Language is incredible. This was an absolute blast to read!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book & found it quite funny. However, I found the super small text and low contrast difficult to read.

Thank you to NetGalley, Ringtail Press, & Melissa Erin Jackson for sending me a free ARC copy of Pawsitively Poisonous in exchange for an honest review.

Pawsitively Poisonous is a delightful cozy mystery with paranormal elements that is perfect for a light, clean summer read. It’s an enjoyable, quick read with humor that was right up my alley. The characters & the town of Edgehill quickly grew on me, & the magic system Jackson introduced was new, but well thought out & I enjoyed its provisions & consequences.

One of my favorite elements was the cat-themed influences in the town. From the Purrcolate coffee shop to the cat breed street names, I found everything clever (& usually pretty humorous). I do wish that Amber’s two cats (appropriately named Tom Cat & Alley Cat) had played a larger part in the story & acted less like ordinary house cats.

At the beginning of the novel, I had no idea who the murderer was & I enjoyed how Jackson cast reasonable suspicions on multiple characters. I’m looking forward in future books to meeting more characters and spending time with the rest of the cast Jackson has introduced.

Thank you again to NetGalley and Ringtail Press for the privilege of reviewing an ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and Saga Press for sending me a free ARC copy of The Mythic Dream in exchange for an honest review.

The Mythic Dream is an anthology of 18 classic myth retellings by a mix of talented authors. Some authors I was previously familiar with & several are new favorites that I am looking forward to reading more of. This anthology covers an incredible variety of myths from cultures across the globe, with some of the retellings sticking close to their original narratives & others exploring how far they could go. I was surprised with how few myths I was familiar with, but reading this anthology showed me how much I’m missing & I’ve found a new section to add to my monthly TBR.

Overall, I give this anthology a 4 out of 5 stars, based on my average rating for each of the stories. Of the 18 stories, I rated 11 at least 4 stars or higher. My two favorites were “Fisher-bird” by T. Kingfisher and “Kali_Na” by Indrapramit Das.

Unfortunately, a couple of the stories were too graphic for my taste. In terms of trigger warnings, there’s not much that isn’t covered in these stories. Rape, drug use, cannibalism - each story tackles a different topic & this would be a good anthology for book discussion groups. Some stories dealing with tough topics needed more room, but I’m not sure what limitations the authors were given. However, I really enjoyed how each story was approached in a different style & each author’s creative twists on the original myths & the possibilities of our future.

The Mythic Dream releases September 3rd & is available for preorder on Amazon. Thank you again to NetGalley and Saga Press for the privilege of reviewing an ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and Bleeding Ink Publishing for sending me a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was so excited to read this book after reading the premise. It sounded like it was going to be an imaginative and satirical take on popular fairytale tropes, and I loved the idea of integrating Briar’s fairytale world with New York City. However, my enjoyment quickly waned as I began reading and realized Pricked had an incredibly promising concept, but lacked with the follow through and had many issues it needed to fix. But, before we get into that, here are the things I really did enjoy:

- The whole concept of the fairytale/magical world integrating with New York City. And calling it the Poisoned Apple? Hilarious!

- Briar’s special talent is unique, interesting, & super awesome (Hello, enchanting roses with emotions & having them change color?!? How cool is that?).

- The author is clearly talented with adding in humor - some of the sentences in Pricked are downright hilarious. One of my favorites was: “…in an ostentatious gown with more blue ribbon in it than Michael Phelps’s bedroom.”

- The ending had good setup for the next book in the series.

Now for the hard part: some of the issues that need fixing (Disclaimer: I’ve sent my full comments on to the publisher through NetGalley, so I’m only bringing up some of the issues I found).

- Pricked starts out like you’ve picked up book 2 of the series, which could be solved with better wording & less info-dumping.

- It includes an array of troublesome tropes, including “I’m not like other girls” and “beauty-blind protagonist”. There’s also “insta-love” but since that’s primarily one-sided & had other issues I sent those comments through NetGalley. Basically, for troublesome tropes it comes down to this: it’s 2019 & we should not have to keep reading the same problematic tropes over and over. If you’re going to use them (although some would argue you still should not), at least make them unique. For “beauty-blind” Briar is described by the fairy godmother as ‘pretty, but not beautiful’ and the thing that really irks me is how the reader is supposed to accept this and yet Briar is desired by an array of male characters.

- Briar appears to automatically hate almost every other female character she comes across. She shouldn’t have to like them, but she always says or thinks something to demean the other woman & in multiple instances assumes the other woman automatically hates her for no reason. Briar also mentions teaching men ‘not to be sexist’ but then continues to use sexist comments throughout the story. Is it too much to ask for more consistent characters with healthy relationships?

- As cool as it was, I don’t think the world’s magic system was fully developed. For instance, why wouldn’t the nobles have wards against enchanting their guards? To me, that one seems like a no-brainer.

- In terms of pacing, everything takes place over the span of a couple days, which I don’t think was long enough for some of the character developments & left most characters remaining static.

- There’s a lot of info-dumping, telling about past events (instead of showing, especially when these ‘past’ events happened within the space of a couple of pages), and repetition of basic information. Also, several characters spread WAY more information to others for the benefit of the reader than those characters would ever need to know (our first time meeting Anya is a great example of this, since she readily shares information that Briar and Antoine wouldn’t have the status/need to know). In one particular scene (no spoilers) Briar & a couple other characters are using public transportation. We have a scene of them going to the public transportation, then using the public transportation, then moving on. A page later (when the group has left the public transportation) the reader learns about an interaction Briar supposedly had with someone in-between arriving & then using the public transportation - of which the reader was a part of. This happens more than once, & these scenes should be shown, not told (& it would be so easy to incorporate!).

- There are a lot of inconsistencies throughout that cause reader confusion (like the fight scene in the woods - why wouldn’t she assume her rescuer was Antoine since that’s the only person she’s aware of being around?). Also, Briar seems to rarely identify the emotions when she smells them, leading the reader to confusion until Briar finally places the mystery sense.

- Some characters (but usually Briar) play dumb in order for information to be brought up for the reader. This is frustrating to read & there are so many better ways to educate your reader within the story.

- For most of the story the Royals come off as completely elitist, so I have a hard time believing they would cozy up to Briar so quickly (especially since neither side is particularly cozy to begin with). The sudden war plot also seemed extreme for the Royals, who as a reader I didn’t take seriously & seemed to be more figureheads than powerful people. Also, how (& why) did Briar & Jacqui become friends? Why would they (a commoner and a royal) move in together? Also, why would Cade ever want to live with them?

Ultimately, Pricked has potential but I don’t think it’s ready for publication in its current form. I sincerely hope the author and publisher can make sufficient changes to improve Pricked to the standard it promises it could achieve before its August 13th release date. Nevertheless, thank you again to NetGalley and Bleeding Ink Publishing for the privilege of reviewing an ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quarry Books for sending me a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Study with Me is the type of book I wish I would have been able to find when I was in middle and high school. It has a lot of promise, but unfortunately I don’t think it has reached its full potential yet. I’ve been bullet journaling for several years and I can see how this book could be helpful for those just starting out who haven’t discovered Ryder Carroll (who created bullet journaling, by the way) or don’t think bullet journaling is accessible (here’s a hint: it’s 100% customizable to your needs!).

Before I dive into what didn’t work for me, I do want to mention how Study with Me encourages everyone to bullet journal and shows how accessible it can be, whether you’re looking to add more flair to your current spreads or try bullet journaling out for the first time. The authors also share some helpful tips and tricks when it comes to studying.

Now, for the not so great parts (I’ve sent my full comments on to the publisher through NetGalley, so these are only some of the issues).

In general, I don’t think these authors had a clear view of who they wanted their audience to be. Some parts seemed geared towards people who had previously failed at bullet journaling and other seemed geared for bullet journal aficionados, with no really continuity between them. Study tips ranged from helpful and unique to much too basic to be included in this book. It seemed like the advice alternated between specific tips for planner lovers and advice for people who’ve never picked a journal up in their life, which made the book pretty clunky. For either group, the level of detail is not sufficient (it’s not enough information for beginners and it’s much too general for those looking for serious suggestions).

I liked the idea of including subject-specific spreads and study suggestions, but each subject didn’t receive much space (in general, 2 pages including 1-2 photos with some exceptions), and the level of detail between subjects was extremely varied. I don’t think enough space was given to each subject and I wish there was more uniformity to how in-depth examples and spread suggestions were. Several subjects seemed to miss key points (such as, has anyone ever had a foreign language class that didn’t stress the importance of verbs and verb tenses? In the book the authors choose to focus on vocabulary spreads instead). It made me feel like the authors were adding subjects because they wanted to include them without having a good grasp of the subject matter (or just limited experience) or doing the proper research to find out what would be the most beneficial.

Study with Me is 112 pages, including photos, at the cost of detailed information. I think it should have been closer to 200 pages to properly cover the information hinted at. In multiple cases it seemed information had been cut in order to make room for a photo, which means most of the text in the book is a general overview of possibilities and not much substance. I think Study with Me could have spent more time on how the reader could identify their specific bullet journaling needs and how to use the information they’re given and less time on general information.

If you’re looking for specific bullet journal ideas I would recommend searching Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube to start with, over picking up Study with Me. If you’re looking for general bullet journal information, Ryder Carroll’s book The Bullet Journal Method goes much more in-depth of how to get into bullet journaling and customizing it for your own needs.

Overall, even though it’s not quite where it needs to be, I am glad to see a book like this finally getting made and I hope to see it flourish in the future. Thank you again to NetGalley and Quarry Books for the privilege of reviewing an ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Kids for sending me a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

There Was a Black Hole That Swallowed the Universe is such a cute book! We get to follow a black hole that eats progressively smaller things (we start out with the universe, eventually making our way to planets, molecules, and even smaller items). In the final product there will also be a blacklight reverse story, which I can’t wait to test out!

I do agree with some of the other ARC reviews that at first it seems like it’s written backwards, but it makes sense when you get to the ending. Plus, it makes a great learning opportunity for kids to discuss our place in space. I wish it was available now - our Summer Reading program is space-themed and this would have been fun to read for story time!

Really, however, my only complaint is that there is no additional information at the back of the book. It would have been nice to have more information explaining some of the terminology, or some further reading if parents and/or kids would like to explore more on any of the concepts (I enjoyed how Just Right: Searching for the Goldilocks Planet by Curtis Manley incorporated additional information).

There Was a Black Hole That Swallowed the Universe releases September 3rd and is available for preorder on Amazon. Thank you again to NetGalley and Sourcebooks Kids for the privilege of reviewing an ARC!