The Friday 56 (185) & Book Beginnings: Silver In the Wood by Emily Tesh

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads. When Greenhollow Hall acquires a handsome, intensely curious new owner in Henry Silver, everything changes. Old secrets better left buried are dug up, and Tobias is forced to reckon with his troubled past—both the green magic of the woods, and the dark things that rest in its heart.

Beginning: " It was the middle of an autumn downpour when Tobias first met Henry Silver."

56: ""More than that," said Tobias."

Comments: I finally read Silver In the Wood. I liked this story. My 56 comes from page thirty-seven instead (the real page fifty-six is close to the end of the novella). What are you reading this week?

I Listened to Jaguar by Victoria Monét...

 

I’ve listened to music by Victoria Monét in the past, and her latest album, Jaguar, was one of my most anticipated releases of 2020. I liked Jaguar a lot. It was a blend of pop and R&B with a 80s nostalgic aesthetic and sound. Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, Allie X’s Super Sunset, and Ravyn Lenae’s Crush immediately comes to mind for comparisons sake. There were some recognizable samplings, but it was reworked in a way that made the music feel fresh and unique. Jaguar pretty much did its own thing, and I have to say that I’m currently enjoying the recent R&B releases such as this.

Generally speaking, there was nothing bad here, because Jaguar is a solid album. The titular song was a good intro to the album. It’s the kind of song that easily grabbed my interest, and from there, I binged the whole album. It was so good. There were so many tracks that I outright liked such as Dive, Touch Me, and Go There With You just to name a few. The style of the album comes through in its sound as well as the music videos. There’s no clearer example of this than the music video for Experience featuring Khalid & SG Lewis—which is also one of my favorite songs from the album.

At the end of the day, I’m glad to see another album from Monét. Jaguar is one of my favorite albums of 2020, and I look forward to Monét’s next project.

Jaguar was released on August 7, 2020. Have you listened to music by Victoria Monét? If so, do you plan on listening to Jaguar?

ARC Review: Unbirthday by Liz Braswell

Title: Unbirthday
Series: A Twisted Tale
Author: Liz Braswell
Source/Format: Netgalley; eARC
More Details: Fantasy; Retelling; Young Adult
Publisher/Publication Date: Disney-Hyperion; September 1, 2020

Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble     Book Depository     Target

Synopsis from Goodreads...

What if Wonderland was in peril and Alice was very, very late?
Alice is different than other eighteen-year-old ladies in Kexford, which is perfectly fine with her. She'd rather spend golden afternoons with her trusty camera or in her aunt Vivian's lively salon, ignoring her sister's wishes that she stop all that "nonsense" and become a "respectable" member of society. Alice is happy to meander to Miss. Yao's teashop or to visit the children playing in the Square. She's also interested in learning more about the young lawyer she met there, but just because she's curious, of course, not because he was sweet and charming. But when Alice develops photographs she has recently taken about town, familiar faces of old suddenly appear in the place of her actual subjects-the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, the Caterpillar. There's something eerily off about them, even for Wonderland creatures. And as Alice develops a self-portrait, she finds the most disturbing image of all-a badly-injured dark-haired girl asking for Alice's help. Mary Ann.
Returning to the place of nonsense from her childhood, Alice finds herself on a mission to stop the Queen of Hearts' tyrannical rule and to find her place in both worlds. But will she able to do so . . . before the End of Time?

I’m always on the lookout for a good retelling, especially for Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, which is one of my favorite classic stories. I’ve enjoyed a few retellings for it in the past—like L.L. McKinney’s Nightmare-verse series. So I had high expectations for Unbirthday. Unbirthday feels very much like a continuation of Disney’s 1951 film, Alice in Wonderland. The characters—Mad Hatter, Dormouse, and Dodo—have many similar characteristic (namely in appearance and behavior) to the characters of the movie or they could also more closely resemble those from the original story. With the story being set 11 years after Alice’s initial adventures in Wonderland, so there were differences, namely in the contents of the story. And overall I enjoyed Braswell’s take on an older Alice.

Alice is eighteen in this story, remembers Wonderland fondly as a dream, and looks for magic in her every-day surroundings. Overall, I enjoyed Alice’s perspective here. There was a blend between her regular life as well as her fantastical adventures once she returns to Wonderland. The transition between the two settings was done quite well, and I enjoyed many of the new characters introduced early in the story. Wonderland was full of nonsense and whimsy, and it was all-around pretty fun to read about. Due to the story, however, there was a much darker tone to Wonderland as a whole—in fact, it was downright sinister.

There was a part of the story that dealt a lot with politics—elections, rallies, the candidate, and social injustice—and many of those aspects mirrored real issues that are currently happening. In Unbirthday, Alice was involved with it, and it did take over much of the story outside of Wonderland. However, I did enjoy the complicated connections Alice formed with those around her, and some of my favorite characters included her aunt, Vivian, as well as Katz.

Unbirthday was a great Alice retelling. It had the whimsy and the wonder—and the randomness that’s a hallmark of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—but it also didn’t shy away from the more serious aspects of its story.

About the author...

After the sort of introverted childhood you would expect from a writer, Liz earned a degree in Egyptology at Brown University and then promptly spent the next ten years producing video games. Finally she caved into fate and wrote Snow and Rx under the name Tracy Lynn, followed by The Nine Lives of Chloe King series under her real name, because by then the assassins hunting her were all dead. She also has short stories in Geektastic and Who Done It and a new series of reimagined fairy tales coming out, starting with A Whole New World—a retelling of Aladdin. She lives in Brooklyn with a husband, two children, a cat, a part-time dog, three fish and five coffee trees she insists will start producing beans any day. You can email her at me@lizbraswell.com.

Goodreads    Twitter     Instagram

Disclaimer: this copy of the book was provided by the publisher (Disney-Hyperion) via Netgalley for this review, thank you!

ARC Review: Fangs by Sarah Andersen

Title: Fangs
Series: n/a
Author: Sarah Andersen
Source/Format: Publisher; eARC
More Details: Fantasy; Comic
Publisher/Publication Date: Andrews McMeel Publishing; September 1, 2020

Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble     Book Depository     Target

Synopsis from Goodreads...

A new gothic romance story from the creator of the enormously popular Sarah's Scribbles comics. 

Vamp is three hundred years old but in all that time, she has never met her match. This all changes one night in a bar when she meets a charming werewolf. FANGS chronicles the humor, sweetness, and awkwardness of meeting someone perfectly suited to you but also vastly different.

Fangs is short collection of slice-of-life style comics by Sarah Andersen. I know Andersen through her other series, Sarah’s Scribbles. I was particularly excited to give this one a read because of the paranormal elements—like vampires and werewolves—which are some of my favorite types of characters to read about. I have to say that I enjoyed reading Fangs. I had a lot of fun with this one, and it had a lot of the hallmarks of a good paranormal romance. By that I mean it was quite literally a romance between a vampire and a werewolf. The kind of jokes that came from that set up sometimes had me laughing out loud. So really, what’s not to like?

Fangs was a quick read. Each page was set up in an episodic format, where it had individual stories connected by a common subject to the rest of the collection. The relationship was the focus here. So it was good that I liked the main characters too. Jimmy and Elsie were both fun to read about, and I liked the design of their characters.

What was so great about Fangs was its delivery on characters and themes. It was done with the kind of wit, charm, and humor common to Andersen’s comics. And if you’ve read any of them before—like Sarah’s Scribbles—then you’ll likely like Fangs too.

About the author...

Hello! I’m Sarah and I’m a cartoonist and illustrator. I graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2014 and currently live in Brooklyn. My comics are semi-autobiographical and follow the adventures of myself, my friends, and my beloved pets.

Goodreads     Website     Twitter

Disclaimer: this copy of the book was provided by the publisher (Andrews McMeel Publishing) via netgalley for this review, thank you!

Music Monday (129):Zella Day, Disclosure, Fatoumata Diawara, Jack Harlow

   Rules:

• Music Monday is a weekly meme hosted by Lauren Stoolfire at Always Me that asks you to share one or two songs that you've recently enjoyed. For the rules, visit the page HERE 

Breana: There has been so much good music released in the past week, so it's hard to pick one song. That being said, I'm going to go with one of my favorite songs from Zella Day's new EP (Where Does The Devil Hide), My Game. 

Adri: This week I'm listening to Disclosure. I forgot they were having a new album, but I did get around to listening to it. I love all the songs and it felt very energetic. I mean it is called Energy after all. Anyway, I'm only choosing two songs. The first one is Douha (Mali Mali) featuring Fatoumata Diawara. I thought it sounded familiar to Ultimatum before I realized it was the same artist.

And my second pick is Thinking 'Bout You (Interlude), which reminds me so much of Lo-fi.

Andrea: I hadn't heard of Whats Poppin until I saw the teacher's remake of this song. I love the original and the remake. You can listen to the original song below. You can check out the teacher's remake HERE. 

Is there any new music you're listening to? If so, leave your recommendations in the comments.