Reviews Week 18

 Reviews Week 18

May 2nd- 8th

Book 49: Thirty Things

by Cate Ashwood

Read May 2nd

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I have at this point, read this book five times now because I absolutely love it. I cannot tell you how much I love rereading it. It's been quite some time since I last did and man, I enjoyed it so much. Road trip books are some of my favorites and I will always be a sucker for friends to lovers' romance. Just beautiful. 

I still want to go to the place that Finn and Nate go with the tree houses. That sounds incredible. Every time, I read about it I just want to go there even more. Especially when Finn describes them to look like the Ewok ones in Return of the Jedi. I'm picturing something like the picture to the side. I would be totally into staying in one. 

The romance in this book is one of my favorites. I love how it builds over the course of the book. Nate and Finn's friendship is lifelong and so sweet. You can feel the bond that they have with each other. I love the little adventure that Nate takes Finn on throughout the book for his thirtieth birthday. Definitely hope to do something similar for my own thirtieth. 

It's just a fun read that I pick up when I need a good pick-me-up story, which I definitely needed early this week. It really helped me a lot this week and brought my mood up. Love Nate and Finn. 

Book 50: Caught Running

by Madeleine Urban, Abigail Roux

Read May 7th, 2022

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This was another reread this week. That's one thing that I love doing when I am having a bad week, reread some favorite books. 

I'm not really a sports fan in books unless it's in a romance, especially male/male romances. Then, it's fair game. It's actually one of the aspects that I really love in this book. The relationship that builds between Jake and Brandon through their coaching. They are getting over ideas that they had of each other from high school and their own prejudices over their standings in school. Jake was "the jock" and Brandon "the nerd". Their friendship that builds throughout the beginning of the book is sweet and I loved how that eventually built into a romance between them. 

This is just a sweet book, with very little angst, that just makes me so happy. The perfect book for a quick cheer-up. 

Book 51: The Wee Free Men

by Terry Pratchett

Read May 8th, 2022

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This book was great! 

“If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

I love Terry's strong female characters and Tiffany is another great example. She made me think of a younger version of Susan Sto Helit, who will always be a favorite. And Tiffany's only nine, can't wait to see what she does as she gets older throughout the series. I love how she's a hero with a frying pan and is not afraid of going up against these monsters to save her little brother. 

One of the best parts of this book was the Nac Mac Feegles. Terry was so great at playing on fantasy tropes and creatures. The Nac Mac Feegles are a play on fairies that many are used to. I love how rough they are and whenever they show up in the Discworld books. This is the third book that they have appeared in so far. I enjoyed the dynamic between them and Tiffany, who they are helping because they are afraid of what she will become because of her grandmother, Granny Aching. The fact that they believe that they are in Heaven in our world is quite interesting in itself and they are just so funny. 

 “Crivens!” 

There were great references throughout the entire thing. The queen and how fairyland is stuck in winter made me think of Narnia. And Miss Tick has a couple of references to the Wizard of Oz. It made me think about the Labyrinth movie with David Bowie, which is one of my favorites of all time. 

The best part of this book was the relationship between Tiffany and her grandmother, Granny Aching. This was a very important part of her character and her story. Tiffany lost her grandmother about two years before the events of the story, and she thinks about her quite a bit throughout the course of the novel. She learns so much in the story and a lot of that comes from her memories of her grandmother.  

I look forward to reading more of Tiffany's stories in the Discworld series and seeing more of her interactions with Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg. Also, I hope to see more of the talking toad. I love it when we get talking animals in fantasy novels. It was great that it was a toad in this one.