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...

Our guest reveiwer, Miss Shayne, returns this week with a new review! This semester I am taking a class called Research in Literary Studies. Before you get too bored, this class is strictly on everything Alice in Wonderland . We started by reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , Alice in Wonderland spinoffs inspired by the original book, and watching several Alice films. I then had to choose a book that was based on the original Alice in Wonderland and write a report on it. I’m grateful I got to pick a book to read this semester because I’m often forced into reading literature that I don’t care for, but this book was a bad choice. I decided to read Insanity by Cameron Jace. In this story, Alice Wonder has been in a mental institution for the past two years. Two years ago, she accidentally killed everyone in her class. She doesn’t remember that incident or anything she did before being admitted into the asylum. The only ray of light in her life is the tiger lily she is all...

Miss Shayne returns this week with the review for the second installment of the Graceling Realm series by Kristin Cashore.  Read on for her thoughts about Fire by Kristin Cashore! As I mentioned in my blog post reviewing Graceling by Kristin Cashore, I wasn’t expecting another book in this series. However, this book is a partner to Graceling . It is set in an area adjacent to the realm where Graceling takes place. However, the areas (somehow) don’t know of one another and the superhuman phenomenon is different. In this land, instead of people being graced with abilities, there are monsters in the shape of animals and humans. For example, there are regular raptors and there are monster raptors that come in a variety of colors. These monsters are so enchanting; they can lure people to their deaths. Fire (appropriately named because her hair is like fire) is the last of the human monsters. She is beautiful and has the ability to manipulate people’s thoughts. Her father was ...

Miss Shayne returns with a new book review.  Read on to find out what she's reading! This book has been on my bookshelf at home since summer. I have a habit of collecting books with every intention of reading them, only to discover I don’t have enough time to read my ever-growing library. I was determined to pick something out and read it over my winter break. I decided on Graceling  by Kristen Cashore mostly because I thought it wasn’t part of a series. As it turns out, it’s a trilogy. So I have my work cut out for me. In this book, some people have incredible abilities called graces. These graces range from mind reading to predicting weather patterns to baking good bread. A person could be graced with anything—even if it’s useless. In most countries, the graced usually strike fear into the hearts of people who are not graced. In Katsa’s case, this is especially true. She has the ability to fight really well and this has resulted in her harming several people and killin...