Hello, internet land! Today I bring you an author interview with Becca Mionis! This post is a part of her book tour for her newest novel, The Last Celestials, coming out February 14th! The Last Celestials is a space romance filled with drama, tension, and lots of swoon-worthy moments!
Hello, internet land! This week I bring you something I don’t do very often: a guest post! Today’s guest is Philip Barker, who recently released Climb, a coming-of-age story about tragedy, grief, and resilience. Hope you guys enjoy!
★ Top Books of 2021 ★
Hey, internet land! It’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted anything here, but I thought I’d come back from my hiatus for a second to talk about the books I read this year. I didn’t get much reading done ever since I took a break from blogging, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t come across some fantastic books and graphic novels!
In no particular order, here are my top 10 books that I read in 2021!
Hey, internet land! I feel like it’s been a hot minute since I’ve written a post. Most of what’s been going up this past month has been stuff I’ve written in the past and scheduled in case there was a week I didn’t have time to write something.
Turns out, this month I had many weeks where I didn’t have the time or energy to create a post, but more on that later.
✧ This review is spoiler-free! ✧
“It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people, those who had felt pain and those who had yet to.”
– Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart
Title: Crying in H Mart
Series: standalone
Author: Michelle Zauner
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Published: April 20, 2021
Category: adult
Genre: memoir
Pages: 256
My Rating: ★★★★☆
Goodreads page
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This is a memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity.
In this story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food.
As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band–and meeting the man who would become her husband–her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.
[ This synopsis was taken directly from Goodreads. ]
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This tag was created by Rincey Reads over on YouTube! I saw Mary @ Mary and the Words do this, and I wanted to give it a try as well!
Like Mary, I’m not going to go back 10 years. I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast this morning, let alone what I read in 2011. Instead, I’m going as far back as when I started this blog, which was 2015. This was around the time I started using Goodreads to track the books I’ve read, so I thought it would be a good year to look back on to see what has changed and what has remained the same.
✧ This review is spoiler-free! ✧
Title: Lirael
Series: Abhorsen, #2
Author: Garth Nix
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: April 21, 2001
Category: YA
Genre: fantasy
Pages: 487
My Rating: ★★★☆☆ (3.5)
Goodreads page
Back in June, I decided to take part in the “20 Books of Summer” reading challenge by Cathy @ 746 books. What I liked about this challenge is that it’s super flexible and can cater to any type of reader. You can change your TBR in the middle of the challenge, and you can change the number of books you want to read. I ended up going with 10 books, but in the middle of the challenge I decided to change the books I wanted to read.
Continue reading✧ This review is spoiler-free! ✧
Title: Four Dead Queens
Series: standalone
Author: Astrid Scholte
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers
Published: Feb. 26, 2019
Category: YA
Genre: dystopia, fantasy
Pages: 413
My Rating: ★★★☆☆
Goodreads page
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Seventeen-year-old Keralie Corrington may seem harmless, but in fact, she’s one of Quadara’s most skilled thieves and a liar. Varin, on the other hand, is an honest, upstanding citizen of Quadara’s most enlightened region, Eonia. Varin runs afoul of Keralie when she steals a package from him, putting his life in danger. When Varin attempts to retrieve the package, he and Keralie find themselves entangled in a conspiracy that leaves all four of Quadara’s queens dead.
With no other choices and on the run from Keralie’s former employer, the two decide to join forces, endeavoring to discover who has killed the queens and save their own lives in the process. When their reluctant partnership blooms into a tenuous romance, they must overcome their own dark secrets in hopes of a future together that seemed impossible just days before. But first they have to stay alive and untangle the secrets behind the nation’s four dead queens.
An enthralling fast-paced murder mystery where competing agendas collide with deadly consequences, Four Dead Queens heralds the arrival of an exciting new YA talent.
[ This synopsis was taken directly from Goodreads. ]
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I’m not a huge reality TV watcher, but something about RuPaul’s Drag Race is so captivating and entertaining. I’ve been a fan since Season 8, and it’s one of the only things keeping me sane during this lockdown and pandemic.
There seems to be a few different RPDR book tags out there, but I decided to go with the one created by Cats and Camera.
The Awkward Book Blogger 