Queen of Books

Saturday, 8 June 2019

MAY '19 WRAP-UP

Time for another wrap up!

May was a complicated month for me as I had final exams as well as moved out of college. Then I had my wisdom teeth removed near the end of the month and that was not fun at all. I'm surprisingly still recovering but I am doing so much better.

I didn't read a ton of books this month but I did enjoy most of the books that I did read.

Anyways...

Time to talk about the books I read this month.

PHYSICAL BOOKS

The first book I read was The Afterward by E.K. Johnston. I had such high expectations for this book and I was a little disappointed. I loved the representation that we got but I thought that the story dragged a little bit. This was about two heroes who have returned from a quest and were trying to go back to normal society. I thought the concept was pretty cool and I liked how it had two female leads but I didn't love it as much as I wanted to. I rated this one 3 Crowns.

The second book I read was The Hummingbird Dagger by Cindy Anstey. Cindy Anstey's books are some of my favorite historical fiction books. This book was about James who witnesses a carriage accident and saves a young woman who says her name is Beth, however she has no memory when she regains consciousness. With the help of James and his sister, Caroline, Beth begins to unravel the mystery that is her life and figure out what actually happened to lead to the carriage accident. I rated this one 4 Crowns.

The third book I read was A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I read this in order to watch the TV show and I was very pleasantly surprised. This is about Diana Bishop who is descended from an old/distinguised line of witches. Diana is a history scholar who unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript from the Oxford library and she banishes the book back to the stacks as she wants nothing to do with sorcery. However, her discovery sets vampires, witches and daemons descending upon the library and herself. I loved this book a lot and ended up rating it 5 Crowns.

The fourth book I read was Furyborn by Claire Legrand. I have been trying to read this book for awhile now and I could never get into it until this month. This is about two women, centuries apart, who are fighting in a cosmic war that spans millenia. Rielle Dardenne exposes herself as one of the prophesied queens: a queen of light, and a queen of blood, when she saves her best friend from assassins. She has to go through trials to prove she's the Sun Queen or she'll be executed. A thousand years later, Eliana Ferracora is a bounty hunter for the Empire until her mother vanishes. She then joins a rebel captain to find her and discovers how terrible the evil at the empire's heart really is. I ended up really enjoying this book and rated it 4 Crowns.

The fifth book I read was Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. I have had this book on my shelf for years and never picked it up because I thought the time to read these kinds of books had long passed, however, I picked it up this month and ended up flying through it. This book is about Lissa who is a mortal vampire princess who must be protected at all times. She's protected by her best friend, Rose. After two years of freedom, the two of them are dragged back to St. Vladimir's Academy, a school for vampire royalty and their guardians, which is hidden in Montana. However, inside there is even more danger. I rated this book 4 Crowns.

AUDIOBOOKS READ

The only audiobook that I listened to in May was The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco. I wrote a full review of this book however it didn't go up during May but I'll link it here. I ended up really enjoying the audiobook. The narrators really helped bring the characters to life and even though the plot was pretty slow, the audiobook helped move it along. I rated it 5 Crowns.

ARC'S READ

NONE

REVIEWS IN MARCH + APRIL:

An Affair of Poisons by Addie Thorley Book Review

The Black Coats by Colleen Oakes Book Review

WEEKLY WRAP-UP:

5/13 - 5/19

5/20 - 5/26

DISCUSSIONS/OTHER:

March + April '19 Wrap-Up

Fifteen Anticipated 2018 Releases I Didn't Get to in 2018

FAVORITE COVER OF THE MONTH:

NEW FICTIONAL BAE'S:

Matthew from A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Simon from Furyborn by Claire Legrand

Dimitri from Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Christian from Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

NEW FAVORITE FEMALES:

Tea from The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco

Beth from The Hummingbird Dagger by Cindy Anstey

Diana from A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Eliana from Furyborn by Claire Legrand

Rose from Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Lissa from Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

NEW FAVORITE BOOK RELATIONSHIPS:

James and Beth from The Hummingbird Dagger by Cindy Anstey

Diana and Matthew from A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Simon and Eliana from Furyborn by Claire Legrand

Christian and Lissa from Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

Rose and Dimitri from Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

TV SHOWS I WATCHED THIS MONTH:

MOVIES I WATCHED THIS MONTH:

WHAT BOOKS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO NEXT MONTH:

There's so many more but these are the main ones!

NEW BLOG FINDS

NONE

SONGS ON REPEAT

Phantom of the Opera - Movie Soundtrack

Sucker - The Jonas Brothers

ME! - Taylor Swift ft. Brendon Urie

Kill this Love - BLACKPINK

Woman - Kesha

Stand Down - Little Mix

7 rings - Ariana Grande Album

Saturday Night - Panic! at the Disco

Mercy - Hurts

Go - Meg Myers

Sweet But Psycho - Ava Max

The Struggle - Grizfolk

The Edge of Glory - Lady Gaga

Daddy Lessons - Riverdale Cast

BOOKS I WANT TO READ NEXT MONTH

The graphics at the top belong to me. The background pictures for them, however do not.

Friday, 7 June 2019

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco Audiobook Review

This is a spoiler free review.

The Bone Witch
Written by Rin Chupeco

Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Release Date: March 7, 2017

Pages: 432
Source: Audiobook from Library

Places to Get this Book: Amazon Barnes and Noble Book Depository

Recommended Age: 13 and up!

Summary:

In the captivating start to a new, darkly lyrical fantasy series for readers of Leigh Bardugo and Sabaa Tahir, Tea can raise the dead, but resurrection comes at a price...

Let me be clear: I never intended to raise my brother from his grave, though he may claim otherwise. If there's anything I've learned from him in the years since, it's that the dead hide truths as well as the living.

When Tea accidentally resurrects her brother from the dead, she learns she is different from the other witches in her family. Her gift for necromancy means that she's a bone witch, a title that makes her feared and ostracized by her community. But Tea finds solace and guidance with an older, wiser bone witch, who takes Tea and her brother to another land for training.

In her new home, Tea puts all her energy into becoming an asha-one who can wield elemental magic. But dark forces are approaching quickly, and in the face of danger, Tea will have to overcome her obstacles...and make a powerful choice.

(Summary from Goodreads)

Review:

The Bone Witch by Rin Cupeco is a book that I originally got an eArc for but ended up not finishing it because I couldn't understand what was going on. Then when I read a review of the audiobook, I decided to give it a go. I ended up loving the audiobook as well as the book itself which I am very happy about as the series was a highly anticipated one.

COVER

The cover is really pretty and I think it fits the book well. I also really like the purple and the other dark colors that are used which contribute well to the darker atmosphere of the book.

WORLD-BUILDING

The world of The Bone Witch is very complicated. The Bone Witch is set in a world that is protected by asha who are beautiful, talented, fighters with magical powers. They control elements such as fire, earth, water and wind. Our main character is a bone witch which are dark asha or asha that tamper with death. Their powers are the most important job in this world but they are not very respected. Bone witches help defeat Daeva (demons that come back to life every so many years) who were created by The False Prince using death magic. Bone witches are the only asha who can defeat them until the next time that they resurrect. The fact that Daeva are created with death magic means that bone witches also get a negative connotation.

Another huge part of this world is that everyone wears heartglasses around their necks. These heartglasses are essentially a piece of you and they have to be protected. An interesting thing about heartglasses is that if you fall in love with someone then you can give your heartglass to them. However, you have to be careful because if that person ends up being unworthy, they can use it to hold a large amount of power over you. Your heartglass will change colors depending on what and how you're feeling, but will overall stay mostly the same color.

Green = Sickly
Yellow = Fear
Red = Healthy and Happy
Pink = Romantic
And so on...

The color silver indicates that you can draw runes which means that you are an asha if you're a girl and a soldier if you're a boy. Silver heartglasses are very important to the world and are sought after. Dark asha/bone witches can read other's heartglasses which come in handy during the book.

Then there are the characters (however for this book, I'm only going to talk about the main one).

TEA

Tea is a bone witch which means that she has the rare power to raise things from the dead. Tea doesn't start the book knowing that she could be an asha as her parents and sisters all have "normal" magical powers/elements and Tea doesn't have any. However, she discovers she's a bone witch after accidentally resurrecting her newly dead brother at his funeral. Tea is a very strong character and we can see that as she goes through her asha training. Even though she often doubts that she is able to become a full asha, she took all the training and challenges with pride and showed her abilities. Tea changed a lot over the course of the book both due to the manifestation/control of her abilities as well as the fact that she got older over the course of the book. Tea is written as very capable and independent even though she is still young and fairly inexperienced with the world of the asha.

FRIENDSHIP/FAMILY

Tea leaves her family in order to train with another bone witch named Mykaela who acts as both a teacher and a mother figure to Tea. Tea is taken to train with her when she resurrects her brother and Mykaela completely takes her under her wing. Mykaela teaches her about ashas and bone witches as well as their duties, while putting Tea on the path to becoming very powerful. Tea does take her resurrected brother with her and they are very close, both due to sharing a very special bond and being family. I really enjoyed their relationship and I look forward to seeing how their bond grows and how it affects both of them.

PLOT

The Bone Witch is about Tea who discovers she's a bone witch when she accidentally resurrects her newly dead brother at his funeral. Luckily for her another bone witch is in town and she takes Tea under her wing and promises her family that she'll train her. The plot is slow and showcases Tea learning to be a successful asha/bone witch. It is also told by Tea in the future which is really interesting as we get to see a little bit of what she becomes.

ROMANCE

The romance aspect is barely there in this book. Tea is pretty young at the start of this book and while she develops a crush during her time training which spans over a couple of years, it doesn't develop. The author seems to be setting up a love triangle, which will be interesting for the sequel.

AUDIOBOOK THOUGHTS

The audiobook is read by two different people: Emily Woo Zeller and Will Damron. I thought both of them did an amazing job at the narration and it really made me enjoy this audiobook a lot more than I ever thought I would. Emily Woo Zeller effectively did different voices for each character which I loved a lot and Will Damron did the voice of Tea's future apprentice. I am looking forward to listening to the rest of this series with these narrators.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The audiobook for The Bone Witch is something I didn't expect to enjoy so much. I really enjoyed both the narration and the storyline and characters. While the storyline is a little slow, the narration really helps you move through it at a quicker pace then if you are trying to read it on your own. I recommend trying the audiobook, especially if you have yet to pick this book up.

Quotes from the Book:

“Then perhaps we should carve a world one day where the strength lies in who you are, rather than in what they expect you to be.”

“Sometimes it is good to remind ourselves how bitterness tastes.”

My Rating: 5 out of 5 Crowns

Monday, 3 June 2019

Summer Bookish Bingo '19 TBR

Hello everyone! It's been awhile since I've done one of these but I saw this on Bekka's blog and I got really excited especially since I've been slacking in my reading a lot lately.

This seasonly challenge is hosted by Bekka from Lock and Rose. You can find the original post and the rules here. The reading categories give us plenty of wiggle-room and you can tweak the categories a bit to better suit your needs. This runs from June '19 - August '19.

Here is the card and my TBR: