I picked this up originally thinking I had a few pregnant friends and co-workers who would probably appreciate something cute and homemade, and one skein of yarn is about the length of my attention span.

I, er, may possibly have just made myself an elephant so far. And one for my dog.

The patterns are cute and there's actually a lot of variety. I tend towards stuffed toys when crocheting, so more patterns in that vein are always appreciated. There's a lot more here than just that, though, and things are well-organized by type and have nice pictures to represent what you're doing also.

The patterns are easy-to-read and include details for the quirkier stitches (yes, I'm still basic enough at this to consider anything beyond single/double stitches "quirky", and I'm okay with that), and it's easy to tell what is likely to be beyond me versus just pushing me a little bit, though some of that might be a skill requiring practice.

Eventually I will probably get around to at least making a stuffed animal for someone else, but even without that I'm having quite a bit of fun with this book.

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.>

I couldn't quite resist when I saw this on NetGalley.

I love to bake. I'm often lazy, though, and attempting to clean up after one of my marathons is enough to prevent me from bothering sometimes, so the idea that I could toss everything into one bowl and be done with it sounded kind of amazing.

The set-up for the book was useful, and hey, it actually lived up to the title--these were easy! I feel like I have better recipes for some of the extremely basic stuff (I prefer my own chocolate chip, for example), but you can't beat quick and easy and some of the slightly more offbeat recipes (Vanilla Walnut Pear, anyone? There's nothing you can't make better with walnuts.) retained the easiness but without my already having trial-and-error-ed my way to cookie perfection. I'm always down for a new recipe (and honestly, I kind of prefer making new stuff to old stuff. I'm always doing something a trifle...odd in the kitchen.)

The pictures were quite pretty, though my own cookies never turn out the way pictured cookies do (I go with cookie magic on that one.)

It's a nifty little book, and probably exceptionally useful for anyone just getting into baking and not having a crop of go-to recipes. I've tried a few, and I'll probably get around to most of them eventually. It helps that I can actually clean up quickly afterward!

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Although I am crazy about fairy tales and fairy tale retellings and have been since I was very young, this story was completely unfamiliar to me when I started it.

I was rather bemused at that, given it was one of those stories I had assumed I'd read at some point, and of course I've seen Frozen, so I figured that would give me some basic idea of the plot.

I was extremely wrong on both counts.

This is very much an old-fashioned fairy tale, which should be obvious given the author's name but one might be allowed some level of surprise given it is being announced as a new release. It is not; this is simply a lovely translated and illustrated version of a very old story: a story I liked quite a bit.

This isn't going to replace my favorite fairy tales, since I think at this point they are cemented so hard in my brain from years of repetition that I don't think anything can replace them, but I liked the depth of it quite a bit. I was not expecting the sheer amount of mini-stories contained in this one longer story. It is a small epic, with side plots that advance the main plot and a length that feels unusual in a fairy tale.

Gerda, our heroine, is certainly deserving of the word, for all that I'm a little bemused by her ability to overlook certain aspects of her friend Kai's behavior. The spell provides a decent scapegoat in this, but I'm still hard-pressed to admit that I would go haring off to save someone who acted like such a Grinch to me.

The trials and tribulations she faces on her journey are very much in the fairy tale style, obviously, and I enjoyed this quite a bit. The translation appears to be quite good, in that it carried with it a level of magic you don't always see. The language was beautiful at times.

Reading it on the Kindle Fire as I did, I think I missed some of the beauty of the physical copy, but even what I saw of it suggested it was lovingly organized and the cover illustration was quite beautiful.

I'm very much in favor of this new tradition of beautifully illustrated physical copies of old children's stories, and I like that it is expanding beyond the traditional Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz to things that many of us may have overlooked as children, but might want to share now.

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked the basic idea of this, and I even liked the concept behind how the book was organized, but in the end, this really didn't work for me.

One of my biggest stumbling blocks is our "main" characters. They aren't present throughout the novel. Some of that is probably due to the way the story is told primarily through the eyes of those around them, but Martin and John are known for being charismatic and hard-to-ignore in-story and yet it is remarkably easy to forget that they are supposed to be the center of things while reading. They somehow feel like one of the least interesting parts of the story. People talk about them, and it is suggested they are causing some things, but it is rarely seen at any point and it's hard to care much about the ramifications of the opening scene of the novel when it is so hard to care about these two men.

Now I get to stumble around trying to come up with words to explain something I almost never talk about in books, curiously enough: language. As far as I am concerned, if I am not actively highlighting it on my Kindle and adding notes remarking on how ridiculous I find it, the language is fine.

There were lots of notes here.

Things just did not ring true in places. The metaphors were overwrought and didn't hit the ideas clearly, the dialogue varied between "serviceable" and "nobody says that and nobody should say that," and I just kept getting pulled out of the story to wince at something I had just read. It is not the worst I've ever read, certainly, but it is one of the few times my immersion has been so constantly broken because it wasn't always awkward, but when it was, it was really awkward.

The book stumbles a bit at figuring out what it wants to be. The genre is fluid, which does keep the reader guessing and wanting to get to the end, but also means quite a few things seem to come out of nowhere. If I had been more attached to the characters or the world, it probably would have been either very annoying or really fun, but without that connection I was left faintly bemused by the whole thing.

This took an entirely different turn than I had expected.

Honestly, after the glut of books about girls lost in the woods that seem to be published or popular recently, it was nice to see the same hackneyed idea turned into something else. I enjoyed the ending being unexpected, though I am not completely sure I enjoyed the actual ending.

Things wrapped up in a way that I think made sense, but there were some loose ends dangling that just felt kind of awkward. I understand that it is not an easy crop of issues to wrap up in a ribbon, but I tend to prefer my endings more conclusive and less full of "Well, terrible things may still happen. And they probably will."

The romance felt a bit shoe-horned in and I'm not sure I bought it, or that it was terribly healthy. It had these almost-sweet moments, then statements that forced me to re-read them to make sure I wasn't absolutely crazy and that the boy had actually said that and it was not being taken as a bad thing.

Julia herself was probably the strong suit of the book. She was...I don't want to say "likeable," because she was often not, but she was realistic in a terrible situation. Watching her try to deal with the fallout of everything felt right. She messed up quite a few times, she had trouble letting people in and admitting what she was having issues with, but she actually also managed to be strong and have an interest in the world around her and a close relationship with her mother. It was nice to see her not fall into the trap of either being too much a martyr or too much a victim. She wanted answers, and her curiosity as a driving force turned this into a genuine thriller when it started seeming like the answers weren't going to be what she really hoped.

Her friend Liv is certainly interesting, though I never quite "got" her the way I had hoped. The more I heard about her or guessed about her, the more confused I was, though probably not as confused as she seemed to be.

This was a fast, dark psychological thriller, and I did enjoy it.

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I really love this whole series.

The books are well-organized for actually doing the patterns and actually contain the information needed for some of the more unusual stitches that are used. The pictures help a ton as well--they might not be needed for the very advanced, but I don't generally do very well without a few ideas of what things are supposed to look like along the way, and I'm grateful for them.

The inclusion of the stories before the patterns added a new level to this. It's now not just useful for the patterns, it feels like a book I actually want to keep around. The mix of stories included was interesting as well--not just the "basic" Grimm stories, but a few I wasn't terribly familiar with ("The Hare and the Hedgehog," anyone? I had forgotten about this completely.)

I get the idea that this is intended to be at least partially for those who crochet and have small children (these would be fun for telling the story, I bet) or those who have children of an age where they might learn how to crochet (the combination of comfortable patterns and stories would probably make it easier), but I enjoyed this quite a bit and I don't fall into either category. I have started a beanstalk and intend to make myself a Jack to go along with it, and I'll probably do several of the others as well (the witch is adorable and would probably look cute by my punch bowl for Halloween).

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was really quite adorable.

I'm a fan of books about why books are great (this shouldn't be a surprise, given I write a blog about how books are great...), and I am a great fan of starting that idea early. This managed to hit just the right tone--sweet and seeming quite right without verging into preachy and forceful. It felt like the children in the story wanted to read, and that was quite obvious. It wasn't defending reading itself, and by removing that from the equation, it made the idea seem more normal.

The explanations for why the bear ought to be allowed to join made me smile (and only seemed like good sense!), and I kind of wish I had a bear of my own as a child to help me on my reading journey.

The illustrations were colorful and charming, and they added very much to the book. It's definitely a good read if you're looking for something to add to a new (or hopefully new!) reader's burgeoning collection.

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.