This Newberry Medal winning YA novel is a fantasy/fairy tale about hope’s triumph over sorrow. Kelly Barnhill writes about a world populated by witches, dragons, monsters, and humans. She writes of bogs, forests, and towns separated by fear and magic. In this world, one town in particular, the Protectorate, engages in a terrible human sacrifice every year, wherein the youngest child in town is left in the forest as a tribute to an evil witch. It is an age old practice, perpetuated by the town […]
Limitless Potential But Is It Actually Good to Know About All the Missed Opportunities?
When I saw earlier this year that Kristin Cashore had a new novel, I was hesitantly excited. I loved Graceling, liked Fire, and thought Bitterblue was fine. Still, it’s never guaranteed that an author can come up with a new idea and world, and create another property as beloved as Graceling. I started writing the review shortly after finishing this book in February, and struggled were to go with it. I noticed many other reviewers were deliberately vague, and couldn’t figure out how much I […]
Who is more human and who is the monster?
After giving glowing reviews to several other books by Victoria (V.E.) Schwab, multiple people have recommended her “Monsters of Verity” series. I recently picked up This Savage Song as a treat to celebrate the 25th birthday of my favorite independent bookstore. Considering how much I’ve enjoyed every other book by Schwab, I should have known better and gotten the second book in the duology, Our Dark Duet right away instead of foolishly only getting book one. I had the great pleasure of seeing Victoria Schwab’s panel at Wonder […]
“There’s a little witch in all of us.”
I loved Practical Magic as a kid and it was routinely watched in our household. Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman! Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing! Magic! Romance! Dancing to “you put the lime in the coconut!” What is there not to like?! The novel the movie is based on, also called Practical Magic, is completely different than the movie. I think if I had read the novel first I would have been really upset about the movie adaptation but reading it after seeing the movie so many times I come to […]