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Kristy H (1252 KP) rated Sorority in Books

Mar 20, 2019  
Sorority
Sorority
Genevieve Sly Crane | 2018 | Fiction & Poetry
5
6.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Too weird for me
The girls of the sorority house are a close-knit--if not particularly happy--group. That is until Margot's death. When she's found dead in the house, it changes things, and each girl must deal with Margot's passing and its aftermath in her own way.

Well, this was a weird one. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't this. We are introduced to the sorority girls in the first chapter by a "chorus," who tells us who lives in each room and a small bit about each one. Except for Margot's room, we're told; Margot is dead.

Then the following chapters detail a snippet of time in each girls' life. Some chapters may take place before Margot's death; others take place after. I was really glad I was reading a hardcopy, because at the start of each chapter, I had to flip back to that first chapter about all of the girls and find that girl's little paragraph or so blurb that introduced them. I could never keep any of them straight--perhaps because there was so many or maybe because most them didn't really stand out to me.

Because yes: I didn't really love this one. The short bits of time spent with each character make it hard to get attached to anyone. While we are technically following the thread of Margot's death, there's really no arc to the story. The book probably speaks to some higher meaning that I just didn't get. Instead it's a bit disturbing (some of the chapters are really awful), and no one is happy at all, which was really depressing. Sure, some of these dark glimpses into people's lives can be a little oddly fascinating, but honestly, it was often horrifying too. For me, it felt like the book was trying to be literary and clever and it just didn't work for me (or, more likely, I'm just not a good candidate for literary, smart books, ha).

For instance, was this one praising or mocking sororities? I really don't know. Margot's death seemed so pointless, so it certainly didn't seem to be doing the idea of sororities any favors. A lot of the book didn't seem to show the sisterhood in a good light. Yeah, I just didn't get it. I'm not sure exactly why I slogged through it, except that the full details of Margot's death aren't completely revealed until the end. I actually liked Margot the best, but she was dead, and yes, that probably sums up this book the best for me.

Overall, this one was too weird for me. I can do dark, but dark, strange, no real plot, and few characters with any redeemable value--it just didn't work for me. I'm sure it is enjoyable for others, especially those that don't need a real plot arc. And I do feel the need to point out that there's a trigger for self-harm, suicide, and eating disorders in this novel.
  
Between the Sea and Stars
Between the Sea and Stars
Chantal Gadoury | 2018 | Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Young Adult (YA)
8
5.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Who doesn't love mermaids? If you don't...well you're entitled to your wrong opinion.

So, I had the opportunity to receive an advanced copy of this book. I enjoy Gadoury's stories. This one was, of course, no exception.

Lena is a merrow (mermaid) helping her brother take care of their father. They aren't rich or poor, but they get by with Javelin's (brother) sell techniques for the market and Lena's hunting skills. Lena dreams of exploring the human world. She hears stories of the merrow queen and how she traded her fin for legs for the love of her life. Tragedy strikes, however, when Lena must flee from the sea to avoid punishment, or worse, death. With the help of the merrow queen, Lena is bestowed a pair of legs and must leave her only family.

Lena is taken in by a poor family and begins working at an inn. Lena soon finds that not all humans are evil, like other merrows believe, but there are some that are truly awful.

First and foremost, do NOT go into this book thinking it's based on Disney. Disney did not write The Little Mermaid. Although the artwork is beautiful and the songs are catchy, it's not the original story. It is a Little Mermaid retelling, but not Disney. So there will be no crabby sidekick, lol.

I loved Lena. She was headstrong and while she had to adjust to whole other world, she was still the same Lena, just heart broken and trying to manage. Merrows have the same views for female merrows. They are expected to marry and bare children and be taken care of. While Lena toyed with the idea when she is proposed to by an old family friend, she's still hesitant.

Lena meets Edwin, a blind old man who can read cards...and knows what she is. We like Edwin, so don't judge. Jace (young son) was the one who found Lena on the beach and brought her to the inn. I'll try to stop there so I don't spoil anything.

I love Gadoury's writing style. You get a clear picture of Lena as a merrow and as a human and what she experiences, good and bad. There are these connections to Lena's life that involve the merrow queen, and her mother. You have to read the story.

My only complaint...

I must wait for a second book!! Oh well.

Grab this book and experience a new story under the sea.
  
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019)
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (2019)
2019 | Adventure, Animation, Comedy
Put it down
#secretlifeofpets2 like its predecessor offers nothing new to the #animated film genre in a film thats not only overlong (even at just an hour & a half) but extremely souless too. I hated the #original #secretlifeofpets & im actually a big fan of cgi animated movies too so when we decided to go see this with my nephews i wasnt to excited but i figured it might be an improvement on the first, boy was i wrong. First of all my nephews absolutely #loved this film laughing, sitting on the edge of their seats, talking about the characters & feeling #anxious during the action so while my review is a negative one younger kids will dig its #furry characters, loud action & vibrant colour pallet for sure. Heres why i hated it - i find the pets themselves so visually ugly & lazily designed that it offends my eyes looking at them (seriously some of them or hideous). Dialog is so atrocious & basic you could practically guess what flat one liner would be delivered predictably by almost every one. Story for about an hour felt non existent & i questioned myself on whether id missed a part that told us about the end goal or the #journey the film was taking us on. It was like we had just watched a bunch of 10 minute short films all cut together to make a feature length movie with no payoff. Once the film does finally reach the end we do get an in site into what the film was overall trying to say (#parents arnt alone in bringing up kids, theres always other things that aid in the up bringing & although the world is a #dangerous place #failure & getting #hurt is all part of #learning & growing as a person process) but it just seems it got side tracked along the way. Animation is nice & theres some good looking scenes no doubt but its standard stuff. #Soundtrack wise its quite fun & keeps the films pace lively. Pact full of stereotyping, stolen set pieces from the likes of #toystory, storylines that are all over the place & #jokes that fall flat its hard film for #adults to sit through as it offers nothing as a reward. Your kids might #love it but you might not be able to stay #awake to even notice. #pets #dog #cat #illumination #minions #kids #children #kevinheart #pet #silly #funny
  
How To Be Single (2016)
How To Be Single (2016)
2016 | Comedy, Romance
7
5.8 (5 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Being a single twenty something in New York City is one of the best and one of the worst things all at the same time. Alice (Dakota Johnson) thinks it is time to see what the single life is all about by take a “break” from her longtime boyfriend Josh (Nicholas Braun). Unfortunately as we all know things don’t always work out the way people want and Alice must figure out who she is. With the help of her friend Robin (Rebel Wilson) and her sister Meg (Leslie Mann), Alice faces the challenges and benefits that come with being single. While Alice is trying to find her way the plot looks into the lives of Tom (Anders Holm) the flirty bartender who would pretty much bang anything that walks, Lucy (Alison Brie) the crazed romantic who believes she can find the one, and Meg, Alice’s doctor sister who find out she wants everything she never wanted. “How to Be Single” shows us that we need to take time to find ourselves and that things do happen in time.

Directed by Christian Ditter and loosely based off of Liz Tuccillo’s novel How to Be Single the film is actually quite relatable. While it is not a necessity to be single, finding yourself is an essential part of life and people should explore new opportunities no matter what others tell them. As far as the acting goes, it was ok but nothing Oscar worthy. Also for a romantic comedy I feel this movie is more relatable then most, it shows that love isn’t perfect and instantaneous. I would recommend this film to people who are going to have a girl’s night, because to its core this movie came down to friendship. Would I see this film again? Sure, Rebel Wilson’s one liners in the film were hilarious and kept me hooked.
  
A Thousand Glittering Lights
A Thousand Glittering Lights
Jennie Lynn Roberts | 2024 | Contemporary, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy
10
10.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
absolutely stunning book!
Independent reviewer for BookSirens, I was gifted my copy of this book.

Jennie Lynn Roberts has become a firm favourite, her first book blew me away and I'm still struggling to catch my breath! But those books were fantasy/paranormal, and this is a contemporary romance and I wasn't sure how I was gonna feel about this book.

I need not have worried! I loved this book, massively!

It has some many layers and subplots, or at least I thought they were subplots, until everything start to merge together and things become much MUCH clearer! I wasn't confused, not really, just at times I felt I was reading those subplots as multiple books. Once things started to come together, however, those subplots made much more sense.

I loved how I just let myelf fall into this, along with those plots, and didn't really try to figure it out as I went. I usually do, trying to put 2 and 2 together to get 4, but for some reason, I let myself flow with the book. And I am so glad I did, because I didn't see it taking that route! Ok, so maybe I did try, but only a little.

I loved that we heard not just from Ellie, but alos from the male MC and some others. I wasn't WHY we were hearing from them, as I was reading, but I have to say, they were absolutely needed for those plots to come together. Roberts NAILED how Victoria (Ellie's best friend) was dealing with things, she absolutely did.

I can't go too much into what I loved most about this book, for spoilers, but know this: I loved this book and the way it went! I cried a lot, and cheered a lot. It's deeply emotional, not just for Ellie, but for out male MC. Because :

All he knows is darkness… and Ellie.

And never has there been a more perfect tag line!

I can't fault this book, I really can't. I'd love to be able to give it more, but I can't so...

5 full and glittering stars

*same worded review will appear elsewhere
  
The Robber Knight
The Robber Knight
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
When you are fighting for the freedom of your people, falling in love with your enemy is not a great idea. Or is it? Ayla has to defend her castle and her people all on her own, with nobody to help her but a dark warrior she hates with all her heart.

Sir Reuben, the dreaded robber knight, has long been Ayla’s deadliest enemy. He has prayed on her and her people ever since her father fell ill, and she swore he would hang for his crimes. Now they are both trapped in her castle as the army of a far greater enemy approaches, and they have only one chance: stand together, or fall.

This book wasn’t bad, honestly. I’m a huge fan of historical fiction, and it had been awhile since I’ve read a medieval love story, so that was a nice change of pace.

The author is a historian, so there are a lot of little things in this book that you don’t see in a lot of other historical romance books. For instance,you can’t pull out arrows because there are often barbs attached to cause fatal wounds if pulled out. I did like learning about all of these facts. But sometimes Thier lets the historian in him gets the best of him, but more on that later.

Lady Ayla was a pretty interesting character. Headstrong and wise for her years, she is very noble and progressive. She has all of the makings for a great leader– with the exception of knowledge. I loved how kind and committed she was to her people and I love the fact that she has some spunk. I mean, if I’m getting robbed in the forest by this random stranger, then I hope I would swear him out too (of course, if I could beat him up and get away, then that’s even better, but Ayla doesn’t have much self-defense skills). But there were many times that she was annoying, like her insistence on being near battles, even before she started treating the sick. And how she tried to manage Sir Isenbard during battle. She had called on him for help because he was an experienced knight, and now she was questioning his commands and strategies in the heat of battle!

Mostly, though, I really did like Ayla. She defines the idea of nobility. With war inevitable, she’s willing to ride personally to the edges of her land to warn her subjects and she is always at the outskirts of battle to help care for the wounded. She invites everyone into the castle for their safety and rations herself as well as the others to conserve food. She’s even willing to corrupt herself to save her people.

Reuben is an excellent character as well, although it did take me awhile to like him. In the beginning he fell a little flat. It’s clear that he used to be a knight but something happened and now he robs people for his own greed. A near-death experience and being saved by Lady Ayla reawakens the humanity in him. And apparently also some depth.

In the beginning of the book he spends a lot of his time admiring his loot and laughing about his victims, who thought they had a right to steal from him. But that’s all he does. We have no real insight into his character or backstory until after he’s in Ayla’s care. Only then are there hints of a bad history where he had been arrested many times, been tortured, and had at one point been a member of respectable society. If it weren’t for the fact that I liked Ayla’a character and the plot so far, I probably would have stopped reading.

Thier is a writer who has really good potential in becoming a great romance writer, especially for historical fiction. The plots have some unique twists that are augmented by his knowledge of history and after Reuben’s character shaped up, he was an excellent love interest. But there is one huge problem with this story: the footnotes.

There are so many footnotes throughout most of the book that I feel like I’m reading a history textbook, which is not good when I usually read romance novels to take a break from homework. Not only are they distracting and unnecessary, but they are also rude and condescending. Sure, sometimes they were useful, like in explaining the references to the seven princes of hell. Another one was a pretty funny anecdote about how one of his readers had actually confirmed that lard burns and that burning arrows work because they had actually done it. There is also a lot of wit throughout the footnotes which is pretty amusing. But most of the time, they were annoying.

For instance, Robert Thier thought it was necessary to include a footnote about how witches were considered bad during medieval times. Seriously? Even if someone failed history, we know that witches are not considered fine, upstanding citizens. Or maybe he thinks all of us have been locked in our rooms with no books, internet or television for our entire lives and for the month of October we all miraculously fell into a coma so we couldn’t see the giant blow-up witch in the neighbor’s yard. And then we’d all wake up singing Christmas carols after the month long coma without a care in the world because this happens every year so we don’t know what a witch is. (I’m developing a conspiracy theory about how these strange comas was caused by witchcraft.)


Maybe Thier assumed that instead of us thinking Reuben was scared of witches when he wondered if Ayla was one, we just thought he was commenting on how much Ayla looked like Sandra Bullock.
And one of the footnotes was just plain offensive. Here is the line of text that the footnote is attached to: “Heel! Abominable villain! You dare defy me?” (page 74)

Now, here’s the footnote: “Sorry to disappoint the ladies, but this doesn’t refer to high heels. It is a medieval term for a very nasty person.”

Excuse me? Did you just assume that I thought it meant high heels and that would make me excited? What world do you live in?

Apparently he thinks “the ladies” are so dumb that we are incapable of taking context clues and we immediately think everything relates back to fashion. Maybe I didn’t know it meant “very nasty person”, but it’s pretty clear it’s a swear or insult of sometime, not a freaking Jimmy Choo. Does he just imagine us thinking high heel every time we hear the word?

“She broke his nose with the heel of her hand.” Oh. High heel!

“Heel, fido! I said heel!” Oh. High heel!

“It will take one or two days for your cut to heal.” Oh. High heel! (Because if he thinks we don’t understand the difference between uncomfortable footwear and an insult, then he probably thinks we can’t spell, either).

But hey, at least Robert Thier thinks women can memorize stuff, because the footnote links stop as the vocabulary is repeated instead of new terms being introduced.

Aside from the footnotes, I really do like this book, and I can’t wait to read the second part of it, which I’ll read soon. Thier still has a long way to go, but I think after he has more experience, he’ll write some great books.