I didn’t read as many books in April so I’m sure that means I’m going to get caught up, right? LOL
Sometimes I don’t feel like writing a full review for whatever reason, either because life is busy and I don’t have time, or because a book didn’t stir me enough. Sometimes, it’s because a book was so good that I just don’t have anything to say beyond that I loved it! Frequently, I’m just wayyy behind on reviews and am trying to catch up. For whatever reason, these are books that only have a few paragraphs of thoughts from me.
A Dance With the Fae Prince by Elise Kova – 4*
//published 2021//
I read the first book in the Married to Magic series, A Deal With the Elf King, for the traveling book club and found it surprisingly enjoyable. The books are set in the same world but don’t really overlap very much, so they can be read independently. I liked this one even better, actually, because I found the main characters more likable. While not my new all-time favorites, these books were really enjoyable romantic fantasy.
The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers – 3*
//published 1903//
This is one of those classics that is considered so because of the way that it created a new subgenre. A sort of spy-thriller, when it was published this book was a bit controversial because of the way it pointed out weaknesses in Britain’s naval defense. However, I really struggled with this book because I was reading it as an ebook, which did NOT include the original story’s charts and maps! These were referred to regularly throughout the text, and half the story is the main characters exploring these complicated channels, bays, inlets, rivers, etc. so not being able to visually reference the charts made the story confusing and also someone boring. This wasn’t a book that was big on the action anyway, but I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if, when the text told me to refer to a chart, I could have actually done so.
Kilmeny of the Orchard by L.M. Montgomery – 4*
//published 1910//
This was a buddy read with the Kindred Spirits group on Litsy, and a reread for me, as most Montgomery books are. This has never been a particular favorite of mine. It’s perfectly pleasant but not magical, and I’ve never been completely comfortable with the romance, because Kilmeny has been so incredibly isolated her entire life and then just falls in love with the first decent guy she meets and it feels a little weird. One of the other members of the group said this story seemed like something Anne and her friends would have written for their Story Club, and that cracked me up because it’s SO true. This one is just a little too melodramatic.
The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow – 3.5*
//published 2020//
There are some books that I read a chapter-a-day and that keeps me plugging away at them when I honestly may have not finished them if I had just been reading them straight through, and this was one of them. This story focuses on the “forgotten” sister in P&P, Mary. There was a LOT of time spent on Mary being miserable and sad and people being mean to her and her feeling rejected – it just went on and on and on. While Mary’s character growth seemed natural and good, some of the other characters were uneven, especially Charlotte. The concluding drama also dragged out way longer than it needed to. So, basically, a pretty good read that needed about a hundred pages edited out haha
I’ll Take Forever by Barbara McMahon – 2*
//published 1988//
This one was pretty bad, although I’ll admit I somewhat softened my attitude when I realized it was published in 1988. This was a free Kindle book from back in the day, and the entire story is about an undercover federal agent trying to find out where illegal marijuana is being grown and he has to stay with a civilian – literally NONE of it felt remotely realistic haha There are several instances where Kyle just assumes Jenny is going to be doing this cooking/cleaning/laundry that felt really awkward because he’s literally just mooching off of her. Jenny herself was honestly kind of stupid and always did stupid things that miraculously would turn out to be the right thing. For some reason, McMahon decided Jenny should be a widow at the age of 25 (her husband died in a car wreck a year earlier) – I have no idea why she needed to be a widow, I guess so the agent could be “her husband’s cousin” but it just felt awkward, especially since we are told a lot that they had a really lovely marriage but Jenny is totally over it! After a year! Woohoo! Like I realize everyone has a different grieving process, but I’m still not over my grandma dying in 2009 so I didn’t find it particularly convincing that Jenny is basically like, “Oh yeah, I was married, I remember that guy! He was cool!” The attitude towards marijuana in this story is definitely very 80s. I’m not here to advocate marijuana usage, but I also truly don’t think smoking a joint will immediately lead you down the path of hard drugs for life. This was a super short book so I skimmed a lot of it just so I could be amazed at how it made no sense. Sometimes it’s fun to get a little hate-reading in!
The Aroma of Books 