From Twinkle, With Love | Sandhya Menon

Title: From Twinkle, With Love

Author: Sandhya Menon

Length: 336 pages

Publication date: May 22, 2018

Genre: YA contemporary

Rating: 2.75/5

Aspiring filmmaker and wallflower Twinkle Mehra has stories she wants to tell and universes she wants to explore, if only the world would listen. So when fellow film geek Sahil Roy approaches her to direct a movie for the upcoming Summer Festival, Twinkle is all over it. The chance to publicly showcase her voice as a director? Dream come true. The fact that it gets her closer to her longtime crush, Neil Roy—a.k.a. Sahil’s twin brother? Dream come true x 2. When mystery man “N” begins emailing her, Twinkle is sure it’s Neil, finally ready to begin their happily-ever-after. The only slightly inconvenient problem is that, in the course of movie-making, she’s fallen madly in love with the irresistibly adorkable Sahil. Twinkle soon realizes that resistance is futile: The romance she’s got is not the one she’s scripted. But will it be enough? Told through the letters Twinkle writes to her favorite female filmmakers, From Twinkle, with Love navigates big truths about friendship, family, and the unexpected places love can find you.

I really enjoyed When Dimple Met Rishi, so I was looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, this book made me realize that YA contemporary doesn't really do it for me anymore. I just can't relate to all of these teenager problems. I turned 30 a couple weeks before I read this and my life is just so beyond high school drama. A couple problems with the book itself were that it was really repetitive, and I called absolutely everything that happened from like chapter 2. But I would've really enjoyed this book more when I was younger (when I was actually in the age group this book is intended for haha). So I'm giving it 3 stars because most of my problems were with me, not the book.

Fawkes | Nadine Brandes

Title: Fawkes

Author: Nadine Brandes

Length: 448 pages

Publication date: July 10, 2018

Genre: YA alternate history/fantasy

Rating: 4/5

Thomas Fawkes is turning to stone, and the only cure to the Stone Plague is to join his father’s plot to assassinate the king of England. Silent wars leave the most carnage. The wars that are never declared, but are carried out in dark alleys with masks and hidden knives. Wars where color power alters the natural rhythm of 17th century London. And when the king calls for peace, no one listens until he finally calls for death. But what if death finds him first? Keepers think the Igniters caused the plague. Igniters think the Keepers did. All Thomas knows is that the Stone Plague infecting his eye is spreading. And if he doesn’t do something soon, he’ll be a lifeless statue. So when his Keeper father, Guy Fawkes, invites him to join the Gunpowder Plot—claiming it will put an end to the plague—Thomas is in. The plan: use 36 barrels of gunpowder to blow up the Igniter King. The problem: Doing so will destroy the family of the girl Thomas loves. But backing out of the plot will send his father and the other plotters to the gallows. To save one, Thomas will lose the other. No matter Thomas’s choice, one thing is clear: once the decision is made and the color masks have been put on, there’s no turning back.

Fawkes is such a unique story! I absolutely loved the concept of the fantasy element woven in with this alternate history retelling. There's a lot going on in that concept but I think Nadine Brandes pulled it off well! I thought the magic system was well thought out and effective in the story. The idea of the Stone Plague was really interesting - a plague that was literally turning people to stone, don't read that every day. I really enjoyed the characters and I found them engaging. I felt like the stakes were really high for these characters and I just wanted to know that they would be okay. I also love the faith element that the author wove through the story - it was done really well. I would highly recommend this for fantasy fans!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. 

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.

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.

The Graceling Realm || series review

This year I made a resolution to write a review for every book I read. As you can tell, I am doing pretty well at that (/sarcasm). But it's not too late in the year that I can't get caught up! So here we go!

The first book I finished in 2016 was Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore. It's the final book in the Graceling Realm trilogy, so I'm just going to review the series (as evidenced by the title of this post).

The Graceling Realm trilogy is a YA fantasy series. The books of this series feature a different main character, but they all tie in together. Bitterblue is the direct sequel to Graceling, and features characters from Graceling and Fire. Fire is a companion prequel to Graceling, but I wouldn't read it first because it would have spoilers for Graceling.

Some series stats:


In this world, there are people known as Gracelings, people that have with an extreme skill, or "grace". They are born with different coloured eyes, which is how they are able to be identified. Katsa, our main character in the first book, is graced with killing. Being the niece of a brutish king, she is forced to be his personal assassin, even though she loathes every minute of it. She is part of a secret council that goes performs tasks that seek justice against the crown. One day a prince named Po comes to the council and asks them to find his missing grandfather, believed to be kidnapped by one of the neighbouring kingdoms, and our story takes off from there.

Fire takes place many years before Graceling, and it tells the story of a girl named Fire, the last human monster living in a wild country. Monsters in this world are brightly coloured versions of regular animals, and they also possess the ability to control minds. Fire has this ability but she is very reluctant to use it, as she doesn't want to force her will onto innocent people. However, Prince Brigan needs her help to uncover a plot against the king, and convinces her to come to King City to become a part of his investigation.

The final book in the series, Bitterblue, takes place a decade after the events of Graceling. The young Queen Bitterblue has ascended the throne of Monsea, and she must unravel the mysteries surrounding the reign of the previous king, who was a tyrannical ruler.

Good things about this series:

• The world building in this series is amazing. It really felt like a proper fantasy world, with many rich elements woven together. 
• The characters were very strong, and for the most part they showed good development over the course of their respective stories. Strong female protagonists are always good.
• The romances in these books feature slow-burning, "will-they-or-won't-they" relationships, which I quite enjoy. 

Not so nice things about the series:

• My main complaint about this series is the very casual attitude toward sex that Cashore depicts. It's nothing at all for people to have sex outside of marriage, with multiple partners, and we also see several homosexual relationships and an implied bi-sexual character. The middle book, Fire, is the worst one for this. One of the male side characters sleeps with nearly every female character introduced in this book. All of the women just accept this as how he is, and they have no qualms about the situation at all. There is also a very convenient plant that serves as a "morning after" device, and the only negative depiction of a sexual encounter at all in this series is that a female character gets pregnant because she didn't have any of this plant on hand. [I realize that others might not share the same opinion on this topic, these are just my personal moral convictions.]
• Bitterblue suffered from some pacing issues; it felt like at times the story was just spinning it's wheels because Cashore was trying to build more mystery, but really it just felt the same things kept happening over and over. It could have been a good 100 pages less and not suffered at all. 

Overall conclusion:

I think that Kristin Cashore is an excellent writer, and if you want to get into fantasy but are intimidated by it, this would be a good place to start. 

If you are bothered by the sexual elements I mentioned, just skip Fire altogether. It does have elements that are fascinating regarding the world, but you won't miss anything at all if you read Graceling and Bitterblue as a duology.

Between Shades of Gray || Ruta Septeys

Title: Between Shades of Gray

Author: Ruta Sepetys

Length: 344 pages

Publication date: March 22, 2011

Genre: YA historical fiction

Rating: 5/5

When I finished reading Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, I made a comment to my husband that my heart was not okay. He asked why I felt like that, and I had to think about it for a moment. I think it's because the effect this story had on me reaches farther than just a fictional story.

I find myself constantly reaching for stories set in WWII, and most of them take place in Nazi Germany. This one was a first for me. This book is from the point of view from Lina, a 15 year old girl living in Lithuania in 1941, which is when Stalin was in power of the Soviet Union. Lina's family ends up getting deported for "crimes" against the Union, and they are put on trains headed to labour camps in Siberia. This is a story of their survival amidst the most deplorable and loathsome conditions, and them holding on to hope of being able to go home soon.

Sometimes I try to figure out why I like to read these kinds of stories so often. Of course, they are based on real life occurrences, and to read about the evil ways these people were treated makes me sick. It breaks my heart to think about how people are able to convince themselves that certain groups are not even human anymore and treat them worse than animals. (Reminds me of our society's attitude toward abortion, but this isn't about that.) It's just horrible to think about, and yet to see how Lina's family and their group of people banded together was so incredibly beautiful. In the midst of inhuman conditions, they showed each other such kindness. They banded together and became a fortress among themselves, and it was so beautiful.

This book was incredible, just incredible, and I want everyone to read it now. I could go on and on, but I want to you experience it for yourself. I borrowed this from this library and I'm going to be buying a copy for myself, this is something I can see myself reading again and again.

Frozen || Melissa de la Cruz & Michael Johnston

Title: Frozen

Book 1 of The Heart of Dread series

Author: Melissa de la Cruz & Michael Johnston

Length: 352 pages

Publication date: September 17, 2013

Genre: YA, dystopian, fantasy

Rating: 3/5

"Welcome to New Vegas, a city once covered in bling, now blanketed in ice. Like much of the destroyed planet, the place knows only one temperature—freezing. But some things never change. The diamond in the ice desert is still a 24-hour hedonistic playground and nothing keeps the crowds away from the casino floors, never mind the rumors about sinister sorcery in its shadows. At the heart of this city is Natasha Kestal, a young blackjack dealer looking for a way out. Like many, she's heard of a mythical land simply called “the Blue.” They say it’s a paradise, where the sun still shines and the waters are turquoise. More importantly, it’s a place where Nat won’t be persecuted, even if her darkest secret comes to light. But passage to the Blue is treacherous, if not impossible, and her only shot is to bet on a ragtag crew of mercenaries led by a cocky runner named Ryan Wesson to take her there. Danger and deceit await on every corner, even as Nat and Wes find themselves inexorably drawn to each other. But can true love survive the lies? Fiery hearts collide in this fantastic tale of the evil men do and the awesome power within us all." -summary from Amazon

The world in the book was really interesting. It was a very interesting mix of dystopian and fantasy. The premise was also interesting to me, and there were some unique elements to the world. An example is that the currency was heat credits, and things like salt were extremely rare and valuable. I live in southern Manitoba, where we basically are frozen half of the year, so I felt like I could relate to that plot point. The story was well-paced, and I found myself wanting to know what happened to the characters.

Unfortunately, the writing missed a lot for me. The world building was lacking. The point of view switched between the two main characters, and their voices sounded the same. It was hard to tell who the focus of the chapter was supposed to be on. The things that bothered me the most (which feel linked to me) is how quickly things happened, how easily they were wrapped up, and the lack of explanation of things. The characters sometimes seemed to hop from one situation to the next, and sometimes it was so quick that I flipped back to see if I missed something. The worst part was that the big battle scene at the end was way too short! It was very anti-climatic! Everything wrapped up way too quickly, and it didn't leave me wanting to know more about the story, yet I didn't feel satisfied. Which is not what the authors were going for, I don't think. Finally, the insta-love was a little annoying as well. The characters went from not liking each other, to liking each other, and again, you couldn't tell how or where that happened to change.

In general, I though the plot and the story itself were interesting. The writing itself is where it fell flat for me. I am certainly not in a rush to pick up the next book, but I might somewhere down the line. 

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.

Day 21 || Kass Morgan

Title: Day 21 

Book 2 of The 100 series

Author: Kass Morgan

Length: 320 pages

Publication date: Sept. 16, 2014

Genre: YA, dystopian, sci-fi

Rating: 3.5/5

This summer Chris and I watched the first season of The 100 on Netflix. I don't think the show is the best, but I like the premise of it, so I decided to read the first book. I thought it was a good read, and so very different from the show. When I saw the second book was coming out, I requested a copy from Netgalley for review.

I don't want to say too much about the plot because of spoilers, but a quick summary of the first book - the Earth was on the cusp of a nuclear war, so an Ark-like ship was sent into space, for the surviving humans to live while the Earth became habitable again. Fast forward a couple hundred years, and the ship is starting to lose air, and it becomes vital to find out if Earth is liveable again. The 100 are a group of the ship's prisoners under the age of 18, and they are sent down in a pod where their vital will be monitored for radiation poisoning. In their descent to Earth, they lose communication with the ship, so they have to figure everything out on their own. We follow 4 main characters: Clarke, Wells, and Bellamy, who are among the 100; and Glass, who remains on the ship. Day 21 picks up exactly where the previous book left off. 

I did enjoy this book more than the first one. It was a very quick read, the writing style is very easy to get into. I did think the plot of this book did improve on the first one, I didn't anticipate everything that was going to happen. I wish there had been a little more character development. Wells and Clarke did develop from the first book, Glass a bit less, and Bellamy not at all. But there could have been more. Bellamy acted like a spoiled brat a lot of the book, I thought. I understand in the situation he was facing, but that could have been written a bit better, maybe with some more compassion. The tension there didn't help anything, in my opinion. But the drama is way toned down from the tv show, with is really good.

The plot of this series is just fantastic, in my opinion. A group of teenagers that have never set foot on Earth before, wandering around wondering how they're going to survive, not knowing what life on Earth will be like - really great. I've not heard of anything similar to this concept before. If there are any books similar to this that you know of, please let me know! 

I would definitely recommend this series if you're looking for something not too serious, but still has action and an exciting plot. The first book is quite cheap for Kindle, I think I got it for $2.99. If you're interested, you should give it a go. I'm definitely waiting for the last book to come out next year.

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.