This was a good Viking-esque fantasy about a girl, Rasmira, who is a female warrior chosen to lead her village after she passes the trial that will declare her an adult. When her trial is sabotaged, she is banished to the wild and told she needs to kill a God in order to return.

Spoiler

Rasmira does a lot of growing up in the wild. As she learns to trust Soren and Eyric, she also learns ways to motivate them that are healthier than the one she learns in her village. And wow, does her village/parents suck. Neither of her parents are great, but i guess her sisters make up for it? I also figured out that the god was actually a human earlier than it was revealed in the story (pretty much the first time he bled) but that didn't ruin it for me. I did like the romance, especially in light of GoT and how it treated Brienne.

If you're looking for a lightly fantasy story about a strong warrior woman kicking butt and finding herself, this is for you.

I'm finding this one hard to give stars to, because while intellectually I know that this book was well-researched and tells a compelling story, I found it hard to get into. As far as research and back matter goes, I would give this 5 stars, but my personal reading experience was more like two.

Wein's book covers the Night Witches, women pilots in World War II from the USSR, which was the only country that allowed women to fly in combat situations. This is an exciting story: it's got war, gender roles, the threat of Stalin and Hitler looming over it all. You find out a lot about many members of the three regiments that these pilots served in, and the maneuvers they performed.

So why didn't I love it? Other than Marina Raskova, I found it hard to keep track of all the women. The narrative jumps between regiments, and it's hard to remember which Galya you are reading about at the time. Based on the way the Russian language works, the last names all generally end with an -a and many first names do as well. If you're tired and reading this (as I often was) it really starts to blend together. I even took two years of Russian between high school and college and I was still having trouble following. After a while it all started to feel the same to me. I was really intrigued by the part at the end where many of the women talked about how they only flew because they wanted to defend their homeland, not to actually become pilots. The beginning of the whole book was very strong, it was just the later chapters where it started to become harder for me to follow.

This was a cute story about two teens who are falling for each other, despite their family's history of hating each other. It's a fight about comics, and who owns them, and whether what is legally right is the same as actually being right. It takes place in Nova Scotia, which was pretty neat. It definitely feels like rural East Coast USA life, so every once in a while I forgot that it was in Canada and would get surprised. I don't know that it will stay with me forever, but I did enjoy the story while I read it.

I'm a big fan of caper/heist flicks so this book was right up my alley. Margo Manning is a socialite by day, cat burglar by night with a group of drag queens as her crew. I wish there had been a bit more detail about how the drag looks were created, but that's me and my own fascination with drag more than the story, I think. The heists are dramatic. There were times I had a little trouble picturing the moves people were doing. This book is just fun.

Will is small. Like, less than 5 feet tall at age 16 small. He has a group that he still feels a bit apart from: stepbrother/best friend Drew and the third member of their trio, a girl named Monica. He is in love with Monica but too scared to tell her. Suddenly, Will begins to grow, which makes his whole life change. What happens when you get what you've always wanted?

I did like the beginning of this book more than the end. I think it goes along pretty well until Monica has to move in with them, and it's sort of all downhill from there. I did think the characters reacted realistically in many ways (making poor choices based on suddenly popularity or rejection). The book just felt like it ended inconclusively, which wasn't my favorite.

I love Magnus always, especially with Alec. I was checking to see if this series could be read as a standalone, as I am hopelessly behind on the books. It can be, but I'm very certain it is enhanced by reading it with the full knowledge of what has happened and what will happen.

I listened to the audio and I thought the narrator's accent choices weren't my favorite. I think I would have preferred if they hadn't done them at all.

Otherwise, it's a fairly standard Shadowhunters tale of demons, Downworlders and near-death experiences.

Oh, what a delight to delve back into this steampunk Victorian London! Prudence is every bit the child of her three parents, although she seems most influenced by her adopted father. This book reminds me of everything I loved about the previous series and made me want to reread the last few books to remind myself of previous events. I do believe you can enjoy this one without having read the previous books, although it will make a lot more sense if you do have some familiarity with the work.

I'm a sucker for a good romance, and I love me some Bollywood stories, so this is right up my alley. I loved Sweetie a lot, and I could see how her life was tough in some parts, but really good in others. I loved the Sassy Sweetie Project, and could very much relate to that idea. Ashish was a little harder for me to get behind, but I hadn't read the Dimple/Rishi story in a while, so I couldn't remember if I liked him in that or not. I enjoyed this one and gobbled it up.