Tag Archives: romance

Caraval

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Caraval book coverEnter the magical world of Caraval, where nothing is what it seems and magic is around every corner. Scarlett Dragna has been writing to Legend, the mysterious game master behind Caraval, since she was a little girl, hoping to receive an invitation to play the game and escape with her sister, Tella, from their abusive father. In order to leave their homeland without their father’s notice, Tella makes a deal with handsome sailor Julian to secure safe passage on his ship to Legend’s island. As the game begins, Scarlett soon discovers it is more than she bargained for. When Tella is kidnapped, Scarlett forms a tentative alliance with Julian to navigate the streets of Caraval, not knowing whom she can trust, and solve a number of clues in order to find Tella and win the game.

I had a major case of TEABS* when I finished this book. I just wanted to stay in Stephanie Garber’s fantasy world and find out what other surprises mastermind Legend has in store for his Caraval guests. Although I found Tella super annoying and sometimes got frustrated with Scarlett as well, I did enjoy the mysterious characters Julian and Legend. As I was reading the book I didn’t quite know what was real and what wasn’t, which made me want to rush through to the end. Recommended for fans of fantasy and romance.

*The End of an Awesome Book Syndrome

Small Admissions by Amy Poeppel

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cover of small admissionsWhat would you do if you were dumped by what you thought was your true love in the middle of an airport before heading off to Paris? In Small Admissions, Kate faces this reality and becomes depressed. She loses interest in working, maintaining a social life, and simply, just doing something with her life. This is understandable, especially when she had let go of her aspirations in graduate studies to be with her “true love” in Paris.

So, what does Kate do now that she’s heartbroken and with no job? Fortunately, her sister, Angela, vows to lift her spirits and help her get her life back on track. Angela is a caring and concerned sister; yet, despite her good intentions of helping her sister out, I find her to be too overprotective and judgmental. Kate is on the way of getting her life back on track, and even so, Angela does not trust her and firmly believes that Kate will fall apart at any moment. I find Angela’s untrustworthiness and lack of confidence in her sister disappointing. However, what would have been more disappointing is if Kate didn’t have the confidence in herself, but I’m glad she did and had the determination to succeed in her career. Continue reading →

Stray Love

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Kyo MaclearHave I mentioned my love of Kyo Maclear before? Yes? Well I’m going to say it again anyway.

As I was speeding through our collection of Maclear’s picture books – out of sheer enthusiasm rather than a desire to be done with all of them – hoping there would be no end in sight, I realized (as I noted previously) that I needn’t have limited my search to picture books at all: Maclear writes for adults too!* Better yet, we have them in our collection!

To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, considering picture books are a whole ‘nother beast as compared to adult novels, but I think Maclear has convinced me to continue reading her other novels.

Despite the constant jumping between past and present in Stray Love, Maclear does a wonderful job making it all come together as a coherent story: the reader is not left for a moment disconnected or at a loss as to where exactly in time we are in the story, whether it be with Marcel’s telling of his history with Oliver or the present day with Iris. While Marcel & Oliver are not, in my opinion, discernibly British, and I’m a bit confused as to why they were made to be British because it doesn’t play that large a part in the plot in the sense that they could well have been North American without much detriment to the novel as a whole, the entire novel works. For the time being, I’ve put The Letter Opener on hold and eagerly await its arrival.

Continue reading →