Review: STARGAZER by Patrick Carman

Rating: 5/5 stars **some spoilers ahead**

I was a little weary before starting this book since it isn't part of the original series and is an add-on book, but it was so, so good! It only expanded further the already expansive and rich world created by Patrick Carman. (Stargazer is book four in the Land of Elyon series; you will not want to read this book or this review until you have finished the original trilogy.)

Alexa and her crew travel across the Lonely Sea to a mysterious and hidden land called the Five Stone Pillars, which is a unique world within itself. It turns out Abaddon got loose and followed them there, and now Alexa has to save the Five Stone Pillars before he completely destroys them.

There are many new and loveable characters introduced in this installment, and I wish I had more books with them. It would be wonderful to see this world and set of characters continue in more follow-up books. Just like Alexa says, Thomas Warvold was the land adventurer, Roland Warvold was the sea adventurer, and she is meant to be sky adventurer. We also read at the end that Elyon tells Alexa, "I have many things that need doing, and so it will be awhile for you [before you return to the Tenth City]." There is a lot of room for expansion in this world, and I would love to read about Alexa's other adventures as she explores other corners of this world.

Although this book was probably my favourite in the series, there are a few inconsistencies I was confused about unless I am mistaken and heard wrong while listening:
Matilda said she had been to the fourth pillar when she was very young, but later Alistair said he is the only person to have come to the fourth pillar.
Alexa said she could hear the voice of Abaddon only when she looked at him but then she starts hearing his voice without looking at him.

By the way, I highly recommend reading book 0.5, Into the Mist, right before this book. The series is very fluid when read that way, as book 0.5 ends at the exact point that Stargazer begins.

Review: THE END WE START FROM by Megan Hunter

Rating: 2/5 stars

This is an interesting little book, more of a novella, about a woman just after she gives birth. Written in a stream-of-consciousness style, almost like a diary, this story follows the nameless mother and her husband as they try to survive after all of London has become uninhabitable due to a massive flood. The couple moves around, looking for shelter, meeting others in the same circumstance. There is a minor dystopian feel to this book, although it is different from a typical dystopian novel.

All of the characters are named only with a single letter (e.g. R, Z), though I am not sure why the author chose to name them this way. It makes the story impersonal, and I had a hard time connecting with any characters. I think I would connect more with the main character if I were a mom like her because this story focuses heavily on her birth and her son and his impact on her life.

In fact, I think this book would appeal mostly to mothers, especially those who have lost their husbands or whose husbands are away for an extended time (e.g. at war).

I both liked and disliked the writing style. I didn't really understand what the author was trying to communicate at times, but the writing does have a beautiful quality.

The End We Start From doesn't feel much like a book to me, more like an outline for a book that never got written. There is no direct dialogue, although conversations do take place. There is lots of room to make the story deeper if it were expanded into a full-length book, lots of places to add emotion and suspense. Overall though, this is a story about finding hope in troubling times, and I appreciate the way the author communicated that message.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of the ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Review: THE DARK HILLS DIVIDE by Patrick Carman

Rating: 5/5 stars

The Dark Hills Divide was one of my very favourite books when I was little. I remember reading it and being enthralled by the magical story of Alexa as she finds a magical glowing stone that allows her to communicate with animals and uses her newfound ability to help stop a war on the city of Bridewell.

I am so glad that I decided to reread this book. I was worried the story would have lost its magic with age, but it was just as good as I remember. I had forgotten many of the details, so it was as if I was reading the story for the first time, following the journey and solving the clues right along with Alexa.

As an older reader now, I can see some problems with the story, like the fact that Alexa seems to be the only child in the whole city, and that no women are present or have speaking roles in the book (aside from a letter from Alexa's mom), but that didn't deter me from loving the story.

If you love middle-grade fantasy and haven't yet discovered this series, I highly recommend you give it a chance. This is a story of hope and renewal that will stick with you for quite some time.

Review: MILK AND HONEY by Rupi Kaur

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

I saw this book on display at the grocery store one day and casually picked it up and started reading it. The next thing I knew, my husband had already checked out and was waiting for me to leave. I put the book down but immediately reserved it from the library and got it the following week. In the store, it was this poem that made me realize I had to finish the entire book:

every time you / tell your daughter / you yell at her / out of love / you teach her to confuse / anger with kindness / which seems like a good idea / till she grows up to / trust men who hurt her / cause they look so much / like you

That particular poem just spoke to me. When I got the book from the library, I read it all in one sitting (rereading all the parts I had previously read at the store) and it was beautiful. These poems are for women, mostly. Women who have experienced pain and love and loss. I believe everyone will be able to relate to at least one poem in here; I know many resonated with me.

Rupi Kaur takes us on a journey through the hurting, the loving, the breaking, and the healing in life, illustrating every other poem with a line drawing that is so connected with the poem that it becomes part of the poem. This is the kind of poetry collection I could see myself rereading when I am sad or broken. It has that kind of healing effect.

Here is another of my favourite quotations, one that shows the self-worth of a woman is not dependent on what a man thinks. I just love the meaning behind this:

the next time he / points out the / hair on your legs is / growing back remind / that boy your body / is not his home / he is a guest / warn him to / never outstep / his welcome / again

Review: ALL THINGS NEW by Lauren Miller

Rating: 5/5 stars

All Things New begins in the middle of one of Jessa's panic attacks: chaos abounds through short sentences and fragmented thoughts. I was overwhelmed and confused, but this is exactly how an anxiety attack feels. Lauren Miller wasted no time getting to the point with her strong opening scene.

Jessa is a relatable high school girl, especially to someone like me who also suffers from anxiety and panic attacks. Her internal thoughts have often been my exact thoughts before. I understand why she gets anxiety about certain situations, even when it may seem illogical and irrational to others. I've been in her shoes.

After she gets into a car accident that leaves her scarred in more ways than one, Jessa begins seeing scars, burns, bruises, and cuts on others' faces. After realizing she is the only person who can see these marks, Jessa begins to wonder if there's a purpose behind their existence and if she's getting better or worse in the months post-accident.

This novel does a really good job at communicating the idea that everyone experiences pain, whether physical or emotional or mental, and that everyone has a "dragon" to fight. Just because one cannot see the hurt does not mean that it doesn't exist. Most pain we bury away anyway, putting on a facade of being happy and okay, but what if others could see what we are actually struggling with on the inside?

All Things New's diversity in mental health conditions brings awareness to the many diseases that exist. This book features characters with an array of afflictions: autism, Aspergers, panic attacks, OCD, anxiety, addiction, and anorexia, among others. Although some conditions may have been portrayed stereotypically at times, none of it was in a negative light.

This is a beautiful story of acceptance, both of yourself and of others, and the differences and trials that make us human. It is witty and heartfelt, emotional and encouraging. But most of all it is about the hope of overcoming your "dragons" and how that can revive your soul.

I've been letting fear win. . . . Generalized anxiety disorder is no small dragon. But I'm the one who gave that dragon the throne. Not because I didn't know how to fight it, even though that's what I would've said. But because I was afraid of what fighting it would cost me.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Review: THE HOUR WASP by Jay Sheets

Rating: 5/5 stars

This poetry book features an eccentric style of writing that was perfect for my taste: free verse poetry that requires you to think below surface-level words and dig out layers of meaning and imagery embedded in the sentences. It is poetry that doesn't always make sense at first but still exudes an ethereal quality, poetry that has a life-altering impact once it's read four times and the words connect and sink in. This kind of poetry isn't for everyone, but it is for me. 

Even the presentation of the poems add to the quality of the collection: every word is in lower case font without punctuation. The visual style changes from poem to poem, cutting phrases in pieces between lines and ending so abruptly that it slices you like a razor blade. But it's beautiful. 

The Hour Wasp is a literary collection of poems not meant for the uneducated, the non-dreamers, or the faint of heart. It is raw, it is dark, it is honest. This collection is made of otherworldly imagery that will transport you to another time and place, one you only wish you could reside in forever. And when you come back to your suddenly sullen reality after the last page, you'll be tempted to leap back into that dream state of chaos created by the elegantly occult poems.

Also included in this book are absolutely stunningly beautiful black ink watercolor paintings of earthly creations. The only improvement I would make to this book would be to add more artwork like that which already exists inside. 

I struggled to pick only one quotation to include, but here is my favourite part, lines from a poem titled [my fingers damp in a ruined dream]: 

her fingers / exhume vellum word-coffins / from pockets no hands should find . . . & the rude beauty whispers: plant the bones / know they'll grow to become the flowers / ours will never be

This is a book that I will read time and time again because it had that much of an impact on me. 

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with this ebook in exchange for an honest review.

Decluttering and Organizing My Books

I have been looking forward to this day for so long. We just moved into our own place after six months of living with family (since we moved across the country on a whim), and two years prior of living in student housing while I was in college. This is the first time in about eight years that all my books are in the same room since my bookcases were split between two rooms while I was in high school. And it's also the first time that all my books and all my husband's books will be combined into our shared shelves. I first set up the shelves, which I know for a fact fit only about 1/2 to 2/3 of these books, and then I brought in all the boxes from storage. This is what I'm working with:

all our boxes of books

This is already looking overwhelming. There are 45 boxes here! I unpacked all my boxes, putting all the books into piles on the floor.

Last year I read Marie Kondo's The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and I will be using that book's method (the Konmari method) for decluttering my books. She recommends to set goals for your personal space, which I have done:

Goals: 

• Own only books that I truly want to read or that I enjoyed so much that I want to reread. 
• Eliminate books that do not bring joy when I look at them. 
• Have all my books displayed vertically in an organized manner on my shelves. Every book should have room without needing to double-stack the shelves. 
• Make my shelves a representation of me--who I am and what I love. 
• Create a relaxing space where my bookshelves bring me peace instead of anxiety. 
• Reduce my TBR. 

With these goals in mind, Marie Kondo says to then put all the books on the floor. This is easy for me since they're coming straight out of boxes instead of off the shelves.

all the books that we own

When they're all in one place, in a pile, it's easy to see that we own too many books. Even though my husband and I both love reading, that doesn't mean I want us owning an endless supply of books. And the surprising thing is that I even donated about 50 of my books before we moved.

The next step in the Konmari method is to pick up each book, one by one, and ask if that book brings you joy. Do not start reading the book; just hold it and look at it. As you can imagine, with 675+ books, it took me quite a long time to sort through them. (My husband recently sorted through his books and got rid of about 70% of his collection, which I was very proud of.)

The problem with marrying a book lover like myself is that we ended up with some duplicate copies of books we both enjoy. I sorted all my duplicate copies into their own pile so I could go through those separately, comparing editions and keeping the best ones.

all duplicate books; left: keep, right: donate

Then I proceeded to sort through my books one by one, as she says. I originally went into this process expecting to get rid of about 100 books. I know that seems like a lot, but I was feeling hopeful. I also had been looking at a list of my books prior to today, and I had made a mental note of about 50 books that I thought could go.

After many hours of sorting through my books, I ended up donating 257 books (plus another stack a few days later) and keeping 415 books (not including my old yearbooks).

I am feeling that I may still get rid of more over the next few months as I hone in my reading tastes, but we shall see. Now all that's left is to put all the books on my shelf and see if they fit (which they didn't). I'll be honest, organizing my bookshelf is one of my very favourite things to do.

halfway done when I realized there were too many books for three bookcases

Unfortunately, there are still too many books for the amount of shelf space we have, but I am reluctant to purchase another shelf. I got them to all fit, but I had to stack some books horizontally to save space. Nevertheless, these are our bookshelves.

our newly culled and organized bookshelves

My ultimate goal is to have less than ten books on my TBR and to read books as I purchase them instead of letting them sit around for a long time first. Hopefully, these new shelves will help me to reach my goal quicker and enjoy my books more.

Thanks for reading!
xo


FAQs

• Where do you get your bookcases? All my cases are the Billy model from IKEA.
• Aren't you wasting money by getting rid of unread books? No, not really. Most of my books (especially the ones I'm donating) were free, either from the youth library program, as gifts, from friends, or from my grandma's attic. Or they were purchased at super bargain prices, so I don't feel too bad about it. I rarely pay full price for books, but those are the ones that I'm very excited for and willing to read, so I actually want to keep all of those. 
• Where did you discard all your books? I sold them all at Half Price Books.  

2017 Reading Goals

I'm very pleased with how much and what I managed to read in 2016. My main goal was to read one hundred books during the year, which I managed to do for the first time ever: I read 111 books in 2016. Although I can see myself reading even more books in 2017, that is not my goal this year. My Goodreads goal is set to forty books for the year for a few different reasons.

First, in reference to one of my previous posts, I want to focus more on the quality not the quantity of books I read. I want to really connect with and enjoy the books I read instead of just trying to read as many books as possible. Forty seems like a reasonable number in that manner.

Second, my main focus for this year is to reduce the number of unread books I own (my TBR). At the beginning of 2016, my TBR was somewhere around 430 books, but I have continued to both acquire many books and read many owned books throughout the year, as well as giving away around forty books (most of them unread). Now at the beginning of 2017, my TBR is 415 books. My goal is to get that number down to under 300 by the end of the year. I don't intend to actually read one hundred books since I know of quite a few that I will be giving away once I unpack all my books from storage (oh, the joys of moving). My TBR has been in the hundreds for as long as I can remember, and I am starting to feel overwhelmed by it. I have the long-term goal to reduce it to under ten books by 2020.

Third, I want to read some longer classics this year that will take more time to read than the average length of books that I normally read. My goal is to read these three books in 2017: Anna Karenina, Don Quixote, and Jude the Obscure. I have a few more on the list if I can get to them, although reading long classics is a goal secondary to reducing my TBR.

Fourth, I would like to read five church-related books throughout the year (I own quite a few, so this goal pairs with my second goal). These kinds of nonfiction books generally take more time to read than lighthearted fiction novels because they require in-depth study of and pondering on their concepts.

In 2016 I participated in and completed the Around the World in Fifty-Two Books challenge. Although that challenge is continuing in 2017 with a new list, I will not be taking part this year. I found that last year, I mostly just matched the books I was reading with a goal from the challenge without really going out of my way to read books I wouldn't normally read. I think that is the point of the challenge, though, to read out of your comfort zone a little bit. I love reading challenges with different goals like this one, but I think I will put off participating again until my TBR is low enough that I feel I am at a place to venture outside of my own books.

Overall, I am hoping 2017 brings great books and lots of time to read. I believe that my favourite book is still out there waiting to be discovered, and maybe this will be the year that I discover it.