Thanks to years in foster care making her tough and street smart, Nicki Demere is asked by the U.S. Marshals to join a family of three that needs to be protected from their criminal family, camouflaging them as a family of four. As Charlotte Trevor, she does what she can to help protect her new family while also being the most average student possible. But before long, all of the Trevors learn how difficult it can be to outrun one’s past.
I don’t know why it’s so much harder to figure out how to start a review when I like a book than it is when I dislike a book. I guess because it just doesn’t seem good enough to start out with, “This book is great!” But this one really is. I don’t know how plausible the premise is, but the author sure made it seem realistic, considering that Nicki isn’t the only kid tapped for “Project Family.” From the orphanage to training with the Marshals and finally to her new home, Nicki makes an impression with everyone along the way. I didn’t always feel like her voice was all that realistic to a 13-year-old, but on the other hand, her rough history makes her anything but average. And the way her past affects her in the present was written well and adds to her being quite the sympathetic protagonist.
There were some things about this book that were predictable (at least for me, reading it as an adult) but at least one thing that happened that I did not expect at all. Throw in few emotional moments, a style that’s easy to read, and suspense built in the form of brief mentions of the criminals trying to track down the hidden family, and it’s easy to see why this book hooked me. There were even several laugh-out-loud moments here and there. I read this at the same time that my 13-year-old daughter did, and she loved it too. She agrees that it was suspenseful and thrilling. High endorsement from the target audience!
It’s time for another Top Ten list from That Artsy Reader Girl. Today’s topic is my fall TBR. I don’t generally choose books based on the season (except at Christmas time), but I do keep a short list of the next 5-10 books I want to read out of the longer TBR. For over three years now, I’ve had a system for how I choose the next 5 books from my full list to move up to the top. Each next 5 books will include (not necessarily in this order):
1 book recommended to me by family/close friends OR a book that was self-published 1 book I own 1 book to continue a series 1 book that’s amongst the oldest on my full TBR list 1 book that’s an ARC, if needed (and it always is)
This keeps me from having any books on my TBR list too long, leaving a series sitting too long before going on to the next book, or ignoring books I’ve acquired for myself in favor of books from the library. And I’m not much of a mood reader. This system keeps me from feeling overwhelmed by my overall TBR (which is considerably small compared to most people). Using the system, here are the first 10 books I expect to read this fall (it’s just a coincidence that so many of them are mysteries, but it sure does work out well for the season).
1. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson Recommended to me by my sister – She’s recommend many good books to me over the years. She also works in the teen section of her local library, a county away from where I live, and chose this to be the book for the teen book club for October. My 13-year-old daughter will be attending that book club and is reading this book now, and I enjoy reading books along with her when I can.
2. The Cat Who Brought Down the House by Lilian Jackson Braun A book I own – I’ve picked up almost all of the books from this series at thrift stores. Though it’s also the continuation of a series (I have a lot of series in progress at any given time, so often more than one book in a set of 5 next up on my TBR are the continuation of a series I’m reading).
3. The Final Spark by Richard Paul Evans A book to continue a series – I’ve had my ups and downs with this series, but I’m 6 books in, so I’m invested now. Though the end keeps getting further away, because the author keeps writing new books…and that’s considering that this one, #7, was clearly billed as the “last book of the series” when it first came out.
4. ‘Twas the Bite Before Christmas by David Rosenfelt ARC from Netgalley – Though this book is set during Christmas, I’ve read another book from this same series that was also set during Christmas, and it wasn’t what I’d call a Christmas read. It just happened to be set during that time. So though I normally prefer to read Christmas books during Christmas, I also like to read Netgalley ARCs before or close to the time they’re published, and this one is set to be released in October.
5. Abby’s Letters by Dana Romanin A book that’s amongst the oldest on my full TBR list – This is the oldest book on my TBR, put there 3 years ago. It’s definitely time I read it.
6. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle A book I own – I picked up a copy of this book at a thrift store. I’ve never read it, but it seems to be one of the most well-known Holmes stories, so I’m looking forward to seeing what the hype is all about.
7. Divergent by Veronica Roth Recommended to me by my sister – She’s asked me multiple times if I’ve read this series, and renewed the suggestion after hearing that I’d recently read and liked The Hunger Games series.
8. The Viper’s Nest by Peter Lerangis A book to continue a series – My husband brought home the entire (main) series that he got for a good deal at a thrift store. I remember this series being a big deal when it was first out, though at the time, I didn’t buy the hype. I’m more than halfway through, though, and it’s been a decent series overall.
9. The Event by Whitney Dineen A book that’s amongst the oldest on my full TBR list – I got a free digital copy of this self-published book 3 years ago, and it’s been waiting on me to get to it ever since.
10. Snow Place for Murder by Diane Kelly ARC from Netgalley – I don’t know why cozy mysteries always have to feature a dog, a cat, or some kind of food, but this wintery book might just end up perfectly timed to read as the weather is turning cold outside.
Have you read any of these? What do you plan to read over the next few months?
Take Me Out of the Ball Game McGee and Me! #8 by Bill Myers
My rating: 4 / 5 Genre: Children’s Christian fiction
In an interesting take on the dangers of idol worship, both Nick and his normally wise father put all their hopes in a particularly athletic teen on their Little League team. Though the stakes are small compared to the lesson, it’s also a situation many of us have found ourselves in (probably with something other then baseball). It can be rough to be reminded that the only One you can really put your trust in is God, though on the other hand, life is certainly easier when we do remember that. Though I’m not much of a baseball person, I enjoyed this story overall. These books may not be easy to find anymore, but if you do have the chance to read this book or procure it for an 8-10-year-old child, I recommend it.
It’s time for another Top Ten list from That Artsy Reader Girl, and today’s topic is “Favorite Character Relationships.” I love a close relationship that develops over the course of a book or a series, or even one that is in place at the start of a book and is shown well by the author. For this list, I’ve decided to steer clear of romantic relationships and instead chose those between friends or relatives. I only ended up with 9, and I ran out of time to expound on any of these, so with the book name, I’ve only given the people in the friendship in question and a brief explanation of their relationship to each other. The book title links to the book on Goodreads, and I’ve shared a link to my full review of each book as well. It’s probably no surprise that each of these books is a 4-5-star read for me, mostly 4.5 and up. These are listed in the order in which I read them, longest ago to most recent.
Spoiler notice: For some of these books, the relationship could be a bit of a spoiler. If you see the cover of a book you don’t want to be spoiled on, please skip past it, just in case.
Kevin Parsons and Dr. John Francis – student and professor Thr3e by Ted Dekker – See my review here.
Sophie and Mamie – almost daughter-in-law and mother-in-law / Mamie and Penny, Thea, & Betsy – elderly woman and wards The Indebted Earl by Erica Vetsch – See my review here.
Beneath the Swirling Sky The Restorationists #1 by Carolyn Leiloglou
My rating: 5 / 5 Genre: Christian children’s fantasy
Though named after Vincent van Gogh and loving to paint when he was younger, 13-year-old Vincent wants nothing to do with art anymore, after realizing that he’s not as good as he hoped he’d be. So when his parents leave him with his great-uncle Leo, a painting restorer, during spring break, Vincent expects to be bored. He expects to be lectured about art. What he doesn’t expect is to fall into a painting of van Gogh’s Starry Night and find out that he has the ability to travel through paintings. Then his little sister gets lost inside the same painting, and it’s up to Vincent and his strange cousin Georgia to find her.
Full disclosure: I am not an art lover; in fact, I’ve never had more than a cursory interest in even famous paintings. Yet I really enjoyed this book and can say that one does not need to be really into van Gogh, Rembrandt, etc. to read and like the book. The author does a good job of allowing the reader to tap into the enthusiasm of the characters in the book, even Vincent, who tries to convince himself he doesn’t care about art anymore. The focus on that in the narration got a little repetitive and almost caused me to lower my rating by half a star. However, the story and characters outside of that, and the payoff to Vincent’s attempt at being dispassionate about art are all wonderful, so I couldn’t bear to give the book anything less than 5 stars.
As Vincent and Georgia try to track down Vincent’s little sister, they come across others that can travel through paintings—others whose intentions are not exactly noble. And Vincent comes face-to-face with his own worst qualities in a very real way. But in a fantastical twist, he also comes face-to-face with the One who sees everything he is and still loves him. I don’t want to say anymore about this, because it was the absolute high point of the book for me, the moment that I knew I was going to recommend this book to everyone, young and old, and that I will read it again and again in the future.
Thank you to Netgalley and WaterBrook & Multnomah for providing me a copy of this book to review. Publication date: September 12, 2023
The Cat Who Smelled a Rat Book #24 by Lilian Jackson Braun
My rating: 3.5 / 5 Genre: Cozy mystery
Former crime reporter Jim Qwilleran travels to a nearby town to investigate a “dark cloud” over a newly re-opened inn, using the guise of a vacation. As his vacations often go, a dead body leads to more intrigue than he anticipated.
I kinda feel like the author is putting more page time into Qwilleran getting content for his collection of short stories or his twice-weekly newspaper column than into the episodic mysteries. The mystery in this book takes leaps forward that don’t allow for much intrigue or suspense. Still, I do generally enjoy the happenings in Moose County, as well as the characters. What I did not enjoy in this book, though, was the side plot where Polly is on vacation with her sister and sends postcards back to Qwilleran hinting at a guy she met and is spending a lot of time with. Qwilleran and Polly’s long-term relationship has started to wear on me, since they tend to go back and forth being jealous of each other, and in between, are just super happy to be in this not-fully committed relationship.
Twenty-four books into the series, there is not much that hasn’t been done. And to be fair, when a book takes us away from Moose County and its citizens, I usually like it even less. But because of how many of these I’ve read, it’s also often easy to guess who’s going to be involved in the murder, whether victim or killer. Though in this case, I did have one guy pegged as being on the side of the bad guys, and instead he ended up being a victim, so I can’t say there isn’t still some unpredictability now and then. In the end, though, this installment in the series was okay, but not a stand-out.
My rating: 4 / 5 Genre: Children’s mystery, adventure
Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with The Maze of Bones.
Off to Australia to find more clues, Amy and Dan Cahill seek out a relative that isn’t involved in the hunt. As they travel around the country—and outside of it—they are trailed by other Cahills who are searching for the same clues. As one Cahill seems to be trying to help them, another Cahill has much more sinister schemes in mind.
I enjoyed the trip to Australia, both the more populated areas and the outback, and then to some islands of Indonesia. Though the Cahills, and thus us as well, are brief visitors to most of these places, they still gave me a chance to learn a little bit about somewhere I’ll never go. Plus, I was curious enough to look online at some maps of the islands involved, which gave me a nice visual. The story was similar in pacing, mystery, and intrigue to previous books in the series, and I didn’t notice any major differences in characterization either. Amy and Dan seem to be maturing, which one would expect, given when they’ve gone through so far.
I suppose it’s all on purpose, but I struggle a lot with a book series in which I truly cannot trust anyone except the two main characters. And more than that, even supposed deaths can’t be trusted in this series. This book in particular introduced a dangerous new character, (maybe) lost an existing one, and started to cast suspicion on someone that’s seemed trustworthy from the start. I do appreciate being given some insight into the death of Amy and Dan’s parents and assume more information about that will come in later books.
While I have had some frustrations with the series, and with this book in particular—for example, how do the other Cahills always seem to know where Dan and Amy are going to be? Sometimes it can be explained by saying they’re going to an obvious place to find clues, but randomly going surfing, spur of the moment, and being found by the Holts? Really? Who’s the mole in this outfit?—from past experience, I think they’re the kind of thing that kids won’t be as bothered by. There is a lot that I enjoy about this series, and now that I’m more than halfway through it, I’m pretty invested. I really do want to know what’s going to happen, especially since, as of this book, I have developed a theory and a prediction about the ending. It’s the kind of thing I feel like I should have been able to start guessing at sooner, but that kids of the age this series is meant for might not think of at all. I’m looking forward to seeing if I’m right!
It’s time for another Top Ten list from That Artsy Reader Girl, and today’s topic is “Books That Defied My Expectations.” I came up with more than 10 pretty easily when looking through the list of books I’ve read and reviewed in the last 4 years on this blog and narrowed it down to those that I felt most strongly about, one way or the other.
I am going both ways with this—books that I expected to like that I didn’t and books I didn’t particularly expect to enjoy that I liked a lot. I don’t generally read a book that I don’t expect to like, but it does happen, usually because it was recommended to me by someone I trust or am close to. And there are a lot of books I’ve read that I didn’t end up liking, but to make it on this list, I had to have good reason to suspect I would really like it.
I’m starting, though, with two books that defied my expectations of their purported genre:
Trace of Doubt and Facing the Enemy by DiAnn Mills These are the second and third books I read by this author, and I had liked the first one enough to give it 4 stars. So it was a shock to realize from both of these books that I don’t really like the author’s writing style…like, at all. The 2nd one made me question my sanity a little, since I noted so many confusing and disjointed dialog and narration in it, and yet, the book has almost exclusively 4- and 5-star reviews on Goodreads (it just released today). See my reviews for Trace of Doubt and Facing the Enemy here.
Lost and Found by Orson Scott Card When I was brand new on Netgalley, I was shocked and excited when I was approved to read an ARC by a big name like Orson Scott Card. I’d never read anything written by him, but had always extolled the greatness of Ender’s Game. Suffice it to say, when I did not enjoy the book much at all, it was a huge surprise and letdown. I was a little less surprised when I didn’t really enjoy Ender’s Game either. See my review here.
Click Here to Start by Denis Markell When my daughter (currently 13) recommends books to me, I always read them and I always want to love them. Between her recommendation and the story being about escape rooms, I was really expecting to love this book. Unfortunately, it was probably my love of escape rooms that made this book not really work for me. See my review here.
Books I enjoyed but didn’t really expect to:
Lock In by John Scalzi When I first started looking for sci fi and fantasy books to read to help me with my own writing, this was one of the first ones on my radar. My husband owned it, and I’d see it sitting around the house and know that it had some similarities to my own book. But at that time, I hadn’t read much sci fi, if any, certainly none written for adults. I thought it would be dry and that I would struggle to follow the worldbuilding, but it was quite the opposite. I thoroughly enjoyed it and plan to re-read it at least once in the future. See my review here.
4 Years Trapped in My Mind Palace by Johan Twiss As a self-published author, I never want to assume that other self-published books aren’t going to be good. But the sad fact is, so many of them really needed more work before they were published. So I don’t avoid reading self-published books, but I tend to go into them with low expectations. This one blew my expectations right out of the water! It’s creative and well-written, an unusual take on historical fiction with some fantasy thrown in. See my review here.
The Giver by Lois Lowry Knowing that this is a book read in schools (though I never read it in school), combined with the cover, I think I’d filed this book away in my mind as some boring drama. My sister bought the whole series for me for Christmas, so I gave it a chance. I guess it’s a classic case of not judging a book by its cover—not only was I completely wrong about what the book is about, it was anything but boring. I loved it! See my review here.
Dragon and Thief by Timothy Zahn My husband bought me this book (he hadn’t read it, but recognized the author as the writer of several Star Wars books that he liked), the first in a space opera series. Space opera is really not my thing, though, and based on that and the synopsis, I had made the decision to pass on reading it. Then I thought—I already own the book and it’s not exactly long; it won’t take long to give it a try. I’m so glad I did, because I ended up really enjoying it. See my review here.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins From my review: “I didn’t want to read this book. I never planned to and was content with knowing nothing more about it than the basic premise. (I’ve never seen any of the movies either.) The main reason I stayed away is due to an aversion to heavy violence and death, and of course a book that involves a couple dozen teenagers being forced to kill each other is going to have plenty of that. I finally decided to read it after my son (who has seen the movies, but not read the books) tried to tell me that I might not be giving it a fair assessment, and of course, he was absolutely correct. And I did struggle still early on in the book, considering walking away because I was dreading what was to come. But I stuck it out, and boy, did I not expect to like it this much.” I have now read the entire series, including the prequel, and am already looking forward to re-reading it someday. I haven’t watched the movies yet and will probably wait until after I read them again to do so. See the rest of my review here.
Have you read any of these? What’s on your list this week?
I read 15 books last month, a 2nd month of reading a lot more than I did the first half of the year. The total page count was comparatively high as well, not much less than last month, when I read 8 more books than this month.
This list includes 1 ARC. My favorite book from August was The Woman from Lydia. I started 0 series, continued 6 series, and finished 2 series. My ever-changing short list of to-be-reads, as well as a flag for the book I’m currently reading and an ongoing list of those I’ve read and posted about can be found here.
I’m also keeping my Goodreads page updated with a more extensive list of to-be-reads. Despite my almost too-long TBR list, I’m always looking for more to add. Feel free to offer suggestions of your favorites or just recent reads you enjoyed.
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes The Hunger Games prequel by Suzanne Collins
My rating: 4 / 5 Genre: YA dystopian
Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for The Hunger Games trilogy.
This is the kind of book that is difficult to rate and review, because it is a book that is meant to be at least somewhat disturbing, as we follow a major villain’s descent into the dark. I’m not normally one who’s interested in a villain’s origin story, and it was no different with President Snow, especially after reading the part in The Mockingjay about his ever-present floral fragrance covering up his rotting mouth. It made my disgust more literal. But I decided to read this book to finish out the series; it just felt like something would be missing if I didn’t. Keep in mind, though, as you read the rest of this review, that I only read The Hunger Games trilogy for the first time pretty recently. That almost definitely makes my view of this prequel different in some ways from those who’ve known and loved the series for a long time.
Through parts 1 and 2, I was invested in the story. I think Collins did a good job giving us a somewhat sympathetic protagonist who feels trapped by circumstances. And he’s really as manipulated in some ways as Katniss is in her story. I’m not sure I ever fully understood what gives Dr. Gaul so much power, but she’s Snow’s own version of himself to Katniss in some ways. The main difference, though, is that Snow actually does begin to see things from Gaul’s point of view, which is part of the indication that he’s beginning to lose his grip on morality. This book’s Hunger Games and the lead-up to them, while being totally primitive compared to those in the main series, provide a compelling backdrop to Snow’s beginning steps toward depravity—the deception, the cheating, his first kill—things that he can rationalize at first.
Part 3 took a large turn that involved a fairly steep drop-off in action and interest for me, but the psychology of the villain’s slide was still there. And while it looks like things could actually go well for Snow, of course we know it can’t end happily, because we know who he becomes later, and it’s not this family man he envisions himself becoming. In truth, I don’t think he ever had the capacity for a normal, happy life. I’ve read several reviews that say his downturn happened suddenly at the end, but I would maintain that those people weren’t paying close enough attention during the rest of it. Snow makes many decisions that he justifies as being out of love—for his family, for his tribute—but really, the most important decisions he makes are only for himself, for family pride, to maintain his standing in society, however you want to spin it, it’s all selfishness. I do think he cares about his cousin and loved his mom. But even his cousin he puts one over on in the end for his own selfish gain. Yes, there’s a turning point at the end of the book where he makes a more deliberate choice, but I can see the rest of the book pointing right to it.
So that’s why my rating is 4 stars. And when I re-read this series in the future, which I definitely will, maybe even soon, I will probably not always finish with this book, but I will read it again at some point, I’m sure. I don’t know that I ever felt the need to know what made President Snow the monster he is in the original trilogy, but I still really appreciated this book. It’s quite polarizing, though, so if you’re wondering whether you should read it or not…that’s up to you.
A Journey of Words 