Monday, May 20, 2019

Music Monday (79): Jungle, & Ciara

   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: Lately, I’ve been listening to music by Jungle. I first came across their song Heavy, California a while ago, and I really loved the sound of it. Since then, I’ve listened to most of their music that's currently available....


Music released on May 10th that I’m also  listening to: Beauty Marks by Ciara & Legacy! Legacy! by Jamila Woods.

Adri: I've already mentioned it, but I went to see Ciara at Jimmy Kimmel Live the other day, and I'm in love with her new album Beauty Marks. My favorite songs are practically all of them. But, my pick for today is Set.




Andrea: I'm also listening to Ciara this week. Although I love many of the songs on her album, Beauty Marks is my favorite.



What are you listening to this week?



Friday, May 17, 2019

The Friday 56 (154) & Book Beginnings: Binti: Home by Nnedi Okorafor

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.


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Synopsis from Goodreads...
It’s been a year since Binti and Okwu enrolled at Oomza University. A year since Binti was declared a hero for uniting two warring planets. A year since she abandoned her family in the dawn of a new day. And now she must return home to her people, with her friend Okwu by her side, to face her family and face her elders. But Okwu will be the first of his race to set foot on Earth in over a hundred years, and the first ever to come in peace. After generations of conflict can human and Meduse ever learn to truly live in harmony?


Beginning: ""Five, five, five, five, five, five," I whispered. I was already treeing, numbers whipping around me like grains of sand in a sandstorm, and now I felt a deep click as something yielded in my mind."

56: ""Thank you, Alhaji," I said, politely, straining to control my quivering voice."


Comments: I liked Binti: Home more than I did the first book in the trilogy. The ending was kind of a cliffhanger, and I'm excited to read the final book in the series: The Night Masquerade. What are you reading this week?

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Heart by Stephanie Burgis

37534756Title: The Girl with the Dragon Heart
Series: Tales from the Chocolate Heart #2
Author: Stephanie Burgis
Source/Format: Borrowed from the library; Hardcover
More Details: Middle Grade; Fantasy 
Publisher/Publication Date: Bloomsbury Children's Books; November 6, 2018

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Synopsis from Goodreads...

Once upon a time, in a beautiful city famous for chocolate and protected by dragons, there was a girl so fearless that she dared to try to tell the greatest story of all: the truth. Silke has always been good at spinning the truth and storytelling. So good that just years after arriving as a penniless orphan, she has found her way up to working for the most splendid chocolate makers in the city (oh, and becoming best friends with a dragon). Now her gift for weaving words has caught the eye of the royal family, who want to use her as a spy when the mysterious and dangerous fairy royal family announce they will visit the city. But Silke has her own dark, secret reasons for not trusting these visitors. Can Silke find out the truth about the fairies while keeping her own secrets hidden?

Picking up sometime after the end of The Dragon with the Chocolate Heart, the sequel focused on Silke—a friend of Aventurine and promotional handbill writer for The Chocolate Heart—and what happens after she accepts a job offered by the crown princess of the kingdom: spying on the royals of Elfenwald. Long held secrets come to light and exciting twists lead to a story full of magic, dragons, and of course chocolate. So, The Girl with the Dragon Heart was as wonderful as I thought it would be. Burgis created unique and interesting characters, and many familiar faces returned for another adventure. The setting seemed to come alive with descriptions about the architecture, daily life experienced by the characters, and even details about some of the inner-workings of the palace as well as places outside Drachenburg. An aspect of the book worth noting was the friendship between Silke and Aventurine. The dynamics were great. Through thick and thin, they looked out for each other even when Aventurine, who is a dragon, didn’t think she needed any help. The royals of Elfenwald were interesting. I liked Burgis’s portrayal of fairies. They were regal, but also quite disconcerting at times. Plus, their reasons for visiting Drachenburg were suspect from the beginning, and when they finally made a direct appearance on page, they made Silke’s mission anything but easy.

Overall, The Girl with the Dragon Heart was a quick read and excellent sequel to The Dragon with the Chocolate Heart. I look forward to reading more books by Stephanie Burgis....

Friday, May 10, 2019

The Friday 56 (153) & Book Beginnings: The Girl with the Dragon Heart by Stephanie Burgis

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.


37534756Synopsis from Goodreads... 
Once upon a time, in a beautiful city famous for chocolate and protected by dragons, there was a girl so fearless that she dared to try to tell the greatest story of all: the truth. Silke has always been good at spinning the truth and storytelling. So good that just years after arriving as a penniless orphan, she has found her way up to working for the most splendid chocolate makers in the city (oh, and becoming best friends with a dragon). Now her gift for weaving words has caught the eye of the royal family, who want to use her as a spy when the mysterious and dangerous fairy royal family announce they will visit the city. But Silke has her own dark, secret reasons for not trusting these visitors. Can Silke find out the truth about the fairies while keeping her own secrets hidden?


Beginning: "Once upon a time in a beautiful, dirty, exciting city full of people and chocolate and possibilities, there was a girl so fearless and so daring that..."

56: "With twilight closing in around the riverbank, he was the only one of the traders who wasn't busily packing up for the day."


Comments: I recently read The Girl with the Dragon Heart. I liked the story. What are you reading this week?

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

ARC Review: The Missing of Clairdelune by Christelle Dabos, translated by Hildegarde Serle

41953346Title: The Missing of Clairdelune
Series: The Mirror Quartet #2
Author: Christelle Dabos
Translated by: Hildegarde Serle 
Source/Format: Netgalley; eARC
More Details: Young Adult; Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: Europa Editions; May 7, 2019

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Synopsis from Goodreads...
When our heroine Ophelia is promoted to Vice-Storyteller by Farouk, the ancestral Spirit of Pole, she finds herself unexpectedly thrust into the public spotlight and her special gift is revealed to all. Ophelia knows how to read the secret history of objects and it could be no greater threat to the nefarious denizens of her home. Beneath the golden rafters of Pole's capitol, Citaceleste, she discovers that the only person she is able to trust is Thorn, her enigmatic fiance. Ophelia again finds herself unintentionally implicated in an investigation that will lead her to see beyond....
 
Picking up where the first book in the series ended, The Missing of Clairdelune is an excellent follow up to A Winter’s Promise. Part whodunit type of mystery with a lot development on both the character and world building front, The Missing of Clairdelune was an exciting story with enough twists and reveals to keep me on my toes. It was a thoroughly engrossing read, and at this point, I’m truly invested in this series.

The Missing of Clairdelune wasn’t a fast-paced kind of story, but overall, it was a good one. It was detail oriented, and dealt with complex issues—many of which had no easy solution. Around every corner there seemed to be something going wrong for someone, and there was more often than not a ripple-effect that reached even the main character, Ophelia. There were secrets, and some hard truths, which sometimes offered a different perspective on certain places and people. And for every question answered—or just hinted at—about the Rupture, the arks, the ancestral spirits, and Farouk’s obsession with his book, there were always more that were yet to be solved. By the end of the book, I still had more questions than answers.

I said it about A Winter’s Promise, and I think it applies here too: some of the best aspects about The Missing of Clairdelune is the characters. The whole cast is uniquely interesting, and the further development of both romantic and platonic relationships was remarkably well-done. Ophelia is such a fun character to read about. I liked her personality and quirks. The development to her character was also something to take note of, and I was also glad to see her asserting herself more as she figured out how to handle being Vice-Storyteller. Thorn was still kind of an enigma. For the most part the scenes where he and Ophelia interacted with one another were interesting, because they were very different characters. That being said, the direction his character went in was unexpected and very intriguing. Also among my favorite characters was Berenilde, Thorn’s aunt, and Rosaline, Ophelia’s aunt.

The setting was also interesting. Pole was an exceedingly dangerous place where alliances could turn at the drop of a coin, and the environment was constantly cold no matter the time of year. So, much of the book remained indoors where illusions were used as a substitute for the poor weather, which was primarily in Citaceleste where much of the story took place. It was all very cool. That being said, I was glad when the story eventually went outside of Citaceleste, because while it’s an intriguing place, I was also interested in seeing other parts of Pole.

Overall, The Missing of Clairdelune is the best book I’ve read so far this year. Plus, given the way the story ended, I’m very interested in what’s in-store for the characters in the next book in the series….

About the author...

Christelle Dabos was born on the Côte d’Azur in 1980 and grew up in a home filled with classical music and historical games. She now lives in Belgium. The Mirror Visitor, her debut series, won the Gallimard Jeunesse-RTL-Télérama First Novel Competition....

About the translator...

Since graduating in French from Oxford University, Hildegarde Serle has worked in London as a newspaper subeditor at The Independent and The Sunday Telegraph. She has a diploma in translation from the Chartered Institute of Linguists. She lives in London, but her heart lives on the Quai aux Fleurs in Paris...


Disclaimer: this copy of the book was provided by Europa Editions via Netgalley for this review, thank you!


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