book review

Netgalley Review: A Literary Tea Party

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A Literary Tea Party

Blends and Treats for Alice, Bilbo, Dorothy, Jo, and Book Lovers Everywhere

by Alison Walsh

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Netgalley Review: I’m Not Your Sweet Babboo!

Pick up a glass of milk, curl up with your security blanket, and enjoy the timeless brilliance of Peanuts in this new collection of comic strips!

Everyone’s favorite classic characters are back: Peppermint Patty enrolls in a private school to end her academic troubles—only to discover she’s just graduated from obedience school. Linus finds himself entangled in a love triangle (and stuck on top of a snow-covered roof). And Charlie Brown runs away from the law and becomes a vagrant baseball coach.

The Peanuts crew is lovable, popular, and charming, but please whatever you do, don’t call Linus “My Sweet Babboo!”

4 Stars

This was a cute collection. My sister LOVES Peanuts (has apps, books and all the old movies, as well as the new one) so I’ve heard and seen more Peanuts than you’d think. I like The Peanuts, but too much starts grating on my nerves (I think its a sister thing, if she likes it, it automatically begins harder for me to like it).

I thought this was a cute collection though. Well illustrated and it flowed well. I read it all at once and skimmed through it a little, but thought it was enjoyable.

Netgalley Review: Music in Disney’s Animated Features

In Music in Disney’s Animated Features James Bohn investigates how music functions in Disney animated films and identifies several vanguard techniques used in them. In addition he also presents a history of music in Disney animated films, as well as biographical information on several of the Walt Disney Studios’ seminal composers.

The popularity and critical acclaim of Disney animated features truly is built as much on music as it is on animation. Beginning with Steamboat Willie and continuing through all of the animated features created under Disney’s personal supervision, music was the organizing element of Disney’s animation. Songs establish character, aid in narrative, and fashion the backbone of the Studios’ movies from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs through The Jungle Book and beyond.

Bohn underscores these points while presenting a detailed history of music in Disney’s animated films. The book includes research done at the Walt Disney Archives as well as materials gathered from numerous other facilities. In his research of the Studios’ notable composers, Bohn includes perspectives from family members, thus lending a personal dimension to his presentation of the magical Studios’ musical history. The volume’s numerous musical examples demonstrate techniques used throughout the Studios’ animated classics.

4 Stars

This book goes in depth not only on the famous Disney movie songs, but the scores and character themes, from the earliest Disney cartoons and shorts (Steamboat Willie, Mickey cartoons, Silly Symphonies) through the earlier Disney movies (through The Jungle Book). It goes in depth on the composition, and how the scores made the movies whole and affected their acclaim, as well as all the composers who played a part. With bits of sheet music in-between to help illustrate which parts there were talking about.

I thought this was really well put together and super interesting, though I’ll admit I skimmed it more than read, but thats because I have a less than limited understanding of sheet music/composition and its so detailed that I didn’t care as much to read it fully – nothing against the book thats just me.

Its great for Disney and music fans.

Book Review: Long Way Down

Long Way Down

A cannon. A strap.
A piece. A biscuit.
A burner. A heater.
A chopper. A gat.
A hammer
A tool
for RULE

Or, you can call it a gun. That’s what fifteen-year-old Will has shoved in the back waistband of his jeans. See, his brother Shawn was just murdered. And Will knows the rules. No crying. No snitching. Revenge. That’s where Will’s now heading, with that gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, the gun that was his brother’s gun. He gets on the elevator, seventh floor, stoked. He knows who he’s after. Or does he?

As the elevator stops on the sixth floor, on comes Buck. Buck, Will finds out, is who gave Shawn the gun before Will took the gun. Buck tells Will to check that the gun is even loaded. And that’s when Will sees that one bullet is missing. And the only one who could have fired Shawn’s gun was Shawn. Huh. Will didn’t know that Shawn had ever actually used his gun. Bigger huh. BUCK IS DEAD. But Buck’s in the elevator?

Just as Will’s trying to think this through, the door to the next floor opens. A teenage girl gets on, waves away the smoke from Dead Buck’s cigarette. Will doesn’t know her, but she knew him. Knew. When they were eight. And stray bullets had cut through the playground, and Will had tried to cover her, but she was hit anyway, and so what she wants to know, on that fifth floor elevator stop, is, what if Will, Will with the gun shoved in the back waistband of his jeans, MISSES.

And so it goes, the whole long way down, as the elevator stops on each floor, and at each stop someone connected to his brother gets on to give Will a piece to a bigger story than the one he thinks he knows. A story that might never know an END…if WILL gets off that elevator.

Hardcover, 320 pages
Published October 24th 2017 by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books

4.5 Stars

I really enjoyed this book/poetry collection. This book told in verse.

And yes, it made me cry.

I thought the book was immensely well written, giving you insight and understanding into this kid and his grief, the way he was raised, even if you personally have no such experiences. Will is the best kind of kind-of unreliable narrator, you don’t know if he is or isn’t unreliable at all. I liked the theme of the ghosts of your past. I’m a sucker for that sort of thing. The entire book takes place over a day or two, and I read it in about an hour and a half.

The only thing I disliked is, the ending felt a bit abrupt/ambiguous, which I think was sort of the point, but it bothered me.

Netgalley Review: the witch doesn’t burn in this one

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the witch doesn’t burn in this one

by Amanda Lovelace; ladybookmad

Netgalley Review: Little Moments of Love

Little Moments of Love

by Catana Chetwynd

Little Moments of Love is a sweet collection of comics about the simple, precious, silly, everyday moments that make up a relationship.

What began as stray doodles on scraps of paper became an internet sensation when Catana Chetwynd’s boyfriend shared her drawings online. Now, Catana Comics touches millions of readers with its sweet, relatable humor. Little Moments of Love collects just that – the little moments that are the best parts of being with the person you love.

I received an e-arc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

5 Stars

I seen some of these comics before online – mostly on Buzzfeed. This book was a collection, almost all of which I’ve never seen before. The art style is super cute, and I really enjoy it, and the subject is really cute too – little relationship moments. Its a cute, fast read, and great if you like this sort of thing.

Book Review: STAGS

S.T.A.G.S.

Seventeen-year-old Greer, a scholarship girl at a prestigious private school, St Aidan the Great School (known as STAGS), soon realizes that the school is full of snobs and spoilt rich brats, many of whom come from aristocratic families who have attended the institute throughout the centuries. She’s immediately ignored by her classmates. All the teachers are referred to as Friars (even the female ones), but the real driving force behind the school is a group of prefects known as the Medievals, whose leader, Henry de Warlencourt, Greer finds both strangely intriguing as well as attractive. The Medievals are all good-looking, clever and everyone wants to be among their circle of friends. Greer is therefore surprised when she receives an invitation from Henry to spend a long weekend with him and his friends at his family house in the Lake District, especially when she learns that two other “outsiders” have also been invited: Shafeen and Chanel. As the weekend unfolds, Greer comes to the chilling realization that she and two other “losers” were invited only because they were chosen to become prey in a mad game of manhunt.

I received a copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars

I enjoyed this book. It reminds me of A Dangerous Game and stuff like that. I liked the characters, and the MC was pretty intelligent. Its different from a lot of thriller and private school stories, though the pacing was a little slow, I overall enjoyed it. The cover is SUPER nice, especially in person.  If it sounds like something you’d like, you probably will.

Book Review: Not If I Save You First

Not If I Save You First

Maddie thought she and Logan would be friends forever. But when your dad is a Secret Service agent and your best friend is the president’s son, sometimes life has other plans. Before she knows it, Maddie’s dad is dragging her to a cabin in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness.

No phone.
No Internet.
And not a single word from Logan.

Maddie tells herself it’s okay. After all, she’s the most popular girl for twenty miles in any direction. (She’s also the only girl for twenty miles in any direction.) She has wood to cut and weapons to bedazzle. Her life is full.
Until Logan shows up six years later . . .
And Maddie wants to kill him.

But before that can happen, an assailant appears out of nowhere, knocking Maddie off a cliff and dragging Logan to some unknown fate. Maddie knows she could turn back- and get help. But the weather is turning and the terrain will only get more treacherous, the animals more deadly.

Maddie still really wants to kill Logan.
But she has to save him first.

Hardcover, 297 pages
Published March 27th 2018 by Scholastic Press

4.5 Stars

 I’m a huge fan of Ally Carter, have been since elementary school when I started reading the Gallagher Girl books. So I was super excited for this book.
Overall, I thought it was great. I LOVED the characters, the voices and personalities and character arcs. I liked the general plot. I loved how you could tell she did her research, she knew what she was talking about, it really does show, and it makes everything more real.
I will say it got knocked down a little by how flimsy some motivations are. Logan not responding to her letters? Flimsy excuse, and we don’t even hear his side of the story until much later than we really should of; some of the pacing for some reveals came a little later than really fit the high pace, high stakes physical action, veering at times to confusing rather than suspenseful. Maddie wanting to physically kill him is also a little flimsy; did she not have other friends? Could her dad not have let her visit Logan, or anyone else for that matter EVER? Like I said, a little flimsy, thin ice to stand on as a premise, but fun and enjoyable none-the-less.
If you can suspend some disbelief and just accept that sometimes common sense doesn’t exist, its a fun survival and teen romance story. If you like any of Ally Carter’s series (Gallagher Girls, Heist Society, etc.) you’ll probably like this book.
(I also loved that reference to Blackthorne from Gallagher Girls!)

“But Logan had to laugh when he realized that he was the maiden in this scenario. And he didn’t care one bit.”
― Ally Carter, Not If I Save You First

“Dear Logan,
I’m sorry that the stupid Russians shot you.
Mainly because I really want to shoot you, and I hate that they beat me to it.
Maddie”
― Ally Carter, Not If I Save You First
“Someone had even told him once that if his father hadn’t been president, Logan might have been a good candidate for the Blackthorne Institute (whatever that was – it didn’t even have a website), so it felt weird not knowing where he was or where he was going.”
― Ally Carter, Not If I Save You First

Netgalley Review – Poetry for Kids: William Shakespeare

Poetry for Kids: William Shakespeare

by William Shakespeare, Marguerite Tassi

Netgalley Review: She Felt Like Feeling Nothing

She Felt Like Feeling Nothing

by r.h. Sin