Artemis | Andy Weir

Title: Artemis

Author: Andy Weir

Length: 384 pages

Publication date: November 14, 2017

Genre: Adult sci-fi

Rating: 4/5

I was kind of nervous going into this book, because I loved The Martian so much, and what if this one wasn't as good? While I didn't get immediately sucked into this story like I did with The Martian, overall I did quite enjoy Andy Weir's second novel.

The plot: Jazz Bashara is a smuggler in Artemis, the first city on the moon. Being well known (in the more shady community, anyway) for her skills at bringing in contraband, a life-changing opportunity presents itself. It may not be legal or ethical, but when you have large debts and you're living in an apartment the size of a horizontal closet, can you really afford to turn it down? Unfortunately for Jazz, what she stumbles into turns out to have bigger consequences than she could have imagined.

The cons: I didn't love Jazz. It actually took me a good chunk before I was visualizing a female, even though going into it I knew the main character was a girl. It took me a while to care about her as well. She was a bit of a stereotype of the "super brilliant young person that doesn't apply their potential, and they act all tough but they have a good heart" trope, which I'm tired of, but as far as that stereotype goes I guess it was okay here.

Andy Weir doesn't shy away from swearing, but I think this may have had less than The Martian. There was also lots talking about sex, but it was talking and not showing. Nothing actually happened in the book, but Weir wants you to know that Jazz has a sexual history and she likes it that way.

The pros: Everything else. It's got the awesome science that you don't have to be a scientist to understand. It has a fun heist story with a quirky cast of characters. The setting on the moon is so cool, and it added a lot to the stakes of the heist as well. If things got screwed up, literally everyone in the city would be affected. Things kept happening that I wasn't expecting at all, so I was on my toes until the end. All in all, I did enjoy this novel a lot.

Autumnal knitting.

Autumn is here and I couldn't be loving it more. This is the season when I thrive.

I have been a knitting fiend lately. I don't know why, but lately I just can't stop knitting. Even while I'm doing it, I just think to myself "man, I love knitting!" It's probably weird but that's how it is. Right now I'm taking part in a mystery knit-a-long, which has been so much fun. Basically the pattern designer tells you what yarn you need, and then emails you a clue, or a section of the pattern, every week. The above picture is of my project, which is going to be a cowl. (This was the first clue and I was like "how is this supposed to be a cowl? It looks like a shawl!" It has since been made clear.) I am loving working on it. The construction is very unique, and the fall colours that I chose are making me very happy.

I'm hoping to post more about my knitting and crafty endeavours on here, so stay tuned!

The Last Thing I...

My dearest Callie just posted this tag thingy and I just had to do my take on it! I love these kind of questionnaire things. We were obsessed with these when I was in junior high. Anyone else go through that phase?

Last thing I ate: a jam-jam cookie. Yes, it was only 9:30 but when there are cookies in the office I have to eat one fast if I want one at all. The guys I work with are cookie fiends.

Last thing I drank: a vanilla iced coffee from McDonald's. I'm addicted. It doesn't help that they're a dollar all summer.

Last text I sent: "I'm in the back" to Chris when I was picking him up after work yesterday.

Last book I read: It was just the Booktubeathon and I read 7 books in a week. The last book that I finished was Fruits Basket vol. 17, and the last book that I read from was Passenger by Alexandra Bracken.

Last time I laughed: I overheard a conversation my co-workers were having and one of their comments made me giggle.

Last thing I bought: the previously mentioned iced coffee.

Last movie I saw: Chris and I have been watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Netflix, and the last episode we watched featured the movie Starcrash. It was so horrible, I'm ashamed that Christopher Plummer was involved in that movie.

Last TV show I watched: Yesterday evening I was watching Friends while doing some housework and tackling my massive paper pile. It never ends.

Last thing I googled: "jord watches." I have one of their watches and I love it, and I've kind of been wanting another one in a different colour. I'd love to get this one but at that price tag I don't think I'll do that anytime soon!

The Stargazer's Embassy | Eleanor Lerman

Title: The Stargazer's Embassy

Author: Eleanor Lerman

Length: 306 pages

Publication date: July 18, 2017

Genre: Adult sci-fi

Rating: 4/5

We've all heard the adage "don't judge a book by it's cover." Definitely follow that advice with The Stargazer's Embassy. I was drawn to this book by the title and the description (don't read the summary on Goodreads or the back of the book because it spoils things that only happen halfway into the book!) but oh boy that cover is a cheesy one! However, I'm glad I read this book because it was a very unique alien story! 

The Stargazer's Embassy is a story of alien abductions with a literary twist. This book feels very contemporary and looks at alien abductions from the point of view of a character who has experienced them secondhand. Our main character Julia was never abducted by aliens, but her mother was, and she was more focused on the aliens than her own daughter. Julia's whole life has been haunted by aliens. The story follows her as she tries to deal with their presence in her life and how that affects her relationships. 

I really enjoyed this book. It's a slower paced book, very quiet and more character driven. Eleanor Lerman has a beautiful writing style - she's also a poet and you can definitely tell that from her writing in this novel. And even though this is more literary feeling, it was an easy reading experience. It's sci-fi set in our world, in our time. I enjoyed the characters, and I thought that the side characters were properly fleshed out. It wasn't a totally perfect book for me, but overall I really enjoyed it. 

The Other Einstein | Marie Benedict

Title: The Other Einstein

Author: Marie Benedict

Length: 304 pages

Publication date: October 18, 2016

Genre: Historical fiction

Rating: 3/5

I find it kind of interesting that there's basically a genre of fiction books about women who were married to famous men in the early 1900s. I've read The Paris Wife, which is about Ernest Hemingway's first wife Hadley Richardson, and I have Z, which is about Zelda Fitzgerald, waiting on my TBR shelf. When I first started reading The Other Einstein, I didn't know that's what I was getting into.

The Other Einstein is a fictional account from the perspective of Mileva Maric, who was Albert Einstein's first wife. They met in the late 1890s in a physics class. Mileva was the only woman in the program, and that's where she caught Albert's eye. They formed an intellectual connection first, which eventually led to a romantic relationship. The book essentially starts right when they meet and goes through their relationship and marriage. It was really fascinating because Mileva was a female physicist at the turn of the century, when women still weren't accepted in those fields at all. There isn't a lot actually known about her influence on her husband's theories, but this author speculates that she had a large role in his most famous work. The story doesn't get very technical about it (which I appreciated ha) but it was still interesting. I didn't feel super connected to the story, and there were parts when I could tell that it was a debut novel, but I still thought it was an interesting account. I would recommend if you're a fan of this "genre" of historical fiction.

None Like Him | Jen Wilkin

Title: None Like Him

Author: Jen Wilkin

Length: 163 pages

Publication date: April 30, 2016

Genre: Christian non-fiction

Rating: 4.5/5

I have an interesting relationship with reading books about Christian growth. I always want to read more, because I don't read much non-fiction at all, but I'm always leery in the back of my mind about the content of them, in terms of what kind of view the author has of God and the Bible. I was very pleased to read None Like Him, because this is a book I can very readily recommend!

In None Like Him, the author Jen Wilkin explores 10 different ways that God is different from us. I loved this take on exploring God's character, because I know I very often start to feel really good about myself as a Christian and think that I am well on my way to perfection. Well, if you read this book you're going to get a reality check. You're also going to grow in the fear of the Lord, which is always a good thing. In Wilkin's comparisons of God's character and human character, I realized that there were indeed some areas where I had made God more like me in my mind. (I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.) The good news is that God is very much not like me, and praise Him for that! I think Jen Wilkin has a very Biblical view of God and a right understanding of the Bible. I feel like there may have been one statement that gave me pause, but now I can't even remember what it was so it couldn't have been that bad.) Her reflections of God and our relation to Him was really insightful.

At the end of the chapters there are devotional questions and Scripture passages for reflection and meditation, as well as a guided prayer to close. I listened to this book on audio at work (side note, it's narrated by Wilkin herself) so I wasn't able to engage with those sections, but I'm itching to buy a physical copy so that I can have this wonderful resource in my collection! I definitely see myself coming back to this book often. I also want to pick up her other book, Women of the Word, because I can tell by her passion about the Bible in this book that it will be just as good.

The Ship || Antonia Honeywell

Title: The Ship

Author: Antonia Honeywell

Length: 336 pages

Publication date: April 25, 2017

Genre: Post-apocalyptic 

Rating: 2.5/5

I love reading post-apocalyptic fiction. I think I'm always looking for something that can compare with Station Eleven, which is one of my most favourite books. So far I haven't had any luck but I'm still trying. When I saw The Ship available on Netgalley, I had to give it a shot. 


Our main character Lalla has just turned 16. She has grown up in a world that has fallen apart. The oceans have risen significantly, the earth has been stripped of crops and trees. In attempts to monitor and control the population, everyone is required to have identity cards. If you don't have an identity card, you don't exist. The world has fallen into chaos. Lalla's father has come up with an escape plan of sorts, and on Lalla's 16th birthday it is time to escape. They head to the ship, a floating utopia with everything they need to survive a journey to somewhere where they can start over, along with 500 other people that Lalla's father has chosen to come with them. The ship seems perfect on the surface, but Lalla feels like something sinister is going on behind the scenes...


This book had so much potential for me. The premise was so interesting and I really wanted to know about the world, what happened on a global scale. It was hinted at but there wasn't a lot of exposition on that. 

The pacing was really weird. It felt like tons of time should have passed, but then Lalla will remark on the tally she's kept of how many days they've been on the ship and it's only been a few weeks since the last mention of her tally. The way things progressed just felt like they should've taken longer than what they did. It also felt quite repetitive toward the middle. The story is told as first-person narrative from Lalla's point of view, and she just thinks about the same things over and over. Her thoughts don't really vary at all. A few things happen here and there, but mostly Lalla walks around confused and frustrated that things seem too good to be true, but then does nothing about it. She just thinks about it a lot. 

Lalla is also supposed to be 16, but the way she is written I kept thinking she was 10 or 11. She is meant to be very sheltered by her parents, so I can see how that would make her more immature, but it just didn't jive with me. The rest of the characters didn't connect with me at all. They all just felt really generic shells of people. The dynamic between the people on the ship and Lalla's dad was a cult-cult leader dynamic, and that could have been played up a bit more, I think. There were some weird things going on there, but I just didn't feel anything. It felt like something I'd read before. 


I think my biggest problem was that everyone just felt like a paper cutout. The world these people came from was horrible and any backstory that was mentioned was really interesting. You would think that people that came from that place would have more feeling, but everyone was so bland. I always lean more towards characters than plot, but this book do either of those strongly. I knew what was happening almost right away, but it took Lalla almost the whole book to figure it out.

I can't really recommend this book, but I wouldn't say don't read it either. Like I said, there was so much potential, and maybe it will do for you what it didn't do for me. I did also read The Time Being, which is a short story prequel to The Ship. It added a little backstory, so I would recommend reading that if you do read The Ship.

I'll just keep on my search for the next Station Eleven, I suppose...


I received a digital copy of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

Beauty & the Beast || Mallory Reaves

Title: Beauty & The Beast 

Author: Mallory Reaves

Length: 160 pages (each)

Publication date: April 18, 2017

Genre: fairy tale, manga

Rating: 3.5/5

While I wouldn't say that Beauty and the Beast is my favourite Disney movie (that honour goes to Tangled), it is definitely up there in the top 3. I mean, what bookworm can't relate to Belle? I really enjoyed the new live action film that came out this spring as well. I liked some of the ways they drew out the characters and gave them more depth. When I saw this manga duology, I just had to read it. The story arc is pretty much the movie verbatim, with the addition of some inner thoughts. Volume 1 follows Belle's story, and volume 2 follows the Beast. The art wasn't amazing, kind of typical manga, and of course the story got really simplified from the movie. But if you're a fan of the movie I'd recommend this for a fast and fun read. 

I received a digital copy of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

On Wednesdays We Wear Pink.

I wanted to sit down and write a blog post, but now I'm here and I don't know what to write about! I have a clever title and that's about it.

(I have actually been wearing pink on Wednesdays lately because I'm cool like that.)

Summer definitely feels like it's ramping up over here. Tomorrow is our last Bible study meeting before we break for summer, and I've only got a few more weeks of choir practice before that's done for the summer as well. I really love all of my church activities, but I'm ready to use my evenings to work on projects I've been putting off. I always tell myself winter is a good time for projects because I'm inside anyway, but no, I just end up reading and knitting. So I plan to tackle my very long list of to-dos over the next couple of months. Maybe I'll have to blog about it to get my motivation up! Hmmm... watch this space.

The plan this weekend (over the long weekend, yes!) is to paint a couple of bookshelves. Maybe 3... if I can convince myself to do that. It is supposed to rain all weekend (because that's what it does on May Long weekend, it rains) so I may just set up camp in the kitchen. But painting is it. I'm reading the rest of the weekend!

T5W: Summer Reads

It's warming up here in Manitoba and I'm starting to think about the books I want to read this summer! So today's Top 5 Wednesday topic is pretty fitting. Today we're talking about summer reads, books that remind you of summer and what you would recommend other people read this summer. Without further ado...

1. Amy & Roger's Epic Detour - Morgan Matson
I read this as my first MM book last summer, and it was just perfect. It's a road trip story, so if that doesn't say summer then I don't know what does.

2. An Abundance of Katherines - John Green
Another story that takes place over a summer and features a bit of a road trip. I know not everyone likes John Green's books but I personally love them. His characters are kind of pretentious, but in the way that teenagers often are. I find them so relateable to my teenage self.

3. Summer Days & Summer Nights - edited by Stephanie Perkins
I didn't love every story in this short story collection, but most of them were super cute. I just realized that 4 out of my 5 recommendations are YA so sorry about that, but that's how I feel.

4. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series - Ann Brashares
This was my quintessential series as a teenager. I reread them summer of 2015 and it was a great time. All of the books take place over summer, and they have that perfect feeling.

5. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series - Douglas Adams
This one might seem a little random, but for me, I always want to reread this series over the summer months. It might be because they're fun and crazy, and I just read through them really fast, which is something you want in a summer book. Maybe it's because I first read through them in the summer. But whatever the case may be, when I think of summer books, these definitely come to mind.

What do you think of my list? What are some of your top summer reads?

Mer || Joelle Sellner

Title: Mer

Author: Joelle Sellner

Length: 128 pages

Publication date: April 19, 2017

Genre: YA urban fantasy graphic novel

Confession: I am a sucker for anything that promises to have mermaids or has to do with Atlantis. So when I saw the cover of this graphic novel on Netgalley, I didn't need any more information before I hit that request button.

Mer tells the story of Aryn, who has moved to a new city with her dad and sister a few months after her mother passed away. She isn't pleased about it, but meets some kids at school that befriend her pretty quickly. What she doesn't know is that they have some dangerous secrets...

What I liked about it:

1. I liked the mer-people aspect, obviously. 
2. It was a fast read.
3. It was about mer-people. That came from Atlantis.

What I didn't like about it:

1. The characters were really under-developed.
2. The story was really typical, it didn't do much that was unexpected.
3. The dialogue was quite awkward, it just didn't feel like how people actually talk.

I wouldn't recommend buying it, but if you see it at the library and you want to stay occupied for a half hour, I'd pick it up. 

I received a digital copy of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.

T5W: Authors You Want to Read More From.

It's Top 5 Wednesday, and I love today's topic so I'm joining in! Today's topic is authors you want to read more from. I'm taking this to mean authors that I've read one or two books from, and they have more published works that I can get to. I have quite a few authors, so I think there might be some honourable mentions at the end.

1. Emily St. John Mandel.
    I read Station Eleven for the first time in 2015 and it instantly became one of my favourite books. I absolutely loved the writing in it, and ever since then I've been wanting to read more of her works. I have 2 more of her books waiting patiently on my shelves.

2. Stuart McLean
   Stuart McLean recently passed away, and it's not very often that I get genuinely sad about a celebrity/public figure passing, but his death affected me a bit. He was a fantastic storyteller and has an extensive series called the Vinyl Cafe series. I've read the first two books and can't wait to get to more.

3. LM Montgomery
   Anne of Green Gables is my life, in case you were not aware. I've read most of the Anne series, but LM Montgomery wrote SO many books outside of that series as well. I would love to read them all.

4. CS Lewis
    Guys, I haven't really read CS Lewis outside of the Chronicles of Narnia. What even. I just really need to read more of his books because he was so wise.

5. Anthony Doer
   I read All the Light We Cannot See in 2015 (that was an excellent reading year for me, apparently) and it wrecked me, so obviously I have to read more of his books. I have a couple of them waiting on my shelves as well.

Okay, I just have one more, so it's top 6 Wednesday now hehe.

6. Ruta Sepetys
   Guess what, another author I read for the first time in 2015 that I loved that I have a couple more books from just waiting for me. Yeah...


I could add more, but these really are the top ones. What are some of the authors you need to read more from?

My Reading Goals: 2017 edition

It's 2017 and I want to share my reading goals with you!

My biggest goal of the year is to read my own books and reduce my TBR. Today I counted how many books I have unread on my shelves. There are 219 books on my TBR bookshelf. Yes. It's ridiculous. To help out, I'm only allowing myself to buy a max of 2 books a month. If I don't buy any books that month, it won't roll over. 2 a month and that's it. I'm also on a library ban. I can only go to the library if it's to get the next book in a series that I'm reading. For example, I started reading Fruits Basket last year, and I'm getting those books from the library. I'm also including book club books that I don't own.

My next goal is to finish reading series. I have quite a few unread series (I'm not sure of the exact number, but probably over 10). Some of them only have the last book for me to read, and because I have a serious procrastination problem, I just don't get to it! So I especially want to finish up series where I only have to read the last book.

Some series to complete:

• Harry Potter (my first read through ever!)
• The Remnant Chronicles by Mary E. Pearson (I just have to read the last one but I'm so scared I just want everyone to be okay)
• The Young Elites by Marie Lu (just have the last one)
• The Lone City by Amy Ewing (just the last one as well)
• Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya (I'm up to volume 9 of 20? However many it is...)
• Red Rising by Pierce Brown (I've just read book 1 but I own the whole trilogy)
• The Silo series by Hugh Howey (last one)
• The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey (I've only read the first one)
• The Heir Chronicles by Cinda Williams Chima (I've read 2 out of 5)
• The Lord of the Rings (yup. I've only read the first one)

I also have some series where I've read everything except the novella bind-ups that came after the other books were published. Specifically the ones for The Selection series by Kiera Cass and The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. So technically I'm done the series but there are more things to read! 

My Goodreads goal for the year is 50 books. That actually isn't that important to me to accomplish. I know I will, because I read more than 1 book a week, but it's not the most important one to me this year.

And that's basically it, guys! What are some of your reading goals for the year?

Hello 2017: On setting goals.

Hi.

My dear friend Callie has started doing "old-fashioned" blog posts, where she hearkens back to the good ol' days of blogging (ie before the days where you had to have a Pinterest-worthy image and when no one even knew what SEO was) (I still am a little hazy on that, to be honest). I know that 100% that's why I haven't been blogging over the last few years. I just don't care to have the buzziest, most beautiful blog with inspiring pictures and content that will change your life. I mean, that would be really cool, I guess, but that's not my aim. I just want this to be a space where I share thoughts about life. So, here we go. Back to old-fashioned blogging.

One of my goals for 2017 was to blog every week at least once, and we're on week 3 now with the first post. Oh well! I'm not going to beat myself up about it.

I like to set goals for myself at the beginning of every year. There's just something about that fresh start that I love. So I set myself goals, but at the same time, I'm not super hung up on them. I just think about things that I would like the year to hold, and then see what I can do to get there. 

Some of my goals for the year are:

- To buy a maximum of 24 books all year. Unless you are familiar with my YouTube channel, this is going to seem kind of silly. Like, really, how many books do you buy, Felicia? Well since I discovered the Booktube community over 2 years ago, my book buying has become ridiculous. I have over 200 unread books on my shelves. Now, here's a disclaimer - the majority of these books are not bought at full price. I buy mostly from thrift stores and Book Outlet. So it's about a quarter of what it would be if I was buying everything at full price. That being said, it's not actually that fun to have that many books that you haven't read on your shelves. The problem is that I still want to read all of these books, but the rate of books bought has long surpassed the rate of books read. I want to level the playing field again so that I actually have a chance of reading books within a couple months of buying them. I'm not telling myself no books all year, because that's just cruel and why would I do that to myself?? But buying only 2 books a month when I read at least 5 will at least have the total number of unread books still going down. Pray for me, guys.

- To organize my house using the KonMari method. Yes, I've read The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Yes, I thought it was really helpful. No, I'm not saying "thank you" to my old socks for their service to my feet. But our house is small and things need to be organized better for the storage space we have. What I love is how simple her method is - organize by category, not by room. That makes so much sense to me. We have similar things in different places in our house, and I would like to get things in order. (If you're curious about the book, you can find plenty of articles and blog posts that contain all of the information you would need from the book without having to read it)

- To get caught up on my backlog of letters. For 3 years I have not really been into writing letters, so I have quite the pile of letters (probably 30+) that need to be responded to. But honestly, I'm not going to respond to every one of those letters. I'm going to respond to people that I had a good correspondence with, obviously, but I know there are a few letters from people that were first letters, or people that I didn't really enjoy writing to. I'm probably not going to respond to them, because why would I after all this time? I'm sure at this point they're not expecting me to reply. I know I had too many correspondences going on at the time, and I'd like to keep it at more of a manageable number. Quality over quantity.

As you can see, these goals are pretty flexible, and ongoing. The overall goal with them is to shift my mindset and my priorities behind them. I want buying books to be a treat again, not a routine. I want to be mindful of my possessions and what is actually in my house. I want to cultivate relationships and conversations, not collect pen pals like they're Pokémon.

So there it is. Some of my goals for the year. And my first blog post in months! Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with this one and you'll be seeing more from me this year.