#tulipsandbooks

[sunnyisreading]

Book Review: Ignite the Sun by Hanna C. Howard

This book held such an amazing premise when I started reading it: an evil queen, the never-ending darkness, a quest to bring back the Light, and save the kingdom. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to the premise.

Howard's debut book Ignite the Sun is a fantasy young adult novel about a common 16-year-old girl with a fear of darkness in a kingdom where darkness always prevails. Overnight, she is thrust into an entirely new world, discovering she is not who she thought she was and learning about her duty to the kingdom and her people. On the quest, she tries to find herself through love, friendship and magic.

Going into the book, I didn't have necessarily high expectations, but the plot was something I would read in a moment if offered - just the thing that is right up my alley. But even after the first few chapters, I started noticing things that don't usually bother me if done well, but they really weren't: cliches. And deeper I went into it, more of them there were - and I wouldn't have minded, but they were badly incorporated at inappropriate times, but I would have handled that if they were done and gone through properly, but they really weren't. I think the sentence 'One bed.', is all I have to add here.

Siria, the main character, was a person I started off liking a lot, but that just stopped after we got around to the quest portion of the book. Her backstory somehow didn't match a lot to what she was going through at that time - as a rebelling child, although she was supposed to be coddled and cherished, I didn't expect to spend a good 1/4 of the book with her muttering and holding grudges and being angry at everyone for not telling her something they possibly couldn't. But again, I could have handled the growth of her character if it was done properly.

Especially looking at the world and how it is right now, I think we need more strong female characters that find strength, bravery, and magic in themselves, without a prince charming always standing around. And that might have been a bit of a problem here. Although in the beginning, I really liked the slow-building romance in this book, from childhood friends to starstruck lovers, as we might say, I think it would have been better if they stayed best friends as the book and their romance started dragging on.

Another thing that bothered me a bit was the ending: we get this pretty slow-paced story at the start, them travelling to the North on foot, and then suddenly we're 80% into the book and everything, and I mean everything, goes down. The pace could have been a lot more thought out, and the ending shouldn't have been rushed as much as it was.

Saying all of this, I can't deny the fact that at times, I still enjoyed the book and its premise, thinking of it as more of a light, fun, romance-filled read with some feeble characters, but with some who I loved seeing grow: Yarrow, Elegy and Merrall. Although this was a 3 star read for me, I think some of you who are into light and fun novels with a twist of magic could still enjoy it a lot.

Disclaimer: I received the eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Expected publication: August 18th 2020 by Blink Read: June 20th 2020 Rating: 3 stars | ★★★☆☆ Review cross-posted to Goodreads.

[sunnyisreading]

Book Review: Of Silver and Shadow by Jennifer Gruenke

"He thought because she was quiet, because she liked books and the way flowers blossomed on the hills in spring, because she was a girl, he could dismiss her as frivolous and unimportant. Weak. He was wrong."

Jennifer Gruenke's Of Silver and Shadow is her not-yet-released debut fantasy novel about one of the last known existing silver wielders, Ren Kolins, living in a kingdom where her magic is forbidden and considered high treason. Throughout the novel, we follow Ren as she is thrown into a rebellion she never wanted to be a part of, and her companions of all sorts and types.

Although the plot itself was intriguing, I definitely didn't expect myself liking this book enough for it to be a 5-star read. You know the type: the massively overused plot of a girl wielding magic who shouldn't even exist fighting for herself, her magic and her people. Wrong. This novel took all the right turns, had a set of the most unique characters and a love to hate romance that I absolutely adored.

The characters were a delight to read about. Each one of them had a unique and interesting story of their own, and there wasn't one character that I hated reading about through the whole story (when there usually is at least one). Their backgrounds and traits were incredibly thought out, and even the worst, the evilest characters had motives and a personality of their own, without being just filler characters. It did set me off a couple of times because there were a lot of names to remember, but their personalities were so different that it was noticeable when the POV shifted from one to another.

And don't get me started on the romances in this book! As I already mentioned, there was an amazing love to hate romance that pushed me to my knees reading it. There was obvious chemistry and tension between the characters, written so well that even I got goosebumps. And that rarely happens. Besides that, there is an LGBTQ+ relationship in this book that is so sweet and loving and I literally craved and hoped for the best for these two characters because they just deserved a happy ending.

Although it is definitely bloody and gruesome in some parts, which some people might not be a fan of, I think the whole premise of a silver wielder with dangerous abilities and strength was well executed. Unlike many books, it didn't feel forced. Maybe the world-building might still need a little bit of polishing, but overall, this was an amazing novel through and through, making it easy to simply fall into and devour in a matter of hours.

In 480 pages, the newly-not-even-yet-published gave me everything I wished for in one novel, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who loves fantasy, unique magic and well-written romance.

disclaimer: i received the eARC of this book from netgalley in exchange for my honest review

Expected publication: May 26th 2020 by Flux Read: March 28th 2020 Rating: 5 stars | ★★★★★ Review cross-posted to Goodreads.

[sunnyisreading]

Book Review: Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

After reading this, I want to reread Eliza and Her Monsters. Just to fix the taste this left.

Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl is a contemporary novel about twin sisters, Cather and Wren, fighting their way through their first year of college. Cath is a major fanfiction writer for Simon Snow, while Wren is trying really hard to distance herself from Cath after living with her for her whole life. The novel faces quite a few problems in the form of college life, making new friends and boyfriends, drinking, anxiety and stress.

Where do I start? Let's say I'm mildly disappointed as I expected a lot more from this book. There are so many good ratings, good reviews, it felt underwhelming. Everyone describes this book as something for everyone who is active in a fandom and is a fangirl/fanboy. But when we get to this book, it's mostly Cath dealing with her problems and how to fit in college life in her hectic days, filled with writing fanfiction. And I don't have a problem with that, not at all. I could see myself in some things that Cath faced as well. But I'm sure that if I didn't have such high expectations going into this book and if it weren't advertised as such, I would've enjoyed it a lot more.

One of the things that bothered me from beginning to end, were the Simon Snow paragraphs pushed into the book. Why? Again, why?! I get it, you want to show us this universe, but it doesn't fit in Cath's story at all. To be honest, I mostly just skipped those paragraphs. Not to mention that the Simon Snow universe just feels like Harry Potter. It is even similar in context, in how it is announced in the book, even the years it was written. And I don't mind Harry Potter at all. But it felt forced ...

Another thing that I had troubles with was that it felt like the author was almost scared to give anything in this book a real peak. Like a real fight, or a real issue, or anything. When we encounter Nick and his actions, I wanted action. I did see it isn't exactly how Cath works, but I expected something at least from Wren? Or just something that just flat out passed on and wasn't mentioned again, although it was a major plot point. As well as Levi - when he and Cath get into an argument over Carry On, that should've been more. Just more. Not just a 10 minute argument and him mopping straight back up to her. In any way possible, he was right. And I was just facepalming through that. And we couldn't even get a moment where it was revealed that Cath was this major fanfiction writer. I mean, come on ...

As goes for the characters ... I liked Cath in the beginning but was feeling meh about her towards the end. Especially because of the assignment - because I totally agree with Levi on this one. I was rooting for Levi, as he really felt the character of the book. I didn't really care much for Wren as we mainly see her at the beginning and the end, but in the middle, she's rarely there.

As I said, mildly disappointing. I did like some of the stuff in it but not enough to say this was a really good book. I read Eliza and Her Monsters last year and I loved it, and everyone kept comparing it to this one. But it's not even similar. So I really think I'll just go and reread that one. Because this was, again, meh.

Published: September 10th 2013 by St. Martin's Press Read: July 14th 2019 Rating: 2.5 stars | ★★★☆☆ Review cross-posted to Goodreads.

[sunnyisreading]

Book Review: Romanov by Nadine Brandes

As a history geek, this book drew me closer than you could imagine - but maybe not for the best.

Nadine Branes' new, not yet published book Romanov is a fantasy retelling of the Romanov family massacre in 1918. It threads with the possibility Anastasia escaped with her brother Alexei and ran far, far away, far from Yurovsky and other Bolsheviks that threatened their lives ... With a little spin of magic to it.

My biggest concern when it comes to this book was that I definitely didn't expect this arrangement of events, which made it much slower than I'd like. Instead of jumping in after Anastasia's escape, we are put into the lives of the Romanov family in exile - their everyday schedules, their problems with the house being too tight, with there being too much bad air. There are some mischiefs, like Anastasia putting eggs into the soldiers' boots, or stealing something, and I did enjoy this part ... until it became 65% of the whole book.

After their exile finally commenced and she rescued herself and her brother from execution, the story was rushed and made no sense at some moments, with plot points that remained unfinished or unexplained or just ... weird in particular, unclear, undefined. The ending itself felt rushed and I, unfortunately, had trouble finishing it.

In addition, as this is supposed to be a fantasy retelling, I expected a lot more magic happening. The magic system could've been great - I can feel it - if it were more deeply explained or we learned more about it. A glimpse here and there just didn't work as well as it should have.

Not only that, but the relationship - the supposedly romantic one - wasn't really. Although I kind of rooted for them and hoped they'd go on and have a happy ending, I didn't really feel that chemistry between them or attraction. The moments between them could've been so much better developed and written and I was clawing my hair out at them. What a shame.

On the other hand, I really liked Anastasia and her personality as a whole - independent, caring, protective of her family, wanting to explore more than just being a princess. I do wish Zach was devised better :(

That being said, I am quite disappointed with this book, especially since it had so much potential to be another 5-star read for me. This way, it only reached 3 stars. I know a lot of people liked it a lot more, so maybe it is just me, but I wouldn't exactly recommend this to people expecting a full-blown fantasy retelling or a blossoming, well-developed romance. Too bad.

disclaimer: i received the eARC of this book from netgalley in exchange for my honest review

Expected publication: May 7th 2019 by Thomas Nelson Read: March 26th 2019 Rating: 3 stars | ★★★☆☆ Review cross-posted to Goodreads.

[sunnyisreading]

Book Review: The Immortal City by Amy Kuivalainen

I'd recommend this mostly to fans of The Da Vinci Code or A Discovery of Witches - of course if you don't mind many parallels and similarities.

Kuivalainen's new book The Immortal City is a magical tale set in Venice, where a woman is brutally sacrificed to a long-forgotten god. When the murder site is found covered in graffiti of an unknown language, the police calls on Doctor Penelope Bryne, a historian ridiculed by her colleagues for her search of the lost city of Atlantis. After arriving in Venice, she comes face to face with a magical community she never believed existed and is forced to work together to keep Venice from disappearing into water forever.

As I already mentioned, there are a bunch of similarities I saw between this book and The Da Vinci Code and A Discovery of Witches. They aren't necessarily bad or disturbing, but as I have read both books in the past two years, I couldn't help but see all of them while reading this. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy some of the references, it just means that Penelope, our main character, was too much like Diana - seemed like a strong, determined person, until a stronger male character came along and dragged her into situations only he could save her for. There were moments that this wasn't that distracting, but most of the time, it was.

I also felt that there was too much repetition regarding Penelope - I remember reading the book and she was kidnapped or snatched from someone/somewhere at least every 90 pages. I mean, you can be defenseless and everything. But even with a knife, she just didn't really manage to do anything. What she did was just pull a magical string and called on her man to rescue her. I'm of opinion that we need more female characters that can take care of themselves at least in minor situations, and this book was lacking it. Especially since it felt from the beginning that Penelope would be able to take care of herself, but this just disappeared over time.

To not focus only on the bad stuff, I have to say that I still loved the romance in this book. It was nice, slowly built, felt realistic, and they totally had chemistry. Alexis as a character totally lived up to his arc and his name, and for this aspect, I have to admit that the author knew what she was doing. Hands down.

What also bothered me was that the first two-thirds of the book was really slow, and then the ending felt rushed and full of reckless decisions. I did enjoy Penelope getting to know Alexis and the other six and the Archives and everything, but the ending should've gone a bit slower and with more established, legitimate actions from some characters.

Overall, this was not such a bad book. It was easy to read, the romance was good, though some things - as mentioned - bothered me. I would personally give it 3 out of 5 stars, and when the second book comes out, I'll definitely read it - if just for the sake of seeing what happens to the main relationships in the book.

disclaimer: i received the eARC of this book from netgalley in exchange for my honest review

Expected publication: September 19th 2019 by BHC Press Read: May 25th 2019 Rating: 3 stars | ★★★☆☆ Review cross-posted to Goodreads.

[sunnyisreading]

BOOKTUBE-A-THON 2018. DAY 1: 30TH JULY 2018, MONDAY. As I am not one of those people who tend to get a lot done while sleep deprived, i didn't start BookTube-A-Thon at midnight, but rather got some sleep and started early and fresh in the morning. Although Monday wasn't a paticulary busy day, I didn't get a lot of reading done.

I started and finished The Boys Who Danced With The Moon, a coming-of-age tale by Mark Paul Oleksiw that I gave 4 out of 5 stars. The Boys Who Danced With The Moon was a book that the coin-flip chose for my first read; I was deciding between this book and A Thousand Perfect Notes, C.G. Drew's debut novel which I still plan to read in August.

You can find my review for The Boys Who Danced With The Moon here.

As I didn't feel like starting a new book from my BookTube-A-Thon TBR, I ended up reading about 120 pages of The Way of Kings, an epic fantasy by Brandon Sanderson that I am really enjoying so far; I plan to finish it in August, too.

On Monday, I read 282 pages of The Boys Who Danced With The Moon and about 120 pages of The Way of Kings. In total, I read about 400 pages.

DAY 2: 31ST JULY 2018, TUESDAY. The second day didn't start on a such a productive note. I got up early, although I got almost zero sleep that day, getting on the train at 9am and heading on a 2 hour journey to visit my boyfriend.

On the train, I read a bit of The Way Of Kings, but nothing significant since I fell asleep quickly.

After I got some sleep at my boyfriends, I started Stalking Jack The Ripper, the book I decided for as my second challenge - to read a book about something you want to do. I wanted to read some mystery and something about serial killers, since they always fascinated me quite a bit. Nevertheless, I didn't read much of it since I was exhausted.

In total, I read about 120 pages of Stalking Jack The Ripper on Tuesday.

DAY 3: 1ST AUGUST 2018, WEDNESDAY. On Wednesday, I couldn't get myself to read too much. I wasn't feeling the book I started the day before - the writing style turned me off quite a bit and I was unimpressed by the characters, although I expected to like this book a lot more.

I forced myself to finish it by the evening, although my impressions didn't change much even when I dived deeper into the story.

You can find my review for Stalking Jack The Ripper here.

Overall, I read the last 206 pages of Stalking Jack The Ripper on Wednesday.

DAY 4: 2ND AUGUST 2018, THURSDAY. Thursday was one of my most productive days; I started and finished Eliza and Her Monsters, a book I chose for the fourth challenge, read a book with green on the cover. It was a beautiful contemporary novel that evoked all kinds of feelings in me, some that I didn't even know I had.

You can find my review for Eliza and Her Monsters here.

I also started Shadow And Bone, a book I chose for the sixth challenge, read a book with a beautiful spine, but I only managed to read 60 pages till midnight.

In total, I read

445 pages on Thursday, which was by far my most productive day of the week.

DAY 5: 3RD AUGUST 2018, FRIDAY. Friday was a fairly productive day - I had to head back home from my boyfriend, just another 2 hour train travel that I slept off, but I read quite a bit before it.

I finished Shadow And Bone, the book I started the day earlier. It wasn't amazing or breath taking, but I liked it quite a lot and found it to be quite a quick read.

You can find my review for Shadow And Bone here.

Overall, I read the last 356 pages of Shadow And Bone on Friday.

DAY 6: 4TH AUGUST 2018, SATURDAY. Saturday was a pretty chill day for me - I slept in for a bit, watched a few episodes of Steven Universe and drank a lot of tea. Nevertheless, I managed to start and finish Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, a murder mystery that I didn't like as much as the other books I read by far this week. I chose it as the third challenge, read and watch a book to movie adaptation.

You can find my review for Murder on the Orient Express here.

As the challenge suggested, I took some time and watched the movie adaptation of the book that was released in 2017, and ended up liking it quite a lot, although it was a bit different from the book, and I would give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Overall, I read 274 pages of Murder on the Orient Express on Saturday.

DAY 7: 5TH AUGUST 2018, SUNDAY. Sunday was by far my most busy day of the week, as I had errands to run and a funeral to attend. I ended up leaving my house at 2pm and getting back around 10pm, but I still managed to start and finish The Wicked Deep, a book I decided on for the fifth challenge, read a book while wearing the same hat the whole time - which was, by far, the most difficult challenge for me this week, as I really don't like hats.

Nevertheless, I thought the book was really good and the athmosphere of it was beautiful.

You can find my review for The Wicked Deep here.

On the last day, I read 308 pages of The Wicked Deep.

OVERALL. I managed to complete six out of seven challenges in the week of BookTube-A-Thon. The book that I didn't even start but was on my TBR as the book for the seventh challenge, read seven books, was Kiss Her Goodbye by Susan Gee.

In total, I read 2109 pages and 6 out of 7 planned books, which I think is still quite impressive and I am very proud of myself. I can't wait for the next BookTube-A-Thon!

[sunnyisreading]

READ (AT LEAST) 100 BOOKS. In 2018, back when I started more seriously managing my reading through my Goodreads account, I set my goal for the annual yearly reading challenge on 80 books. I was absolutely certain that it would be too much for me, but as an overachiever, I went for it anyways. But since 2018 rolled around, I read 102 books in the past year - which is a crazy number for me. I never tracked my reading before this, counted the books I'd read - although I'd known they were a lot but was unsure - and I know that if I put a little bit more effort into this, I could've even read more than the count for 2018 was. Therefore, I decided to aim for at least 100 books in 2019.

GET BACK INTO REVIEWING ARCS AND WRITING REVIEWS. Since I started this blog, I slacked off quite a bit - both here and on my BookstaGram account, which I'm not exactly pleased with. My goal for 2019 is to get more reading done, but I want to read more ARCs too and review them, as I quite enjoyed doing that when I first started blogging. Not only that, I want to focus on blogging itself, too. I want to write more reviews on books I read, not only every third or fourth or when I feel like it, I want to write more blog posts about my reading, my goals, readathons I participate in etc. I know 2019 will be a busy year for me, but this is a source of creativity for me and I want to continue doing it.

PARTICIPATE IN AT LEAST ONE READATHON PER MONTH. Looking back at my 2018, I realized I read a lot of books when I was reading actively with other people, participating in challenges or in readathons. Therefore, I decided to set a realistic goal for me in 2019: to participate in at least one readathon per month, whether it is a weekly or a daily one. After consulting Little Book Owl's Readathon Calendar, I decided and planned out different readathons for different months - all from #AYearAThon, in which I'll probably be participating in January soon, to Witchathon, and of course, BookTubeAThon - now known as The Reading Rush, which I am (arguably) most excited for!

FINISH MORE SERIES. Every year, I start reading so many series that I never (or rarely) finish. I know this is not a problem only to me, but to almost everyone I know. I still have so many series to start and to finish - and with many, I mean a lot. This year, I want to take one month and devote it to only reading series I haven't finished yet - all from All Souls Trilogy, Throne of Glass, ASOIAF, Nevernight etc. Should be fun!

What are your reading goals for 2019? How many books do you strive to read? Let me know on Tumblr or through my BookstaGram account at tulipsandbooks. I hope we all have a lovely and productive year ahead of us!