Book Review: Star Wars: The High Republic: Path of Vengeance by Cavan Scott

Path of Vengeance by Cavan Scott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

"I don't understand your reference, but vengeance is my shit."-Shoto Todoroki, probably

Sadly this book was a bit of a miss for me. I was prepared for the vengeance to happen, and the Stars to start Warring...instead, it was a space opera about two cousins, Marda Ro and Yana Ro, and they are trying to figure out what to do about the Path of the Open Hand and how the Mother is very charismatic and is making herself sick with a four-legged animal named the Leveler and is pretty much telling people what to do. Marda is called the Guide, and she keeps disappointing the Mother and the group, so Marda goes out and proves herself by going on a little trip to get some eggs for the Mother so she can be back in her good graces. When that doesn't work and the people Marda starts to love start to die, she kicks off a war between the Jedi and the people on Dalna to either please the Mother or prove to herself that she doesn't need her.

Her cousin, Yana Ro, starts to get suspicious about the Mother and tries to confide in her cousin, but Marda doesn't want to listen. So Yana does her own investigation, teaming up with the Jedi to find out what's going on. When the battle breaks out, Yana tries to stop whatever the Mother is planning, and yes, the two cousins do come to blows, but they set their differences aside and they fight the Mother, which, turns out, was a Jedi's sister. Once the Battle was over, the two decided to go their separate ways, and that was...it.

I did like the battle, that was probably my favorite battles that I'll ever read. But it kinda felt slow for me, and it was almost a struggle to read it, but I'm glad that I read it and enjoyed myself.

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Book Review: The Bump in Their Forbidden Reunion by Amanda Cinelli

The Bump in Their Forbidden Reunion by Amanda Cinelli
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was alright, tbh. I thought he was a NASCAR driver, and she wanted to artificially inseminate herself with her dead husband's baby, only to find out that it wasn't her dead husband's sperm, but Grayson's sperm he donated or something like that? Which was completely fucked up, tbh. Then she left the hospital to go to the chalet her dead husband gave an address too, turns out it was owned by Grayson Koh himself, and the two of them spent time there, coming up with an arrangement: sleep with me, and I'll give you a baby.

O...Okay, bro? I guess....how are you gonna do that?

The spice was good in this book, nothing to run home and tell Mama about. Then there was a race in here that I thought was a NASCAR race, but sadly it wasn't-I think it was one of those Formula One races? I think? And the nickname 'The Golden Lion' was weird AF too, but honestly, I just enjoyed myself, it was a fun time, tbh. Not my favorite book, but it was okay.

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Book Review: Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation volumes 4 & 5 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi (Novel) Vol. 4 by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Good lord this miscommunication trope nearly KILLED me in this volume, but OMG the (view spoiler)[golden core story (hide spoiler)] and how painful it was...I nearly cried. And WEN NING IS BABY, he deserves everything, including A-Yuan. And I did crack up laughing when they meet up again, and also Lan Zhan got drunk and did everything Wei Wuxian did when he was younger was also very funny. I truly enjoyed this so much.

View all my reviews *~*~*~*~*~* Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi (Novel) Vol. 5 by Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book hurt my soul in ways I didn't think it would hurt my soul.

I tried to prepare myself when it comes to this book. I tried so hard to prepare myself. Instead, I jumped in, knowing that I would be in pain the moment I opened the book, because the Guanyin Temple Arc was painful. I was even thinking about the show in my head as I read this book. But I really enjoyed myself. The sex scenes didn't take me out, even though it almost did. I was honestly giggling and kicking each time they got together.

The short stories that were in the book were actually pretty damn fun. I liked "The Incense Burner", "Gate Crasher", "Iron Hook" and "Yunmeng". Even though the eight stories were pretty great, those stories just stand out in my mind because I really liked reading them and I felt like I was there. "The Incense Burner" made me laugh because they were going through each other's dreams and they were getting much spicer and spicer the more I read it.

"Gate Crasher" and "Iron Hook" were my absolute favorites, mostly because of the juniors in it and how they were solving the mystery of these two ghosts and trying to figure out the origins and how they can solve the mystery, with both Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian or just Wei Wuxian, which I thought was pretty fun to read and to see the juniors solve a mystery with help from the both of them. If you ask me which mystery I liked the most, I have to say "Iron Hook", though "Gate Crasher" was pretty funny.

"Yunmeng" nearly made me cry because we get to see Yanli again, and Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng at home, along with "Lotus Pods"-that one might be my favorite as well because of the ending, when Lan Zhan started asking Xichen about things that Wei Wuxian likes to do, like eat lotus pods from the lotus roots with the longest stems or leaves or eat a watermelon rind.

I'm sad that this series is over, but at the same time I'll be thinking about these books as I move on to a new series, Heaven Official's Blessing.

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Book Review: The Fine Print by Lauren Asher

The Fine Print by Lauren Asher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After Rowan and I had a come-to-Jesus meeting and I smacked him around with a baseball bat, I enjoyed this book. I know, I'm not the type of girl that would read a billionaire romance and love it, but honestly, I liked Rowan. He was boyfriend material, I wanted to shake the poor bastard (and yes, I did slap him around a couple of times, he'll be fine) but I still enjoyed this book nonetheless.

So all of this started with a letter from Rowan's grandfather, telling him to be his theme park's director and oversee the project. At first, Rowan was so dang grumpy and mean, cutting almost everything and ensuring everything was running smoothly. Enter Zahra, a Creator who drunkenly sent an application, tearing down a ride and something, and she was hired. Every day Rowan and Zahra kept seeing each other at work, and Rowan thought that she was the most annoying person on the planet. He kept doing and saying things to her to rile her up, but she didn't even move an inch. Instead, she laughed at everything he says to her to his face, which angers her even more.

But slowly but surely, they fall in love, and they even have a date in NYC, where Zahra met her favorite author and they spent that cold NYC day around NYC, doing many things until she got sick. Rowan started getting worried, poor boy almost had a heart attack while he was taking care of her, and when he found her in the floor of his home, face down, that's when Rowan called the hospital and was there for her...until he decided to do some asshole breathing and did the first form on poor, sick in the bed Zahra, and did he feel guilty about what he did?

Yes, yes he did.

Oh, and don't get me started on the fact that he pretended to be 'Scott' so he could find out about her true intentions...which were pure and nothing bad. He even invited her to his house so he can explain everything--his past and all. The spice was good, I'm giving it three chili peppers, but when he revealed everything, Zahra threw up the deuces, told him never to come near her ever again, and even when he tried to win her back after everything he did, she stood her ground and ever broke...until she got a letter from Brady, Rowan's grandfather, about being on the board that will be the final vote.

When Rowan found out about it, he tried to get her to fall right back in love with him, but sadly it didn't work, and when the meeting came, Rowan did a whole presentation to everyone, nearly making Zahra cry of how he presented his information and also mentioned so many people that needed more medical attention and wanted to give them more. I did do a first pump when Zahra told Rowan's father off, and then Rowan invited her to his house again, where he apologized and they got back together, and the ending was just perfect. Very perfect.

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Book Review: The Hidden Moon (Pingkang Li Mysteries) by Jeannie Lin

The Hidden Moon by Jeannie Lin
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was alright. It went over my head, the mystery part. I thought, to be fair, that is was a romance between Shen Gao and Wei-Wei, and the both of them solving a murder mystery in the Pingkang Li. There was a murder, that I know of, but then it kinda switched over to the romance between Gao and Wei-Wei. The writing was good, I liked the writing, it drew me in and I was in the Pingkang Li, but the mystery was eh, I didn't really either care about it, or it just flew over my head and it didn't make me want to follow the mystery and find out who did it.

That's all I honestly remember-the relationship between Gao and Wei-Wei, and how Gao has tried, multiple times, to stay away from Wei-Wei, only for her not to do that and she needed to get with Magistrate Li, only for her to go up to the mountains and live with Taoist monks. Gao, who helped catch the who did it and the killers and what not, got money, became the magistrate (a county one) and asked Wei-Wei's dad for permission to marry her. Wei Wei's father was like, "Okay, you can marry her. But go back up to the mountains and get her" and he did, and they got married. That's all I remember.

Ask me about the mystery, I can't tell you a damn thing. But all in all I enjoyed this book.

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Book Review: Unbreakable: A Cloverleigh Farms novel by Melanie Harlow

Unbreakable by Melanie Harlow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First time reading Melanie Harlow, and it blew me away. I thought I wasn't going to like this, but the more I read this book, the more I fell in love with the world of Cloverleigh Farms, and I really loved the relationship between Sylvia and Henry. I loved how they gave each other space and they took the time to understand each other, and I liked how Sylvia and Henry learn about the farm together while she was staying there.

So about the farm...first off, I thought it was an actual farm, with the chickens and the cows and all of that. But when I read that it was a wine farm, I was hooked. I loved learning about how they make the wine and how they distribute the wine, I really enjoyed learning about that, and I wanted to read more.

My favorite character in the book is Sylvia. I loved reading how she got drunk from the many drinks at the country club and told the room to "not be an asshole/dick" to moving back home to figure out what she needs to do now since she and her ex-husband are not together again, and she's now a single mom who needs to think about her kids and her and what she needs to do in order to pick herself up again. I really love how she was straightforward in her relationship with Henry, and how she was sad to break it up because of her and her kids. Honestly, I was cheering for Sylvia for the whole book and I loved it.

Now Henry is my favorite character as well (basically, this couple is my favorite character by far). He's kind, sweet, a hard worker, and someone who gave Sylvia some time to think about what she wanted, and if she wanted him, he was ready to jump in the relationship with both feet. And when Whitney showed up to talk to him and basically told him to be a hero for her mom, and that she needs more than her and her brother to make her feel fulfilled.

All in all, this was such a really cute romance and I might be reading more from this author because this was really good.

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The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is my first time reading anything by Katherine Arden, and The Warm Hands of Ghosts was perfect. I don't read WWI books, but reading this one opened my eyes to things I never thought possible. For one, the writing was beautiful. I enjoyed reading about how two siblings are currently in different places and fighting to get back to each other. I like reading books about siblings fighting to get back to each other. I also was very curious about the man Faland and how he's a crossroad demon who wants stories so he can write music for his violin. I kept getting crossroad demon vibes the more he hung out with Freddie and kept asking him stories about his life, and kept asking him about what happened to him and a German soldier named Winter in that pillbox. Why was Faland so curious about him and Winter? Why did he want that story so bad?

Laura...Laura was very pushy and was very strong about wanting to find her brother, to the point that she kept forgetting to take care of herself. When she, Pim, and Mary walked into Faland's hotel and she saw Freddie (or Freddie's ghost, as she believed) she started to go crazy, but then she stopped and even tried to get Pim to stop looking for Faland after Pim looked in the mirror. But the way the book intertwines with the characters and how they're trying to get back to each other-Freddie and Laura in another period for a moment, then somehow Laura hears news about Freddie and how he was this place and he was that place, and when she finally met the German Winter and he told her about Faland, that's when she went to find him, only to have the ghosts tell her where Freddie and Faland was.

And Freddie...poor, poor Freddie. He was stuck with Faland, drinking all the time, sleeping all wonky, giving him story after story. At one point I thought he was gonna turn into Choso for a good second and go mad, but he didn't, thank god, and when Laura finally found him, that's when the both of them went to try and escape the maze that was Faland's hotel, only to come out and find out that Pim made a deal with Faland and is now traveling with him after killing a general who killed her son.

This was a different book than I'd normally read, and I'm glad that I read it because now it's one of my favorites.

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