bookishrealm's reviews
3761 reviews

Full review is coming on my blog for the blog tour! I absolutely loved this book.

Dancing Hands..Wow...this was such an informative picture book. Honestly, before reading this book I had never heard of Teresa Carreno or that she played the piano for President Lincoln during the Civil War. I was amazed at how young and talented she was and how she had to escape war from her home country of Venezuela only to come to the United states to become immersed in our own civil war. I found everything about this book fascinating. My only criticism is the simplicity with which the Emancipation Proclamation was handled. I think that Engle did not present the document in its true form. It was stated on one page that the Emancipation Proclamation freed all slaves and this simply isn't true. It may seem small to some readers, but as someone who received a degree in history, I think that it is important that our children receive access to historical information with as much accuracy as possible. If not, we run the risk of perpetuating falsehoods that are carried into adulthood. Other than that, I thought that the book was amazing and the artwork truly spoke to the narrative of the book.

I really enjoy and love the Lola series! It was one of the first picture book series that I started to read when I first started working at the library and doing storytime. She's such a charismatic character and this was another great installment to the series.

This was definitely a quick read but I think it was really confusing attempting to figure out why there were two Superman’s and I think that if I didn’t have prior knowledge about DC Universe I would have been completely lost. If this is supposed to be a jumping point new readers than I think that they could have done a better job where everything didn’t feel so disjointed. I thought the art was amazing and I loved seeing the dynamic between Wonder Woman and Lois Lane. I’m hoping that with the next volume we learn more about the complex relationship between the two Superman’s and the different worlds in which they thrived.

So this book actually spoke to me a lot more than I expected. I thought that it wasn’t going to be any good but I was so shocked to find that I enjoyed it a little more than the previous books. Don’t get me wrong, I really do think that Hardin is an ass that has problems and that the relationship he has with Tessa is toxic but the last hour or so of this audiobook made me change my rating. There is A LOT that happened to harden including parental emotional abuse. It explains exactly why he can’t have nor maintain a healthy relationship with Tessa. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t an excuse BUT it is an explanation. For a while I just believed that Hardin was an awful person but he has some serious trauma that needs to be dealt with. This book was long and I listened to 24 hours of it on audio. There was drama, smut scenes that I didn’t care about, but also a lot of character exploration. We see Tessa make some really brave decisions regarding her career and not allowing a man to stop her from following her dreams; we also see her focus on attempting to build a relationship with an estranged parent. There are a lot of different components, but some material did say the same including Hardin’s co-dependency on Tessa, his need to be controlling, and his abysmal temper. I’m hoping that before the series ends I’m able to see him get the help he needs and deserves.

Surprise surprise. I actually enjoyed this final book in the series. Hardin really cleans himself up, gets the help he needs, and respects Tessa enough to give her space. This definitely isn’t the same man from the first two books and I can see how much he’s grown and changed over the years. While I know that some people wanted intimate details about everything that happens to them in the end of the oil, I was thoroughly satisfied with the time jumps. I think that everyone just got used to the long developed books that only covered a couple of months so the adjustment to hearing about their lives in jumps of years was pretty big. I think in this final book, Tessa and Hardin learn a lot about themselves which is something the needed. They were both so young when they met that they needed the opportunity to grow as adults and become healthy mentally and emotionally as individuals before furthering their relationship. I love and I mean I love that Tessa calls their relationship abusive and tells Hardin that they’ve been abusive to each other because honestly it’s the truth. They’ll it reaffirmed my faith that Todd was attempting to illustrate that these two never had a healthy relationship but they were willing to do what was necessary to get themselves healthy and in a position to have a healthy relationship. I love that while Hardin doesn’t lose his edge he does become more considerate of those around him. He’s more self aware and not as selfish and really thinks about how his decisions could affect the people around him. I’m proud of him for working on his problems and re-building relationships with people who he’s hurt and who have hurt him especially his mom. I know he was taking it slow but that’s all I could ask of him. This is the reason why we stick with series sometimes when we don’t like them because as readers we hope for a change and I must say that Anna Todd did give me what I wanted in the end. I’m glad I stuck with the books.

Update! Here's my full review: https://bookishrealmreviews.blogspot.com/2019/10/slay-by-brittney-morris.html

4.5 Stars. It took me forever to read this book because I was giving birth to my daughter while in the process of trying to complete it haha. Let me start by saying that this book isn’t for everyone. A lot of people will pick up this book and feel disconnected because they don’t understand the cultural and social importance of this book for black readers. I’ve seen this book get low ratings under the guise of “I don’t understand how her parents didn’t know that she created this entire game” completely missing the point of the entire novel. I have never in my life read a book where I literally relate to EVERYTHING the characters are going through. This book feels like it was written for me and I haven’t had that feeling in a long time. There were a few areas that I had issue with which is why I couldn’t give it a full 5 stars but I’ll explore that in my full written review of this book. If you haven’t read it please check it out!

Eh there is no reason why this should have taken me so long. I didn’t really enjoy it because I didn’t connect with the characters and I just found the characters dry and boring. The writing didn’t fit with what I think the author wanted to accomplish. I felt like I just stepped into the middle of a chapter of a random book.

I know that I didn’t really care for this one because it took me so long to read it. It wasn’t the sex that bothered me but I don’t think I quite felt or agreed with how the main character went from being scared to have sex with the guy to all of a sudden being okay with it. The transition happened to quickly for a novella. I almost wish that it was longer so I could have seen a longer and better development between the two main characters. The ending was also so abrupt that it left me feeling like I needed more closer. It wasn’t a bad novella, I just don’t think it worked as well as it could have.