Book Review: The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was SO COZY. I enjoyed every bit of it, even yelled "LET THIS GIRL HAVE HER JAM SHOP AND HER REMEDIES ON THE SIDE!"

Kiela and Caz has to be one of my favorite characters of all time. They work together to see how they can solve the island they live on and on top of that make sure that the magic they are working on is secretive and is also called "remedies". What Kiela didn't expect was to fall for a seahorse farmer named Larran and the whole village (all except one grumpy old man who can sit his tail down) protecting her and Caz and a cactus named "Meep" who is adorable at the same time.

This book feels like a weird magical version of a cozy game (I'm not knocking it, but it's not my style) and you get to read Kiela minding her business farming some fruits for some nice jam and making it into jams for people who want some. I also liked how she became good friends with the people from the island and how at first she didn't want anything to do with them. She just wanted to be on her own, and talk to no one because she was a librarian and wanted to protect the books she brought with her, only for her to turn around and become and jam seller and also a place for magical remedies.

Caz was the one that cracked me up the most. He was always coming up with so many excuses for Kiela when she couldn't come up with anything, and also I really like Meep and how he became their character while they are helping Kiela save the island with one spell at a time. The books made me smile as I read them because they show that Caz, Meep, and Kiela know how to use them and want to use them very carefully and not mess up anything.

The islanders were the most favorite characters of all time. I felt like I could live there and never leave, and live my best life on this island. The relationships built on it were really cute and also pretty darn funny if you know what I mean. I want to stay on that island forever, eat all of the treats in the bakery, enjoy the seahorses, and have a very good time. Would read this book again.

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Book Review: Big Girls Do Cry by Carl Weber

Big Girls Do Cry by Carl Weber
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was yet another roller coaster that I loved so so much, and it happened in Richmond, Virginia...

Egypt and Rashad had just moved into their new house with Isis in tow after everything she did in the last book. Egypt and Rashad are very happy and in love...except they want one thing: a baby that they can call their own. Sadly, not even Tammy can give them a baby, so they ask the one person who can: Egypt's sister, Isis, who was still pining over Tony, who is a married man and had kids of his own. Isis agrees to be the surrogate for Egypt and Rashad, but things don't go well, especially when Isis is flirting with her sister's man and is still messing around with Tony. When she finally does get pregnant with Egypt and Rashad's baby, everything is fine and also annoying, with Egypt almost trying to control everything Isis does to keep the baby. But when the baby came, though...the eyes the baby had weren't Rashad's.

Turns out, the baby's real baby daddy is none other than Tony.

Now, during all of this, there is a second party that comes to play in the story. Loraine and Jerome are besties working in the same place and living their best lives. Loraine has the perfect marriage--or some people think since her husband Leon has been putting his hands on her. When Loraine finds a pair of red silk panties between the seats of her sofa, she starts thinking that Leon is cheating on her. It does happen again during a sorority meeting, when she was being nominated for sorority leader or something like that.

Things just don't feel right at home, and Loraine kicks Leon out, and then she turns around and starts seeing people--an army man I believe named Terrence whom she slept with under the stars near a beautiful fountain, and an old friend named Michael. Everything was going well, she was having a sizzling affair, and Leon crying that he wanted her back. Even in therapy she finally says that the sex was terrible (Leon is a one-minute man, apparently).

Jerome is a gay man who only wants the best for his bestie, but after he sleeps with one man named Peter McMann, that's when things start turning dark. With everything Peter is doing--calling him, sending photos of him with an aspiring NBA star, a woman who was paid to pretend that she was sleeping with Leon when in reality she wasn't, sending racy photos of him and said NBA star in the parking lot, basically stalking him and making sure that "no one can have him, only he can"...sounds scary. But when Peter tells Loraine and shows him everything he's done, the besties' friendship is over...or is it?

Really loved this installment of the Big Girls Book Club series, might be my favorite one of all time.

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Book Review: Something on the Side by Carl Weber

Something on the Side by Carl Weber
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a ride for me...a ride I didn't think I would enjoy, but I did.

Tammy wanting a threesome with her husband and her best friend Egypt threw me off a bit. I had a feeling that she was going to regret it, but then things started to get weird when Tammy started getting paranoid about her husband Tim sleeping around with Egypt and regretted even doing the threesome. But one night, her husband decided to get her to sleep with someone else, to get it out of her system. Unfortunately, that sparked an affair that made Tammy regret and think about her husband and she broke it off after Tim discovered that she was cheating on him...oof.

Nikki went through so many things in her life that she's in a happy relationship with her girlfriend, Tiny. She has a son with her baby daddy Dewayne who used to put his hands on her, but once she left and got with Tiny, things were good...until a new guy named Keith appeared and all Nikki could think about was Keith, which made Tiny weirdly jealous. Tiny tried everything to make sure Nikki was still her girl, even though Nikki was walking on eggshells around Tiny. When she starts to sneak around Tiny and be with Keith and starts to eat right, things are going well...until Nikki freaks out over Keith's ding-a-ling not being real and tells them to leave, only to read the letter and find out that Keith is transitioning, and she talked to him and decided that they should take it slow and be friends.

Coco was a straight-up freak- no pun intended. She uses men to get the most expensive things and also gets some on the side, until she meets Jackson Barneshill or something like that and becomes his mistress--the only thing is, she can't see other men. That was the case--she got her Mercedes, she shopped everywhere she wanted in NYC and lives in a bomb-ass apartment. It seemed like Coco had gotten everything she could ever want...until she met Mac Reynolds at a poetry contest and fell deep in love with him. She left Jackson to be with him, and then turns around and leaves him after finding out he was a porn star, thanks to Tammy's gift when she went to see her one day. Coco broke up with him and got back with Jackson, only to turn around and get back with Mac after they met and talked about it.

The reason why I'm putting Isis last is because good lord Isis got on my last damn nerve. Isis is in love with a man named Tony and wants to marry him. She kept pushing it and pushing it, until one day when she was about to smash him after a book club meeting, she got a phone call from Rashad who called her "Pooh". Isis tries to ignore him, tells him to leave her alone, and that she's with Tony now, and that's when things start to go downhill for her. One, when she's in Vegas she finds out that Tony is a married man with kids and decides that she's gonna go to his wife and tell her that she's been with Tony and they've been sleeping together. Did the wife freak out about that? Yes.

But wait--there's more to Isis's madness that even I couldn't even write.

Tony and Rashad do meet and Tony does kick Rashad's ass, but after all of that, Isis thought that she could crawl back to Rashad after choosing Tony...but it turns out that Rashad is with Egypt now, and that sent her into depression to the point that she tried to kill herself, and it took Rashad and Egypt to take her to the hospital to get her stomach pumped and to save her life.

All in all, this was a VERY wild book and I did enjoy myself reading it.

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Book Review: The Witchwood Knot by Olivia Atwater

The Witchwood Knot by Olivia Atwater
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Brittany? Reading a book in two days? Charming.

But all in all, this is my first time reading anything by Olivia Atwater, and I enjoyed this book SO MUCH. I didn't think I would like it the moment I opened the first page. Still, the more I kept reading, the more I escaped into this world and cheered for Winnie as she tried to figure out how to get her Robert back and at the same time, not make deals with faeries and try to undo a knot that has been around the house for a long time. I was freaked out by Robert Murray's father, like freaked out to the point that I shuddered each time he touched her and stroked her hair or did something very creepy to her.

I didn't trust Mr. Quincy for the longest in this book-I kept looking at him sideways as he appeared and then disappeared and tried to do things in the sneakest way and it freaked me out to the point that when he started to help Winnie fight the faeries and help get her charge back was actually pretty cool. His magic and the magic system in this book were very interesting to read about. It was also very cozy, like a warm, gothic hug.

The many faeries and the monsters in the book were also pretty fun to read about as well, because they were fascinating and different, and the faerie tales were also pretty fun to read, like a backstory about what happened to both the characters and how they're going to fight the person who's trying to wake up all the children of Balor so he can take over the world. I wanted to know more about these faeries and also about the one waking up all of the faeries as if he was up for a war or something...

It was really fun and exciting and I enjoyed myself very, very much reading this book. I need to read the rest of the series to see how it all comes ahead.

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Book Review: Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao

Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

THIS BOOK...Even though it is the second book of the series and it's the "What now?" book before the next book, I still enjoyed it, even though it was painful, gave me emotional damage, and made my voice go up each time I said 'I'm fine!' like Ross from FRIENDS in that one episode. This book made me scream, close to crying, gasping out loud that one time, and my mama asking me if I was alright, and that ending that made me go 'EXCUSE ME?!" almost loud.

Wu Zeitan got her revenge and took down the government, and she awoke a 2,010-year-old Emperor to pilot The Yellow Dragon. Who would've thought that the Emperor who awoke in this world changed everything Wu Zeitan wanted? But then, all those changes came with a price. Some people didn't like the way the world was being ruled by this Emperor who had been asleep for this long and was now listening to Wu Zeitan, who had become the Emperess and was trying to come up with so many ways to get him to change Huxia from the old ways to the new ways. The more Zeitan tries to make changes--making a new group of piolets called The Iron Widows, making a group called the Phoenix Ladies or something like that, and also making sure binding feet is not done anymore to women--everything seems to go to hell.

For example, the new revolutionaries called the White Lotus, led by Zhuge Liang, try to get people back to the old ways, decry the Emperor, and ask him to return to the old ways, calling Zu Weitan a wicked woman. Yizhi--we'll get to him later--betraying our trust over and over again by taking an egg out of Zeitan and combining it with the Emperor's sperm so they can have a surrogate and let them have a child, pretending to be on the Emperor's side but in reality he was doing stuff for the Heavenly Court who warned Zeitan that they would do what they did, to betraying them both in the end and running away to the Heavenly Court, where he was hiding and was actually in a relationship with one of the gods.

The end battle scene was so good. I hung on to every word to see how it would end, and I wasn't expecting that ending to happen, or the fact that the emperor is gonna do what I THINK he's gonna do. I hope he doesn't, because then I would honestly fight him. But the ENDING with that 'Mei-Niang? in Shinmin's real voice?

Ow. Just...OW.

I truly enjoyed this series and I loved this book. Is this my favorite book out of the series? Not really but I still enjoyed it nonetheless.

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Book Review: Dragons of Winter Night by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Dragons of Winter Night by Margaret Weis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sooo...this book was fun, painful, and also shocking. The ending was so painful that I was gasping and had to reread it repeatedly to ensure I was reading it correctly. Once I realized that I was, I also screamed into the void because it was just...so painful. Even though I didn't like the character that died, I still felt so bad about it. The splitting up the party thing was something I wasn't even expecting but at the same time it worked out for them, mostly because it became really funny, and reading about Raistlin becoming a show magician and Goldmoon singing that beautiful song...it was a fun time.

The first half of the book was about the dragon orb and taking it back to Sancrist so some order can look at it and discuss it. But when they go into a forest they meet this wilder elf named Silvara and she takes them through the forest, where the Qualinsti and the Kaganesti elves live and Gilthanas and Laurana reunited with their family again, which was kind of cute but at the same time stupid because the father was like, "The orb belongs to the elves, the humans don't need it, the humans don't need any help with what's going on," and all that good stuff. Laurana, even though split up from Tanis to go to Sancrist so they could meet up and see each other again, really didn't want to stay and be treated as if she was a child again, having no say and do what her elders and her father wanted her to do. So after talking about it with everyone, she left her people, along with her brother, who was in love with Silvara, not even knowing that she was a dragon.

Tanis and the others took the Dragon Orb from Silvara and took it far away from the forest and everyone else, and before they went to the forest and followed Silvara, they were attacked by a Dragon Highlord and they were fleeing and tried to run, but they did meet Alhana Starbreeze, and yes, Strum fell in love with her but they couldn't be together, which sucked but at the same time it's okay, because something TERRIBLE AND REALLY BAD HAPPENS TO STRUM. But before I get into that, Strum had to face the Knights of Solamnia all thanks to frickin' Lord Derek Crownguard slandering him one thousand times in front of the Knights, and it took almost a long time to come up with a punishment for Strum.

The punishment?

-Strip him of his titles and such
-Make sure he doesn't borrow any money from the Knights' fund
-He can't wear his father's armor anymore

The reparations because of Lord Derek Crowguard slandering him?
-He's the commander of the Knights of the Crown

Which I'm happy about, and Strum took it all in grace. But I think the funniest part of the book, even though I'm giving Raistlin the BIGGEST side eye ever, is Tasslefoot and Fizban trying to figure out the second dragon's orb and how to use it and all that good stuff. It is a fun time, and going to see the gnomes and how they operate was a fun time and I really enjoyed myself reading that.

Then the whole...dream thing was confusing, Tanis and Kitiara was the most oddest couple pairing I've read because even though they knew each other, Tanis was trying very hard not to fall for her, but then a moment later they're smashing and she's bringing up her brothers, Raistlin interacting with the dragon orb and starts to act VERY weird, Gilthanas falling in love, and at the same time once he realizes that she's a dragon, he starts to spiral and doesn't know what he wants, and Tika and Caramon...I...I have no thoughts on them. Honestly. I really don't.

I really did enjoy it, I am very glad to read this book and to also finally go to the last and final book in this series so I can finally read the next one, which is War of the Twins...yay.

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Book Review: The Whisperwicks: The Labyrinth of Lost and Found by Jordan Lees

The Labyrinth of Lost and Found by Jordan Lees
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was so good that I read it in a day. This book made me smile, gasp, feel all of the emotions when I was reading it. I wasn't prepared for how hard this story would hit me, and honestly, I was ready to rock and roll and join Benjamiah Creek and his adventures with Elizabella, trying to find her brother. This does deal with the topic of death, but it is dealt with so well that I was close to crying.

Benjamiah Creek doesn't believe in magic. He believes in facts and what is real. One day, he receives a doll that he assumes is from his parents, and when he goes to sleep, the doll comes to live as a bird one night and a monkey another night. Benjamiah doesn't believe that this doll is magic, but one night when he goes to sleep, it wakes him up and takes him to a Victorian-era world, filled with promises that are on coins, magic, and dolls that look like his.

Benjamiah meets Hansel and Elizabella; at first, Elizabella doesn't like him. She was upset that her brother was missing and no one was doing anything about it. Then she has an idea that makes her leave her house to go and find her. Benjamiah wakes up and decides to help her, even though she doesn't want him to go. The two go to a forest and find a box with a string in it, named Ariadne, but before that they find a whisperwick that gives them a fragment of a poem that leads them on this adventure of finding Elizabella's brother.

They break into a woman called the Viper's house to find a whisperwick, they meet her daughter and good lord this girl is a terrible person, and then they get caught, go to the mapmakers place to find information about the Minotaur and also find out that they were looking for Ariadne. The shocking discovery that The Minotaur is just a man and not like the famed mythological beast, and all he does is drink and go to sleep, and the betrayal thanks to the evil magus who wanted it so he could reunite with his love.

When they found out what happened to Edwid, Elizabella's brother, it did hurt so, so much. I wasn't expecting it, like I normally would when I read these books, but finding out what he was, how he died....ow. It was so painful that I actually did wanna cry.

This was such a good book, even though it is a middle-grade novel. It was fun, the pictures were fantastic, and I wanna read more of this book series, because this was such a really good book.

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