In episode 33, we review The Alcatraz Escape, book 3 in the Book Scavenger series by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman, Rise of the Elgen, book 2 in the Michael Vey series by Richard Paul Evans, and The Hawthorne Legacy and The Final Gambit, books 2 & 3 in The Inheritance Games series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.
Also available on Spotify:
I read 15 books last month, another higher-than-average month, with a page count only barely lower than last month. It’s been a good stretch of reading for the last 3 months, but that will come to end in here in November, as I spend more time writing and less time reading. With my current rate of listening to audiobooks, though, the number for November might not dip as low as it has when I did NaNoWriMo in the past.
Here are the books I read in October:
Edgeland by Jake Halpern & Peter Kujawinski (2.5 / 5)
Dachshund Through the Snow by David Rosenfelt (4 / 5)
How to Be a Pirate by Cressida Cowell (3 / 5)
The Maze Cutter by James Dashner (2 / 5)
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie (3.5 / 5)
The Final Gambit by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (4 / 5)
Ms. Pennypickle’s Puzzle Quest by Chris Grabenstein (5 / 5)
Castle in the Air by Diana Wynne Jones (2 / 5)
The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek by Rhett McLaughlin & Link Neal (4.5 / 5)
Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible by Michael F. Bird (3 / 5)
And to All a Good Bite by David Rosenfelt (5 / 5)
Not If I Save You First by Ally Carter (1.5 / 5)
Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics: The Graphic Novel by Chris Grabenstein (4.5 / 5)
The Lost Lieutenant by Erica Vetsch (5 / 5)
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (5 / 5)
This list includes 3 ARCs and 3 re-reads. My favorite book from October was Sunrise on the Reaping. I started 2 series, continued 4 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.
In this book, Michael F. Bird explains how the modern Bible came to be, the need to take it in its proper context, and other nitty gritty details about the Word of God. It’s purported to be accessible to everyone, which means the fact that I struggled to understand some portions of it make me feel kind of stupid. Really, though, in a lot of ways it was similar to many other more intellectual, theologically deep books I’ve read, though not all the way through. Still, it makes me wonder why so many reviews talk about how easy it is to read.
As for the content, some aspects of this book were nothing new for me while others were quite new. For example, I’ve never before heard that the apostle John, the author of the 3 epistles named John, and the John who wrote Revelation might not all be the same John. My concern, though, lies in this book being read by new Christians or those who aren’t very strong in their faith. Even I, who 100% believe the complete accuracy of the Bible and the ability of God to protect His Word as it was handed down over the millennia, found myself beginning to question how accurate what I read can be when Bird gets into the details about how we got the Bible. Maybe that’s because he never quite touched on God’s sovereignty, that He had the power to guide the men who wrote, translated, edited, compiled, etc. the Bible and keep it intact to His wishes. On the other hand, He hasn’t stopped some translations and paraphrases from coming out that water down the truth, so therein likes the concern that this book could actually lead some people to question the Bible as a source of truth. His comments about learning about the historical and cultural context of the different parts of the Bible were intriguing though. I have no plans to try to read Josephus now, but there are more accessible options that I plan to look into. Overall, I can see the merit in this book, which my husband, who read a couple of chapters of it for one of his pastoral training classes, recommended to me, but I am not sure I’m the right audience for it. But I’m not really sure who is, since people who are newer to Christianity might not be able to follow some of it or might actually become confused about the authority of scripture and more mature Christians likely already know much of what is contained within.
Find out more about Seven Things I Wish Christians Knew About the Bible
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
In episode 32, we review The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek, a YA fantastical thriller from Rhett & Link (Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal).
Also available on Spotify:
Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the first book in the series, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library.
After their big win in Mr. Lemoncello’s escape game, Team Keeley is challenged by basically every kid in the country. They all want their chance at stardom (starring in commercials for Mr. Lemoncello games) and are unhappy that the contest was so localized. So Mr. Lemoncello grants them their wish, because hey, that means he gets to create more games! The top teams in each region of the country are chosen and invited to Ohio to compete for full college scholarships—against Kyle’s team. The only problem is that Kyle isn’t so sure he’s up to the challenge this time.
I read and reviewed the original book (see review here), so this review is less about the story and content than it is about the graphic novel format. That being said, I enjoyed the story a little more this time than the previous, and I think that might just be because the graphic novel format lends itself so well to this series! Mr. Lemoncello is such a character as it is, and he’s really brought to life in images. (Maybe they should have gone with animation when they made a movie out of the first book.) It’s fun to see the library itself, as well, and being shown the puzzles feels more natural this way (not that I’m complaining about Grabenstein including visual puzzles in the original books). As for this book, though, I think that fans of the series will enjoy this new format, but I’d imagine that the idea for it is more to encourage kids who don’t care to read regular books to pick up this illustrated version and enjoy the story. Since I had already read the original book, I can’t say for sure how the story will come across to a newcomer, but I think it would be a fun read for 8-12-year-olds!
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Children’s Books for providing me a copy of this book to review.
Find out more about Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics, the Graphic Novel
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
When Abdullah purchases a magical flying carpet, he quickly meets and falls in love with a sheltered princess who is then snatched away by a very powerful creature. In his attempt to rescue her, Abdullah ends up traveling with a band of magical and non-magical creatures alike.
I’m really sad about this follow-up to Howl’s Moving Castle, which overall was an enjoyable, whimsical book with characters that I fell in love with. Though Abdullah grew on me throughout this story, most of the rest of the characters were kind of flat or ended up being…something unexpected. The story is at least as meandering and difficult to follow as its predecessor, but without as much of the charm I enjoyed in the previous book. On top of all of that, I was really surprised by some of the choices Diana Wynne Jones made with this book. Two overweight women are used as compensation and grateful that at least they’re able to get married. In fact, there was so much degradation of women in this book that I kept forgetting that it was published in 1990 and not decades before AND written by a woman. I’m not normally one to point out this kind of thing, but it really threw me off. Plus, I’m not a fan of insta-love, which is a major point in this book.
Because of the connections to the previous book, there was a point nearish the end that I began to speculate about how Howl, Sophie, or even Calcifer might be included in this story, and that probably ended up being my favorite thing about the book. Of course, being near the end of the story, it just wasn’t enough to redeem the rest of the book. And to explain any further would involve spoilers, but I will at least say that I have read many reviews that lamented how little characters from the previous book were involved here, whereas I was pretty satisfied with it overall (after all, this isn’t a continuation of their story, but a separate story that they are involved in, and I think that’s pretty clear from the synopsis). If you read the previous and loved the characters enough to want to see anything else involving them, you might give this book a try. Otherwise, I don’t think there’s much to recommend about this book. There is one more book left in the series, and since it’s also narrated by Jenny Sterlin (who does a spectacular job), I’m looking forward to seeing if the last book brings back the charm of the first.
Find out more about Castle in the Air
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
At the urging of my social media director (aka my 15-year-old daughter who is much more “up” on things like Bookstagram than I), I have started to read the first book of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, a chapter at a time, recording my thoughts about each chapter as I go. The resulting reels are being posted on my Instagram account. Click the picture below to be taken to chapter 1 and my Instagram account, where so far chapter 2 is also up (I won’t be posting here with every new reel). I wasn’t sure how this would go, but it’s been fun so far!
When a man who once saved a puppy from a burning building is arrested for murder a year later, defense attorney Andy Carpenter is a little less reluctant than usual to take his case. A man who can save a dog’s life can’t possibly want to harm a human, right? This case takes Andy into another area that is foreign to him—high end art.
I may have sounded a little snarky in my synopsis, but really, sometimes Andy’s belief in a client’s virtue simply due to how they treat dogs makes me roll my eyes. Still, that doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of the book (maybe because I’ve gotten so used to the crazy amounts of dog love in this series). I always enjoy Andy’s team, and I liked seeing the inclusion of Corey, a former K-9 cop that is one of the major characters in the spin-off series, The K Team, which I haven’t read yet but plan to start soon. I really liked the angle of Nazi-stolen art in this story, which I felt was a fresh and interesting area to explore for this series. And the conspiracy, though twisty as always, comes together really well in the end.
Andy sarcasm in this book reminded me of why I love these books, and overall, this one ranks up there for me in this series. I don’t know how much longer the series will go on, but it’s good to know that Rosenfelt still brings an enjoyable story 32 books in. And Grover Gardner continues to portray Andy perfectly. If it’s not clear, I recommend this book (especially the audio) for fans of mystery, crime fiction, and courtroom dramas, as well as the books that precede it in the series.
Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for providing me a copy of this book to review.
Find out more about And to All a Good Bite
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
In episode 31, we review all 3 books of the Summoner trilogy—The Novice, The Inquisition, and The Battlemage—young adult fantasy by Taran Matharu.
Also available on Spotify:
Spoiler notice: The following review may contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with The Inheritance Games.
Avery Kylie Grambs is now only weeks away from inheriting the huge estate left to her by a stranger, but not only does she still have to live at Hawthorne House for the rest of that time in order to inherit, she has to survive. When a stranger shows up asking for help, Avery Kylie Grambs may not trust her, but she can’t stop the Hawthorne brothers from forming their own opinions—opinions which may or may not lead to destruction. A very risky gamble.
I wasn’t a huge fan of the first 2 books in the series, but I pressed on for my daughter, who considers this one of her favorite books series ever. That is mostly because I was not a fan of the love triangle/romance angle in the first 2 books, which was based way more on physical attraction than I prefer and involved Avery Kylie Grambs toying with the hearts of 2 brothers. In the first couple of books, I assumed Avery Kylie Grambs was going to end up with Grayson Davenport Hawthorne, if only because of romance tropes I’m used to, so I was surprised that she “chose” Jameson Winchester Hawthorne by the end of book 2. I thought that would mean that there would be a lot more angsty romance stuff in this book, but fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as I expected (not that there wasn’t some, though, including weird flashbacks to a scene that I figured I must have forgotten in book 2 but turned out to not actually be in book 2 and eventually, after teasing us about it several times, was shown in its entirety in book 3). But that means that I was able to enjoy this third book more for the puzzles and investigation, which were always the main draw of this series for me.
Though this ended up being my favorite book of the series, I still didn’t love it, and that has a lot to do with the fact that I started to strongly dislike Avery Kylie Grambs in this book. And Grayson Davenport Hawthorne. Though I liked Jameson Winchester Hawthorne more, so I guess the brothers part evens out some. (I still think they’re all ridiculous though). Xander, who has been my favorite Hawthorne brother throughout the series, retains his place and actually has an arc in this book that was one of my favorite things about the series.
Here at the end of the main series, I have to say that I am not much of a fan of Jennifer Lynn Barnes’s style. Both her prose style and her overall plotting style. In my review of the previous book, I mentioned that we seem to get an answer for why Tobias Hawthorne left his entire estate to Avery Kylie Grambs, who was a complete stranger to him, making it a very risky gamble, but in the 2nd book, we’re given a different reason, but with half the book to go, we find out that that actually isn’t the reason either, and by the end, I didn’t know if any answers given in that book were “final” or not. Yeah, no, they’re not. It’s one thing to let a story or mystery stretch over 3 books, but it’s a whole other thing to give “fake” answers along the way that are discounted in the next book. I just do not care for that. As for her writing style, if you were at all confused or annoyed by my usage of full names throughout this review, then you understand my feelings. This is not the only time I’ve seen/heard full (either first and last or even first-middle-last) names used in what is supposed to be a romantic setting, and I’d heavily dispute whether there is actually any romance in that. But here, it’s used all through the story, including by the villain, and I’m sure that’s not supposed to be romantic. Even besides that, Barnes has a tendency toward repetition, with phrases, scenes, etc. Like “a very risky gamble” being overstated to death by the end of this book.
I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to continue with the series that follows this one or the bridge book. Part of me feels like it could be better, because the love triangle will be behind us and Avery is in them less, but part of me feels like it could be a waste of time if my other issues with these books persist. I’m interested in one of Barnes’s earlier series, so I may read some of that to see if I can handle reading her books outside of this trilogy. As for this book and series though, I think most people probably won’t be bothered by the same things as me and would enjoy this more than I did. But if you struggle with high-angst love triangles or a love triangle involving siblings (or the normalcy of people who barely know each other sleeping together, which I didn’t even get into in my review), you might want to pass on the story.
Find out more about The Hawthorne Legacy
If you’ve read this book, or read it in the future, feel free to let me know what you think!
A Journey of Words 