Hi all, happy Friday!
Today, I’m sharing the first in a new series for 2021 – SFF Opening Lines! Each post, I’ll examine 3 – 4 SFF novels’ opening lines and discuss why they’re intriguing (or how I think they could be better).
Read the first installment below, which analyzes the first lines of Illuminae, The Hobbit, and The Hunger Games.
Hi all, happy Friday!
Today, I’m sharing my review of KINGDOM OF THE WICKED (Kerri Maniscalco) from Luna Station Quarterly’s blog.
I gave the book a 3.5/5. A snippet of the review:
Overall, it was good, not great. I’m bummed because I really wanted to fall in love with this new series (and tried!) but at the end of the day, there were a number of problems too distracting for me to fully love this book.
Good morning, y’all!
I am so excited to be reviewing Jay Kristoff’s Lifel1k3 today. It was recommended to me by a friend (@l.k.middlebrook.writes on Instagram – go follow her!) and I could not be more thankful for the recommendation. I would absolutely recommend this book to others – I just gave it to my mom, actually!
I finished this book on Thursday night and I’m glad I gave myself a few days before writing this review, as some of my opinions about what happened in it have changed!
Overall Rating: 5/5 stars
Brief Summary: Eve Carpenter, a botdoc and fighter who lives on the west coast of a post-apocalyptic USA (“Yousay”) seems to be having an awful day when we first meet her. She loses a bot match, meaning she doesn’t make the money for her VERY sick grandpa’s medicine, and she’s just realized she can fry machines with her mind, which brings a fanatical cult called “The Brotherhood” after her. To make matters worse Eve, her best friend Lemon Fresh, and small robot Cricket find a humanoid bot named Ezekiel that seems to know Eve from her past.
When one of Ezekiel’s kind comes to destroy Eve and her friends, Ezekiel defends them all, but fails to save Eve’s grandfather from capture. In the ensuing pages, the motley band of Eve, Lemon, Cricket, Ezekiel, and robotic dog Kaiser trek across the dangerous and barren country to save what Eve loves most, learning more about the secrets of the past every step of the way.
Best Parts: There’s a lot of good to say about this book. First of all, the pacing was nearly perfect. I almost never got bored and something was continually going on in either the plot or subplot to think about. Kristoff does a great job of blending characters to show the differences in personality during these action sequences – it was interesting to see how Eve and Ezekiel interact with each other vs. Cricket and Ezekiel, or Eve and Lemon.
Kristoff’s characterization was spot on for the entire book. I think my absolute favorite part of this book actually was how dynamic Eve and Lemon were. By the end of the book, the two girls change completely from who they were at page 1.
Room for Improvement: My criticism is a little nit-picky since I really did love the book. The descriptions of setting at the beginning were good, but as the book progressed, they seemed more confusing and I couldn’t easily imagine where the characters were supposed to be. Along with that, I’m personally not a huge machine/robotics fan, so that aesthetic wasn’t super interesting to me as I read. But as I said, very nit-picky comments full of personal preference in an otherwise incredible story.
Final Review: I have a ton more feelings about this book, but they all involve like MAJOR spoilers and I won’t do that to y’all. However if you’ve read Lifel1k3 and you want to talk about it, DM me on Instagram and we will gush about it for 3 hours.
Thanks for stopping by, y’all! Happy reading!
Hi friends!
In exchange for a review, Bethany Beach Books was kind enough to send me a sample of their subscription box! And WOW guys it was so wonderful!
I am so excited to review The Book Drop from Bethany Beach Books! A few basics about the subscription:
So the basics are great and all, but what really is the mission of this subscription program: “to incredible reads that the average reader won’t discover otherwise.” I’m usually a science fiction and fantasy reader, but after the first few pages of this book, I know I’ll love it. And I know I wouldn’t have picked it up if I hadn’t gotten this subscription box. I just think it’s a really great idea to broaden the horizons of bookworms everywhere, while supporting and championing independent authors.
The price is also amazing. While some of the more mainstream book subscription boxes start between $16/$32, The Book Drop starts as low as $8 a month. They also don’t have any pesky contracts or tie you into a year – you can go month to month, 3 months, 6 month, or a year prepay! That gives you the flexibility to read and pay as you’d like!
I also loved the variety of boxes they offer. There’s Books for Tea (book clubs would LOVE this), Books for Coffee (an assortment of thrillers, action, suspense, and even nonfiction), Books for Tea AND Coffee (a surprise of either Tea or Coffee books), Books for Young Adults, and Books for Middle Grade. With the added bonus that the books are unique, it’s a subscription box well worth it.
Well… what are you waiting for?! Head on over to The Book Drop and see for yourself how great this subscription box is. Don’t forget to tell me what you think!
iamgirlofwords 