Review: The Hollow Places

The Hollow Places by T. Kingfisher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received an ARC Kindle edition of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If it is possible for a book to be creepy, dark, weird, and funny all at the same time, then this is the book. This book started with a bang, but after a while it did start to drag on. During the first half of the book I would have said, "Loved. It." By the end, the feeling was more like "It was ok."

Unfortunately, the book was a little predictable. What kept me going was to see how everything connected. Even though this was my first book by the author, I would definitely try another.

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Review: Christmas Ever After

Christmas Ever After by Karen Schaler
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received an ARC Kindle edition of this book through a Goodreads Giveaway. The expected publication date for this is September 29, 2020.

Normally, ARCs are uncorrected copies so there are mistakes a-plenty, but this was an ARC through Goodreads and by extension through Amazon (it shows up as an Amazon order) for the Kindle. There were no updates available for this book through the Manage Content menu, so I really hope that this goes through another round of editing before publication. Because it was supposed to be an ARC, I disregarded the errors when considering the rating.

This book is cute. There are two recipes in the back. I would have loved the mulled wine and hot chocolate recipes, though. They sounded so good and relaxing. This book is supposed to be a romance, but I didn't really feel the connection. <spoiler>This book focused so much on Riley and her ex-boyfriends, it did not really leave room for Riley and Luke's relationship to develop. It just happens.</spoiler> This is a cozy and fast read, though.

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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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