Simone and Her Books

Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han

May 10, 2017

I love me some good old fashion young adult. No frills. No complications. The kinds of books that don’t surprise you with turmoil or unexpected struggles. It’s like reading a book about reality and sometimes in reality, there’s not a lot of drama for your mama.

Synopsis

Lara Jean’s letter-writing days aren’t over in this surprise follow-up to the New York Times bestselling To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and P.S. I Still Love You.

Lara Jean is having the best senior year a girl could ever hope for. She is head over heels in love with her boyfriend, Peter; her dad’s finally getting remarried to their next door neighbor, Ms. Rothschild; and Margot’s coming home for the summer just in time for the wedding.

But change is looming on the horizon. And while Lara Jean is having fun and keeping busy helping plan her father’s wedding, she can’t ignore the big life decisions she has to make. Most pressingly, where she wants to go to college and what that means for her relationship with Peter. She watched her sister Margot go through these growing pains. Now Lara Jean’s the one who’ll be graduating high school and leaving for college and leaving her family—and possibly the boy she loves—behind.

When your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?

My rating: 4/5 love letters

My thoughts

Lara Jean and the three Song girls have been my favorites ever since I picked up To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. You know me, I’ve always got to go for the diversity angle, so when I heard that the girls were half-Korean, I got a little excited to read it.

But the reason why I love the diversity angle so much is because there’s that small amount of resonance between the author and the reader. The way that the girls were raised with understanding and appreciating their Korean culture is exactly how I was raised. Even in a household when only half of the family is Korean, it was still important. I believe it’s important to always have that deep connection with your history and culture no matter what it is.

Getting back to the book though, this was such a lovely way to wrap up the entire series. It reminded me of a Morgan Matson novel in which there’s some real life drama for a 17-year-old to manage and it wasn’t earth-shattering, but it felt real. What do you do when you’re deciding on the next steps of your life? What happens after high school? All those thoughts about that post-high school life rear its head back up here.

I loved that Jenny Han used her alma-mater as one of the possible schools Lara Jean would end up going. It’s always fun to know a little bit about the author and see how their personality is sort of injected into parts of their novel. As they always say, it’s better to write what you know.

But I think what I loved the most is that you’re transported back to being a high school senior. Not to get personal, but my life right now is pretty messy with not having a job and finding a new apartment and getting a new car. It’s all these adult responsibilities and Jenny Han’s novels have always been a nice escape from those things. I don’t have to be an adult for a little while because I’m wrapped up in where Lara Jean wants to go to college, what will happen with her and Peter, and finding yourself a bit better.

If you’re trying to find something not too complicated and just a really enjoyable read, then I would recommend this series.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

May 8, 2017

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book as relevant to today as this one. This story is about the importance of knowing that there are always two sides to a story.

Synopsis

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Khalil was unarmed.

Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. Some are calling him a thug, maybe even a drug dealer and a gangbanger. Protesters are taking to the streets in Khalil’s name. Some cops and the local drug lord try to intimidate Starr and her family. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr.

But what Starr does or does not say could upend her community. It could also endanger her life.

Rating: 4/5 Starrs

My thoughts

This book was really stellar. If you’re not living under a cave and are aware of what’s going on right now with young, black youths being shot down by the police and you find there’s injustice in those deaths, then this book is for you.

A lot of what we read about those incidents is in the news. We hear all different sides of the story, but sometimes there’s one side that you may never hear. In this book, Angie Thomas puts us in the shoes of a young woman named Starr who watched a childhood friend of hers get shot by a local police officer. Within the aftermath of the shooting, she tries to continue living her life as normal as possible but how does someone who has seen something so tragic move on?

The story starts with the shooting so the rest of it is dedicated to the aftermath. Starr is a character stuck between the world of opportunity with her school and grades and the world of constant struggle as her family doesn’t live in the safest neighborhood. By the time she’s seventeen she’s already seen two friends die and now she can’t speak up about her friend’s death. You can see her come to grips with her emotions and deal with the micro-aggressions of the people who don’t understand her life.

For some people, it’s really easy to speak up about something but for others it isn’t and this book really explores what happens when you can make a difference but the things around you get in the way. It’s a tough decision and something that needs respect. But it also shows the value of speaking up. Voices unheard tell a different tale and while it might be scary or cause friction, you have to remember that your voice can really make a difference.
We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

May 5, 2017

Well, it took me long enough to write up this review and I want to do it justice because We Are Okay was one of the most beautifully written books I’ve read in 2017. I finished reading this one on the flight to Florida earlier in April and sadly, it took me this long to write the review. Will I ever be better at this? It’s now my personal goal this year to be a bad ass book blogger and not bore you with things like life updates <_<

Synopsis

You go through life thinking there’s so much you need…

Until you leave with only your phone, your wallet, and a picture of your mother.

Marin hasn’t spoken to anyone from her old life since the day she left everything behind. No one knows the truth about those final weeks. Not even her best friend, Mabel. But even thousands of miles away from the California coast, at college in New York, Marin still feels the pull of the life and tragedy she’s tried to outrun. Now, months later, alone in an emptied dorm for winter break, Marin waits. Mabel is coming to visit, and Marin will be forced to face everything that’s been left unsaid and finally confront the loneliness that has made a home in her heart.

Rating: 5/5 wintry evenings

My thoughts

Just a heads up, I have a lot of thoughts about this book. Good thoughts, but thoughts.

I truly loved this story and in the past few chapters of this book I couldn’t put it down. The story is laid out in a past/present format alternating between what happened before Marin disappeared and what’s happening in the future. The writing was in Marin’s point of view and really captured a maturity in someone who has seen a lot of tragedy in her life.

The message: People grieve in different ways. Some people cry it out. Others hide it behind a mask. Some people push others away while others bring people closer. We lash out. We fight. We love. We create. We destroy. There’s no right or wrong way to grieve the loss of a friend, a loved one, a favorite pet. This is a story that shows the ways we grieve and how even though we try our best to keep a smile on our face or show people we’re ok, we’re sometimes not.

The story begins with Marin, a teenager who recently lost her grandfather. She’s in her dorm room in New York waiting for her childhood friend, Mabel, to arrive and spend the Holidays with her. However, there’s a huge veil of mystery surrounding Marin and the most important one being where she went for the few weeks before her first semester at school started.

As the story goes along, you realize that Marin not only lost her grandfather, but her mother as well. What you get from Marin is raw, emotion-filled anxiety about who she is, who her family is, and will she ever recover from the loss of every stable entity in her life. She does the one thing that only makes sense to her and that’s to run away.

Fortunately, what you find is that she isn’t alone. Before disappearing, Marin developed feelings for her best friend Mabel and the two of them spent their summer languishing in youthful love. I loved the story between Mabel and Marin. It was unobstructed and not the plot of the story. This story could easily have been the struggle of two teenagers finding true love and the struggle for them to be accepted by society and their family, but it wasn’t and I loved it. The message stayed pure and that is that sometimes loss takes different forms in different people, but I think the most important message to take away from all of this is that nothing stays lost forever.
My initial thoughts on Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale

May 3, 2017
Ooooh lawdy, I’ve got thoughts on this one.

A few posts back, I talked about my adoration for Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale and the premiere of this show. Now that the show’s been out and circulating, I took some time over the past week to watch the three episodes currently available on Hulu.

I. Am. Shook.

I could get pretty lengthy in the description of the show, so I’m going to just leave it up to you to either check out this trailer or at least watch the first episode.

We’re all aware of the fact that this book had an uptick in sales for the first time in like 30 years after Donald Trump became president. But is the story relevant after thirty years? Here’s my top five thoughts about the show (spoiler free).
1. The first thing I noticed is that this is loosely based on the novel, but not brick for brick. I actually like it this way because then you don’t find yourself trying to match it to the book. I’m a huge advocate for movies taking their own creative choices with the way the story is written. If it makes sense and still respects the novel then I’m OK with it. Even without it being completely based on the book, you still get the dark feeling you get when you’re reading the novel
2. Speaking to the point just made, what I find really interesting is how the mood is strikingly dark. Like super dark. Like watching Stranger Things but knowing that people bought this book in 2016-2017 because they felt like it could possibly happen. I left my couch feeling like I was going to get kidnapped in the middle of the night
3. One of the many things I was thinking about was how realistic this story feels in a day and age where technology and science have caught up to science fiction in a way. However, the story takes care of that by using chapters from the Bible to justify the stuff that happens and it really annoys me as a Christian woman to take the Bible out of context. It’s just frustrating to see people not seeing the bigger picture when it comes to biblical text and just use it as a way to punish people (I think that might speak too much about me)
4. Ofglen. Just watch it for Ofglen
5. Margaret Atwood makes a super quick appearance in the first episode. If you know anything about her, you know she’s got this signature perm and you just can’t not see it when she comes up
Lastly, just watch it. I would say be careful to believe that this is reality because it’s not. While our country is in its own personal crisis, it’ll make you feel like the end is near but also remember that this is a novel and sometimes novels have a happy ending.
Worst Blogger Ever: Life Updates

May 1, 2017

I know what you’re thinking, “what happened to Simone? I thought she was writing about books or whatever.”

Well, the past month (if not the year so far) has been pretty crazy. Instead of trying to explain everything, I thought I could just give you the highlights reel.

I got married

Yeah, this one was a doozy and for the most part of 2017, I’ve been spending it getting ready to get married. But now I am and things seem to be on the up and up.

As you can see, no books at the wedding because that’d be weird for me to be reading while I’m pacing around waiting for our turn to get married. It wasn’t the most extravagant wedding in the world, but it made me happy to share my life with my new hubby. 🙂 ❤

I’m going to Seoul

While there isn’t much to prepare (and honestly, I feel like I’m throwing this one in here to make the list longer), I’m super excited and nervous about going to Seoul. I’ll keep you all informed on what happens here, but to give you an idea of my anxiety I’m going to the Motherland and I barely speak the language and there’s this veiled threat of a war with North Korea and I don’t want to end up a refugee yelling “I’M AN AMERICAN CITIZEN” as I run to the American Embassy a la the classic 1997 film “The Saint.”

Obviously I’m being melodramatic right now. I’m really excited about visiting the land of my people. I can’t wait!

I’m moving

My new husband and I are planning to move to New Jersey in a couple of weeks and I’ve just been preparing myself for that. But because my husband is in Florida right now and I’m planning on going to Korea in a couple of weeks, it doesn’t leave a lot of time to review properties and decide what part of New Jersey we want to live. So I’ve just been looking at places, asking a lot of questions, and packing everything up because I think my husband is gonna need to move us without me there

I am in the worst reading slump of my life

This is probably the top #1 reason why I’ve been a sucky blogger lately– I am in the worst book slump of my life. There was a time when I was not reading books and that was back in college and the reason why I wasn’t reading books because the books I was reading books required for my classes but didn’t really interest me outside of that.

Now I’m in a slump again and I’m trying to defunk-ify myself. To give you an idea of how bad it is, I’ve been reading the same YA novel for the past month. The book is amazing and I have a lot I want to talk about it. However, it doesn’t take me a month to read YA! Usually, they take me a couple of days and it’s mostly because how captivated I am by the story. Here, I’m captivated by the story, but for some reason my brain wants to think about other stuff like marriage and moving and career changes (yes, that’s another one to add to the list of stuff happening to me). Also, I’m on a deadline because the library needs my book back by tomorrow and I don’t want to have to pay fees for borrowing books!

So there you have it. A list of excuses on why I can’t blog on a normal schedule. But today is May 1st and that means a new month for me to try and be better about everything I do. Better dieting. Better exercise. Better adulting. I guess I’ll just add better reading on that as well.
March 2017 Bookish Wrap Up

April 13, 2017

Middle of the month isn’t so bad to post a March recap, right? It’s been a really busy time here at my real job and (surprise!) I’m getting married, so my hobbies have taken a little dip in productivity. I swear I’m coming back!

Onto the recap; I read four amazing reads during the month of March. I noticed recently that all of the books I’ve chosen to read have been pretty amazing. Even my TBR has so many books I’m excited to read (although I can’t read as fast as I accumulate). It makes me really happy I have such great reads. Here’s the rundown:

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

When Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home, long drives to explore the island, and quality time with the man she might one day marry. What she doesn’t know is that Nick’s family home happens to look like a palace, that she’ll ride in more private planes than cars, and that with one of Asia’s most eligible bachelors on her arm, Rachel might as well have a target on her back. Initiated into a world of dynastic splendor beyond imagination, Rachel meets Astrid, the It Girl of Singapore society; Eddie, whose family practically lives in the pages of the Hong Kong socialite magazines; and Eleanor, Nick’s formidable mother, a woman who has very strong feelings about who her son should–and should not–marry. Uproarious, addictive, and filled with jaw-dropping opulence, Crazy Rich Asians is an insider’s look at the Asian JetSet; a perfect depiction of the clash between old money and new money; between Overseas Chinese and Mainland Chinese; and a fabulous novel about what it means to be young, in love, and gloriously, crazily rich.

A Conjuring of Light by VE Schwab

THE BALANCE OF POWER HAS FINALLY TIPPED…
The precarious equilibrium among four Londons has reached its breaking point. Once brimming with the red vivacity of magic, darkness casts a shadow over the Maresh Empire, leaving a space for another London to rise.

WHO WILL CRUMBLE?
Kell – once assumed to be the last surviving Antari – begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. And in the wake of tragedy, can Arnes survive?

WHO WILL RISE?
Lila Bard, once a commonplace – but never common – thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery of the Night Spire collects his crew, attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible.

WHO WILL TAKE CONTROL?
And an ancient enemy returns to claim a crown while a fallen hero tries to save a world in decay.

Next Year For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson

After nine years together, Kathryn and Chris have the sort of relationship most would envy. They speak in the shorthand they have invented, complete one another’s sentences, and help each other through every daily and existential dilemma. When Chris tells Kathryn about his feelings for Emily, a vivacious young woman he sees often at the Laundromat, Kathryn encourages her boyfriend to pursue this other woman—certain that her bond with Chris is strong enough to weather a little side dalliance.

As Kathryn and Chris stumble into polyamory, Next Year, For Sure tracks the tumultuous, revelatory, and often very funny year that follows. When Chris’s romance with Emily grows beyond what anyone anticipated, both Chris and Kathryn are invited into Emily’s communal home, where Kathryn will discover new romantic possibilities of her own. In the confusions, passions, and upheavals of their new lives, both Kathryn and Chris will be forced to reconsider their past and what they thought they knew about love.

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over.

But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner.

Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. Nevertheless she becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic. And whether Caraval is real or not, Scarlett must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over or a dangerous domino effect of consequences will be set off, and her beloved sister will disappear forever.

Welcome, welcome to Caraval…beware of getting swept too far away.
Caraval by Stephanie Garber

April 3, 2017

Remember, it’s only a game…

Maybe it’s me or the most recent weeks, but I’ve been watching and reading a lot about warp realities and the mind playing tricks on you. What is real? What’s not real? How can you tell the difference?

In a world where you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not real, how do you know who your allies are? Who can you trust?

You can easily say the same with the characters in Caraval by Stephanie Garber.

Synopsis (from Goodreads.com)

Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over.

But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner.

Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. Nevertheless she becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic. And whether Caraval is real or not, Scarlett must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over or a dangerous domino effect of consequences will be set off, and her beloved sister will disappear forever.

Rating: 5/5 buttons

My thoughts

What I would do for a letter to arrive to me with an exciting journey to a magical place. I’ve been waiting for my Hogwarts letter since I was a kid. Still haven’t gotten it yet.

For Scarlett, it came at the most inappropriate time; ten days before her wedding to a guy she doesn’t know. While she’s wanted to be invited since she was a kid, it wasn’t until she was an adult and getting married to someone that it finally happens. I think there’s a strong metaphor in where childhood fantasies end and real life begin. Stephanie Garber makes an amazing argument that sometimes we all need a little magic in our lives regardless of how old you are.

And Scarlett deserves it. I don’t want to give anything away, but living the life she’s had I’m surprised that she came out of her younger years with the hope of magic still in tact.

I love that Scarlett makes mistakes and tries things that fail. I love how human she is and how slowly she learns the magic of Caraval. I think that if she found things out quickly or tested a theory and it worked on the first try then the story would be a little less believable. She’d be a little less relatable and maybe even a less interesting novel. Who gets everything handed to them on a platter?

For a fantasy novel, there isn’t a lot of world-building but in this case I think it’s fine since the majority of the novel takes place in a fantastical world within the world. For most world-building, you’re assuming that the characters will be roaming across this world to do whatever it is that they need to. Because Caraval is specifically about the game, the only world you really need to understand is Caraval and Stephanie Garber does a good job at that.

However, I would have loved to feel a little bit more a part of this world. While Stephanie Garber includes handwritten letters throughout the story, I’d love to see the green glass key or the carousel or even the room of stars at the very end. I get that it’s up for your mind to make up what these places will look like, I think if every chapter started with a little illustration then it’d really bring you further into this story.

Finally, I also wonder if Stephanie Garber has synesthesia. I don’t know how to describe it well, but it’s your brain processing two things at once or doing them together. For example, some people are able to perceive different colors or numbers when associating a word, a person, or a food. It’s like two sensory parts of your brain combining together to create one. Anyway, the way Scarlett associates people with color and smells feels like she may be dipping into that part of her brain capacity. It’s quite interesting and it makes me wonder if the author is as well.
Where do you go when you’ve got no place to go? – Life update

March 27, 2017

I know I haven’t done this before, but I figure I’ll give this a try. I’m about to write about my life. Deal with it or don’t, but that’s the point of blogs. You write out what you’re thinking and perhaps in some small corner of the Internet, there’s someone that shares the same feelings as you.

But I will keep this brief. There’s been a lot of stuff going on with me lately.

First off, I’m getting married. YES! Big old whoop to committing to one person for the rest of my life. However, people fail to tell you that planning for a low-key wedding is just as stressful as planning a high-key wedding. I find myself stressing out about the money it’ll cost, the venue, keeping up with what people want with me. It’s difficult and I can understand it. While the day is yours specifically to enjoy with your S/O, I can’t help but to feel a sense of responsibility and duty to be a “good daughter.” I don’t want to be the center of attention (yes, even on my own wedding day), but my dad wants to show me off or my mom doesn’t want to spare a single extravagance and all I want to do is crawl into a tiny space somewhere and eat expensive wedding cake. ALONE.

Secondly, I’m not happy at work. I don’t like to talk about work stuff online because there’s again the small possibility that someone from somewhere in that tiny corner of the Internet that will read this and it’ll somehow come back to me. But let me tell you a little something about my disinterest with work; it has nothing to do with the people I work with or the place I work. I just feel like it’s a point in my life to try and pursue something else. What that is, I don’t know, but I really hope it has something to do with books. I’ll be speaking with a career coach to figure this stuff out, but people walking outside is more interesting than doing my job.

Thirdly, I might be moving. This puts a damper on the job stuff. I’m usually the type of person that doesn’t wait around to find something a little more suited when I know I’m not happy at my job. If I’m not happy, I’ll find somewhere else to be happy. However, because I might be moving (out of state, mind you) that means I can’t apply to any local jobs. What’s the point of starting a new job only to quit after six months and move somewhere else? That just sounds like a recipe for disaster. Also, I don’t know if I’m moving at all and since that’s up in the air, I can’t find jobs at my new location. I just sit and stay at my job that I’m basically gritting my teeth and bearing.

So what do you do? I feel like I was on this life train that made a full stop in the middle of the track. Living in limbo is not ideal for someone who lives in the moment. I don’t have a plan, but the one thing I know I can rely on are books. I can’t read about how to wait patiently for my life to start up again but I can take my mind off things while day after day goes by hoping something will finally shift.
Next Year, For Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson

March 24, 2017

Imagine if you were in a relationship and completely happy. Blissfully happy in the same routines you’re always used to doing. You’re always sure you’ll come home to someone.

Then suddenly, your significant other tells you that they’re interested in someone else. How do you react?

This book is about the value of a relationship. How some people move from one partner to the next like stones skipping in a river and how other people enjoy that sinking feeling of being with someone you love.

Synopsis (from Goodreads.com)

After nine years together, Kathryn and Chris have the sort of relationship most would envy. They speak in the shorthand they have invented, complete one another’s sentences, and help each other through every daily and existential dilemma. When Chris tells Kathryn about his feelings for Emily, a vivacious young woman he sees often at the Laundromat, Kathryn encourages her boyfriend to pursue this other woman—certain that her bond with Chris is strong enough to weather a little side dalliance.

As Kathryn and Chris stumble into polyamory, Next Year, For Sure tracks the tumultuous, revelatory, and often very funny year that follows. When Chris’s romance with Emily grows beyond what anyone anticipated, both Chris and Kathryn are invited into Emily’s communal home, where Kathryn will discover new romantic possibilities of her own. In the confusions, passions, and upheavals of their new lives, both Kathryn and Chris will be forced to reconsider their past and what they thought they knew about love.

Rating: 4/5 partners

My thoughts

I have a lot of thoughts about this one. If you can artistically create a relationship with words, this might be the best example of it. At first, I thought this was some book about some dude who is bored with their current mate and looking for another. Granted, I don’t like Chris because he’s the type of insecure human being who can’t be with someone in a committed relationship. However, this book turns out to be the analysis of relationship all together.

When we first hear about Chris and his myriad of relationships, you think to yourself that he’s so womanizing jerk who drops one girl for another girl because of the way they look or their interest. But it turns out that he’s extremely insecure and doesn’t know what he wants for himself. It’s a tough lesson to learn especially when there are other people involved.

I think the entire story is an allegory on the types of people we tend to turn into in a relationship; those people who are completely dependent on the other. The people who don’t remember who they were before they fell in love. Being in a committed and long relationship myself, you can definitely feel a struggle to maintain a semblance of your “True Self” and also be with someone else.

Relationships are a shared life, not a single one. What you do may have cause and effect on your partner and that’s clearly what’s happening here with Chris and Kathryn. Chris finds someone else. They form some strange triad, not necessary a poly relationship but three people all involved in the same relationship. You see Kathryn peer off to someone else. You see Kathryn be happy. You see Chris miss all the little things about his relationship with Kathryn. Did Chris make a mistake? That’s the ultimate question.

The writing is quite simple, but beautiful. For a debut novel, I’m surprised the author didn’t go full tilt on eloquent writing. But the story has got a bit of depth. You can’t take it at face value. This isn’t a story about a dude who has two girlfriends. It’s more about finding yourself in the niche of a loved one. It’s more about seeing yourself be with someone else. It’s beautiful and while not the most thrilling novel I read (hence the four stars), it’ll definitely leave you thinking, who am I? Is this the person I want to be?
A Conjuring of Light by VE Schwab

March 22, 2017

If you’re into video games, this book and its series definitely feels like you’re playing one. I think that goes double for A Conjuring of Light in which they have to fight a mega boss; a shadowy creature that inhabits its prey and forces them to do things. What would you do with your rag-tag team of magical people trying to save London?

If you’re into anime, this is also a good one for you. I could easily see this book series as an animated series as well. I guess that’s why it’s being optioned right now for a TV show!

Synopsis (from Goodreads.com)

Witness the fate of beloved heroes – and enemies.

THE BALANCE OF POWER HAS FINALLY TIPPED…
The precarious equilibrium among four Londons has reached its breaking point. Once brimming with the red vivacity of magic, darkness casts a shadow over the Maresh Empire, leaving a space for another London to rise.

WHO WILL CRUMBLE?
Kell – once assumed to be the last surviving Antari – begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. And in the wake of tragedy, can Arnes survive?

WHO WILL RISE?
Lila Bard, once a commonplace – but never common – thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery of the Night Spire collects his crew, attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible.

WHO WILL TAKE CONTROL?
And an ancient enemy returns to claim a crown while a fallen hero tries to save a world in decay.

Rating: 3/5 black-eyed princes

My thoughts

I want to be really honest with you here. I love this book. I love this series. I love that it’s come to an end and everything is tied up into a nice little bow. But there was something about reading it that irked me. I think it had something to do with the length.

VE Schwab is an incredible author, but like many fantasy writers she falls prey to the world she’s creating. Every scene is detailed. Every movement is described. And for some, that’s an interesting part of the book. It helps to create the scene in their head. For others (like myself), it’s a little too much and sometimes it takes away from the rest of the story.

I don’t want my review here to influence you to not like this book. There will be tons of reviews who praise this book and find it to be an amazing end to a series. Trust me, I agree with those reviewers myself. But being the individual I am and the reader I am, I was a little disappointed by how long this final story was and how it dragged out a little bit. It’s the kind of thing that makes me like a story less. I’m sorry!

However, getting back to the good parts of this book, I swear it reads like either an anime or a video game. While you don’t get to learn about what Osaron actually is, you get to learn about Holland’s background. You get an ending that wraps up the entire series perfectly. You don’t get to learn about the origins of Kelly, but you’ll get some love action between Kell and Lila.

I think this books definitely has its ups and downs, but I want to stress how that’s never important to a novel. If the book is well written, it’s well written despite the things the author chose to omit. Perhaps they’ll be a prequel! Then that’ll be really fun.