The Raina Telgemeir Collection (A Box Set)

The Raina Telgemeier Collection (A Box Set) by Raina Telgemeier

.....yeah, I'm just going to review a box set of graphic novels. COME AT ME BRUH.

An amazon summary, "A box set of Raina Telgemeier's bestselling, award-winning graphic novels about family, friendship, and the highs and lows of growing up!

SmileThe true story of how Raina severely injured her two front teeth when she was in the sixth grade, and the dental drama that followed!
DramaCallie is the set designer for her middle school's spring musical, and is determined to create a set worthy of Broadway. Both onstage AND offstage drama ensues!
SistersRaina can't wait to be a big sister. Amara is cute, but she's also cranky and mostly prefers to play by herself. Their relationship doesn't improve much over the years... can they figure out how to get along?
GhostsCatrina and her family move to a new town because her sister, Maya, is sick. When they learn there are ghosts there, Maya wants to meet one, and Cat must put aside her fears for Maya's sake -- and her own." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Essentially, this is four books about different aspects of growing up. Since there are four stories, and I read them all right in a row, I'm just going to talk about my favorite, Ghosts.

Ghosts deals with Catrina and her little sister Maya who is sick. Catrina is super bummed to be moving away, but they are doing it for Maya's health. Catrina misses all of her friends and Maya was also asking after Catrina's friends as if they were her friends too. Catrina also kind of is down on her luck but laughs off a boy she runs into who claims the town has ghosts. He eventually tells her that ghosts use the breath of the living to manifest, and Catrina becomes overprotective of Maya who needs every breath she can get.

....that's enough summary.

All of these stories highlight different aspects of growing up, important aspects. So why is this story important? Because it deals with death.

Grief is such a complicated topic. I think this book kind of deals with the before; the acknowledgement that this person will not recover and you will witness them die. It also deals a bit with the after; of finding a way to make peace or come to terms with it. It doesn't have all the answers by any means, but it's leaps and bounds the steps in the right direction to begin the conversation.

....but yeah. Since these are graphic novels, and I'm only talking about one, I'm just going to end it right here before I dive too deeply into spoiler land.

Happy reading!

The Hand on the Wall

The Hand on the Wall by Maureen Johnson

This is the third book in a trilogy; I've reviewed the first book, TRULY DEVIOUS and the second book, THE VANISHING STAIR.

This is a mystery themed trilogy. If you don't want ANYTHING RUINED, DON'T READ THIS REVIEW.

Sidenote, I'm aware that I literally received this book around 4:15pm on January 21 (the day it was released), and I finished it by 7pm on January 22. I didn't stay up all night reading, I may have just waited at a dealership for some car maintenance to be done for a couple hours and, well now here we are. (...did I also furiously write up all the previous blog posts I've been neglecting just so I could blog about this book? also yes. what upppp)

An amazon summary, "Ellingham Academy must be cursed. Three people are now dead. One, a victim of either a prank gone wrong or a murder. Another, dead by misadventure. And now, an accident in Burlington has claimed another life. All three in the wrong place at the wrong time. All at the exact moment of Stevie’s greatest triumph . . .

She knows who Truly Devious is. She’s solved it. The greatest case of the century.

At least, she thinks she has. With this latest tragedy, it’s hard to concentrate on the past. Not only has someone died in town, but David disappeared of his own free will and is up to something. Stevie is sure that somehow—somehow—all these things connect. The three deaths in the present. The deaths in the past. The missing Alice Ellingham and the missing David Eastman. Somewhere in this place of riddles and puzzles there must be answers.

Then another accident occurs as a massive storm heads toward Vermont. This is too much for the parents and administrators. Ellingham Academy is evacuated. Obviously, it’s time for Stevie to do something stupid. It’s time to stay on the mountain and face the storm—and a murderer.

In the tantalizing finale to the Truly Devious trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Maureen Johnson expertly tangles her dual narrative threads and ignites an explosive end for all who’ve walked through Ellingham Academy." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Everyone is on campus, except for David, because David noises (see last book). Hunter has also joined them on campus on account of his Aunt's house burning down in the fire (including said Aunt). Stevie thinks she's solved the greatest case of the century, but, she FEELS like there's something more to the story. All of the present day deaths don't quite add up, there's something there that involves Alice, the case, and Ellingham... but what?

Stevie is losing sleep, barely eating, and has lost herself into solving the modern day three murders and figuring out how they relate to the original three murders. Everything seems to be a bit of a mess, she's behind on schoolwork, the world seems out of sorts with David (including herself), and she's coping with her anxiety as best as possible. The tragedies seem to be over at Ellingham, until Janelle's machine that goes about doing an elaborate thing to accomplish one small task, but something goes wrong. A canister explodes, a student is hurt, and it's decided that Ellingham will be closed down for the remainder of the term and students will be evacuated before a huge storm hits.

Unless someone convinces the students of the Minerva house to stay behind...

Dun dun dunnnnn

I LOVED THIS BOOK SO MUCH. This is what book two was leading to, and I love book two, but I acknowledge it for what it is (another step to the real solve of the mystery), and I kind of loved all the different winding ways the characters managed to come together.

My predictions/hopes in my book two book review were wrong, and I'm pretty happy that they're wrong. This turned out way better than I anticipated. With the modern day culprit revealed, well, it just brings so many more things together.

The past stories are so good, the present stories are so good, and everything just kind of lines up neatly but in a very messy way.

I just might have to start reading more mystery novels.

Since this is the trilogy finale, and I'm among the few who have probably already finished reading it, I'm not going to say anything about the ending. Except I loved it. A whole lot. It left me with that satisfaction of reading a tale well told.

Happy reading!

The Boy in the Black Suit

The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

What's that? I've read another book by Jason Reynolds? ...are you surprised? Cool.

This book does deal with grief, so just a heads up.

An amazon summary, "Just when seventeen-year-old Matt thinks he can’t handle one more piece of terrible news, he meets a girl who’s dealt with a lot more—and who just might be able to clue him in on how to rise up when life keeps knocking him down—in this “vivid, satisfying, and ultimately upbeat tale of grief, redemption, and grace” (Kirkus Reviews) from the Coretta Scott King – John Steptoe Award–winning author of When I Was the Greatest.

Matt wears a black suit every day. No, not because his mom died—although she did, and it sucks. But he wears the suit for his gig at the local funeral home, which pays way better than the Cluck Bucket, and he needs the income since his dad can’t handle the bills (or anything, really) on his own. So while Dad’s snagging bottles of whiskey, Matt’s snagging fifteen bucks an hour. Not bad. But everything else? Not good. Then Matt meets Lovey. Crazy name, and she’s been through more crazy stuff than he can imagine. Yet Lovey never cries. She’s tough. Really tough. Tough in the way Matt wishes he could be. Which is maybe why he’s drawn to her, and definitely why he can’t seem to shake her. Because there’s nothing more hopeful than finding a person who understands your loneliness—and who can maybe even help take it away." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Matt's mother had died, and he's trying to find a way to kind of get a handle on it. At school, he feels way more mature than everyone else, and is at school for only half the way. He tries to find himself a job, and attempts to work at the local fast food joint (the Cluck Bucket) that pays better than everybody else. But, Mr. Ray from the local funeral home, knows about his situation, and offers him a job. Matt starts wearing his black suit for his job, and well, pretty soon, he's wearing his black suit every day, even to school. When Matt attends funerals, there's an inner peace that comes over him as he watches other people break down about missing their loved ones. He also witnesses a variety of funerals. But, back when he was applying to Cluck Bucket, he met Renee. Whenever he visits the Cluck Bucket, he looks for Renee and basically has a crush on her. But then Renee's grandmother dies, and Matt attends her funeral, and discovers her actual name is Lovey despite the necklace she wears saying Renee. After Matt's Dad loses himself in a bottle one night and winds up in the hospital, Matt life kind of narrows down to school, working at the funeral home, and visiting his Dad with a bit of hanging out with Lovey in between.

That's enough summary.

As with all Jason Reynold books, I loved this one too. I loved the characterization of the people, the neighborhood, and that kind of different space of life. I'd like to think it gave me a better understanding, but as I'll probably never experience it, I'll never know for sure.

However, the whole book felt like a small slice of world that works to find love when grief abounds. Plus, I just loved the recipe book left by his mother. It was just such a heart touching, all around good book.

Just like all the other books I love, I have a hard time talking about it since I'm so hesitant to give away too much. So with that...

Happy reading!

The Stars We Steal

The Stars We Steal by Alexa Donne

I read an advanced reader's copy of this book; this book will be published on February 4, 2020. Undoubtedly, there will be some differences between the version I read, and the published edition.

Whose down for a space opera?

But this space opera has a lot of scenes where minors are drinking alcohol. If you're uncomfortable with that, don't read this book.

An amazon summary, "The Bachelorette goes to space in this gripping story about a young girl caught in a world of royal intrigue and lost love in her quest to save her family from ruin. Perfect for fans of Katharine McGee, Melissa de la Cruz, and Kiera Cass.

Engagement season is in the air. Eighteen-year-old Princess Leonie “Leo” Kolburg, heir to a faded European spaceship, has only one thing on her mind: which lucky bachelor can save her family from financial ruin? 
But when Leo’s childhood friend and first love, Elliot, returns as the captain of a successful whiskey ship, everything changes. Elliot was the one who got away, the boy Leo’s family deemed to be unsuitable for marriage. Now he’s the biggest catch of the season and he seems determined to make Leo’s life miserable. But old habits die hard, and as Leo navigates the glittering balls of the Valg Season, she finds herself falling for her first love in a game of love, lies, and past regrets.
Fans of Katharine McGee and Kiera Cass will be dazzled by this world of lost love and royal intrigue." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

First, calling out this amazon summary for having almost 1/3 of it trying to relate to other things whether it's TV shows, other books, or just general nonsense. Reading at you publishers. >_>

Anyways.

This is also a space opera. I read them from time to time, but like dang whoa hold on applies to this one a lot. To be clear, I'm not a fan of Star Wars, but I do love Star Trek. ...yeah, Star Wars is a space opera. It's like keeping up with the Skywalkers. I said it. Someone else said it me a long time ago, and I'm just spreading their wisdom.

Anyways.

Earth has become frozen over, and has been for like 200 years. Before it froze, different countries were able to create spaceships and send people into space. Amongst those are people who are considered royalty. Every five years, they throw an event called the Valg. The Valg is where the royals and wealthy get together at like roughly the age of 15 to 25 to see if they can find a match at the Valg. Leo is not having any of it. Her father is desperate for her to marry wealthy so they can save their spaceship and keep their status within the wealthy, keep their lavish lifestyle in space. But Leo isn't down for that.

Leo has made a water filtration system that she hopes to patent, and to make enough money off of to keep her family in place. ...but Leo also has the problem of her old boyfriend showing up at the Valg. He's made a bit of a name for himself since the three years they'd been separated and Leo, well, Leo may have been engaged to him for a night before she broke it off. She might still have a thing for him. It's fine right?

That's enough summary.

Number one thing that bothered me about this book - Leo came up with this water filtration system that would apparently save a lot of resources and what not... but she never spoke about anything remotely relating to science, mathematics, or anything kind of mechanically inclined. When one scene came up where there was some kind of applied physics and safety mechanisms, she was immediately like, "Oh, I've done this before which is how I know how all of this works." Instead of like... explaining it herself. ....so she was like, MY WHOLE DRIVING POINT IS THAT I CAN MAKE WATER FILTRATION BETTER!!! But she never talks about school, or really explains how she learns to do that, or explains how it works. There are some passing remarks of like, "Oh you know, I've fixed up our spaceship over the year," but that's not enough to explain who you re-engineered a water filtration system. Like. Calm down Leo. Explain yourself. Explain your education.

On that note, I didn't really enjoy this book. This really felt like spoiled rich kids in space, exploring all the different ways they were spoiled and rich. Making passing remarks about what privileges they had versus what the lower class dealt with. There was also some kind of politics that really just seemed misinformed and not quite clear, but people just like spat out random tidbits about how the world works kind of.

There didn't seem to be any real character development, there seemed to be constant contrasts between the upper and lower class, but they didn't discuss class differences in a meaningful way. It's also space. They mention resource management and what not, but ...it doesn't really seemed like they dealt with the realities of space. Like, there was no cold equations or anything like that. They were just like, "Yeah okay, it's space....but look at all of our other problems with like relationships and dating". If you're going to set something in space, like make space interesting. Ooo, technology, a holodeck, oooooo. Like I haven't already encountered that in various other forms. C'mon.

....so yeah. I finished reading it, because I was waiting for something interesting to happen. And you know... I'm still waiting.

Happy reading!

A Conjuring of Light

A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab

This is book three of a completed trilogy. I reviewed the previous two books, A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC and A GATHERING OF SHADOWS. If you don't want anything spoiled about the fist two books, I recommend not reading this review. It's about to get real.

To the tune of final countdown: It's the final booooook NA NA NAAA NAAAA NA NA NUH NA NAAAAAA

An amazon summary, "As darkness sweeps the Maresh Empire, the once precarious balance of power among the four Londons has reached its breaking point.

In the wake of tragedy, Kell―once assumed to be the last surviving Antari―begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. 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.

An ancient enemy returns to claim a city while a fallen hero tries to save a kingdom in decay. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery of the Night Spire collects his crew, attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

Time for some fun gross over-summarization of this book, because I want to talk about how I felt about the series. So here we go.

At the end of A Gathering of Shadows, the specter from black london which escaped into white london has now entered into red london. The specter has started to take over red london. It's seeking a stronger host than Holland, namely Kell, but Kell refuses. So, the specter is like AH-HA, to Red London we go! And everyone else is like, "CRAP CRAP CRAP!" The specter goes after magicians who competed in the tournament and their bodies essentially vaporize. Then the specter is like, WHATEVS and goes into the river. And everyone is kind of like, "....is that it? Nahhh, that can't be it." Then Hastra pops up and is like YO, THE CITY HAS FALLEN. And everyone is like, "AHHHHH" and they go to the windows of the palace to see a dark cloud descend over the city. The specter is also called Osaron (hi, I just looked at the book to see where the 33%ish percent mark is). Anyways, so Osaron starts infecting the city, forcing people to die in the river, get dusted, or like become his mind slaves kind of thing. BUT, it turns out that the Antari blood repels Osaron. So Kell and Lila (surprise, she's Antari - if you didn't figure that out at this point, shame on you), run around and basically kind of blood dab people to repel Osaron's control. They go into the palace where the king essentially corrals everyone into forming some sort of a plan. The monks have raised a magical barrier around the palace to shield everyone inside. So then, Alucard is there, and he's like NOOO, MAH SISTER, ANGUISH, and he runs out into the black cloud to find her. Lila is like, bloody hell, and runs out after Alucard to find him. Also, Holland is down in the prison because.... you know, he was the carrier of Osaron. Anyways, so we also get snippets of Holand's backstory (which were really compelling) and everyone discusses how to defeat Osaron.

You know, that's just enough summary.

So first things first, the book is like, hey, you should totally care about Rhy's parents, Emira and Maxim, who didn't really serve a purpose up until this point besides to corral Kell and Rhy's wanderings. BUT NOW, OH NO, we are supposed to care about them. We get backstory about Maxim for the first time, we gets bits about Emira, and like I know why, but it makes me mad. Like, you should have made me care all series rather than just now. C'mon.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the book, but that bit still makes me mad. Unreasonably. It's fine.

So, Alucard and Lila remain great, Kell is still there doing his noble martyr thing, and then along comes Holland. Holland was just like......freaking epic. So, we like the other characters and everything, but like Holland, you just get such a better more complete understanding of everything that brought him to this point. I just ended up liking him so much more, and his ending within the story was so like GRAHHHHH, eye rolling, but fine, how else would you have wrapped things up for him.

The book did do one of those semi-terrible things where it's like, you know what, here's an epilogue. On one hand, I will always appreciate some kind of closure. On the complete other hand, I turn into this hypercritical weirdo. In my mind, a good epilogue should include an aspect of the villain of the story; it should have something where the main conflict has had lingering, echoing effects that still have to be addressed. A good epilogue gives you just enough about a character's life that hints that they are now leading a life that may satisfy them based on their previous needs/wants brought up earlier in the books/series. HOWEVER, it does not tell you too much where you know exactly how well they're doing in life. A good epilogue should also kind of tie up any lingering loose threads. ...but it also shouldn't contain anything that completely changes how you look at a character/what you know about them.

This book, it mostly succeeded at a good epilogue. I know the final section is titled Anoshe (which means farewell of sorts in Arnesian, which sidenote, I REALLY loved all the language play in these books which I think I've failed to talk about until this point), but STILL. So like, you've probably figured it out by now, the main reason I'm mad at the epilogue is because of how they dealt with Holland in the end. It's very.... grating.

Anyways.

It was a solid trilogy. I loved it. It was great to read it once it was all done. I honestly think if I had read them as they were released, I suspect I would have loved book 1, been so annoyed with book 2 that I would threaten not to read book 3 to the point where I wouldn't pick up book 3 unless it was right in front of me... and then would have stumbled across book 3 at some point and read it. It was worth the read.

Happy reading!