Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

Published by Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Published on October 2nd 2018

5/5 stars

Darlings, if you haven’t read Strange the Dreamer – turn back now.

Seriously I’m warning you to just go… find another post to read, this one isn’t for you.

At the beginning of this month I purchased Strange the Dreamer … intending to read it BEFORE Laini Taylor made her way to a book signing near me. And then something INCREDIBLE happened:

Muse of Nightmares showed up in my mailbox.

So of course that means I had TWO monster books (no pun intended) to read before October 1st. Seriously, thank you Little Brown Books for Young Readers for sending me an advanced reader copy of this book. With that said, this review is my honest opinion. 

Okay so first thing…Strange the Dreamer…that ending. I. Was. Not. Ready. 

The Other Woman

by Sandie Jones

Published by Minotaur Books

Published August 21st 2018

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Do you ever find yourself desperately wanting to reach through the pages of a book and throttle a character? Shake them and yell, “Wake the hell up!!” That pretty much sums up how I felt through the entire reading of The Other Woman.

Emily meets a man, Adam, and falls in love. She thinks he’s perfect, despite his conniving mother who wants Emily out of the way.

There were many, many signs from the beginning that Emily just didn’t “see”. This made the story a bit unbelievable for me. A woman so blinded by her perception of love that she misses the big flashing warning signs telling her to run away and never look back. Maybe I’ve forgotten what that sort of new love feels like, maybe I’m too “old” to connect with that way…

Girl Gone Viral

by Arvin Ahmadi

Published by; Penguin Random House

Published on May 21st, 2019

What would you do if your loved one disappeared, leaving behind a cryptic note, in a day and age where technology ruled the world? For seventeen year old Opal Hopper, a genius coder, she sets out to win a contest ran by WAVE, the biggest virtual reality platform the world has ever seen. The winner gets the chance to meet the billionare who worked closely with her father, her father who disappeared without a trace.

Girl Gone Viral is an epic tale of computer coding, virtual reality and plenty of hacker status. First and foremost, the cover is so absolutely stunning, it just begs to be picked up and devoured. And devour is just what I did. Ladies and Gents, I give you Warcross meets The Circle. Think cyberpunk…ahh that glorious word. Hi-tech low-life…

When we’re asked what our strengths are, we immediately consider what we’re good at, yet just because we’re good at something doesn’t mean it’s our strength. A strength is something that you do because you thoroughly enjoy it, time passes by without looking at the clock. Let’s say, you’re good at Excel and Office software. It doesn’t mean your strength is in Excel and Office, that’s simply a skill.

Strengths can take time and you may not immediately be good at them, but they are something that you love. Most resolutions and goals centralized around working on weakness. For instance, “I’m not that outgoing, I’m going to work on talking to more people.” We focus on the weakness and at some point, we can be proficient in them, but if it isn’t something we do like to do, it can be draining and we’re constantly wondering when it’ll be over.