A Bookworm's Book Reviews

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom – Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault

Title: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Author: Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault

Illustrator: Lois Elhert

Genre: Children’s Book, Picture Book

Plot: A simple, rhyme like story about the lower case letters climbing up a tree. All of the letters are too much for the tree so the letters come crashing down. The uppercase letters come to comfort the lowercase letters.

Rating: 4.0 – a memorable kid’s book

Opinion: I remember my parents reading this book to me when I was a kid. I’d forgotten it until I saw it again at the daycare I work at. After all those years, I could still remember some of the lines from the book. The kids found it funny when the letters did something silly or had a funny injury. It’s an easy and entertaining way to teach the kids the alphabet outside of the ABC’s. The pictures are simple but fun. They’re bright and easy to identify the letters. I’d recommend it for anyone who’s got little kids.

Giraffes Can’t Dance – Giles Andreae

Title: Giraffes Can’t Dance

Author: Giles Andreae

Illustrator: Guy Parker-Rees

Genre: Picture Book

Plot: Gerald the giraffe can’t dance. No matter how many times he tries, he’s always tripping over his two left feet. The other animals laugh at him. Gerald runs away. He finds a friend who tries to encourage him. Will Gerald take his advice? Can he learn how to dance? What will the other animals think?

Rating: 4.5 – a sweet story about being yourself

Opinion: This is such a cute book. It’s a great lesson about being yourself and being different. It says it’s okay to dance to your own beat. It may take some time, but you can learn to dance. It may not be the same as everyone else, but be yourself. It’s okay to be different. I like that the book acknowledges that others might laugh at you. It’s okay to cry but to keep trying. Find someone to encourage you and teach you. The pictures in the book are well drawn. There are lots of bright colors. Overall, I’d recommend this book for anyone who’s got little kids.

Stand a Little Out of My Sun – Angelyn Christy Voss

Title: Stand a Little Out of My Sun

Author: Angelyn Christ Voss

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Plot: Sophie is the granddaughter of Greek immigrants in the 50’s. Her brother Niko has started helping their not Greek father, Tom, fixing cars and radios. Niko is a quick learner who adores his father. Sophie has seen the darker side of her father and doesn’t approve of Niko being around their father so much. Their father doesn’t approve of the family’s Greek traditions. Their mother’s, Christine, parents haven’t been as supportive of her decision to marry a non Greek. He’s also a part of some shady business that he’s super secretive and protective over. Christine has tried so hard to bring back the man she fell in love with. Can the family become united again? Will Christine’s parents ever fully accept Tom? Or will a tragedy drive them all apart?

Rating: 4.5 – a sweet story of a family’s road to forgiveness

Opinion: This was a super sweet book. I always love a story about families coming together. Though this time the reason wasn’t the happiest. I like how the author made the road to redemption take time. It took a different amount of time for different people. That made the book more believable. The book was more relatable to me because I work with a kid named Niko. The Niko I work with has a similar personality to the Niko in the book. This made what happened in the book all the more relatable. I teared up at certain parts of the book, which doesn’t happen when I read books that focus on people. When I told the real Niko about the book, he was very happy that I was reading a ‘Niko book.’ A lot of things happened at the end of the book, it felt a little different pacing from the rest of the book. But everything was wrapped up nicely. A fun little fact was that I won this book at an auction for a local mental health organization. An author from Corvallis donated it. Overall, this was a super sweet book. I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves a family’s road to forgiveness.

Our Infinite Fates – Laura Steven

Title: Our Infinite Fates

Author: Laura Steven

Genre: Fantasy

Plot: Arden and Evelyn have lived numerous lives, literally. Every life they find each other and fall in love. But their lives are always cut short. One of them kills the other just before their eighteenth birthday. There’s always some otherworldly creature following Arden and Evelyn through every life. With their most recent life, Evelyn’s not sure she wants to leave it. She’s got a wonderful family and friends. She starts to find away to stay in this life. Then Arden finds her. Their countdown to eighteen begins. Can Evelyn go through with her plan? Is there truly a way to live past her eighteenth birthday? Or will the creature following them catch them?

Rating: 3.5 – an interesting love through lifetimes story

Opinion: This was an interesting book. I’ve always liked the idea of immortality and finding love. I liked how the author played with these ideas. Though I wish the plot had been developed more. It kind of felt like it was slow and steady plot, then ‘bam’ everything happened in the last one hundred pages. I do agree with some other reviews that said the plot twist came out of nowhere. I wish the author had built up to it a little more, or hinted at it a little more through out the book. Some plot twists I enjoy, this one I didn’t love. It didn’t seem to fit in with the story. It would’ve been more believable if some of the other plot points had been woven in better earlier. I enjoyed reading about the characters past lives, but I wish I could’ve learned more about their past other than how they met and fell in love and the occasional plot development. There are some LGBTQ themes in the book. I was curious about the explanation of nonbinary of the book, so I asked someone I knew who’s nonbinary. The explanation made sense to me but I curious to see if that was a great explanation from someone who’s nonbinary. They said it was a basic explanation, but a good one, especially for someone who doesn’t really understand what being nonbinary means. Overall, this was a cute book. I just wish it’d been a little more developed. I’d recommend this book for anyone who wants a sappy, love over lifetimes fantasy.

The God of the Woods – Liz More

Title: The God of the Woods

Author: Liz More

Genre: Mystery

Plot: Louise is a camp counselor in the Adirondacks and has just discovered that one of her campers, Barbara is missing. The problem is that Barbra is the daughter of the camp’s owners, the Van Laars. When the police arrive, Louise is questioned and detained. Louise is adamant that she’s been framed by John Paul MacMillan, a family friend of the Van Laars. Investigator Judyta (Judy for short) Luptack is on the case. Her focus is more on finding Barbara, while her mentor focuses more on Louise’s case. To make things worse, this is not the first disappearance at the camp. The Van Laar’s son, Paul III (nicknamed Bear), disappeared 15 years prior. A local man was blamed. Not everyone’s sure he did it. When other similar things start to happen around the camp, Judy looks into old leads. But will she find what she’s looking for? Are the Van Laar’s connected to the disappearances? Was it a family friend? Or someone else? Can Barbara be found? What really happened to Bear Van Laar?

Rating: 4.0 – a good summer camp mystery

Opinion: This was an interesting book. It took me a little to get into the book. There were a lot of characters introduced at the beginning. It took me a little bit to remember everyone. There were also a lot of time and character jumps, but the author did a good job of telling who the chapter was following and when it was taking place. The characters were well written and believable. Though most of them seemed a little too stoic. Most of the book seemed pretty believable. The plot twist was a little out of the blue. It didn’t seemed to connect to the story as much as it should have. Overall, this was a good, slow and steady book. I recommend for any who loves mysteries

The Road of Bones – Demi Winters

Title: The Road of Bones

Author: Demi Winters

Genre: Fantasy

Plot: Silla is a young woman who’s always moved around. She’s not sure why. Then soldiers demand to see and her father. Her father refuses to go. He’s killed and Silla is forced to flee for her life. She stows away in a wagon until the soldiers go past. Then the owners of the wagon return. Silla tells them what they want to hear in order to save her life. Rey, the leader of the group, Bloodaxe Crew, agrees to take her to a nearby city while trying to achieve their own goals. Though Silla tries her best to keep everyone at arm’s length, she starts warming up to everyone. She becomes closest with Helka and Jonas. Helka offers motherly affection while Jonas offers companionship. But can Silla completely trust them? Can they completely trust Silla? Will the soldiers find Silla? Can they keep her captive? Or will the Bloodaxe Crew keep them safe? Or die trying?

Rating: 3.5 – a different style of magic and mythology

Opinion: This was an interesting book. The world the author built was interesting. Though I wish she’d developed it more. I liked the ideas she started with but wanted to know more about the world. It felt like there was a prequel I missed out on. Like I should’ve known the world already. I liked this kind of magic in the book. There were different kinds of magic. Magic users needed to learn how to use their magic. Not all magic users had the same types of magic. And not everyone had magic. Again, I wish it was a little more developed. I wanted to know more about how the magic worked and the limits of it. I wanted to know why more people didn’t like magic users and why they were hunted. I wished the author would’ve focused more on those things instead of the romantic plot line. I feel like she could’ve done so much with the plot and world if she hadn’t focused so much on the romance. I wanted to know more about the Bloodaxe Crew’s task before they found Silla. I wanted to know more about the magic and creatures in the world. I’m all for a good roman-tasy book but I feel like it focused too much on the romance and not enough on the fantasy. There are other books in the series, but I’m not sure about it because I didn’t connect with the characters as much as I wanted to. I wanted to know more about the characters, not just Silla and Jonas’s relationship. I feel like they could’ve been developed a little better. Overall, this was an interesting book, just not one of my favorites. I’d recommend to someone who likes a romance heavy fantasy book.

Someone Else’s Shoes – Jojo Moyes

Title: Someone Else’s Shoes

Author: Jojo Moyes

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Plot: Nisha Cantor is the wife of a wealthy businessman, Carl Cantor. She knows what she wants out of life and isn’t afraid to speak her mind, even if it pisses everyone else off. Out of the blue, Carl cuts her off and locks her out of the penthouse they’re staying in. To make matters worse, she’s just lost her favorite outfit, along with her favorite shoes. In a random coincidence, she’s accidentally switched gym bags with another woman, Sam Kemp. Sam Kemp is an average middle class woman trying to keep her family afloat while working at a job she hates. No they must find a way to get their bags and their lives back. Everything seems to be against them. Their gym closes, Sam’s at risk of losing her job. Nisha needs to find a way to meet ends meet. Nisha’s shoes keep disappearing. Can Nisha find her shoes? Can both women learn to work together? Or will their past catch up to them?

Rating: 3.7 – a good book about learning to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes

Opinion: This was an interesting book. I wasn’t sure I’d like it at first. Nisha bugged me a lot. Her personality grated me, especially at the beginning. But I think that was the point. I’m glad she was able to see life from a different point of view by the end of the book. I figured Nisha would do something like what she did at the end of the book. But I found it interesting that the book acknowledges that people change, but not everyone changes that much. Most of the other characters do just that. They change for the better, but stay true to the core of their characters. I feel like some of the theatrics of the book could’ve been cut out. Though the main characters solutions to their problems was very clever. It made it felt like an Ocean’s 11 theme, except with a few more things going wrong in a funny way. Overall, this was a good, enjoyable book. I recommend this book for anyone who enjoys realistic fiction books.

The Crimson Moth 2 – Kristen Ciccarelli

Book 1 of the Crimson Moth series is Heartless Hunter

Title: Book 2 – Rebel Witch

Author: Kristen Ciccarelli

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult

Plot: Rune has agreed to marry Prince Soren in order to give Witch Queen Cressida an army. Cressida wants to retake the Republic and restart the Reign of Witches. Rune wants to make sure her sisters, and witches, stay safe. So she helps Cressida however she can. Something deep inside her knows what Cressida is doing isn’t right. But Gideon, a witch hunter who betrayed Rune to the Blood Guard is lingering in similar circles. He’s tasked with bringing Rune back to prison. If he can bring her in, he’ll have his previous position as captain again. Gideon isn’t sure that’s what he truly wants anymore. Somehow, Rune and Gideon find a way to work together to get what they both want. But their feelings for each other, which they thought were dead, might be coming. Will their feelings complicate their plans? Will they be able to find a way for both of them to be free? Or will one of them need to flee again?

Rating: 4.3 – a good conclusion to an interesting fantasy

Opinion: I really enjoyed this book. This was a great continuation of a series. I still enjoyed how the magic was written. The rules were consistent and there were limits to what the magic could do. I liked that there were consequences to using certain types of magic. There was so much going on in the book, I thought there was going to be a third book. But the author did a good job of wrapping everything up nicely in a nice little bow at the end. The book did feel a little overdramatic for me. Some of the characters actions seemed a bit over the top. Maybe that was the young adult side of the book. It also made it an easy read for me. Overall, this was a great book. I high recommend it for anyone who likes a magic fantasy sequel.

Ghost Talkers – Mary Robinette Kowal

Title: Ghost Talkers

Author: Mary Robinette Kowal

Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy

Plot: Ginger Stuyvesant is an American living in London in the early 1900’s. When WW1 breaks out, Ginger helps out in a new volunteer corp of the military. This new corp is a group of mediums with military liaisons. The soldiers are trained to report their positions and how they died and any useful information they know before they cross to the other side. When a couple soldiers report that they were murdered, Ginger is determined to help find out what really happened. Her superior officers don’t believe her, so she’s forced to take matters into her own hands. With the help a ghost, Ginger searches for the clues that will lead her to who really’s behind the murders. Can she find out who’s behind the murders? Or will the murderer find her first?

Rating: 4.0 – a different side of WW1

Opinion: This was an interesting book. I enjoyed seeing another side of WW1. More people have written about the soldiers and nurses. But there were women serving in other areas of the war. The author did a good job of weaving the paranormal into a historical fiction book. The set up of the ghosts and how they reported to the mediums. It felt very believable. I like that the ghosts who stay who don’t stay consistent. That they’re supposed to cross over before they lose themselves. I also found it interesting that mediums could lose themselves trying to help the ghost soldiers. It was also interesting that mediums could step out of their bodies and walk around in their souls. I also like that they could only do that for a limited time. Made it more believable. I feel like a few things could’ve been explained a little better. Overall, this was a great book. I loved the blending of paranormal into the history. I recommend this book for anyone who loves historical fantasy.

First-Time Caller – B.K. Borison

Title: First-Time Caller

Author: B.K. Borison

Genre: Romance

Plot: Adrian is a radio talk show host in Baltimore. His show is called Heartsrings and it’s about love. The only thing is Adrian doesn’t believe in love. His friends and coworkers try their best to help him remember what it’s like to no avail. When a 12-year-old Marcy calls on her mom’s behalf. Marcy wants her single mom, Julie, find love again. This starts a journey of Adrian’s radio show trying to help Julie find love. Julie joins Adrian’s show part time. They answer questions and help Julie find a date. When her dates start going south, Adrian, his coworkers, and Julie’s friends help her find ‘better’ people to date. The more Adrian and Julie hang out in and out of the radio station, the more they realize that they get along really well. Can they become more than just friends? Or will their pasts catch up to them?

Rating: 4.2 – a sweet tale of finding love

Opinion: This was a sweet and sappy book. It almost felt like a PG-13 version of a Hallmark movie. I like that the characters went on a journey to find love. They kept the magic of find love but reminding the reader that love does take work. I like that it still felt sweet and sappy, but still had realistic expectations. I do relate to Julie in the fact that she feels like she’s out of options for finding love. We’ve tried everything and come up empty. So love will come up when it comes up. I can also see where Aiden is coming from. He’s hid behind a wall to protect himself from getting hurt again. I liked that when the characters had issues, they talked to each other soon after the issues came up. They asked someone else for help, then actually acted out what they wanted to do. On a side note, I talked with a coworker about the book. She said it sounded like Sleepless in Seattle. A minute later, I read the back and saw that the movie was an inspiration for the book. Overall, this was a really sweet book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who needs a sweet and sappy romance book.