Checked out with my kindle unlimited membership in January 2023 to try this angel book by Wildenstein. Leigh is a fletching angel trying to finish her wings. She takes on Jarod Adler because is she saves him; she could complete her set and ascend to Elysium. After she meets him though, he puts all her angelic rules to the test. I am really torn about how to rate this book. I loved Leigh and Jarod and Leigh choosing herself for once. I loved the world and the angel rating system much better than other angel tales I’ve read so far, BUT I HATED the ending. I’m sure I’ll work up to reading book 2, but it won’t be today. (3/5 rating)
Tag: reader
BOOK REVIEW – Dragon Marked (Supernatural Prison Book 1) – BY Jaymin Eve
This was my first Jaymin Eve book. This was set in an urban fantasy world based in the North East, US. This world includes all sorts of magical species living together to protect hidden gateways within the community and hide them from the humans. This premise sounded wonderful and I was excited to try this book. Unfortunately, I had to bail on reading this @ about 30%. Though the main characters (a cluster of 5) were supposed to be in 22 ish in age, but behaved more in like with what be expected in high school. I also struggled with the MC female, with her some of her reactions were hard to parse. I just couldn’t get into this book and connect with any of the character’s. It just felt like there wasn’t much of a plot besides following the cluster of 5 MC’s together. I gave this a 1/5 rating. A younger audience might enjoy this more.
October 11 – Native American Day
“Native American Day, observed annually on the second Monday in October, celebrates the cultures and contributions of the many Native American tribes. While it is not celebrated in all 50 states, it is recognized in both California and South Dakota and gaining popularity in the rest of the nation.
While it is not celebrated in all 50 states, it is recognized in both California and South Dakota and gaining popularity in the rest of the nation. In other parts of the country, Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrations occur on this day. Events such as traditional dances, art displays and ceremonies have begun to replace Columbus Day practices.
The observance focuses on celebrating the culture, heritage, and history of tribes across the nation. Each diverse nation carries its own traditions, rituals, and beliefs. The day celebrates their knowledge, contributions and enriching heritage. It’s also a reminder of their enduring legacy of strength, energy, and fortitude. “
Happy Native American Day!
BOOK REVIEW – The Fallen (Hades Castle Trilogy Book 1) – C.N. Crawford
This was my first C.N. Crawford book. Set in an Angel’s and Demons fantasy world, this was a notable tale of Lila in the town of Dovren. It is the first in a trilogy series. I really loved Lila as the main character as her skills were a nice surprise for her plan to murder the Town Count, who also happens to be a fallen angel. I liked the interplay between Lila and, Count Saklas. I thought her characters were well defined and the plot built to a burst ending. I gave this a 3.5/5 rating. If you haven’t read this, it is worth a look and can be checked out on KU.
**Spoiler Alert**
Lila was born in Dovren, but the woman who raised her wasn’t her real mother. Raised with a sister, they taught themselves to fight and defend themselves. Lila began working as a thief at 7, for a local smuggling ring. Her stand in mother racked up lots of debt to pay for her Gin addiction. The collectors set out to find Lila and mutilate her to incentivize her mother to pay them back. While she manages to escape into the upstairs portion of their club by trading places with her courtesan friend, Zahra. Her first customer happens to be Count Sarkas, himself, and he is looking for her. He purchase her services to live at the local castle and be his courtesan for an obscene yearly wages.
When she moves into the castle she becomes stuck between the angels and the Free Men of the city. Claiming to want independence from the angels and create their own country, they identify themselves by a cuff link symbol. They claim the angels are planning to wipe out the mortals but things aren’t as they seem. They try to employ Lila to seduce Sarkas, which makes him mortal for a time, and strap a bomb to his rooms in the castle. She must work through what’s real after her childhood friend betrays her. The future of the realm stands in the balance between the Free Men and the Fallen Angels.
October 4 – World Day of Bullying Prevention
“The first Monday of every October is World Day of Bullying Prevention™! On this day students, schools, and communities all over the world go BLUE together against bullying. It also kicks off National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month every October.”
I love this cause and what it stands for, bullying prevention. It would be a wonderful thing is we all learned how to be tolerant of each other, right? Can you imagine that world? It is a beautiful place. When I was in high school, my sick mother would come with us to the grocery store. Even know I have a huge chip on my shoulder for the act of bullying and the snap second judgement of our fellow humans, that comes with it. My mother couldn’t walk or talk well near the end of her fight with HD, and she was confined to the house most days, unable to drive herself. The amount of impatience and general hostility for bringing her with us was hard to watch, until I started enlightening people. These trips were once a month and her only chance at the old routine she had before being sick. I am always disappointed when I see this but I know we can do better. Some where in there is the capacity to have compassion for our fellow humans, instead of judgement.
Book Review-Poetry Collection – the words i wish i said – caitlin kelly
This was my first poetry book by caitlin kelly. Set on the premise of loss and learning to move on. I had a hard time connecting with much of this though there were a few poems that stood out to me. I felt like the titles for the chapters didn’t necessarily correlate with the poems in each section since similar poems in chapter 1 were in other chapters. I didn’t understand how she split those up in her head. The afterward includes comments about this meaning to be learning self-love, but I couldn’t find any of that within these pages. I had to rate this as a 2/5. This was aimed at a younger audience than me and my jaded view of the world… Also there were some typos throughout.
Autumnal Equinox September 22
Autumnal equinox(about September 22): day and night of equal length, marking the start of autumn. The first day of Fall! Yay! For some of us, Fall and Halloween are celebrated all year long. How will you get your fall on?
Summer’s End
The summer lark,
Stakes claim to a wooden pale,
And then night screams out its name,
As though it had never been. (GM)
Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15-October 15) – My TBR
In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, I have these books added to my TBR in honor of their atruggle:
1 – Lay Your Sleeping Head: A Henry Rios Novel (Henry Rios Mysteries Book 1) – Michael Nava
A completely revised edition of the first Henry Rios mystery, The Little Death, Lay Your Sleeping Head introduces Michael Nava’s singular protagonist, gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer, Henry Rios. Rios, beset my personal and professional problems, begins a passionate affair with the black sheep heir to a great California fortune who tells Rios an improbable tale of murder and sexual predation in his wealthy family. When the young man is found dead of an apparent drug overdose, Rios begins an investigation that ultimately reveals much more than that his lover’s death was murder. One reviewer said Lay Your Sleeping Head “retains all the complexity and elegance of the original novel but deepens the themes of personal alienation and erotic obsession that both honored the traditions of the American crime novel and turned them on their head.”
2 – Ordinary Girls: A Memoir – Jaquira Díaz
While growing up in housing projects in Puerto Rico and Miami Beach, Díaz found herself caught between extremes. As her family split apart and her mother battled schizophrenia, she was supported by the love of her friends. As she longed for a family and home, her life was upended by violence. As she celebrated her Puerto Rican culture, she couldn’t find support for her burgeoning sexual identity. From her own struggles with depression and sexual assault to Puerto Rico’s history of colonialism, every page of Ordinary Girls vibrates with music and lyricism. Díaz writes with raw and refreshing honesty, triumphantly mapping a way out of despair toward love and hope to become her version of the girl she always wanted to be.
3 – Tears of the Trufflepig – Fernando Arturo Flores
A parallel universe. South Texas. A third border wall might be erected between the United States and Mexico, narcotics are legal and there’s a new contraband on the market: filtered animals―species of animals brought back from extinction to amuse the very wealthy.
Esteban Bellacosa has lived in the border town of MacArthur long enough to know to keep quiet and avoid the dangerous syndicates who make their money through trafficking. But his simple life gets complicated after a swashbuckling journalist invites him to an underground dinner at which filtered animals are served. Bellacosa soon finds himself in the middle of an increasingly perilous and surreal journey, in the course of which he encounters legends of the long-disappeared Aranaña Indian tribe and their object of worship: the mysterious Trufflepig, said to possess strange powers.
4 – Be Recorder – Poems – Carmen Giménez Smith
Be Recorder offers readers a blazing way forward into an as yet unmade world. The many times and tongues in these poems investigate the precariousness of personhood in lines that excoriate and sanctify. Carmen Giménez Smith turns the increasingly pressing urge to cry out into a dream of rebellion—against compromise, against inertia, against self-delusion, and against the ways the media dream up our complacency in an America that depends on it. This reckoning with self and nation demonstrates that who and where we are is as conditional as the fact of our compliance: “Miss America from sea to shining sea / the huddled masses have a question / there is one of you and all of us.” Be Recorder is unrepentant and unstoppable, and affirms Giménez Smith as one of the most vital and vivacious poets of our time.
Book Review-Poetry Collection – 2am Thoughts – Makenzie Campbell
This was my first poetry book by Makenzie Campbell. Set on the premise of love found and lost set up as her thoughts. I have to say I struggled to make it through this one. I tried hard to slog through but it felt more like random thoughts than poetry to me. The afterward includes comments about this meaning to be learning self-love, but I couldn’t find any of that within these pages. I had to rate this as a 1/5. This was aimed at a younger audience than me and my cynical heart.
Book Review-Poetry Collection – The Sun and Her Flowers – Rupi Kaur
This was my first poetry collection by Rupi Kaur. This was an intimate anthology with loss and heartache nm bounds. While I can say that not all of her poems resonated with me on a personal level, the rest of them did. This collection took some courage from her. Letting us see all of her worst moments. I enjoyed her comments with regards to the way women are expected to live our life without tempting the men with our dress. That because her parents risked it all to come to America for a better life, she is the first generation of women in her family that gets to choose her life. She has the freedom of voice, none of them are allowed.
I also respond heavily with her learning to love herself again. It’s an important aspect of our lives that not many of us manage but we must always be working toward it. She also has a chapter dedicated to her parents, who are immigrants. They left India for America to give them a better life. They did created beautiful children after knowledge and higher learning opportunities. I gave this a 4/5 and suggest this for your reading list.