A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Miss Shayne is back with a savage book review!  And stay tuned this week for some special programming on the blog. Reading the synopsis for this book, I wasn't sure I would like Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones. It sounded like a meager fairy tale. Since the cover was beautiful and plastered with appraisals that made reading it seem worthwhile, I decided to take a gamble. Never let me into a casino, folks, because I will never hit the jackpot. Wintersong tells the story of Liesl, who grew up playing her violin for the Goblin King in the Goblin Grove, a clearing in the woods by her house where the Goblin King was able to cross into the world above the ground. In addition to playing her violin, Liesl would play games and make careless gambles, not understanding the gravity of what she was promising the Goblin King. Now that she is grown, the Goblin King expects her to fulfill all that she had promised as a child. Because years have passed, Liesl has forgotten the Goblin K...

Miss Shayne returns this week with another review!  This title is new to teen collection at the library. This book follows the individual stories of Juliet and Declan and how they become intertwined. Juliet’s mother recently passed away and to help cope with the sadness, Juliet writes letters to her mother and leaves them at her grave. One day, a letter is discovered by Declan, who is doing community service in the graveyard after getting drunk and crashing a truck into a building. Declan reads the letter, relates to what Juliet wrote, and writes a response. This begins an anonymous correspondence between the two. When they are in school, these two don’t get along. Juliet is an artistic student who has had a hard time getting back into the swing of things since her mother’s passing, and Declan is an outcast who seems to only have one friend: Rev. Even though they run with different crowds at school, Declan and Juliet get along when they are writing anonymous letters to...