Book Review: From a Certain Point of View

TITLE: Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View
AUTHOR: various
CATEGORY: Adult
PUBLISHED: October 2017
GENRE: Science Fiction
PREMISE: A collection of short stories that retells A New Hope from various side characters points of view.
MY REVIEW: Star Wars books are always a bit of a mixed bag. I have had much better luck with the newer books then with the older ones, but that still doesn't mean everything is guaranteed to be good. This short story collection, is a big like the Star Wars books: a mixed bag.
I do really like the idea of it. It basically goes through the movie A New Hope and just kind of gives different viewpoints of it. For instance, we get a story from the captain of the ship Leia escaped on, there's one from Aunt Beru, one from a paperwork person on the Death Star (a particular favorite of mine), a stormtrooper, heck there's even one from the monster in the trash compactor.
It's a wide and varied collection. Some I really loved, most were just shrug sort of stories. But it was a great writing exercise idea. I vote we do another one of these for each of the other movies.
WHO SHOULD READ: Star Wars fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five solid short story collections

Book Review: Meet Cute

TITLE: Meet Cute: Some People Are Destined to Meet
AUTHOR: various authors, edited by Jennifer L. Armentrout
PUBLISHED: January 2nd, 2018
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Romance, Contemporary
PREMISE: A short story collection featuring a wide variety of meet cutes.
MY REVIEW: This is the first of many interesting looking short story collections out this year. For those that do not know what meet cutes are, they are basically a romance trope. They're just cute circumstances through which two characters meet. Like say...they get stuck in an elevator, strike up a conversation, and a relationship develops from there. That sort of thing.
As with all short story collections, this was a mixed bag. But I will say there were more stories here that I loved then usual. So that's a bonus. There were only two stories I outright did not like. One was a story where the girl was cheating on her boyfriend by kissing the guy. Sorry, I don't find cheating very cute. The second was the story by Ibi Zoboi who is the author of American Street. It pains me that I don't like Ibi Zoboi's stuff. I tried to read American Street last year, but just had to DNF it, because there was so much girl hate and that was taking away from the important stuff she was trying to talk about in it. In this story, it was the same deal: great message about loving yourself when others don't, but hindered by constant girl hate. Also writers: you can write about fat acceptance without shaming skinny girls. It can actually be done. Pushing down one group of people, to prop up another group of people is not okay. I think I'm just going to have to give up on Zoboi. This seems to be a feature in her writing and I'm sorry, I'm just not okay with it. I wish her well, because the stuff she writes about is important, but it's just not for me.
But other then those two stories, I liked a majority of the stories in here. Some...I don't particularly think qualify as meet cutes, but they were cute so I'm okay with them. I'm pleased with the amount of f/f stories in here. There is also one cute story with a trans girl as the main character. I do wish there had been some m/m romances as well, but overall I'm pleased with it. The best stories to me were:
Print Shop by Nina LaCour
Somewhere That's Green by Meredith Russo
The Way We Love Here by Dhonielle Clayton
259 Million Miles by Kass Morgan
The Department of Dead Love by Nicola Yoon
WHO SHOULD READ: romance fans, romantic comedy fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five cute romances

Review Catch-up: Four mini-reviews of books I've Read Recently:

Okay, I"m way behind on book reviews. I meant to have more this past week, but time got away from me. So here are five quick reviews of some books I've read in the past two months:

TITLE: Lady Midnight
Book 1 in the Dark Artifices series
AUTHOR: Cassandra Clare
PUBLISHED: 2016
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
THOUGHTS: Same old, same old from Cassandra Clare. Sorry guys, I don't see this amazing breakthrough people on YouTube kept saying this book was. This had literally the same plot points as Mortal Instruments had, down too beloved adult figure turning around and betraying them all.
But, we've established I'm trash for this series, so despite issues I have with it...I'll still read the next one. Curse my weakness.
WHO SHOULD READ: Die-hard Cassandra Clare fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five

TITLE: The Refugees
AUTHOR: Viet Thanh Nguyen
PUBLISHED: February 7th, 2017
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Contemporary/Short Stories
THOUGHTS: Typical short story collection. Some better then others. I suspect there was some nuance in these stories that was lost on me though, because a lot of it focuses on issues in Vietnam and I don't particularly know much about that country (other then we had a war there, and whole lot of issues sprung up from that war). It has made me interested in picking up The Sympathizer though.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of the author's book The Sympathizer
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five

TITLE: Madly (called The Potions Diaries in the UK)
Book 1 in the Potions series
AUTHOR: Amy Alward
PUBLISHED: 2015
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Fantasy
THOUGHTS: Cute fantasy about a girl entering a potions contest. The writing is a bit juvenile so this probably geared more towards the younger YA crowd, rather then the older one. So if you know any tweens who love Descendants and are looking for something to read, I would absolutely give them this.
WHO SHOULD READ: younger teens, Descendents fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five

TITLE: My Life, My Love, My Legacy
 AUTHOR: Coretta Scott King
PUBLISHED: January 17th, 2017
CATEGORY: Non-Fiction
GENRE: Biography
THOUGHTS: Pretty typical biography. What was most interesting to me, was the peeks into the Civil Rights movement that we don't often see. Since she was the wife of MLK, King did get a front row seat into the planning that went on and in many cases during and after her husband's death, often organized things like marches and many other things she didn't get enough credit for.
WHO SHOULD READ: those interested in learning about civil rights history
MY RATING: Four out of Five

Book Review: Because You Love to Hate Me

TITLE: Because You Love to Hate Me
AUTHOR: Various
PUBLISHED: July 11th, 2017
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Fantasy
PREMISE: A bunch of popular YA authors write stories featuring villains based on prompts given to them by popular Booktubers.
MY REVIEW: If you're part of the YA community, you've likely heard about this one. There's a big stink (yes, another one!) being raised because apparently people don't like Booktubers getting involved with this for whatever reason. A majority of it being, they just don't like Booktubers. For those that don't know what Booktube is, it's basically the corner of Youtube where people just talk about the books they read. For more context: some people think Booktubers are too involved with publishers are lying to them for...reasons, I guess (no one seems to know what exactly they're lying to us about...), and so on and so forth.
Me...I watch Booktube, I won't lie. Including some of the people involved with this book. I...have issues with it (it's too YA focused, there needs to be more variety in the reviewers/books talked about, the way they handle issues within the community leaves a lot to be desired, there's too much snobbery towards certain things, etc. etc). But I also kind of can't help but notice the people complaining about Booktube don't have any actual evidence of any wrong doing in the community, it mostly just seems to be people who are salty their own Booktube channel didn't take off overnight or whatever. So yeah...I've got issues, but I also think this idea that they somehow are doing something bad....is a little ridiculous.
Now, onto the book itself. It was...okay. It's like most short story collections: some are better then others. Some, I think calling them villain stories is....stretching it  to say the least. But there are some really interesting ones in here. For me, the favorites were the ones by Renee Ahdieh, Cindy Pon, and Victoria Schwab. The rest were all a little meh for me. I think I honestly liked the concept of this book more then the actual book itself. Because I love the whole practice of just taking a prompt and running with it. It's always so interesting to see what authors come up with.
WHO SHOULD READ: YA fans, Retelling fans, Once Upon a Time fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five

Reading Through the Classics: Franz Kafka's Short Stories

TITLE: The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
AUTHOR: Franz Kafka
CATEGORY: Classic
GENRE: Er....mixture?
STORIES IN VOLUME:
The Metamorphosis (1915)
The Judgement (1913)
The Stoker: A Fragment (1913)
In the Penal Colony (1919)
A Country Doctor (1919)
An Old Leaf (1919)
A Hunger Artist (1922)
Josephine the Singer, Or the Mouse People (1924)
Before the Law (1919)
MY THOUGHTS: So...Kafka. How to explain Kafka to those who haven't read it? Honestly...there's probably no real way to explain Kafka. He's one of those authors you just have to read for yourself.
Of these small stories, the best ones in my opinion are The Metamorphosis and In the Penal Colony. The rest...I don't really know what to make of them to be honest. Like...I don't think they're bad. But they're just...confusing. He's one of those kinds of writers that just puts you in a situation and expects you to make sense of things without giving any explanation. That's...something that kind of drives me batty to be honest. Like, I don't need everything spelled out for me...but at least have some explanation if you're going to turn a guy into a huge cockroach, just saying.
I honestly am not sure how I feel about Kafka. His stuff is interesting. It's just...so weird that I honestly don't know how I feel about it. I might be checking out some of his longer works in the future, I do know at least that much.
WHO SHOULD READ: Magical realism fans, literature fans

Book Review: Flying Lessons and Other Stories

TITLE: Flying Lessons and Other Stories
Edited by Ellen Oh, various authors
CATEGORY: Middle-Grade
PUBLISHED: January 3rd, 2017
GENRE: Contemporary, short stories
PREMISE: A collection of short stories featuring diverse authors and characters from the We Need Diverse Books group
MY REVIEW: For those that don't know, this collection was started by the We Need Diverse Books group. Now, I love this group. They have helped me find so many books that I otherwise might not have and I agree with their message so I support it whenever I can. This collection is basically your average story collection that just features diverse authors and characters.
Like all story collections...some stories are better then others. The most memorable ones to me were the first one, the title short story Flying Lessons, the story that Jacqueline Woodson wrote and the one by Walter Dean Myers (that I'm assuming was found/published after his death). The rest are perfectly decent, but not as memorable.
Overall this is a very solid collection. I wish there was more variety in genres to show that you can do diverse characters outside of contemporary fiction, but that's just my personal wish. It does not diminish or take away from the collection in any way.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of any of the authors, those looking for diverse reads, contemporary fiction fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five interesting stories

Book Review: Difficult Women

TITLE: Difficult Women
AUTHOR: Roxane Gay
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Short Stories
PUBLISHED: January 3rd, 2017
PREMISE: A collection of some old and some new stories from the author of Bad Feminist.
MY REVIEW: I managed to get this book by pure luck. Hoopla already has it in their selection so I grabbed it (as well as a couple of other 2017 releases. FYI, I love Hoopla). As there was a day it was snowing last week, I sat and read this all in one or two sittings. It helps that it's fairly short to begin with and the stories go by quickly.
As always with story collections, this was a mixture in quality. Some were very good, others were so short I didn't really have time to form any feelings on them. They're all sort of quiet character study books that make you think about labels, particularly the labels and judgments we heap upon women. It's all done in Roxane Gay's always memorable writing style.
If you're like me and have been a fan of Gay's for awhile now, this is a great one to pick up. If you're not, it's a good intro to her writing (this or Bad Feminist). This is probably a book that won't be to everyone's taste, but luckily for me, it happened to be to mine. If this first book of 2017 is any indication, we're in for a good publishing year.
WHO SHOULD READ: Roxane Gay fans, literature fans, feminists
MY RATING: Four out of Five short and sweet stories

Book Review: Stars Above

TITLE: Stars Above
Book 4.5/companion book in the Lunar Chronicles series
AUTHOR: Marissa Meyer
PUBLISHED: February 2016
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Sci-Fi
PREMISE: A collection of short stories taking place in the Lunar Chronicles series.
MY REVIEW: Short story add ons to series seems to have become a thing in YA. When it comes to a series like Lunar Chronicles, I don't particularly mind it. Especially if it's a wide variety of stories such as this collection.
Some of these I have read before as they were released with previous Lunar books. But some were new. Most, didn't really add anything revealing, except for maybe the one with Scarlet's grandmother. We learn about her grandfather's identity and some more about what Scarlet's childhood was like. Others were just nice supplied info.
If you are a die-hard Lunar Chronicles fan who is going through withdrawal from the series, this is a nice way to live in the world a bit longer. It's also a nice holdover for if you're waiting for Meyer's next series which apparently is dealing with superheros. To which I say, hell yes.
WHO SHOULD READ: Lunar Chronicles fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five happy endings

Book Review: A Tyranny of Petticoats

TITLE: A Tyranny of Petticoats
AUTHOR: Various, edited by Jessica Spotswood
PUBLISHED: March 8th, 2016
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Historical Fiction/Historical Fantasy
PREMISE: A collection of short stories by various popular YA authors that have a historical fiction or historical fantasy type setting.
MY REVIEW: Anyone who reads this blog, knows I love my historical fiction and historical fantasy. So it's probably no surprise to you that I picked this up as soon as I saw my library had it.
As with most short story collections, it's a bit of a mixed bag in terms of quality. But the thing that surprised and made me very happy about this collection was the wide variety of girls and situations presented here. Despite the title, it's not just girls in glamorous petticoat dresses. There's diversity as well as LGBT representation here and everyone from poor to rich are shown. It also has a wide variety of time periods that stretch from the seventeen hundreds to the sixties.
I had a couple of favorites in here, including one from Marie Lu. If you're in the mood for some quick historical setting reads, this is a great pick.
WHO SHOULD READ: Historical Fiction fans, Historical Fantasy fans, YA fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five petticoats

Book Review: Say You're One of Them

Title: Say You're One of Them
Author: Uwem Akpan
Published: 2008
Category: Adult
Genre: Short Stories, Realistic Fiction
Premise: A trio of short stories centering on families in Africa
My Review: First, I feel I should apologize for the randomness of my reviewing as of late. I have been reading. I just...haven't felt much like reviewing much beyond posting what I'm reading on tumblr. I'm trying to shake myself out of this and catch up on stuff. Honestly, I think it may be time to move on from this blog and stick to the tumblring. I don't know. I'll see how it goes till the end of the year and decide what to do.
As for this particular book, I did the audio version. Honestly...I don't have that many feelings on it. It was a read through the library find (and was a Oprah's Book Club selection at one point). I got what the author was doing. Knowing what I do about Oprah's taste in books, I definitely get why she picked it out. This is right up her alley.
But personally, I just couldn't get into it. I don't really know many readers who would either except for super serious lit readers who like super serious lit. For you, I totally recommend this. There is some lovely writing in it. It's just...not for me.
WHO SHOULD READ: Oprah's Book Club fans, literature fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five shrugs

Book Review: Shards and Ashes

TITLE: Shards and Ashes
Various Authors (edited by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong
PUBLISHED: February 2013
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Dystopian
PREMISE: Several authors write short stories set in dystopian worlds
MY REVIEW: Like all short story collections, this one had a few good stories, one or two really memorable ones, and other just so so stories. It was a bit of a mixed bag really though I did find more stories I liked in this one then usual since all the stories were done by authors I like.
Most memorable ones were probably the one by Veronica Roth and the one that Beth Revis did that took place in the Across the Universe that gave some insight to Orion. Other likable ones include the ones by Armstrong, Marr, and Stohl. Most of the others were okay but too short for me to really form an attachment too.
Honestly, this is one of those books you probably already know if you want to read or not. It will probably ultimately depend if you like the authors in question and dystopian stories.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of the authors in the collection, dystopian fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five mixed bags

Book Review: Faery Tales and Nightmares

TITLE: Faery Tales and Nightmares
AUTHOR: Melissa Marr
PUBLISHED: 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Short stories, Urban fantasy
PREMISE: A collection of short stories from Melissa Marr, some old and some new.
MY REVIEW: Short story collections are always a hard thing for me to review because like books, some of the stories in the collection I adore, some I'm indifferent too, others just confuse me.
This is the case with Marr's book. I adore her Wicked Lovely short stories (though it turned out one or two of them I'd already read), the other stories ranged from interesting, to what the hell, to whatever. All of them of course were told with Marr's trademark writing style which I adore.
I reccomend this mostly to hardcore Marr fans and to those Wicked Lovely fans who weren't able to get ahold of her ebook short stories for Wicked Lovely. Other then us, this will be just a nice little collection of stories for the average reader. Maybe give you an idea of what Marr's writing is like.
WHO SHOULD READ: Wicked Lovely fans, Melissa Marr fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five faeries.

Book Review: Zombies VS Unicorns

TITLE: Zombies VS Unicorns
AUTHOR: various authors
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: fantasy, short stories
PREMISE: This is an anthology of short stories that features either zombies or unicorns which is designed to help you decide: Team Unicorn or Team Zombie.
MY REVIEW: For the record, I'm neutral when it comes to the whole zombie vs unicorns thing. Mostly because I sort of find the arguement dumb. Both creatures are cool and have their merits, who cares which one is better? But I liked a majority of the authors in this collection (a rarity in short book collections where I usually only end up liking two or three and thus the book isn't worth my money) so I picked it up for fun quick reads. I wasn't disappointed either. One or two of the stories lacked and I wish some could have been longer but for the most part, this is a solid good short story collection.
My only major complaint about this collection was the Team Zombie head Justine Larbalestier. While some of her comments were funny and I understand snark, I do it myself sometimes. I sort of felt her arguements were a) poor. Mostly she was just: zombies are cool just because they're zombies! What more do you need? and b) I felt she was unneccessarily rude to Holly and some of the authors on Team Unicorn. Look, you can disagree with someone about unicorns but there's no need to dis a story simply because it involves unicorns or say it's bad when the author probably worked really hard on it. You could at least acknowledge a good author like Holly would do with some of the Team Zombie stories. For the record I've never read any of Larbalestier's books, hell have never even HEARD of her before this collection. Frankly her rudeness in this book leaves me with no desire to read any of her books, whereas the other authors in this book I haven't read before I am going to be checking out now. I'm sorry I just felt her slightly mean snark was unneccessary and brought down the fun of a otherwise enjoyable book.
So whether you're Team Unicorn or Team Zombie or like me don't give a damn, this is a fun collection to try out.
WHO SHOULD READ: unicorn fans, zombie fans, fans of any of the authors in the book
MY RATING: Four out of Five unicorn vs zombies battles

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Book Review: The Poison Eaters

TITLE: The Poison Eaters and Other Stories
PART IN SERIES: standalone
AUTHOR: Holly Black
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: Short stories, urban fantasy
PREMISE: A short story collection from Holly Black featuring a girl about to become a vampire, a boy facing down an evil latin club, characters from Tithe and many other stories.
MY REVIEW: Short story collections are a little tough for me to review. I don't read many of them, I mostly picked this one up because...well it's Holly Black. This collection is a gathering of stories she's written for other anthologies as well as new ones she's done. They range from downright creepy tales, to short random things that you're not sure what the deal is exactly, to everything in between. But it all has Black's trademark style: humor mixed with darkness and just utterly interesting ideas.
I'll go over my favorites though. My favorites are the Tithe one naturally. I loved Tithe and it was a treat to see Corny and Roiban again, if only briefly, and even more fun because they actually interacted which they didn't do much of in the Tithe Trilogy. It was quite entertaining to tell the truth, even if the story didn't have much point. My other two favorites was the first one The Coldest Girl in Coldtown and In Vodka Veritas. The others were just mildly interesting but not much to them.
If you don't mind quick stories and love Holly Black's writing, this book is for you. However, if like me, you tend to crave longer tales...you may not be too into this.
WHO SHOULD READ: Holly Black fans, those who don't mind short stories
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five fairy wings

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