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  • My Thoughts on King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

    My Thoughts on King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo

    In an attempt to be completely prepared for King of Scars, I reread all the Grisha trilogy books. It’s a good thing I did because almost all of the characters are from this book and I’m pretty sure the ending wouldn’t make any sense if you don’t remember what happened. So even before I begin this review, I plead to you now to read The Grisha trilogy. They’re amazing, they’re quick, and you’ll definitely thank yourself for the preparation beforehand.

    But let’s get into this review.

    I’m trying to write this without being too spoilery, but if it does happen to spoil something I’m sorry ahead of time. The story follows along King Nikolai three years after The Darkling was destroyed by Alina in the Fold. For all intents and purposes, this is a brand new story. I love that we explore Nikolai especially since he’s been so elusive, daring, and pretty cute throughout the Grisha trilogy.

    From what we left off about King Nikolai, he was consumed by a shadow demon created by The Darkling. It made him this giant monster warring inside for control of his body. When everyone thought it was safe and The Darkling been destroyed, suddenly you see Nikolai waking up in the middle of the night as the demon and attacking small animals. So you start off wondering what that is about. You’re already aware that The Darkling is dead, so how is Nikolai still turning into a demon? That’s what this story is about.

    I really loved that he has these problems he’s facing. I love that Zoya, Tamar, Toliya, and others are still around to help him out. The character choices in this book were excellent and all of them play an important role or another in the story. There’s even room for a Nikolai doppleganger, which I thoroughly cried about too.

    This is also about Nina, from Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom. Her story in this book is completely different than what’s going on with Nikolai in Ravka. In fact, she’s still somewhere in Fjerdan land trying to bury Matthias with his God and people. Similarly to what she was doing in Six of Crows, Nina ends up finding some gruesome experiments happening with Grisha and parem. I love that this book doesn’t even take a breath. It follows the stories from its past books and continues them forward. It makes the stories consistent, creates new dramas, and I can’t wait for the next book to see what happens to Nina and her friends.

    The book explores a few different perspectives. Similarly to her Six of Crows books, each chapter follows one particular story. There’s some overlap when using this method because she’ll start with Zoya’s point of view for one chapter and then she’ll repeat the whole chapter from a different perspective. I wouldn’t say that the overlap is bad. I think it’s good to see a story from two different perspectives, but if you’re not a fan of repetition it might get a little irritating to read the same scene over from another perspective.

    I thought the book started a little bit slowly, but I feel like there’s no better way to start this book other than to go slow. First, Leigh Bardugo needs to reintroduce these characters so you’re not confused as to who they are. She’s given them new meaning especially since the end of her trilogy leaves Ravka and the Fold in disarray. Then, she’s sharing the plot of King of Scars because it is different to the rest of the story in many ways. Then, she’s got to introduce new characters that help with telling this part of the story. So all of it lends to a slow start, but unlike most first books in a series, this also gets right into the action.

    Out of all the characters in this book, I wasn’t a fan of Zoya. If you recall, Zoya was kind of a bitch in the Grisha Trilogy. She was good at what she does, but she was super arrogant about it and wanted to harm Alina and whatever she was doing. She was also a devout follower of The Darkling before she switched sides and that gets called up a lot in this book. I really found her annoying in the first three books, but this showed a different side to her. While I wasn’t a fan, Leigh Bardugo did do this character justice and you learn a little more about why Zoya is the way she is.

    There is also a lot of politics talking in this book. After the whole war between The Darkling and the rest of the country, the country is in dire need of repair. What gets mentioned a lot is Nikolai’s eligibility and his birthright. There’s discussion of him courting certain royals for a good match. There’s discussion on whether or not Nikolai is a legitimate son of the king. There also seems to be a lot of turmoil in the world between Ravka and the other territories in the novel. I have a feeling that all of that is going to lead to some bigger war in the next book.

    Like all of Leigh Bardugo books, there’s always some pretty big surprises while you’re reading. I felt like some of the lulls were very slow, but the moment something big happened, then you got really interested and devour six pages at once. There’s a lot of that in this book especially right in the middle of the book and towards the end. The middle of the book are big surprises to help facilitate the rest of the stories and the ending leaves you with a cliffhanger so big you’ll be dying before the next book comes out.

    I will admit the ending is my favorite part of this book. I’m always wary when a bad guy is easily defeated. If someone claims to be all-powerful and a ragtag team of kids is able to beat them, it feels unreal. So seeing this ending with the big surprise really got me excited and I can’t wait to read the next one.

     

  • Reading on Vacation

    Reading on Vacation

    If you’re a bookworm, then you’re probably the type of person who packs a few books with  you on vacation. And not just one or two, but you need to pack fifteen books like you’re choosing your monthly TBR. Don’t worry, you’re not alone on this. I also pack way too many books before going on vacation. I think the whole idea is that you’ll now have all the time in the world to sit down and read. Sadly, that’s far from the truth.

    Recently, I packed a bunch of stuff for my trip to San Diego. I decided to take my Kindle with me (which has over 300+ books on it, don’t @ me) so I can read some romantic comedies while relaxing on the beach. I figured three books will be enough for a two-day trip.

    I planned on reading:

    Three super cute romance novels that are super easy to read, put down, and then pick back up again. I even took a break from King of Scars because I knew I couldn’t read a big fantasy novel while on vacation mode.

    I figured if my husband was going to be spending his days in the ocean surfing, I’ll be spending my days on the beach reading. I figured I would get more reading done on vacation than I would at home (where I read for about 3-4 hours a day). Guess how much I ended up reading?

    Ten pages. I read a whole ten pages while on vacation. The funny thing is I read a book I picked up on vacation rather than the Kindle with 300+ books on it.

    I kept thinking to myself how did I get to the end of this trip and only read 10 pages? Of course I have to dive into a weird habit if it’s outside of the normal, so I did some soul searching and realized a few things.

    I didn’t ride on a plane

    The biggest reason why I bring books on vacation is because of the plane. Most trips I take aren’t road trips, but plane rides across the country. In those instances, I like to spend my time on the plane reading books. It’s actually a really great way to catch up on reading because you’re stuck on a plane for six hours and you can’t just get up and do stuff. You have to sit there and entertain yourself sitting. Most times, I’ll get half a book read or even the whole book read within a six-hour plane ride. However, I didn’t have a plane to take. Instead we drove down to San Diego, which was a lot of fun but I also can’t read in cars. I get terrible motion sickness. I also didn’t have any audiobooks downloaded prior to because I figured whatever was on my Kindle was enough.

    I was exploring a new city

    I don’t know about you, but my husband and I love to explore new places. We’ll walk down the main street. We’ll walk across the beach. We’ll walk through a park. We just want to take in the atmosphere and enjoy the scenery. In those instances, we just don’t stop. We start early in the morning getting breakfast at a diner, then walk to the beach or to the park or a monument or a museum. We’re on our feet for most of our days and really only break late in the afternoon to head back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. This weekend was no different. We walked everywhere and then stopped only to recharge before dinner.

    There’s no reading during rest times

    Because of our recharge and resting, I feel a little too tired to read. After walking around the entire city all I want to do is lay in our hotel bed, watch a little TV, and then start getting ready for the next thing we’re going to do. During these downtimes, my brain is just processing what we’ve seen, what I liked and disliked, what’s to come. Reading becomes a chore in these moments for me. I also don’t have a lot of time (about an hour or two) between events so that makes it more difficult to carve out a moment to read.

    It was only the weekend

    I think in the future, I’ve learned that a weekend away isn’t enough for me to build an entire vacation TBR. I won’t be at some resort for seven days with plenty of time for me to sit by the pool or the beach and read. This was a two-day trip with us meeting friends, visiting new places, and socializing. For the future, I’m probably better off bringing one book and hoping for some time to read it. I think psyching myself to read a lot on a very short vacation is like eating with your eyes rather than with your stomach.

    I think another reason that I didn’t read as much as I did was because my husband never went surfing. He was supposed to go surfing, but his board got banged up on the ride to San Diego and the waves were a little cruddy. I think we plan on going back to San Diego when the weather gets nicer.

    If there’s no extended period of time where I can just sit and read, then reading just isn’t getting done on vacation. Oh well…

     

  • Mid-Month Checkin – March 2019

    Mid-Month Checkin – March 2019

    Happy Monday! I decided Monday was a good day to launch into a mid-month checkin. I’ve been in this state currently where I’m so content just reading. I want to pick up book after book after book without the wait of analyzing and criticizing what I just read. I have notes in my notebook, but I just can’t get in front of the computer and write my thoughts.

    So I have a lot of books I read, but I haven’t shared any thoughts. They’re coming soon!

    In other news, I had completely different plans for my March reading. I was going to catch up on reading The Throne of Glass series, but somehow that’s not going to work out this month. There’s still time, but I figured I would spend all of March reading Throne of Glass. I’ll be lucky if I finish the month with one.

    Like I predicted, March is turning out to be a better reading month than I anticipated. I think it’s because I’m working to organize my work and daily errands and making more time to read. This week wasn’t a good week for that, but that’s okay. I got a lot more work done for the blog, and considered some other bigger content pieces for the future. Let’s hope I can get to that promise. Here’s what I read so far this month:

    As you can see I was on a little Leigh Bardugo kick this month as I tried to reread The Grisha Series to prep for King of Scars. I don’t regret making this decision, but that took a considerable amount of time I didn’t budget for. It’s okay because it made me a huge fan of the series and I absolutely adored King of Scars.

    After reading that whole fantasy series, I needed a little break. I was going to try and read the surfing memoir Barbarian Days, but my brain was too tired from taking in that giant universe. So I decided to read some romance ARCs I recently received from Netgalley. Both of these books were super cute. If you like romcoms especially ones starring Tom Hanks, then you’ll like this one. I wish there was a bigger variety of romcoms (since I’m a huge romcom fan myself), but I was okay with the Tom Hanks references.

    The rest of the month is dedicated to:

    I have about three more books to read for various book clubs in my life. All the books for this month are a little bit heavier, so I’m going to be focusing my time to read these this week.

    Next week, I would love to start the plan I had for March and read more Sarah J Maas. I feel like at this point I’m just trying to get through this series so I can say I finally read it. It’s taking forever to finish this series, but I definitely want to finish it soon. I’d like to focus the rest of my year to the other fantasy series I’ve got on my list.

    How’s your month going?

     

  • Rereading The Grisha Trilogy

    Rereading The Grisha Trilogy

    Recently, I decided to reread The Grisha Trilogy in order to prepare myself for King of Scars. If you are planning on reading King of Scars, I would strongly suggest either either synopses online or reading The Grisha Trilogy because the whole cast of characters comes from those first books.

    It’s been a long time since I read The Grisha Trilogy. The picture below is actually the one I used for my bookstagram. Look how much my style has changed since then!

    trilogy

    It was actually one of the first fantasy series I picked up and one of the first books I reviewed for my blog. Sadly, my thoughts on the books the first time I read it wasn’t so great. I thought they were confusing, kind of surface, and a little exhausting. I was a little nervous about my second reading because of these issues. I was worried I’d have to slog through this book in order to get to King of Scars, which I was more excited about.

    After reading these books again, I’m going to have to do a 180 on my feelings. OH MY GOODNESS! THESE BOOKS ARE AMAZING!

    I’m mad at myself for not paying attention when I was younger and impressionable. I’m mad at myself for already making the decision that this series is bad. I’m mad at myself for not being loyal to Leigh Bardugo and the Grisha Universe because of my youth. This series made a whole lot more sense the second time around and it’s made me a fan of Leigh Bardugo’s for life.

    I think that my life and my reading life has changed a lot since I last read The Grisha Trilogy. I’ve grown as a person, as a writer and a blogger, and I feel like my original thoughts on the books represent the person I used to be. I was also in a bad place in my life with a lot of anxiety and for some reason, these books triggered me.

    I think the biggest lesson I learned from this reread is that I should reread more often. I should most definitely try to reread books that I didn’t like or had a lot of hype because there are just things you find more of the second time around. You can most definitely say that was the case for me. Here’s what I learned about the book the second go around:

    First off, I thought The Darkling was not attractive. I imagined him with this cloak on all the time and you can never get a good glimpse of what he looked like. I don’t know how that image got put in my head, but after reading it again I find him to be one of those characters that makes you blush even though you don’t want him to. I also didn’t know that his relationship with Alina was so intimate, that they made out and had this weird Kylo Ren/Rey relationship. They love each other, but they hate each other so you find redeeming qualities under all the evil.

    Secondly, I thought Alina was like a scared girl similarly to Katniss in The Hunger Games. Katniss did a lot of complaining about how she didn’t want to be a fighter. She didn’t want to be the face of the revolution. She just wanted to run away with Peeta and Gale and be happy. I imagined Alina as the same. She’s a person with a power that no one else has, but she didn’t want it. I don’t know how this got into my head because what I got out of this book is that she fought tooth and nail against the Darkling. She wanted to erase the effects of the Darkling’s power even if it means sacrificing herself. She was a fighter, a stronger person than Katniss by far and I’m sorry to have compared the two.

    Third, Leigh Bardugo loves to throw a big curveball right in the middle of the book. Most books either have smaller curveballs thrown throughout the novel or they save that juiciness for the end of the book (usually with a cliffhanger, so you have to wait for the next book to see what happens). Leigh Bardugo just goes and throws a huge wrench into the plot right in the middle of the book. It’s like you’re reading one book, then it changes and you’re reading the second book. It’s almost like the intermission of a play where you take a break before the big finale. The best part, it keeps you reading. The wrenches she likes to throw into the books are big plot changers. You want to keep reading to see how the rest of the book pans out. You have to know if the characters will be alright. Whatever you thought was going to happen or any predictions you may have had change and I absolutely love when I’m surprised.

    I think the last thing I learned is that sometimes I need to take a step back from a book. Something that I didn’t like might look differently in a few days, weeks, months, years. I need to make space for these books and reread them because our lives change and our tastes change and what we loved may not always be the books we loved.

    And you can seriously surprise yourself.

    Any books you didn’t like the first time but loved the second time?

  • I’m Excited About Tolkien

    I’m Excited About Tolkien

    Happy #MiddleEarthMarch!

    Well, I wish I was reading The Lord of the Rings this month, but I have too many books to read. I think Middle Earth will have to hold until April for me. However, it doesn’t mean I’m not excited about the new trailer for Tolkien. You can watch the teaser trailer above.

    The movie is supposed to be about the years that inspired a lot of what JRR Tolkien wrote in The Lord of the Rings. It covers his time in the war, his friendships, his obsession with language, and the love for his wife. Did you know that JRR Tolkien was totally in love with his wife and he considered her the muse of his work?

    If you didn’t, then you might want to give the movie a shot. I know I’ll be watching it because I can’t resist the story of one of the most coveted fantasy novels of all time. I think this is going to be the Year of the Rings (I just made this up). Even the new series Amazon is working on will begin with the second age, the years where the ring was created and used by the all-powerful (and super scary) Sauron. With the new TV show in the works for Amazon and this new biopic on JRR Tolkien, I think a lot of people are going to pick up this book and fall deeply in love with the world Tolkien created.

    Anyone else excited about this one? Anyone else a fan of author biopics?

  • New Pencils from CW Pencil Enterprise

    New Pencils from CW Pencil Enterprise

    I’m such a nerd. I’m the kind of nerd who loves to buy pens and pencils and paper that’ll take me my entire life to use. But it makes me happy and I thought I’d share of that on here under my Writing category. I mean, it technically is writing since you use them to put thoughts on paper.

    When I was living back in New York, I really wanted to go to the CW Pencil Enterprise in the West Village. I never got to go, but luckily there’s a thing called “shipping” and I was able to stock up on some really crisp pencils for annotating my books.

    Before I get into the pencils, I do want to mention that these are all HB grade. What’s being measured here is the hardness and the darkness of the graphite in the pencil. For HB, the pencil will make a hard and dark mark in whatever you’re writing. It’s a good grade for people who are normally writers than artists. It’s also a good grade for annotation.

    Processed with VSCO with a6 preset

    In some place amongst the stars is a dream where I can use a red pencil and a black pencil attached to each other so I can make edits in a manuscript. I don’t know if that dream will ever come true, but I can always use a dual pencil for annotating books IN RED. I feel like writing in red is such a taboo thing. The Editor is made to switch off between red and black pencil. It’s great for grading, but for me it’s fun to write in RED.

    I’m also a fan of the Blackwing Palomino 602. Blackwing Palomino is considered the Porsche 911 of pencils. The body reads HALF THE PRESSURE, TWICE THE SPEED in bold capitalized letters as if it’s got something to prove.

    For the Mitsu-Bishi 9850, the fact that a car company makes pencils is still a truth I’m trying to work through in my brain. I figured it was a coincidence that Mitsubishi is also the name of a pencil making company, but judging by the classic symbol, I doubt that.

    The Swiss Wood Caran D’Ache has been my daily driver recently. It’s a beautiful colored wood with a cinnamon-y scent to it. It’s also a dream to write with where the graphite doesn’t lose all power before you finish writing a sentence. I will probably get more of these despite it not having an eraser on the end.

     

     

  • Weekend Wrap-Up // March 8, 2019

    Weekend Wrap-Up // March 8, 2019

    Hey everyone!

    We’ve finally reached another weekend. I’m most excited about this one because I’ll be heading off to San Diego for a little weekend away. I want to check out a new city, skateboard on their boardwalk, spend some time baking in the sun, watch my husband surf, and visit bookstores

    The big bookstore I’m most excited about is Warwick’s. It’s the one bookstore so many of you suggest whenever I think about going to San Diego. I’m going there and I might buy myself a tote bag or a t-shirt to commemorate my time there.

    I do hope you get to spend some time at a bookstore either on vacation or in your hometown. I’m realizing more how important it is to support local business, but also independent bookstores. So many times I’ve been burned by Amazon and buying anything from them. I want to dedicate myself to putting my money towards causes that actually care about books.

    Links I Loved

    Blog Posts from the Week

    I’m starting to finally feel like my reading is picking up again and my writing will follow. This week, I’ve posted about my wrap up, my book haul, and pencils. LOL, what a fun little week it’s been. I’ll include links below in case you’ve missed them (of course):

    What I’m Reading This Weekend

    Since I’ll be in San Diego, I want to bring something with me that’s fun and interesting. I think I’ll also be bringing my Kindle because the drive to San Diego will be short and from our plans, it sounds like we’ll be too busy to actually chill and read. I think the Kindle will be good to pack for any lulls within our plans. I’ll be bringing along:

    I’m most excited about Bad Blood because it’s about a billionaire tech mogul who lied about her ability to test blood at home and got super caught. Isn’t it funny how one lie can build and become numerous lies and then you find yourself trapped in a web of frustration, lawsuits, and bankruptcy? Yeah, me neither.

    The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead is my highly anticipated read of 2019. It hasn’t published yet, but after I finished reading The Underground Railroad, I wanted to read more from him. This one isn’t about slavery, but civil rights. I know this will move me, but it will also be creative in the way Colson Whitehead always is.

    The others are early ARCs and I might not get to them, but I love having these options available for me. This goes double when I’m carrying my Kindle.

    What are you reading this weekend?

    Have a great weekend!

    Simone

  • The Backlist Book Club // March 2019

    The Backlist Book Club // March 2019

    Last month, I ran a poll on my Instagram on what should be the Backlist Book Club February pick. It was between The Underground Railroad and Behold the Dreamers. The majority picked The Underground Railroad.

    I’m so thrilled that they picked that book because it was amazing and really pulled my February together for me. Now that it’s March, it’s time to pick a new book. For March’s Backlist Book Club, we’ll be reading Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue.

    Because this is The Backlist Book Club, no books get left behind. Because this was the second choice, I want to make sure I don’t go another year without reading it. I’m super excited about this one and I’m going to share the synopsis below.

    The one change I will be making in my book club rules is my readathon. It seems like my weekends are much busier than I thought and I can’t commit to sitting on my butt all weekend and reading the book. Therefore, I’ll still announce when I’ll be reading the book and you’re more than welcome to join me, but I won’t be as diligent with the updating on social media while I do it. I think it’ll be easier for me to pay attention to the book than pay attention to my phone.

    Of course I’ll still be hosting my discussion on my page and I’ll be writing my final thoughts at the end of the month. Here’s the important dates:

    • I’ll be reading March 16 – 17, 2019
    • Discussion post and my final thoughts are March 29, 2019

    Who’s ready to dive into this beautiful book with me this month?

    Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty—and Jende is eager to please. Clark’s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses’ summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future.

    However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers’ façades.

    When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende’s job—even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.

  • My Thoughts: Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott

    My Thoughts: Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott

    Over Galentine’s Day, I was given the opportunity to go see Five Feet Apart a month before it releases everywhere. My friend, Kari, and I decided to get some dinner beforehand and then head into the movie. When we checked in and got there, they gave us free popcorn, free soda, and a swag bag filled with the book, a popsocket, and a little bag of tissues.

    The tissues should have been the thing to tip me off. It should have immediately been a warning that I was about to cry my eyes out. Because that is just what I did.

    Five Feet Apart is the story of a young teenager named Stella and a young guy named Will. They both have Cystic Fibrosis, which is a debilitating disorder where the mucus, sweat, and digestive fluids is thicker than a normal person. While that doesn’t sound like anything too serious, what happens is that the mucus builds up in the body without any way to go. When CF patients say that it feels like drowning, it’s literally their bodies filling with liquid to the point they can’t breathe.

    There are thousands of different cases of Cystic Fibrosis. My friend Kat at @readwithkat has CF and she’s able to live life at home and medicate herself. In the book and the movie, Stella, Will, and their friend Poe all have a specific kind of CF that requires hospital care and monitoring. All three of these characters have three different cases of CF, which means that one person can infect another with their CF germs and make their cases worse. This is the whole emphasis on “five feet apart.” It’s technically six-feet apart, but we’ll get into why there’s a missing foot now.

    Of course the book is a YA novel, so it’s about Stella and Will’s love story. Yes, they have a love story after I told you all the “six feet” stuff. It’s not like anything you would normally read in a YA. You could call it downright chaste, but it’s really not about the physical parts of love that are important. What’s important is the ability to build a relationship and a love for someone without physically being able to touch them.

    And that is demonstrated so many times throughout the movie and the book. These CF patients love each other in platonic or romantic ways, but they can’t hug each other. They can’t high five or sit too close to each other because of their disorder. Yet, they were able to find that without touching. You find more creative ways to hold one another when using your arms and body aren’t available.

    So between the movie and the book, they are one in the same. If anything, the book is slightly better than the movie because there’s one thing the book has that the movie doesn’t; internal dialogue. What I absolutely loved about the book was reading Will’s and Stella’s thoughts. Reading what they’re feeling while they fall in love with each other helps explain a lot of what I saw in the movie. It’s tough for two kids who love each other, but then add on a disorder that will kill you and then it’s just near impossible to be in love.

    I think the only thing I didn’t like was the ending of the book. I thought the movie ending was so much more impactful without having them face each other again. I could be wrong, though. People do love a happy ending. Also, the book was written after the movie was in production.

    Don’t forget to see Five Feet Apart in theaters starting March 15, 2019!

    I received a copy of this book from Simon and Schuster for free in exchange for an honest review. My opinions have not been influenced by the publisher or the author.

  • Book Haul – March 5, 2019

    Book Haul – March 5, 2019

    After looking over all the books I received this week, I felt like it was time for a little book haul blog post! I think it was just a coincidence that I received so many books at once. It’s probably because of all the rain we’ve been having here that my mail is delayed. It’s probably because I live in California now.

    Anyway, let’s get to the books. Some of these are promotional, some of them are for review, and others are because I’m curious. I want to expand my reading life, so I try to vary my reading.

    The ones I’m most excited about reading are:

    Whoops, that turned out to be way more than I expected this time around. Stalker is definitely one I’m super excited about. While I’m not a huge fan of thrillers, I do like to indulge in a crime fiction every now and then. I’ve heard a lot about Lars Kepler from Abby at Crime by the Book. I think he’s one of her favorite authors, so I’m going to take that advice and try this one out.

    The Weight of a Piano is one I’m also really excited about. I saw Stacey at @prose_and_palate chat up this book the other day and it’s made me super interested to see what it’s about. The story is about…a piano. It’s about the person who first owned the piano and lost it while traveling from Russia to America and the current owner of the piano. The current owner is a little lost in life and needs to sell the piano she never learned to play.

    My friend, Haley, is a huge fan of Han Kang and I’ve always wanted to read her work. Her novel, The Vegetarian, is the one I’ve heard of, but I’ve also heard good things about The White Book.

    The ones I’ll be promoting later this month are:

    I do want to mention that books I promote are books I actually want to read. I’m very careful about the books I request and just want to promote what I want to promote. These books I’ll gladly share a little of my page. Out of all of these, Field Notes on Love is the highest on my list, but I’ve been hearing some really big things about Polaris Rising. Summon and Smoke is also an exciting one especially since it’s the author who wrote The Paper Magician series.

    Some surprise mail that I’m excited about:

    Foursome is definitely high on this list. It’s a nonfiction novel on the lives of four very big artists. I might give this to my sister for her to read, but I’ll take a little stab at it first.

    The Guest Book is a complete mystery to me, but for some reason I’m drawn to it. It says it’s a multi-generational story that hides a big secret with their grandfather. It sounds like of intriguing and it has been a while since I’ve read a historical novel, so I might check that out.

    I hope you enjoyed this little list!

    I received a copy of this book from the publishers for free. My opinions have not been influenced by the publisher or the author.