This book started off very slow, and it was hard to get into. I liked the idea of it, but found it too easy for my thoughts to drift away during the audiobook. British narrator. It’s being made into a Netflix show later this year I believe.
3/5 stars
This was my second book by T. Kingfisher – and I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t absolutely blown away by it like I have with some of her works. It tells the story of fourteen-year-old Mona, who has a magical gift of – bread. She can make gingerbread men rise, and her familiar is a sourdough starter which I found hilarious. I think in the case of this book, I was simply not the target. The book was written for a younger audience, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I didn’t particularly like how Mona went and solved her issues, either. Things start off as a murder mystery but quickly develops into a coming-of-age story – and again, nothing wrong with that, it just wasn’t what I was looking for.
There are some young adult books I can read and forget that it was ever written with an audience in mind, and unfortunately this was not one of those books, for me. Still, it was a fun magic system and brought some unique features, so if you’re looking for something easy to read and quite cozy despite the murder happening, this might be a read you’ll want to look into.
3/5 stars
Another one of those books that I actually heard about on BookTok first, and decided to try out. I’m not sure why I thought the book would appeal to me but I decided to give it a go.
I enjoyed the writing style of this book. It was easy to read and beautiful – however. I absolutely did NOT enjoy the story, or the characters, at all.
“Traps upon traps… and riddles upon riddles”
There were no traps, no riddles. The book spent so much time focusing on drama between Avery and the other teenagers that sometimes I forgot what it was about. None of it made sense, and I didn’t enjoy the characters.
The dialogue didn’t hit any of the right notes with me, and the conclusion was underwhelming. I’m sure many others out there enjoy this read – but it was just not for me.
Remember how I was writing about those books you can get for free every now and again from Amazon, and how most of them happen to be romance? Well, this was one of them. I initially picked it up because the description sounded mildly interesting – and then I got to a line in the first paragraph that made me almost drop the entire thing and not even bother.
“He tilted his head and his naughty ears trembled impatiently.”
Yep.
I don’t mind silly stories, or comical ones, but the writing has to be able to grab me if that’s going to be the case, and I just about found that one line to be too much for me. Thankfully I decided to press on to see if the writing got any better. It did (slightly).
Emma and Richard are meant to be, but before they can they have to convince Emma’s uncle that they don’t need to wait on the wedding and they should be able to get married sooner rather than later. Emma heads over to her uncles place for a few weeks to convince him of their love, and Richard concocts a plan placing him as a gardener within the mansion so that he can be closer to Emma. Of course life never works out that easily, and the couple meet up with lots of complications along the way, including having to convince Richard’s close friend to pretend to be Richard when the uncle invites him over to get to know him better.
The book is an easy relaxing read, but the writing style was not one I was fond of. The bond between Emma and Richard didn’t feel ‘real’ enough, where as the relationship that budded between Catherine and Lord Raikes felt much more ‘real’ (and it felt like there was more focus on them later on in the book even though they were background characters). The book also changed gears towards the end where it felt more like a game of clue (It was Emma in the yard with a candlestick!) instead of being about the various romances going on, almost as though the author got bored of their own story line. I personally wouldn’t classify this book as a mystery since nothing mystery related actually happens until the last 5-10% of the book, but since the author herself calls it that, why not. It just felt a bit out of place and forced compared to the first half of the book.
If you’re looking for a funny, easy read with a bit of romance (all clean) and some mystery, then The Wicked Wager may be just what you’re looking for, especially for the price.
3/5 stars
The Nomadic Reader 