Review: The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship

The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship by Beth Harbison
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received an ARC of this book through a Goodreads Giveaway.

I really loved the book. The last few books I have read required me to pay close attention to every detail. It was really nice to read a fun, quick read that did not require too much thought.

I do wish the women had more interactions with each other, though. The book is broken down by month and at the end of the month there are notes from Trista about recipes and observations about the other two even when there was nothing about that month's meeting written. The majority of the book focuses on their stories individually rather than as a group/book club. On occasion their stories intertwine, but not nearly as much as I was expecting.

I still really enjoyed the book, though. This is a good kick-it-back, rainy weather read.

There are a couple recipes in the back that I am looking forward to trying. The chicken pot pie fritters sound great now that fall is finally here.

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Review: Black Sun

Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received an ARC Kindle edition of this book from NetGalley.

If you are not familiar with neopronouns (gender neutral pronouns), this book uses them constantly. Specifically xe and xir. This is the first book I have ever read that uses them, so I found it confusing at first. Once I got beyond that, the book was actually very good.

The book is told through multiple points of view and is a fast read. The acknowledgments have a list of books that inspired the author for this. I am definitely going to check them out to see what she pulled from each culture as this book was based on pre-Columbian cultures.

I cannot wait for the next book.

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Review: Stormrage

Stormrage by Richard A. Knaak
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I play World of Warcraft and with Shadowlands coming out soon, I am working on reading more of the lore of the Warcraft Universe. I did a chunk before Legion, but I am still behind (clearly). Yes, I am one of the nerdy people with a chronological check list. I am focusing more on the novels than the comics, manga, and short stories at the moment. It's somewhat difficult to read them on a Kindle Paperwhite.

I had a hard time getting through this one. It felt like it would never end. I have read other Knaak books and enjoyed them immensely (Zayl and Humbart, anyone?), but this was not his best. By the end of the book I was starting to cringe with the overuse of 3 words: knew, understood, and aware.
Every other paragraph had some of variation of "character immediately understood" or "character knew the source."

I am not a writer nor an expert in grammar, so most of the time I am not even aware of sentence structure or bad writing. All I ask for is a fun story that can take me out of reality for a while. Unfortunately, those sentence variations were so over used that I felt as though the same sentence (or its variation) was copy and pasted every few sentences. By the end of the book I was almost skimming paragraphs just to end the repetition.

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Review: 100 Cookies: The Baking Book for Every Kitchen, with Classic Cookies, Novel Treats, Brownies, Bars, and More

100 Cookies: The Baking Book for Every Kitchen, with Classic Cookies, Novel Treats, Brownies, Bars, and More by Sarah Kieffer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a Kindle edition of this book through a Goodreads Giveaway.

I read through this book using the Kindle for PC app. Some of the pictures came over too small to see, but reading the recipes themselves was easy to follow. I also looked through the book using the Kindle app on my Fire and it does look much better than the PC app.

The recipes looked amazing and I am looking forward to trying the Cinnamon Roll Blondie Bars this fall/winter. I think I will end up getting a paper copy of the book as it will be easier to read and use over the Kindle version.

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Review: Let's Bake!: A Pusheen Cookbook

Let's Bake!: A Pusheen Cookbook by Susanne Ng
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I received a hardcover copy through a Goodreads Giveaway.

There are a lot of difficult level recipes in this book. These are probably going to take a lot of practice as I do not bake too often. I am really looking forward to trying the mint ice cream recipe, though! Difficulty ranges from easy - difficult and just about everything in between.

There are guiding pictures for most steps of each recipe. I have never heard of some of the ingredients until today, so it will definitely be an interesting journey with this book.

The finished products are extremely detailed oriented, but they look really cute.

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Review: The Deep

The Deep by Alma Katsu
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received an ARC of this book through a Goodreads Giveaway. The edition was a paperback ARC, but I also purchased the Kindle edition as the edition received came months after the book came out.

I am not really sure where to begin with this one. The premise seemed promising, but the execution was a little bit of a let down. At the same time the story was still intriguing that I kept turning the pages.

I found the weaving of the characters (both real and fictional) great. I loved imagining some of these event actually taking place on the Titanic (or whether they actually did or not). Unfortunately, some of the real characters' lives were re-imagined and I felt disconnected from what we know is true. It was hard to suspend disbelief at times.

The book is broken up between 1912 (Titanic) and 1916 (Britannic) in alternating parts. At the beginning of each part you feel the suspense to keep turning pages, but by the end of each part it feels like the plot just stalls. It makes the pace of the book unbalanced. One minute it is a page turner and the next you are wondering when the next part will begin.

This was my first book by the author, so I am going to give another try.

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Review: How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You

How to Tell If Your Cat Is Plotting to Kill You by Matthew Inman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My friends and I have a running joke about our cats plotting to kill us. I mentioned this book in passing and decided it was finally time to read it. Some of the comics were funny, but others not so much.

There were two comics that I really did not care much for: The Bobs and The Raging Homosexual. I just didn't find them all that funny.

This book did, however, make the case for having cats and not kids. This will be my go to for that!

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