* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

A girl and her father are alone in the wilderness, perhaps the last of humankind. An accident occurs on their trek to the ocean for salt and the girl must find her way back alone. Alone, that is, save for the help of a talking bear.

I put this one off for longer than I should have...it was a surprisingly great read. There is so much packed in this short book. It was a mix of dystopian and magical realism that I would place at a young adult level. The writing style is very accessible and I felt like I really got to know the girl, despite the fact that I never knew her name. There is a LOT of very specific outdoors and survival information that fits compactly, but smoothly in the narrative.

I would've liked more backstory...more information regarding the world and the circumstances that has led to the apparently dystopian society as well as the history of the girl's parents in particular. As it was, I was still entirely wrapped up in this tale, finding it both intriguing and educational from beginning to end.

This is a cute middle grade fantasy with a lot of imagination and some good mild creepy vibes. A great introduction to the fantasy genre for early readers. There is a lot of somewhat advanced vocabulary for age appropriate readers, but the narrative does a good job at providing context clues for those terms the younger readers may not be familiar with. The characters are very colorful and entertaining, with a good creation of tension from beginning to end. Speaking of the end, that was a tiny bit unsatisfying due to what amounts to a cliffhanger despite the resolution of some major events. I look forward to reading the sequel when it becomes available later this year.

13-year-old Leni Allbright is moved to the wilds of Alaska when her former POW father inherits land in The Great Alone from another soldier of the Vietnam War who didn't make it back home. There are a thousand ways to die in Alaska and Leni quickly learns that her family is woefully unprepared for the wildness they have thrown themselves into. Add into that the tension and fear that stems from her father Ernt's vicious PTSD and his paranoid ideas and life in Alaska just became a potentially deadly endeavor.

Oh my goodness. This book tore my heart out, put it back together, then smashed it into pieces...and repeat. There is so much pain and destruction, drama & tension in this one book...but it is OH SO GOOD. The writing is incredibly rich and descriptive (though admittedly sometimes slightly repetitive). The characters leap off the page and become so real. I could physically feel the tension and emotions in the dialogue.

I found Leni's mother, Cora, to be an incredibly hard-to-like character. Sometimes these are the best characters in a narrative. Her flaws were realistic and raw. She is constructed very well under the circumstances of a battered woman, but sometimes her selfishness and lack of comprehension of the danger she placed her child in make me want to slap her.

I appreciated the author's willingness to make bad things happen to good characters, to put them in harsh situations from which they don't always emerge unscathed. The pain and challenge of these circumstances made the reading feel more realistic and led me to become increasingly invested in the characters and their narrative.

I loved this so much. There will be much more Kristin Hannah in my reading future.

Heavy on the political with a dystopian/sci-fi flare, The Fever King is the first book in the Feverwake trilogy by Victoria Lee. It is a super slow burn of a book, which I will admit can become boring in pieces if you are not much for political thrillers and the minutia of such a book. In this way, this book was maybe a little outside of my wheelhouse.

A highly intense plot with good character interaction. It does sometimes become quite detailed and complicated, so this one shouldn't be expected to be a quick read for the majority. The writing can be a little stiff and technical, leaving the characters sometimes lacking in the emotional department. Along these lines, I found that the character of Dara was highly inconsistent in both his personality and his attitude. This irritated me to the point of making him a less believable character.

The last fifty or so pages is where you'll find nearly all of the plot movement. Things suddenly start to move very quickly after building for so long. This is the first book in the trilogy, so there is a lot of set up taking place. The book ends on a note that is a bit of a mixed bag. It creates a lot of tension for the start of the second book, but didn't seem to provide me enough of a sense of reward (read: satisfaction) after such a long, slow burn. I'll be continuing the story with the hope that the writing will open up to something more comfortable now that the groundwork has been laid.

* Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. *

4.5 stars.

Alice has started hearing a voice in her head. It's herself...a time-traveling consciousness from 10 years in the future. She has been told that a deadly virus will kill 2/3 of the people on Earth...unless Alice can prevent it. To do so, Alice must kill someone...one of her classmates. She must kill one to save millions.

Occasionally darkly humourous, Malice is a YA sci-fi dystopian novel with an underlying layer that is much more hard-hitting--revealing several areas of social commentary. I liked the concept a lot and found the execution to be well done. The narrative moves at a quick pace with very little extraneous plot and good characters who act true to their age. There are moments when the writing is a little immature, but overall it is snappy, smart, and thoughtful. The plot is fun and twisting, but the mystery isn't too difficult to solve if the reader pays attention. I very much enjoyed my read.

Definitely underwhelmed. This was nothing like I expected it to be...which likely tainted my entire experience. It was written much more like a literary fiction novel than a dystopian in terms of tone and perhaps that threw me.

There are four primary antagonists (the biographer, the wife, the mender, and the daughter) with a fifth secondary antagonist (Eiver), all of whom are followed through interweaving stories. The primary antagonists intersect well and their personalities are well reflected in their actions and the change of tone and writing style that takes place in each individual chapter. In some ways this was good, as it made the characters more distinct. But in some ways it just made things jerky and disorienting.

I just wasn't overly impressed. There was nothing overtly bad about it -- though some pieces were unnecessary and/or just plain weird -- but there also wasn't anything really powerful, intriguing, or impactful either. Good concept, but not a good enough execution for my taste.

I am SO glad I decided to read this. Set in postwar Francoist Spain, there is LOT of historical information I never knew wrapped up in this beautifully written historical fiction novel. Chapters are told from several points of view: Daniel (Spanish American son of a Texas oil tycoon and native Spaniard mother), Ana (daughter of Spanish Republicans assassinated under Franco's regime), Rafa (Ana's brother), and Puri (Ana's cousin and daughter of Spanish Francoists).

The novel is sweeping and lengthy, but moves entirely effortlessly and seems to just fly by. Both character and scene descriptions are lyrical and dynamic. The entire thing feels as though it could easily be a fully true story with real people. The author has made wonderful stylistic and compositional decisions making this both a painful and rewarding read.

HIGHLY recommend.

I was already familiar with this story because of the movie. This may have either helped or hurt my experience with the book...I'm not sure which. Admittedly, the writing is a little too sappy for me and I found myself mentally preferring the movie as the story moved along. Had I not known the story, I may have been more invested and emotionally involved in it, thus enjoying it more in the end. The writing is decent and the story is a good one, it just wasn't in the wheelhouse for my current reading tastes.

This was an okay read, but had some structural issues that held it back. Pieces felt like a research paper, with an overabundance of quotes and several tangents down historical rabbit holes.

The pieces that are truly the stories of the two women are interesting, but short-lived for the early portions of the book. A lecture style form of writing often returns intermittently, making things feel stiff and caused me to quickly lose momentum in my reading.

The story did gain steam as it went along, getting more focused and enjoyable. However, there were a lot of minor characters that were used to pull in additional bits and pieces of history. These bits and pieces were interesting, but having that many names peppered throughout the narrative made things muddy. There was also still a good smattering of tangential storytelling. There was a lot of good historical information, but it made the central story feel weaker.

The book could have been pared down by about 100 pages, focused solely on Dorothy, Ros, Ferry, & Bob, and been a lot stronger. It wasn't a bad read, but it felt fairly mediocre. There wasn't anything overly gripping or enthralling other than some piqued interest in historical events and the difficulties of frontier life even into the early to mid-20th century.

4.5 stars.

This is an incredibly well-written and detailed memoir. Her accomplishments are amazing, but so is her ability to be honest about her own thoughts and actions. This is a heart-breaking portrait of emotional and physical abuse under the guise of spirituality, righteousness, and revelation. Shame is a key component. To hear the story of the family's continuous cycles of destruction is difficult, especially as the parents willingly cause and allow harm to come to their own children against a backdrop of protecting them from evil.

There are moments of repetition in the writing and sometimes things feel a little rushed, but overall it was a highly smooth and compelling read. The narrator (the author) is admittedly unreliable as memories are malleable, but the author directly addresses and admits this--which makes it all feel even more credible and carefully constructed.

There are perhaps readers who doubt the honesty of the memoir, but for me it rings as wholly possible and probable given my own knowledge and personal experience with both the Mormon faith and the zealous offshoots that exist. The militia style attitude is also familiar as I, like the author, grew up in Idaho. These ideas are not new and absolutely do exist in thought and practice in pockets of the state (I'm sure this is true of other areas in the nation as well, but I have not been directly exposed to them). Despite the possibility that there may be some warping of the truth in her recollections, I have zero doubt that the core of her stories and memories are true.