books

Archangel’s Sun by Nalini Singh [Guild Hunter Book Review]

 in Adult / Books by

Summary

“The Archangel of Death and the Archangel of Disease may be gone but their legacy of evil lives on – especially in Africa, where the shambling, rotting creatures called the reborn have gained a glimmer of vicious intelligence.

It is up to Titus, archangel of this vast continent, to stop the reborn from spreading across the world. Titus can’t do it alone, but of the surviving powerful angels and archangels, large numbers are wounded, while the rest are fighting a surge of murderous vampires.

There is no one left . . . but the Hummingbird. Old, powerful, her mind long a broken kaleidoscope. Now she must stand at Titus’s side against a tide of death, upon a discovery more chilling than any other. For the Archangel of Disease has left them one last terrible gift . . .”

-From Amazon.com

Review

Oh man, Nalini Singh does it again with another absolutely incredible book! It’s been a while since I read one of her books and was behind on a few releases, so over the past weekend I made some impulse purchases and have been absolutely devouring them. 24 hours to get through this one!

A Beautiful & Intricate Story 

The Guild Hunter series is such a journey, getting to see all the main characters and even side characters, getting to see their life, their love and their pain. That is what I love about this series. While of course it is a romance story, there is just so much more than that! There is a story in each book and an overarching story throughout the series that keeps you turning pages.

Nalini Singh is a master with writing honestly. She writes with lots of beautiful adjectives, painting this ethereal picture of these creatures and places in her stories that you just feel transported there. It only take a few sentences to feel myself pulled into this world, experiencing what everyone is experiencing and just seeing both the beauty and horror.

Titus & The Hummingbird: The Perfect Balance

The Hummingbird, or Sharine, was always one of the characters I was so curious about. Her and her so Illium have wings in the book that are just this gorgeous indigo/blue color and I always wanted to know more about her. She was always referenced as this incredible artist and gentle and seeing her in this story was marvelous. You saw this wonderful progression of this woman who was perceived to be fragile who actually had warrior talents and was beautifully badass.

Singh always writes women who are powerful, kick ass, take no crap from men, yet have this beautifully sensual relationship with them and through that are just incredible. I’m always impressed how she manages to balance that fine line between the romance and keeping the woman strong and the men masculine.

Romance & Blood

This continued the story of all the reborn, following the destruction and mess created by the Archangel of Death and the Archangel of Disease. A lot of the story was following the clean up of so many of them and included the traditional Guild Hunter violence and gore that you all will be familiar with if you have read Singh’s writings before!

But in this one it was just so interesting to see with a character like The Hummingbird – a woman who was always presented as staying inside and being the artist who is now out in the thick of it getting down and dirty with Titus, the Archangel of Africa (who is just so very yummy!).

You got to see Titus go from an Archangel who was flippant with relationships and never promised anything more to him finding himself and questioning just so much. Seeing his transformation as well within the writing was just beautiful!

A Classic Nalini Singh Book! 

Every book that Singh writes I absolutely devour and love to read. I get capitated and transported into the world and honestly cannot put it down. This one was no different.

I absolutely give it the 5 out of 5 teacups rating, but definitely recommend you read it as part of the whole series and not a stand alone – although technically you could, just may be a little lost!

Happy Reading!

MyLibraryCardWoreOut is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This in no way affects my opinion of the book(s) included in this post. 

Save Me the Plums by Ruth Reichl [Book Review] 1

 in Books / Food by

Summary

“When Condé Nast offered Ruth Reichl the top position at America’s oldest epicurean magazine, she declined. She was a writer, not a manager, and had no inclination to be anyone’s boss. Yet Reichl had been reading Gourmet since she was eight; it had inspired her career. How could she say no?

This is the story of a former Berkeley hippie entering the corporate world and worrying about losing her soul. It is the story of the moment restaurants became an important part of popular culture, a time when the rise of the farm-to-table movement changed, forever, the way we eat. Readers will meet legendary chefs like David Chang and Eric Ripert, idiosyncratic writers like David Foster Wallace, and a colorful group of editors and art directors who, under Reichl’s leadership, transformed stately Gourmet into a cutting-edge publication. This was the golden age of print media—the last spendthrift gasp before the Internet turned the magazine world upside down.

Complete with recipes, Save Me the Plums is a personal journey of a woman coming to terms with being in charge and making a mark, following a passion and holding on to her dreams—even when she ends up in a place she never expected to be.”

– From Amazon.com


Review

I’ve begun to totally fall in love with books that are about food. Any kind of book about food I’m now drawn to thanks to the book group I’m in reading a book by Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential. Food, and good home cooked food, has always been very important to me, and reading about the importance to others and their journeys is truly a joy.

Food & Career Journey

This book wasn’t just about food but also was about Ruth Reichl and her career journey of a woman who really didn’t know anything about being an editor, but wanting to make a difference to a magazine that she once loved. I found it comforting as a younger professional to read about someone well into their career feeling so lost and almost having to start again. But reading about Ruth pushing through a very cut throat kind of world, while managing to keep up with her family the best she could, was inspiring to say the least. It was tiring just reading about all the work she had to do!

A Journey of Food Expression

Reading about Ruth’s journey with Gourmet and how they transformed the presentation of food, as well as combatted the creation of the internet and dancing around how they could utilize it. I sometimes forget how new the internet is and reading about these companies who had to suddenly find a way to present their medium in a new way, and a way that would get eyeballs and was worth the money, was kind of interesting to see tackled. Finding ways to balance what publication released what, what articles were posted where, and how it was presented was such a unique insight.

I personally found it interesting to read about the cover of Gourmet and how important the cover of a magazine is. As a consumer I get drawn to certain covers and since I don’t necessarily follow or read a certain magazine religiously, I don’t read too much into what is on a cover. So reading about Ruth’s experiences of the feedback she got on the magazine, like Gourmet’s edition that had cake on the cover, was something I had never even thought about!

A Rich Read with Recipes and Stories of Importance

One “unique” part of the book was the fact that there were recipes in there! You were able to read about various meals and Ruth’s experience with them and then you got to get the recipe to be able to attempt to make it yourself. There were only a handful of recipes written out but they were the ones that were the most important to the story and had an impact on Ruth’s life in some way, or at least that was how it was presented.

I find recipes, or certain meals, have certain important to people or are intrinsically related to certain events. Save Me the Plums definitely pulled out a few that were important to both her story and the story of Gourmet.

Food as a Unifier – Especially after 9/11

The mention of 9/11 took up a section of this book and the horror of that day and the days that followed. It moved me to tears reading about how the food community pulled together after the tragedy and, while they were all hurting, began to cook food to serve to the rescue workers. Reading about Ruth’s experiences going down to the site to deliver the food, seeing how many other restaurants and cooks delivered, and the appreciation people had for something as simple as chili really was impactful.

It made you remember and realize how important food is to people. Food is memories and comfort. Food unifies people and people have been breaking bread to resolve conflict or make connections for millennia.

Save Me the Plums accurately conveyed the importance that food has to people and how personal food is. Food, and a good meal in general, doesn’t need to be super fancy. Something as simple as a piece of chocolate cake, or a bowl of chili, is all you need.

Absolutely a 5/5 teacup read!

Happy Reading!


The Alienist by Caleb Carr [Book Review]

 in Adult / Books / Fiction / Older Readers by
This post contains affiliate links. Please see my full disclosure here.

Summary

“The year is 1896. The city is New York. Newspaper reporter John Schuyler Moore is summoned by his friend Dr. Laszlo Kreizler—a psychologist, or “alienist”—to view the horribly mutilated body of an adolescent boy abandoned on the unfinished Williamsburg Bridge. From there the two embark on a revolutionary effort in criminology: creating a psychological profile of the perpetrator based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who will kill again before their hunt is over.

Fast-paced and riveting, infused with historical detail, The Alienist conjures up Gilded Age New York, with its tenements and mansions, corrupt cops and flamboyant gangsters, shining opera houses and seamy gin mills. It is an age in which questioning society’s belief that all killers are born, not made, could have unexpected and fatal consequences.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

This was such an absolutely phenomenal read and I honestly fell in love with it within the first few pages. If you have a stronger stomach and don’t mind some graphic gore (and if you do mind it, honestly, you know it’s coming and can skim over it without losing much of the story), this is absolutely, absolutely worth the read!

Like Sherlock Holmes on Steroids

From the moment you start this book, you feel transported into this Sherlock Holmes type world. Based around 1896, you really feel as if you’re in New York City that is developing, still full of immigrants who are arriving by the day, stories of Indians and the Frontier, and just the general feelings and struggles that people faced. This was a traditional style murder mystery book but with just so much more. Carr is a master at weaving bits of history together into a story that really helps you feel as if you are joining the main characters on this journey to solve the gruesome murder of a young boy prostitute.

The world that Carr was able to weave with both the creation of the city, the language used by characters and the general scene setting really makes you feel as if you are there! The group doing the investigating had a main two – Moore and Kreizler – who definitely gave a Sherlock and Watson kind of vibe.

Graphic & Gore

Now this book, I would say, isn’t for the faint of stomach per se. The book is incredibly violent – about the murder of a young boy prostitute and is filled with detailed accounts of the state of various bodies and mutilation’s, as well as talks of gay child prostitution. There’s lots of topics and aspects of the book that are scandalous and taboo on so many levels and can make you feel a little sick to your stomach.

But, depending on your constitution and how you can handle these things and your willingness for an experience, you will have just that – an experience. You get to have similar feelings to the characters when they come across various bodies and situations – feelings of repulsion, disgust and horror. To me, this added a lot to the book and the whole experience. But to be honest, I did have moments where I had to take a breath, re-center and then push on as it was just so realistic. Think if Criminal Minds had a lovechild with Bones, Saw and Sherlock Holmes. You will kind of end up with The Alienist!

Investigation Methods & Madness Galore

You really got to see how investigations took place during the turn of the 20th century with there still being so much corruption, a lack of established methodology. You got to read about the suggestion of using fingerprinting – which was not an established method yet – and how useful it was to seeing the treatment of Alienists, also known as a psychiatrist, and how distrusted they were. It’s was a very interesting contract to modern day how it is all accepted, and seeing the struggle that Dr. Kreizler went through in his profession and throughout the investigation.

A Wild and Wonderfully Murderous Ride

This book was beyond incredible and I loved every single moment of it. I haven’t read a book this fast (within less than a week) in a very long time. I made time to read this book because I wanted to know what was going to happen next and what new turn was going to happen. There were some really amazing quotes, scenes and revelation in the book, one of my favorite being the following:

“Mrs. Piedmont unlocked the room and then we entered. The first thing that struck me was that the cats didn’t follow us in. As soon as the door opened their mewing stopped, and then they sat at the threshold, looking momentarily concerned before they shot off down the stairs. With their departure I turned to survey the chamber, and quickly caught a track of something in the air: the smell of decay.”

I am absolutely going to be checking out the TV show and if I find the time, other books be Carr as both the story and writing were superb!

Have you read The Alienist? What were your thoughts?

Happy Reading!

 

MyLibraryCardWoreOut is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. This in no way affects my opinion of the book(s) included in this post. 

Right-Wing Book Extremism: Idaho Librarian Resigns

 in Banned Book / Books / Current Events by

Who would have thought that we would be in the 21st century and librarians are resigning due to fear for their physical safety.

Well, this is exactly what happened in Boundary County, Idaho where a librarian resigned due to threats from right-wing extremists due to pressure to ban LGBTQ+ books.

I’m sorry, but what exactly is the concern with these books? The themes? Last I checked, reading a book doesn’t make you a certain way. If that was the case, then I’d be a princess with a dragon as my best friend.

Reading violent books will not make you violent. Reading books with sex will not make you a whore. Reading books with gay characters will not make you gay. Reading a book with straight characters will not make you straight.

Kimber Glidden, the librarian, wrote in her resignation, “Nothing in my background could have prepared me for the political atmosphere of extremism, militant Christian fundamentalism, intimidation tactics and threatening behavior currently being employed in the community…”

Too many professions now are facing things that they should not have to face.

  • Teachers shouldn’t need a gun to protect their students.
  • Restaurant workers shouldn’t need to fight shoppers who are combative.
  • Librarians shouldn’t be scared for the life because of the printed word.

Librarians across the country have been facing difficult times due to books that are perceived to be dangerous. Even when the numbers of people actually opposing these books are small. Minority groups who are loud are making the choices. Which seems to be a theme in America. A democracy – which is what this place is supposed to be – is not decided by who is the loudest. It is decided by the majority. Yet we live in a time when the loudest and most violent make the decision. I mean what the hell?

The group involved in this – the Boundary County Library Board Recall, whose want to to “protect children from explicit materials and grooming” – are crossing so many lines here.

Books in schools are age appropriate. They will not be reading Mills and Boone books with raunchy sex when they’re in second grade. Any books that have gay characters will not be depicting explicit sex. But allowing children to explore who they are, learn that being in a box is not expected and not the norm, and expose them to life.

Life is not square. Life is not black and white.

The damage that removing books from children will do will be endless.

  • They will have no desire to read.
  • They will not question.
  • They will be narrow minded – learn what they are taught and accept that for what it is.
  • They will have no imagination.
  • They are are not “status quo” as their parents seem to expect, they will be loss.

Progress over generations is being undone by small groups of scared people. And that is what they are – scared. They don’t want their children to be exposed to other ideas and perspectives. They don’t want their children to question anything. They want their children to be like their parents, have the same view, and not be open to other perspectives. Which is such a dangerous path.

And when you start imposing your will on others, you get into even more dangerous territory. This goes beyond politics and political opinions (although that is certainly part of it). This has to do with the future, our future, the future of children and the world.

Happy Reading!

 

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Is The Threat To Books Really That Big? Florida Opt Out Has Low Numbers 1

 in Banned Book / Books by

With all the news recently that schools are creating programs to allow parents to opt out of their children reading certain books and even removing books all together, it seems like it’s huge deal. Every news article covering it seems to present it like all the parents in various states are choosing to opt out and supporting this new push.

But is that actually true? How many parents are actually choosing to do this?

Photo by Redd on Unsplash

According to a recent article by BookRiot, the numbers are far lower than the media is making it out to be (shocker there!). In Flagler County, one of the battle ground areas for the book issue, the numbers are as low as .15% of parents choosing to opt out of books. In Osceola County, the number is .46% opt out. In Polk County, it is .14%. Those numbers are pretty darn low!

This is less than 1% of students.

In other areas, schools are requiring parents to sign documents to allow their children the right to borrow books. Oh great, another form for these very busy parents to remember to sign. In one instance, only 23% of parents have signed so far. But does this mean the other 77% of parents don’t want their children to read? Or do they not know they need to sign? Or maybe they just forgot!

So what does this actually mean then?

🚫Book Censors/”Parents Rights” Groups, and others, DO NOT SPEAK FOR THE MAJORITY!🚫

These numbers, while they are only in a few counties and only focusing in one state, so far are a decent thing to work with to counter the current narrative. These numbers do not display that the majority, by any meaning of that word, is supporting or enrolling in these bans or restrictions. While in some other states, the numbers may be different and they certainly may change as we get into the school year, as of now there is still hope!

Unfortunately, like in many other cases, the media is talking a lot about what one controversial group is saying but not necessarily looking at, or even gathering, what the real numbers are and what other people are saying.

The loudest person speaking is not necessarily right. Nor do they speak for the people. 

The people, in some districts of Florida, have clearly spoken and this is visible in the numbers. Not many parents are engaging in this. Which is fantastic!

Photo by Sam McGhee on Unsplash

So do the bans matter then? 

Of course they do. There are still going to be children who are missing out on books. There will be children possibly lost when people mention these books. There may be arguments in the home with children not understanding what is going on. They may be bullied. The possibilities are absolutely endless with.

We live in the 21st century, at a time with access to more knowledge than ever – albeit there is also a lot of mis- and disinformation but there is a lot of amazing things out there.

With such a small percentage, actually not even a percent, being restricted from getting books, they will still hear about the books from others. They may get curious and research it. Who knows. Tell a kid not to do something, they darn well are going to.

But at the heart of this so far as the new school year begins, there are not many parents agreeing with, or to, these restrictions which is a good thing. A very good thing indeed.

So when you talk about this topic, or it comes up and people talk about how the country is falling apart (which isn’t entire wrong but at least not with this topic so far), make sure to note how low the numbers are actually. <1%!

Happy Reading! And fight on! 💪