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What I’m Reading: Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

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Young Adult Book Review: Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo

Book Two of the GrishaVerse trilogy starts off pretty much where the first book ends. Now, this book begins with one of my pet peeves. If you haven’t read the book yet, or even finished the first book of the GrishaVerse, you may not want to read the rest of this review below, as I’m going to share this particular pet peeve of mine. But don’t worry, after the beginning, the book did get better.

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This book began with a pet peeve of mine. It’s a particularly common trope in fantasy: end book one with the hero/heroine breaking free, and begin book 2 with them instantly being recaptured. I find this a complete waste of plot, as often, absolutely nothing happens when the hero is free. Instead, it’s used a device to end book one in a ‘happy ever after’, just in case the publisher never releases book two. I really dislike this plot device. However, as I said above, the book does get better after the beginning.

Alina grows more as a character in this one, and the story moves from Alina having choices made for her (ie. capture and release), to her making choices. But the best part about this book was Nikolai. I love Nikolai. He is by far my favorite character in this series. I wish there could have been more of him. That’s all I’m going to say. Read this book for Nikolai. End of.

4.5/5 Stars

JEH

What I’m Reading: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

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Young Adult Book Review: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

GrishaVerse is one of those series that you can’t stop hearing about. I was able to borrow the original GrishaVerse trilogy from a friend a while back. The books are told by the perspective of Alina Starkov, a teen-aged orphan who, surprise, turns out to have magical powers. While this series starts like many a fantasy novel before it, Leigh Bardugo manages to create a fairly fresh fantasy landscape with strong, believable characters.

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The first novel of the trilogy sets up the world of the Grisha, the magic wielders  in this universe. Borrowing on Russian history, culture, and mythology, Shadow and Bone has a fresh appeal for those used to reading more ‘European’ type fantasy. What I liked best about Shadow and Bone, however, was the play between Alina and the Darkling. This book had twists and turns that I wasn’t expecting, and Bardugo did a good job of keeping me on the edge of my seat.

Have you read Shadow and Bone? What did you think?

4.5/5 Stars

JEH

My Summer Reading List 2018

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So, I actually started writing this post back in June, but then got swamped by travel and life and never got around to finishing it. So, here’s my best attempt at coming up with a list of planned reading for the remainder of summer (which is thankfully still a bit more than a month long).

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As I get ready to head off on my first fourth lakeside vacation of the summer, I’m going through my books to pick out the novels I want to read next. Lately, I’ve been into a mix of literary fiction, science fiction, and fantasy (which the science fiction and fantasy being either Young Adult or Adult—I’m not choosey). I’m hoping to get through eight books this summer, some of which have been on my bookshelf for a long time, and a few that are more or less new arrivals.

As it stands, my To Be Read shelf is over a hundred books deep (possibly even closer to 150), so I really want to get cracking on it, but there are also a couple books that I have on my reader that I would like to read as well, and let’s not forget, I still have Don Quixote to finish! *Note: some of these books I’ve already finished, since I’m late with this post, lol

  1. The Girl From Everywhere
  2. The Ship Beyond Time
  3. The Thousandth Floor
  4. Blue Lily, Lily Blue (finished)
  5. The Raven King
  6. Authority (Southern Reach #2) (finished last night)
  7. Champion (Lengend #3)
  8. Don Quixote (I’m still only halfway through this one)

So there it is, the list. Maybe I’ll even be able to read a few bonus books (I have a feeling Don Quixote might get brushed aside for A Shadow Bright and Burning, or Strange the Dreamer, which I’ve wanted to read forever).

I’ll let you know how I do. And I should have some book reviews up later this week. How is your summer reading going?

JEH