem to be drawn together.  They worked together a lot in this book, and by the end of the book, you could tell that he wanted her to be okay.  With everything that happened to her, I totally get why he acted the way he did, and he certainly seemed protective of her.

I think I just didn’t feel the romance between them.  There’s interest and fascination throughout the book, but you didn’t see romance until the end of the book.  By then, I just didn’t care.  With all of the other characters, it felt like the romance was there from the very beginning, but it seemed like we didn’t get it with this book.

Even though though the romance is very, very minimal, I did like the story as it related to Uram, Holly, and even Michaela.  I already mentioned that I wasn’t expecting Uram to show up the way he did but I’m glad we got some closure for Holly, and that her story is pretty much wrapped up.  At least, it is for me.

3 stars.  I liked Archangel’s Viper, and while I’m glad we got more of Holly, I wasn’t particularly enthused with the minimal romance in this one.

Book Review: Love Me Never by Sara Wolf

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Book: Love Me Never by Sara Wolf

Published April 2016 by Entangled Teen|304 pages

Where I Got It: I own the paperback

Series: Lovely Vicious #1

Genre: YA Contemporary

Don’t love your enemy. Declare war on him.

Seventeen-year-old Isis Blake hasn’t fallen in love in three years, nine weeks, and five days, and after what happened last time, she intends to keep it that way. Since then she’s lost eighty-five pounds, gotten four streaks of purple in her hair, and moved to Buttcrack-of-Nowhere, Ohio, to help her mom escape a bad relationship.

All the girls in her new school want one thing—Jack Hunter, the Ice Prince of East Summit High. Hot as an Armani ad, smart enough to get into Yale, and colder than the Arctic, Jack Hunter’s never gone out with anyone. Sure, people have seen him downtown with beautiful women, but he’s never given high school girls the time of day. Until Isis punches him in the face.

Jack’s met his match. Suddenly everything is a game.

The goal: Make the other beg for mercy.
The game board: East Summit High.
The reward: Something neither of them expected.

I’m not sure how I feel about Love Me Never.  I mean, I liked it and I want to know what happens next but at the same time, I’m not completely sure how I feel about it.

I thought Isis and Jack were really interesting.  They both have a past that they’re still dealing with, and while I was glad to actually what really happened, I also didn’t love it.  I did feel for Jack, and everything that happened with Sophia.

You knew something had happened with her years earlier but for the entire book, I just wanted to know what happened.  It was the same with Isis and the boy she fell in love it.  I did feel a little let down with happened with him.  I was expecting something a lot worse than him dumping her and not wanting to be seen in public with her because of her weight.

It definitely had an effect on her, and I get that Jack may have reminded her of him.  But I really did expect something different.

As for Jack and Sophia, what happened to her was really sad and horrifying.  I can’t remember the name of the girl who was behind it but it’s hard to believe that she was in middle school and engineered something so horrible.  And with what we see her do a few years later to someone else…she really is vindictive and horrible.  I actually kind of want to know her life story just to see how she became the person she did.  He did fall into something I wouldn’t have expected just to help out Sophia and get her the medical treatment she needed.

Isis and Jack have a lot of back and forth, and for as much as they seem to dislike each other, they also seem to be really drawn together.  He does seem protective of her, at least to a certain extent.  I’m actually wondering if there’s something about Isis that makes him thinks of Sophia.  He certainly can’t get her out of his head.

It’s weird, because there are a lot of things I liked on their own but all together?  Not so much.  I’m not sure if that makes sense to anyone except me but as a whole, something just seemed off.  Maybe I just wasn’t super into the book.  Don’t get me wrong, I liked Love Me Never, and I liked all of the pieces but…maybe it’s just not for me.  I do want to know what happens next, especially with how the book ended.  It makes me wonder what’s in store for Isis, Jack and Sophia.

3 stars.  I liked Love Me Never and I do want to know what happens next but I didn’t love it.

Book Review: The Battle by Karuna Riazi

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Book: The Battle by Karuna Riazi

Published August 2019 by Salaam Reads|384 pages

Where I Got It: I borrowed the hardcover from the library

Series: The Gauntlet #2

Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

The game begins again in this gripping follow-up to The Gauntlet that’s a futuristic middle eastern Zathura meets Ready Player One!

Four years after the events of The Gauntlet, the evil game Architect is back with a new partner-in-crime—The MasterMind—and the pair aim to get revenge on the Mirza clan. Together, they’ve rebuilt Paheli into a slick, mind-bending world with floating skyscrapers, flying rickshaws run by robots, and a digital funicular rail that doesn’t always take you exactly where you want to go.

Twelve-year-old Ahmad Mirza struggles to make friends at his new middle school, but when he’s paired with his classmate Winnie for a project, he is determined to impress her and make his very first friend. At home while they’re hard at work, a gift from big sister Farah—who is away at her first year in college—arrives. It’s a high-tech game called The Battle of Blood and Iron, a cross between a video game and board game, complete with virtual reality goggles. He thinks his sister has solved his friend problem—all kids love games. He convinces Winnie to play, but as soon as they unbox the game, time freezes all over New York City.

With time standing still and people frozen, all of humankind is at stake as Ahmad and Winnie face off with the MasterMind and the Architect, hoping to beat them at their own game before the evil plotters expand Paheli and take over the entire world.

I was really excited about The Battle after I read The Gauntlet a couple of years ago.  The Battle was just okay for me, and I didn’t like it as much as I thought I would.

This book focuses on Ahmad, Farah’s brother.  I don’t know why but I just wasn’t as interested in his story as I was in Farah’s.  It did have a video game sort of feel to it, which seems right up Ahmad’s alley.  I’m not really a video game person, so I wonder if that’s part of it.

The story was interesting, and I’m glad we got to see Ahmad years after the events of The Gauntlet.  The game has definitely changed, which we see throughout the book.  It’s less Jumanji and more Ready Player One.  At least, from what I know about Ready Player One.  I still haven’t read it, so I can’t say for sure.  But this book does have more of a video game feel than a board game feel to it.

I was intrigued that the game managed to rebuild itself into a more modern version of the one we saw in The Gauntlet.  It was harder to picture, and I felt like we didn’t the descriptions we saw in the first book.  It was a lot harder to picture in this book, and I felt like the rules weren’t as clear in this book as they were in the first one.

Ahmad’s drawings sounded pretty cool- I found myself wondering if he was drawing the places in the Gauntlet, and if he didn’t remember what had happened there.  This version seemed somewhat familiar to him, but since it was really different, I wonder if he knew it was familiar but couldn’t place it.  That’s what made me wonder if he had remembered what happened years earlier and if maybe the drawings were a way to figure out or remember what had happened.  I could be completely off with this, of course, but I did think about that quite a bit at the beginning.

2 stars.  The Battle was just okay for me.  It was nice to see what happened to Ahmad and Farah after the Gauntlet was destroyed but I just wasn’t as interested in this story as I wanted to be.