I recently read and thoroughly enjoyed The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi. So I made a video about it! Kendra offers 13 Lazy Genius Principles, about how to be a genius about the things that matter, and lazy about the things that don’t. I love books on how to manage your life better, and this was a particularly good one.
This duology was recently recommended to me by a friend and I was intrigued by the premise. I loved the first book, Strange the Dreamer. And then the second one, Muse of Nightmares, was good, but much, much darker – which I kind of anticipated going into it. Even though I loved the first one, it was a few weeks before I felt emotionally ready to take on the second one!
The story centers around Lazlo Strange, who dreams of finding the Lost City. He does find it, but that’s only the beginning of the adventure, involving gods (or are they demons?), mysterious powers, and dark deeds that are still haunting the people who did and witnessed them. The second book in particular focuses in on horrible events of the past, and the way the trauma lives on for the people who experienced them. There is a happy ending – I kind of felt all along that there would be, despite the darkness – but it was a rough journey along the way.
There’s a really lovely, lyrical, magical quality to this duology, especially the first book. Even though we begin to skirt into areas that could be science fiction, especially in book two, it always keeps a very fantasy feel. There’s some really cool and creative magic in here that I enjoyed. There’s also a rather lovely romance that I enjoyed as well. Continue reading “Book Review: Strange the Dreamer and Muse of Nightmares”
I’ve been reading a lot of picture books to my baby, even though he’s too small to really appreciate them yet! That means I get to pick the books we read, and right now one of my great favorites is the Little Blue Truck series. So I made a video review about it, discussing the plot, characters and worldbuilding of the different installments in the series – and, all importantly, whether each book includes enough times of the Little Blue Truck saying “beep beep beep!”
Watch below, and I hope you enjoy!
I have been off of the blogosphere for several months now, very busy with a new baby! Now that he’s a few months old and I’m getting (somewhat) more sleep, I’m hoping to get more activity going here again. I’ve actually still been reading a fair amount of books – whenever I had any time for a break, reading was about all I had the energy for!
I’d like to catch up by writing about a few of the highlights of my recent reading. I noticed a theme in that several of the more noteworthy books I’ve read recently involved parallel worlds. So today, a round-up of those novels!
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
This one was recommended to me by a friend, and then I kept seeing it pop up other places. It seemed to be getting a lot of attention…which may have been a disadvantage, because although I liked it, it probably couldn’t ever live up to the hype. Nora feels she made all the wrong choices in her life, and on a really, really bad day, she decides to kill herself. In between life and death, she finds herself at the Midnight Library, which turns out to be a very, very cool place. Each book in the library represents a different life, a different path she could have gone down, and now she has the chance to visit different lives until she finds the one she wants to live.
I love parallel lives stories…although possibly I’ve read a few too many of them for this particular book. It felt pretty clear to me by the time she got to the library what her big five or six regrets were. Sure enough, she goes into other lives to “correct” them one by one, only to find out that it isn’t a better life and she can let go of that regret after all. It was interesting to watch it all play out and I really liked the writing style here…but it did all go about as I expected all the way through. But I’ve read a lot of books with a similar premise – it might feel fresher to someone else! Continue reading “Recent Reading Round-up: Parallel Worlds”
Accompaniment, the next book in my Guardian of the Opera trilogy, will be out in less than two weeks! It’s put me in a Phantom mood, so I rewatched Webber’s sequel: Love Never Dies.
I first saw this movie (filmed play, actually) as a Fathom event in theaters eight years ago. It wasn’t good, for many reasons. I didn’t really expect it to be better on a rewatch, but I was curious what my impressions would be all this time later.
It still wasn’t good. But I did have a lot of feelings about it. So naturally I made a video review!
This video is about fifteen minutes, but if you really want a full, scene-by-scene analysis (with more ranting!) I also made a 35-minute video. As I said, I had a lot of feelings.
Anyone else seen Love Never Dies? Or have a movie you love to hate? 🙂
Tales of the Marvelous 