Category: review

Review: Bannerless Doesn’t Live Up to its Premise

9 July 2017 / review / 13 Comments
Review: Bannerless Doesn’t Live Up to its Premise

Bannerless by Carrie Vaughn Format/Source: eBook/Netgalley Published: 11 July 2017 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Length: 352 pages Genre: Post-apocalypse/Mystery Rating: ★ GoodReads | Indigo | IndieBound | Wordery I received a copy from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for my honest review. Decades after economic and environmental collapse destroys much of civilization in the United States, the Coast Road region isn’t just surviving but thriving by some accounts, building something new on the […]

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Exploring Biracial Identity in The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond

3 July 2017 / review / 0 Comments
Exploring Biracial Identity in The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond

The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond by Brenda Woods Format/Source: Hardcover/Library Published: January 2014 Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books Length: 240 pages Genre: Contemporary middle grade Rating: ★★★★ GoodReads | Indigo | IndieBound | Wordery Violet is a smart, funny, brown-eyed, brown-haired girl in a family of blonds. Her mom is white, and her dad, who died before she was born, was black. She attends a mostly white school where she sometimes feels like a […]

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The Inevitable Disappointment of Trilogies? (Thoughts on A Conjuring of Light)

11 June 2017 / discussion, review / 4 Comments
The Inevitable Disappointment of Trilogies? (Thoughts on A Conjuring of Light)

I began this post as an ordinary review of A Conjuring of Light, the final book in V.E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic trilogy. I realized most of my thoughts stemmed from the frustration of reading a trilogy’s conclusion, so I’ve structured this post to reflect that. If you haven’t read the Shades of Magic trilogy, you can avoid spoilers and skip to the section “The Problem of a Trilogy” for some general discussion on multi-volume […]

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Talkin’ Bout Tolkien – A Secret Vice and The Plants of Middle-Earth

26 May 2017 / review / 0 Comments
Talkin’ Bout Tolkien – A Secret Vice and The Plants of Middle-Earth

The Plants of Middle-Earth: Botany and Sub-Creation by Dina Hazell ★★★★ | GoodReads | IndieBound | Wordery I purchased this book expecting a field guide of sorts to the plants found in Middle-earth*. The Plants of Middle-earth instead uses said greenery as a point from which to explore various themes and concepts in Tolkien’s work. Hazell argues that Tolkien’s careful selection and naming of plants both real and fantastic reflects the implications […]

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I Have Many Thoughts on Radio Silence

22 May 2017 / review / 2 Comments
I Have Many Thoughts on Radio Silence

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman Format/Source: Hardcover/Library Published: 28 March 2017 Publisher: Harper Teen Length: 474 pages Genre: Contemporary YA Rating: ★★★★½ GoodReads | Indigo | IndieBound | Wordery Radio Silence blew me away. I imagine it’ll be one of my favourite reads of the year. It’s a rare YA novel that I can objectively appreciate and also personally connect with. I have a lot of thoughts on this book. The following review is broken into […]

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