librarianryan's reviews
6364 reviews

 

This is a typical book about construction. What makes it unique is every job is done by a woman. And “this is a house that she built” is the constant reframe. Each page focuses on a different aspect of building a house: what the job is, what they do, and it emphasizes that this can be a woman, of any race creed, color, or ability. Overall, this is a fabulous book for the entry into construction and building that will appeal to both boys and girls. 

 

This is a children’s picture about stereotypes, using a non-racial, non-disability stereotype.   The author wrote this based off real conversations that happened in their classroom while they were a teacher.  They have tattoos and were thought of as less than, riffraff, and/or gang members. This book that not only covers “stereotypes are bad”, but also how tattoos can mean different things to different people. The artwork is fantastic but the covers a little ho-hum. Overall, this was a great read that could be used in classrooms or libraries for years to come. 

This book is a soft DNF. On a day when I couldn’t find an audiobook that fit this one did. This is an extremely long audiobook over 20 hours, and I did listen to approximately three. This story is about the offspring of a king, who has no chance of ever sitting on the throne and has been in isolation on the outskirts of the kingdom. They receive news that their father and all the older brothers have died which means they are now the monarch. All of that was very interesting and kept my attention. However, in listening to this audiobook the number of times they repeat the word “serenity” is annoying. I gather that this is a greeting both in welcoming and in leaving kind of like aloha, but it’s just odd.  I can’t tell if this is a mistake, or purposeful. It is done so often it could almost become a drinking game. I was at the stage of the story when the main character is told they must take a wife to keep their nephews and younger siblings from killing them to take over the throne, that I stopped the audiobook and never went back. I was thoroughly enjoying this book, that I will probably read it in print because the story was good, but the narration was annoying.

 

This book started out interesting, but it didn’t stay there. This is a family story about meeting their expectations versus your expectations for yourself. Learning about the family was interesting, but when it gets down to the main part of the book where they must get their PE credit in order to graduate on time because the teacher didn’t turn in a report. This is where I stopped caring about this book. Maybe it was the narration style, maybe it was the book, but I had no desire to find out what happened at the end. I did make it 22% of the way through. 

 

This was a DNF. I’m not sure if the DNF is for the narration, or the book itself. While listening to this on a car trip, it felt like I was plugged into the middle of the story and was lost. I got about 30-35 minutes into this before I said OK I’m done.  This is normally the type of book that I like but it feels like I woke up in the middle of a video game somebody else was playing. I might like this better if I read it instead of listen. 

 

This was a DNF. I started this as an audiobook three different times, and each listen only lasted an hour and a half to two hours into a 20 hour story. The main reason that I DNFed this book is that every time I started this book I couldn’t remember anything I had already listened to. This is because so much of this book is telling not showing. At least in the beginning there is so much set up for who the characters are what they’re doing, etc. It’s almost never ending. Even now, though I have listened to those first two hours multiple times I still cannot tell you anything that happened. I’m not saying this book was bad I’m just saying it wasn’t for me as an audiobook. 

 

This was a DNF. This book starts with a prissy man getting in a fight with his girlfriend while the room service waiter is setting the table. The girlfriend storms off, there’s a big explosion and now we’re in the apocalypse. The room service waiter who is military is taking care of the trillionaires son and things are not going well. Nuowan doesn’t want to live if life isn’t easy and he doesn’t have access to money. While in the first few pages Nuowan kissed the server now three days later when the server kisses Nuowan, Nuowan, calls him a pervert and runs off, almost killing himself because they’re in a ten-story building, and he’s forgotten it in Apocalypse. I find this is an enemies-to-lovers book. I have no desire to get there. I think the repetitiveness of the server being called a pervert, just for kissing a guy doesn’t make me want to see them together in the end. So this book is a no thank you. 

 

Mara is the last sister in a royal family. Both of her older sisters have had to marry a prince in a neighboring kingdom for protection of their kingdom. Mara is sent to a nunnery, not to become a nun but to be protected. To make sure she has no children, takes no husband , and is there in case the prince needs a third wife. Mara spends 15 years in the nunnery living her life, waiting for something. Her first sister died within a few months of marrying the prince. Her second sister has been married to the prince for a very long time. They’ve had one child, who unfortunately dies at approximately the age of 10 from the plague. It’s at this funeral that Mara discovers her sister is being abused by the prince and determines she’s going to get even. She is going to kill the prince. However, this is not an easy task as in this world fairy godmothers exist, and the princes fairy godmother has blessed him that no magic or other harm can come to him. Mara sets out on her to complete three impossible tasks: one to make a cape of nettles and wear it, two bring bones back to life, and three to capture moonlight in a jar. And it’s only once she’s done that the bone wife can help her break the blessing to kill the prince. This review is in sequential order, however the book is not. The book starts as Mara is creating her bone dog. Of her weaving the bones together with wire, hoping against hope that she can get this pile of marrow to create life. Throughout the book you’re going backwards and forward in time both with what happened tomorrow and what happened to her family. This book is phenomenal. The storytelling, the writing, the overall what’s going on. The reader is glued from the first sentence until the very end of the book. This will not be my first T Kingfisher and I see why she has a devoted following. It’s only recently that I have learned that Kingfisher is a pseudonym for Ursula Vernon. Ursula Vernon writes fabulous children’s books. She’s known for the Dragonbreath, series, and other fully illustrated kids’ books. I have read and loved those books in the past so it makes sense that since that I would love her other works. This book was so good. The author is now on my auto buy list. 

 

Wesley, known as big Mac to his friends, is a punk. He’s a punk on a skateboard. He’s got anger issues, rowdy friends and is struggling to find their place in the world. They also know they’re gay but is yet to come out of the closet. Around the holidays he’s forced to go see the Nutcracker with his soon to be stepsister and he can’t keep his eyes off the ballet dancer on stage. Tristan is out and proud. He spends his life dedicated to ballet but also to getting good grades, driving a Tesla, and everything Wesley is not. But opposites attract, and in this book, they attract, they clash, but they also cuddle. This book was very sweet. It’s about a teenage boy who has been told all his life by most everybody that he’s bad so he acts out as people expect. But he must find out for himself that he can beat people’s expectations. He must believe: I can do better I can be better and I want that. He also wants Tristan, which gives him some of what he needs to make the changes in his life. This book was fantastic. As an audiobook, it moves swiftly, your engaged with the story, and you really feel for Wesley. You’re cheering for him. “You can do it you can do it. You can be exactly who you want to be. You can be Better. Just say I need help.” I love this book. It’s Anthony Nerada and I will be reading whatever they write next. 

 

This is a quick short read. Molly Graham works for a very special museum in New York. It’s a museum of literature. And her museum is just getting ready to start an exhibit on Jane Austin, and some books have been lent from a very private estate in the UK. On the night of the big Premier party, our main gal, Molly has had enough of peopleing and goes back to find there’s a stranger in her office. Figuring this stranger is some ductal candidate they have a fantastically fun night together as this new British guy, Al, just wants to see the sites of New York. They have an amazing couple of months together and Molly thinks things are going somewhere until one day she is ghosted. She is left at the Met and her date never shows up. When the end of the exhibit comes, she’s travels to the UK to return the book and finds, her Al waiting for her. This book is exactly what someone expects when they read the title and the description. This book has all the tropes, but you love them. This book is very predictable, but the book is about the ride and how you get from the beginning to end, then the ability to predict, the happily ever after. This was a fun romcom and I really enjoyed it. It was just the perfect length. Any longer and it would have veered towards boring or overdone. This is the first book in a series and it was good enough, I’d pick up the second book.