Rewind & Review #83

Created by Shae Has Left the Room.

~Last few weeks have still been a lot of catch-up from spring break. I think I'm finally on top of my homework, but now I'm struggling to stay on schedule.

~My drama group for Shakespeare has started rehearsing our performance (it's in place of a final paper).

~Submissions were due to our university's lit magazine last Friday, so we've been going over them this week and deciding what will make it into this semester's edition.

~Still waiting to hear back about all of the internships I applied for, so continued prayers would be appreciated.

~I went to Half Price Books with a friend on Friday, and it made me sad to see how many YA ARCs they were selling. Y'all, this is your annual reminder that you shouldn't take ARCs to used book stores; they aren't for sale/resale. If you need to get rid of them and trading isn't working, see if your local high school, shelter, etc. take donations, or even mess them up and use the pages for Bookstagram pictures.

Books I Received for Review

Welcome Home anthology by various authors (from Flux via NetGalley)

Retribution Rails by Erin Bowman (from HMH BFYR via NetGalley)

Tash Hearts Tolstoy by Kathryn Ormsbee (from Simon & Schuster BFYR via NetGalley)

Books I Won/Traded for/was Gifted

The Distance from A to Z by Natalie Blitt (gifted by Secret Sister)

Books I Bought

Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett

Books I Read

Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson (reread)

Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter (reread)

Dreamology by Lucy Keating (3 stars)

Perfect Scoundrels by Ally Carter (reread)

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson (reread)

Literally by Lucy Keating (2 stars)

You're Welcome, Universe by Whitney Gardner (3.5 stars)

Blog Posts You Might've Missed in the Last Few Weeks

   (from 3/27-4/1)

• Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I'm Dying to Meet
• How to Be an Amateur Bookstagrammer
• Review: Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett (4 stars)
• A Crown of Wishes Blog Tour

   (from 4/2-4/8)

• Review: Letters to the Lost by Brigid Kemmerer (4 stars)
• Top Ten Tuesday: My Fandoms
• Review: A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi (4 stars)
• Random Friday: Handwriting
• The Odyssey Article - Why Is Spring Semester Worse Than Fall Semester?

Random Friday: Handwriting

Want to participate in Random Fridays? Just do the following: 

• Include the above image in your post and link back to my post.
• Blog about this week's topic.
• Add the link to your Random Friday at the bottom of this post.

Handwriting has always been pretty cool, to me at least. I love how it's kind of like someone's voice in written form, and handwriting can say so much about a person.

When I was around eleven or twelve, I purposefully started writing a bit more neatly with rounder letters, and I started putting bubbles over my lowercase "I's" and "J's" instead of dots.

I learned cursive when I was seven and eight and, while it's never been perfect, I don't think my cursive is too bad. I handwrite a lot of my stories before typing them up, and lately, I've been writing them in cursive just because I love the way it looks.

As part of this post, I did a handwriting tag from Tumblr. Feel free to do it yourself!

How do you feel about your handwriting? Do you prefer cursive or printing? Can you do calligraphy?

Review: A Crown of Wishes

A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi
Grade: B
An e-galley was provided by St. Martin's Griffin via NetGalley in exchange for review consideration.
Summary: Gauri, the princess of Bharata, has been taken as a prisoner of war by her kingdom’s enemies. Faced with a future of exile and scorn, Gauri has nothing left to lose. Hope unexpectedly comes in the form of Vikram, the cunning prince of a neighboring land and her sworn enemy kingdom. Unsatisfied with becoming a mere puppet king, Vikram offers Gauri a chance to win back her kingdom in exchange for her battle prowess. Together, they’ll have to set aside their differences and team up to win the Tournament of Wishes—a competition held in a mythical city where the Lord of Wealth promises a wish to the victor.

Reaching the tournament is just the beginning. Once they arrive, danger takes on new shapes: poisonous courtesans and mischievous story birds, a feast of fears and twisted fairy revels.

Every which way they turn new trials will test their wit and strength. But what Gauri and Vikram will soon discover is that there’s nothing more dangerous than what they most desire.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: I think my favorite part of A Crown of Wishes (ACOW) was that I expected none of it. Pretty much every plotline and twist surprised me, which is hard to do in most books just because I've read so many. Of course the world wasn't completely new, since ACOW is a companion to Chokshi's debut, A Star-Touched Queen, but there were still new details and I felt like I got to know Vikram and Gauri even better than Maya because I didn't have to learn as much about a new world.
The book takes place over a little more than a month but the passage of time never drags for reasons that are a spoiler. I will say that, because of the short time, I didn't quite buy that Vikram and Gauri love each other. I acknowledge that the trials they went through might have bonded them more quickly, but I think they needed a little more time with each other for me to call it love like SPOILER they do at the end. END SPOILER (Although the ending was pretty sweet.)
One of the few things that bothered me was that Gauri references, on several occasions, something terrible that happened to her sister-in-law, Nalini, but she never states what and readers don't learn until the very end. I hate when information is withheld like that.
I loved reading about the trials and Tournament of Wishes (which was so different from any other competition in YA books), as well as Kubera and his queen consort, Kauveri. Also, Aasha! I really wanted just a teeny bit more with her and Gauri towards the end, but the development of their friendship was great.
Language, sexual content, and violence were all pretty tame.

The Verdict: Very good, but not mind-blowing and wonderful. Still, I look forward to reading more of Roshani Chokshi's words.

Buy: Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Will I be adding this book to my library?: Probably.

Top Ten Tuesday: My Fandoms

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's topic is all about fandoms, and I could've gone a lot of ways with this, but I decided to keep it basic and just list my top nine fandoms.

1. Taylor Swift

I've been a Swiftie since 2009-ish, and it's probably my top fandom. Granted, I don't interact with a lot of Swifties often, but I follow a few fan blogs on Tumblr.

2. Gilmore Girls

I watched this show waaaayyyy after most people (June 2015-February 2016), but it's absolutely one of my favorite shows now.

3. Agent Carter

Peggy Carter totally got the short end of the stick from Marvel and ABC, but she will forever be my favorite character to come out of a superhero franchise and at least she can live on in fanfic.

4. Disney

This is a pretty broad fandom, and, while I don't like a lot of Disney's recent choices, Disney films will forever be in my heart, thanks to my childhood attachment to them as well as some of the phenomenal films they and Pixar have released lately.

5. Hamilton

I tried to be so hipster and avoid Hamilton for the longest time (although it was also partially because I don't really like rap and hip-hop), but three days into Christmas break 2015, I was bored and so I listened to the entire album. I was hooked and now there's no turning back.

6. Miraculous Ladybug

Properly titled Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir, I'm hooked on this French cartoon about teenage superheroes in Paris, thanks to a Twitter/Tumblr friend (hi, Jessica!). I'm so glad Netflix acquired it so I could watch it via legal, better-functioning means, and I'm dying for season two. This is also one of my favorite fandoms for fanfic, and one of my favorites is very You've Got Mail-esque. 

7. Gallagher Girls/Heist Society

Ally Carter's first two series are some of my favorites in YA ever (especially Heist Society). I don't do a lot in this fandom, but I definitely think it deserves to be on this list.

8. Emery Lord

I love Emery's books, so if she has a fandom, I'm part of it. (I mean, we have buttons for a few of her books that say "I <3 Matt Finch/Max Watson/Henry Jones." What else is more fandom-like than that?)

9. Harry Potter

Yeah, I'd say I'm a Harry Potter fan, although most of my merch is Slytherin-focused. I really liked Fantastic Beasts, though, and I love reading Internet headcanons.

What are your top fandoms? Do we have any in common?

Review: Letters to the Lost

Letters to the Lost by Brigid Kemmerer
Grade: B-
Release date: April 4, 2017
An ARC was provided by Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review.
Summary: Juliet Young always writes letters to her mother, a world-traveling photojournalist. Even after her mother's death, she leaves letters at her grave. It's the only way Juliet can cope.

Declan Murphy isn't the sort of guy you want to cross. In the midst of his court-ordered community service at the local cemetery, he's trying to escape the demons of his past.

When Declan reads a haunting letter left beside a grave, he can't resist writing back. Soon, he's opening up to a perfect stranger, and their connection is immediate. But neither Declan nor Juliet knows that they're not actually strangers. When life at school interferes with their secret life of letters, sparks will fly as Juliet and Declan discover truths that might tear them apart.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: I am very conflicted about Letters to the Lost. On the one hand, it's a YA story reminiscent of You've Got Mail. On the other, it felt like a very typical YA book at times.
I liked how Declan and Juliet got started by writing letters to each other and then switched to email and an IM-like chat. I really liked Rev and his friendship with Declan. I loved watching Juliet's relationship with photography change, although the relationship with her best friend could've used some work. It felt a bit stereotypical at times, although I liked that the one guy was more interested in her than Juliet, but it didn't cause a problem in their friendship.
My biggest beef with the story was the parent-child relationships. Juliet's mother is dead, and she and her father aren't close. In fact, her father doesn't seem to really care about his daughter. Declan's father did horrible things, his mother was basically complicit, and Declan's stepfather is awful. I really wish the parents hadn't all been bad parents because that's so overdone in YA, and I'm tired of it.
Finally, I just didn't feel deeply invested in the story. I wanted to so badly, but I expected more from Letters to the Lost.
Some foul language.

The Verdict: Kind of good, but it didn't strike a chord with me.

Buy: Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Will I be adding this book to my library?: Maybe eventually.

A Crown of Wishes Blog Tour

The Book

A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi

Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble  Amazon

Gauri, the princess of Bharata, has been taken as a prisoner of war by her kingdom’s enemies. Faced with a future of exile and scorn, Gauri has nothing left to lose. Hope unexpectedly comes in the form of Vikram, the cunning prince of a neighboring land and her sworn enemy kingdom. Unsatisfied with becoming a mere puppet king, Vikram offers Gauri a chance to win back her kingdom in exchange for her battle prowess. Together, they’ll have to set aside their differences and team up to win the Tournament of Wishes—a competition held in a mythical city where the Lord of Wealth promises a wish to the victor.

Reaching the tournament is just the beginning. Once they arrive, danger takes on new shapes: poisonous courtesans and mischievous story birds, a feast of fears and twisted fairy revels.

Every which way they turn new trials will test their wit and strength. But what Gauri and Vikram will soon discover is that there’s nothing more dangerous than what they most desire.

The Author

The Excerpt

•» 2 «•

BURNING ROSES GAURI

T

he guards unbound my wrists and shoved me into a red room. I waited for them to go before pulling out a small silk bag of pearl dust I had swiped from the cosmetics table. I repeated the flimsy plan in my head:

Throw the dust in his eyes, gag him, steal his weapons. If the Prince made a sound, I’d hold the dagger to his throat and hold him ransom. If he didn’t make a sound, I’d make him free me for his own life. I knew I couldn’t get far on my own, but most people could be bribed, and if bribery didn’t work, threats always did.

I was glad they hadn’t taken me to a throne room. The last time I was in a throne room, Skanda had ripped away my hopes for the king- dom and destroyed my future.

Arjun did not meet my eyes. And he refused to look up when his new bride and my best friend was hauled into the room. Nalini sank to her knees. Her gaze was frantic: leaping back and forth from me to Arjun and the dead on the ground. Skanda’s knife was pressed to her throat, sharp and close enough that beads of blood welled onto her skin.

“I know what you want,” said Skanda.

I closed my eyes, shuttering the memory. I looked around the room, wondering which corner was the best position for attacking. At one end, a trellis of roses covered the wall. My chest tightened. I used to grow roses. One trellis for every victory. I had loved watching the blood red petals unfurl around thorns. Looking at them reminded me of my people’s love: red as life. A month before Skanda had me thrown over the Ujijain border, he had set them on fire in a drunken stupor. By the time I got there, it was too late. Every petal had curled and blackened.

“You think these flowers are tokens of Bharata’s love for you,” he had slurred. “I want you to see, little sister. I want you to see just how easy it is for everything you plan and love and tend to go up in flames.”

I’ll never forget what burning roses look like. All those scarlet petals turning incandescent and furious. Like the last flare of the sun before an eclipse swallows it from the sky.

“You think they love you now, but it doesn’t last. You’re the rose. Not them. They are the flames. And you’ll never see how quickly you’ll catch fire until you’re engulfed. One step out of the line I draw, and they will set you on fire.”

I turned my back on the roses.

I chose a corner of the room, and then sank my teeth into the in- sides of my cheek. It was a habit I’d picked up on the eve of my first battle. Nerves had set my teeth chattering, so I brought out a mirror and glowered at myself. The glowering didn’t help, but I liked the way my face looked. The small movements made my cheekbones look as sharp as scimitars. And when I tightened my lips, I felt dangerous, as if I were hiding knives behind my teeth. Biting my cheeks became a battle tradition. Today I went into battle.

A door in the distance creaked. I ran through what I knew about the Prince of Ujijain. They called him the Fox Prince. And given the way some of the soldiers had jealously said his name, it didn’t seem like a name given because his face had animal features. He spent part of every year at an ashram where all the nobility sent their sons. Reputedly brilliant. Not good. Weak with weapons. Excellent. The guards were fond of retelling the story of his trial with the council. Prince Vikram had to submit to three tasks in order to be named heir of Ujijain—give the dead new life, hold a flame that never burns, and deliver the stron- gest weapon in the world. For the first task, he whittled a piece of bark into a knife, proving that even discarded things could be given new life in purpose. For the second task, he released a thousand jars of fireflies and held the small insects in his hand, proving that he could hold a flame that never burned. And for the last task, he said that he had poi- soned the council. Desperate for the antidote, the council named him heir. The Fox Prince then revealed that he had lied and proved how be- lief itself was the strongest weapon in the world.

I rolled my eyes every time I heard the tale. It sounded like some- thing that villagers with a restless imagination would spin beside a fire. I’d heard another rumor about him. Something about his par- entage. That he was an orphan who’d moved the Emperor to pity. But I doubted the vicious Emperor would be moved in such a way. The guards told me that the Emperor kept great beasts at his side that could tear the throat out of anyone who dared to cross him.

Footsteps shuffled down the hall. I clutched the silk bag of pearl dust. The Prince might be clever and eloquent, but you can’t talk your way out of death and I wasn’t going to give him a chance to speak. All my intelligence told me that he was no match for me. I’d have him on his knees and begging for his life in a matter of moments.

A final door opened.  The Fox Prince was here.