Being caught up on all the InCryptid novels and the short stories/novellas that are available for free (there are a few more in collections I don’t feel like paying for yet), I continued down the Seanan McGuire rabbit hole to this novel. While it didn’t grip me as quickly as the InCryptid series, I enjoyed the concept, and ended up having fun once I got used to the characters and the team. This was originally written as a Kindle Serial, and while it is now […]
If you think about it, we all have a fairy tale kind of life
This Is How It Always Is is a sort of fairy tale about a mom who wished for a daughter, a dad who tells stories, siblings who watch out for each other, and how even if you do everything just right, life is never easy. This is the story of parents doing their best to raise their transgender child in a world that fears and rejects those who don’t fit cultural norms. It is clever, funny and heartbreaking, and enlightening. Frankel happens to be the […]
Re-imagined Fairy Tales Are My Catnip
This is a review of all four Lunar Chronicles books: Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter. When I saw Cinder, the first book in the Lunar Chronicles, I was turned off by the cover and description. I hadn’t yet delved into fantasy YA and so I didn’t buy the series. I had a “what the heck was I thinking” moment about a month ago and bought the book. And I inhaled it, and then bought the next book and so forth until I had rapidly inhaled […]
Princesses doing it for themselves
3.5 stars And they all lived happily ever after… Or did they? What happens after we close the story books and leave the princes and princesses to the rest of their lives? Danielle Whiteshore, popularly known as Cinderella, is having some trouble adjusting to life as a royal, having been treated no better than a slave by her vicious stepmother and stepsisters until her sudden elevation in status upon marriage to Prince Armand. Even though they were nothing but awful to her, she still feels bad […]
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket
Every good fairy tale starts with a wish. The little mermaid wishes to walk on land. Cinderella wishes to go to the ball. Maleficent wishes someone would just throw her a fucking bone and invite her to a baby shower. And in Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, all our hero wants is to get the girl. The other thing every good fairy tale needs is a quest. In this case, the quest is for the heart of Victoria Foster, the most beautiful girl in the village. Or […]
Urban Fairy Tales, and I hate serial novels
I need to start this review off with a disclaimer. This novel is part of Amazon’s serial novels and was released a chapter at a time over the course of five months. This killed me. I hate this format and I really don’t think the novel is suited to it at all. I am a fast reader, and two weeks between chapters means that there’s anywhere from 2-6 books between each section and it’s hard to maintain a complete hold on all the little details of the novel in […]