Book Review:Much Loved by Mark Nixon

Much Loved by Mark Nixon

I saw this book reviewed by a friend on Goodreads awhile back and while photography isn’t really my thing, she rated it 5 stars and I trust her opinions so I figured it was worth a try. For me, this was more of a 2 star read but I gave it 3 because it reminded me of my childhood and my heart just wouldn’t let me go so low.
Basically this is a story of people’s lovies. Their bears/bunnies/stuffed toys that got them through their childhood and are still with them today. Each page has a picture of the toy and usually a super short story next to it.
To be honest, I had high hopes for this and that is my fault. It didn’t help that the introduction of this promised that there were interesting stories that these animals had. What we got wasn’t that interesting. One person didn’t even have their bear as a child, she worked her way into the book by purchasing her bear at an auction and saying “it looks well loved.” Many of them are 40 years or more old but there isn’t really much of a story behind them other than where they got it from and it’s falling apart from years of love.
Maybe it’s normal for photography books to have more pictures and very little story and leave you wanting for something.
I can’t end this review without telling you about my Much Loved toy.

His name is Fuzzy. He’s not the first Fuzzy. The first was a bear with a Santa hat who I was obsessed with. My mom had even crocheted him a blanket and I carried this bear with me every where. The day the bear Fuzzy went missing, we went to the park and then at bedtime I realized he wasn’t anywhere. I couldn’t sleep without him, I refused, so my daddy went out looking. He only found the blanket and I guess the hat or the head. The body was thrown onto the roof of the apartment building. I called my mom and asked the story because I was so little it’s hard to remember. This girl who was not much older than me had a fight with me that day and that was how she decided to get even. My dad couldn’t do anything about it, Fuzzy the bear was gone. He pulled down this raccoon from the closet and he became the new Fuzzy. He was given to me originally by my grandmother on my mom’s side. From that day he has been my constant companion. He’s not your average raccoon, Fuzzy was a Karate raccoon. He would fight the bad guys and keep me safe at night while I slept. He lost his eye in an unfortunate dodge ball accident, and his tail has fallen off and been stitched back on…though it’s currently hanging on by 2 threads. He’s been cried on, cuddled, his nose rubbed of it’s previous color because it just felt soothing to rub it. When I had kids I co-slept and now Fuzzy no longer sleeps in my bed. So he sits on my bookshelf, still watching over me while I sleep.

Comment and let me know about your favorite stuffed animal and if you have any interesting stories with it.I would love to hear from you!

Buy it here on Amazon

Book Review: In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

In An Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

Rule 1. Ask for nothing.
Rule 2. Names have power.
Rule 3. Always give fair value.
Rule 4. Take what is offered and be grateful.
Rule 5. Remember the curfew.
After her father becomes the school principal, Katherine Lundy doesn’t have a friend in this world. No one even comes to her birthday party. She retreats into books and studying. While walking home from school one day she is so engrossed in the story she is reading that she doesn’t even realize that there is a huge tree on the trail in front of her until the shade from the tree blocks her ability to read. There is a door on the tree with a note that says “Be sure.” She opens the door to the Goblin Market.
The world in this book is centered around fairness. To make any purchase, you have to give fair value. What is fair to one person isn’t fair to another. Children can’t work, so shopkeepers are easier on them to purchase things like food. They can use buttons, ribbons, pencils. It’s an interesting concept. Of course there are punishments. If the child doesn’t return everything to fair value, these punishments can even follow them back into our world.
Unlike other books in this series, while Lundy remains a child she can travel back and forth between her door and the real world until she becomes an adult, and then a choice must be made.
Like all the other books in this series, this is told like a wonderful fairy tale. It can be read as a standalone, but I recommend reading the entire series anyway. Every single book has been 5 stars for me.
Buy it here: Amazon Link

Book Review: Dead Mountain

Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar

I first heard about this book in Booksandlala’s 2018 favorites video. Honestly, if it wasn’t for her book review I probably wouldn’t have even picked this book up, but immediately I felt like I had to read this story.
In February 1959, 9 Russian hikers died in the Ural Mountains. When they didn’t return home, search teams were sent out to find them. What they found was mysterious and frightening. The bodies were unclothed, many missing shoes in below zero weather. Evidence points to the tent being cut open from the inside as if they were fleeing something. Radiation levels on their clothing were high. Some of the bodies had trauma to the head, broken ribs, and one was missing a tongue. When Donnie Eichar hears of this mystery he heads to Russia himself to interview and retrace the steps of the hikers to see if he can piece together what happened that night. After decades of speculation, with some saying aliens, yeti, government conspiracies, Donnie hopes to find the scientific truth.

Using photos taken by the hikers, the diary that they kept, interviews and his own experience hiking to the same spot, the story is brought to life. I had a hard time sleeping while reading this, and in all my dreams over the past few days I’ve been haunted by this story.

That being said, I didn’t agree with the ending at all.In the last few pages Donnie paints this picture of how he believes that the hikers died. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but the way he wrapped up the mystery in this scientific theory and dismissed other theories that were far more plausible didn’t sit well with me. Maybe he was trying not to anger the Russian government? I’m not sure what his motivation behind it was, but it may have been better off left as “an unknown compelling force.”

Buy it here on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1452112746/ref=x_gr_w_glide_bb?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_glide_bb-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1452112746&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2

Not related to this book, but while doing my own research I came across this comic and you know I can’t resist a well done comic. Here is a link for those interested http://www.emigennis.com/dyatlov-pass/

Book Review: Petals by Gustavo Borges

Petals by Gustavo Borges and Cris Peter

Buy it here : amazon link

This isn’t the first wordless graphic novel I’ve ever read, but it is by far the best!

This story starts with a young fox who is searching for firewood to bring home to heat the den where his father lays in bed sick. Along the way he meets a bird who lends a helping hand and comes to stay with them.

This is a beautiful story of love, friendship and loss. I would never have though that a book told only in pictures would make me feel so much emotion. I highly recommend this.

4.5 stars

Read on Hoopla

Lifeformed: Cleo Makes Contact

Lifeformed: Cleo Makes Contact
by Matt Mair Lowery and Cassie Anderson

I went into this knowing nothing other than a little girl somehow made contact with aliens and I feel like that was best. But if you insist on knowing things keep reading. I’ll try to keep my review spoiler free as always.
11 year old Cleo is so shy she can’t give her oral report for school, but at least she has her best friend, Dad. He cheers her up whenever she’s feeling down and is always there for her. That is until the aliens invaded and killed him. (This happened in the first few pages, not a spoiler…but again I’m glad I didn’t know).
One alien shape shifts into the form of her father, and Cleo is terrified. He’s fighting the other aliens though, so he appears to be on her side. She doesn’t want to leave her dead father’s body but the alien convinces her to flee with him before more aliens come.
Through out this journey Cleo has to deal with her grief while learning to fight the invaders with her new friend.
This story is beautifully told. I rarely cry while reading a graphic novel but I sobbed through this one. That may be just because I lost my father, but I feel like they captured grief and what it looks like perfectly.
I’m not sure if there will be more but I hope so! I gave this 5 stars.

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

I did a buddy read of this with my sister last month and we both loved it! I rated this 5 stars!
Rose Franklin is 11 when she falls down a hole while riding a bike. She’s found in the hand of a metal giant. No one knows where this hand came from, but the technology appears to be beyond anything on earth.
Flash forward 17 years later and Rose is now leading a team of scientist to piece together parts and figure out how this giant works and what the purpose of it is. Possibly a weapon? And if it is, is it to be used by humans or on humans? The more they unravel about the mystery the more exciting the story gets.
This is by far the best audio book I’ve listened to. It reminded me of how my dad used to say they had radio shows when he was younger and people would gather around the radio to listen to stories. The full cast narration is awesome and it makes it easier to tell which character is doing what because there are so many voice actors. The story is told through a collection of “files” which contain experiments, interviews, news reports, ect. It’s basically all dialog which works best in audio format. One thing we realized while reading the comments on goodreads is that a lot of people who read this in book form didn’t enjoy it as much as those who listened to the audio so I’m highly recommending everyone listen to this audio book! If you only listen to one book this year, make it this one.

July Childhood Look Back

This month I read Animorphs 1: The Invasion by K.A. Applegate. I still rate this 5 stars!
I was obsessed with Animorphs growing up. Every month when we got the Scholastic book order form I would beg my parents for more. They were by far my favorite so I chose to read the first book in the series for my birthday month.
This series was so good they even had a tv show! I’m pretty sure this is the first book to movie/tv adaption I ever watched and I was obsessed!
The story starts when 5 teenagers witness a space ship crash. The alien inside suffered mortal injuries and only had a short amount of time left. He told them that he was an Andalite and that there were other aliens already invading the earth. They are called Yeerks. They enter a human through the ear and take over their body, controlling every thing they do. The Andalite said more of his race were coming, but it would take them a long time to travel to earth, and by the time they got here it would be too late. He decided to give these teens the power to morph into any animal that they come into contact with. However, if they stay in their animal morph for longer than 2 earth hours they will be stuck in the morph forever.
Each book in this series is narrated by either Jake, Rachel, Cassie, Tobias, or Marco. Jake is into basketball and likes to play video games with his best friend Marco. Rachel is his cousin. Cassie is his crush, and her parents have an animal rescue barn at home as well as work at a zoo so she has access to a bunch of different animals. And Tobias, my favorite, has a tragic home life and is just a super lonely kid.
My favorite thing about these books when I was a kid is on the bottom corner there is a flip book. If you flip the pages quickly you can watch the person morph into an animal.
I picked up the first 8 books in this series so I’ll probably be continuing through out the rest of the year. I definitely enjoyed this reread the most out of all the others I’ve read so far this year!
Comment down below if you read this series as a kid!

Book Review Monstress Vol 1 and 2

I want to try to review every book I read this month so I’m starting with Monstress by Marjorie Liu and art by Sana Takeda!!!

I read volume 2, but this review will be for both volumes and as spoiler free as possible!
Maika Halfwolf is an Arcanic which is a half-breed descendant of the ancients that often have animal characteristics such as tails, fur or wings. Humans are at war with them and hunt them and witches enslave them and use them to make Lillium which gives them power. Maika struggles with trying to remember her past and keeping the monster inside her at bay.
Kippa (my favorite!) attaches herself to Maika’s side and will not leave, following her everywhere she goes on her journey of discovery.

Along with them is Master Ren who is a two tailed cat and also a necromancer. He seems to know at least a little about everything. I’m confused about the cats in the story, they seem to be some sort of record keepers? They appear at the end of every issue with a huge info dump of information usually involving history surrounding the wars. To be honest the info dump is the only thing I don’t like about the series and I remember very little. Same thing happened in history class when the teacher was lecturing.
In Volume 2 Kippa finds a bone key and the 3 board a pirate ship to an Island of bones where Maika’s mother had journeyed to in the past. No one spoke of the Island or what had happened there, so Maika feels like it must hold some significance to unlocking the past she can’t remember and the secrets of the monster inside her.
I love the artwork by Sana Takeda. It’s by far the best artwork I’ve seen in a graphic novel and definitely the main reason for my 5 star rating. Every single page is so detailed and gorgeous, even the gory dark parts. I loved every second of it.
The world building is incredible. I keep wanting to see and know more and I can never get enough.
A lot of low reviews complain about violence and disturbing plot lines. If that bothers you then this probably isn’t for you. This is very dark and graphic at times and is set in a war. There is torture and slavery and gore. Cannibalism even. It’s not a pretty story. Also, being the first volume of a graphic novel you are going to be left a little confused. It’s a series, so the answers will unravel over the course of multiple volumes.
This story is not for everyone but if you don’t mind violence and gore I recommend giving it a try! If you love Saga and can get through the contents of that then this shouldn’t be too dark for you.
Monstress Volume 3 was supposed to be published in August but goodreads says it is expected to be published on 9/11/2018 by Image Comics. The cover is amazing though!

Comment down below if you’ve read Monstress and any recommendations you have for me. I’m always looking for new graphic novels to read.