Sky Without Stars, by Jessica Brody and Joanne Rendell

Hey, all!

I just finished reading Sky Without Stars, by Jessica Brody and and Joanne Rendell! 

"When the Last Days came, the planet of Laterre promised hope. But five hundred years later, it’s now a place where an extravagant elite class reigns supreme; where the clouds hide the stars and the poor starve in the streets; where a rebel group, long thought dead, is resurfacing.

Whispers of revolution have begun—a revolution that hinges on three unlikely heroes…

Chatine is a street-savvy thief who will do anything to escape the brutal Regime, including spying on Marcellus, the grandson of the most powerful man on the planet.

Marcellus is an officer—and the son of a traitor. Groomed to command by his legendary grandfather, Marcellus begins to doubt the government he’s vowed to serve when he discovers a cryptic message that only one person, a girl named Alouette, can read.

Alouette is living in an underground refuge, where she guards and protects the last surviving library on the planet. But a shocking murder will bring Alouette to the surface for the first time in twelve years…and plunge Laterre into chaos.

All three have roles to play in a dangerous game of revolution—and together they will shape the future of a planet."

This book is based on Les Miserables, and has been quoted to be a mix of Les Mis and The Lunar Chronicles. 

Disclaimer: I have never read either of those stories. 

I know I know, missing out on two classics, one in the real world and one in the YA world? But I might just have to try to read them, because Sky Without Stars was awesome. 

I had so much fun reading this book! It was compulsively readable to to the point that I didn't want to put the book down to sleep at night - that hasn't happened to me in a very long time! 

This book hit all of the marks I appreciate in YA: short chapters (yes), a plot that thickens (yesss), compelling characters (yessssss) and plot twists galore (YESSSSS!) I also love books that are split into sections - somehow it makes reading such big books less daunting. 
   
I really enjoyed the characters, but there was definitely an appreciation scale. Alouette was intriguing, in the sense where she felt like any one of us, who would be thrown into a bad situation just because we tried to help. She is full of confusion and questions and just felt very relatable. 

A bit more interesting for me was Marcellus - he was a little oblivious too (I mean not being able to tell Chatine was a girl... wow!), but I'm a sucker for royal-like characters. He was the absolute definition of 'kind', and I am very curious about what he ends up doing in book 2. 

The coolest character by far for me was Chatine. A thief who steals to live and who ends up in a situation far bigger than herself, in which she has to use deception to make ends meet? That's everything I love! She reminded me tons of my D&D character, Lila, which was super cool to read! I absolutely loved the intrigue she brought, her shady background and her ending!!! She's definitely the one I'm most looking forward to reading about more again. 

The villains were awesome. I won't say more about that, because I'm trying to make this as spoiler-free as possible. Some people were clearly villains from the start. However, a few characters were total surprises! 

I also had a lot of fun with the worldbuilding! Albeit a tiny bit confusing at fist, you quickly fall into it quite naturally. 

Now, there is one thing about this book that people seem to either love or hate - the frenchification (is that a word? It is now!) of some words. There where certain words that were replaced with the French equivalent, while others were given accents. At first, I thought this was weird. But quickly enough, I realized that this way of reading almost perfectly mirrors how I think every day. I'm half French half American, I usually think in English but sometimes will replace simple words with their French equivalent. I do this when I talk with my family as well! 
   
I can understand that this may be a little annoying to people, though. This book was incredibly entertaining, but it had its flaws. I wish that some side characters were a little more thought out, and that maybe a map of this system was given. However, all of these things can be 'fixed' in the upcoming book, out today! 

I'm going to end this review here! I had a lot of fun reading this book and would definitely recommend it if you are looking for a futuristic read! 

I'm giving this 4/5 stars! Definitely worth the read! 

Stay bookish, and more importantly, STAY HOME! 

 

Hello from Forced Introversion

Hello from forced introversion! 

For now, it is quite sunny here in France! We're not allowed to leave our house, but we do have a nice little garden we can go to for fresh air. I understand not everyone has one, but at least nobody will be yelled at for being outside for a few minutes. 

Here, we do need a permission slip to go out to buy groceries. This is a bit weird for us, but it'll just take some getting used to! At least we can order anything we need for the house! I was even able to order new D&D dice and an Owlcrate! 

I have loads of time now! All my homework is done and I have a lot of time to read and play games, and I can still call my friends every evening! I'm very happy to be home. 

Some things are definitely weird though. I quickly had to leave my room in the Netherlands, and I probably won't be back until September! That's a long time from now, and I have some things that I'm kinda sad I won't see until then! Some nice clothes, signed books, candles, CDs, textbooks, stuffed animals... it is weird that so many of my things are so far. 

And my friends are all in the Netherlands too! But thank goodness we can call online on Discord and play games together. 

Here they are doing a lot of good things because of the forced introversion. Classes are being held on TV, radios are hosting gym classes, and people are being very kind to those in need! It is good to see this :) Even hotels and taxis are free for people who need them! 

How are you? I hope that you are enjoying your forced introversion, too. What is that like for you? Looking forward to hearing from you! 

Many hugs, 

Caro

Hey, all! I'm thinking of writing these postcards once a week. I'm a postcard collector and I was thinking it could be fun to write one about this forced introversion we are all going through, both as a 'diary' and as posts. 

Stay bookish and stay at home! 

  

Chain of Gold, by Cassandra Clare

 

Hey, all! 

I just finished reading Chain of Gold, by Cassandra Clare! This is the first book of the Last Hours trilogy, a series that follows The Infernal Devices, about 20 years later. 

This was an incredibly anticipated book for me, and I'm making sure to review this without letting my anticipation for it guide me. It will also be spoiler-free, so don't worry about the possibility of running into things that may reveal the plot! 

"Welcome to Edwardian London, a time of electric lights and long shadows, the celebration of artistic beauty and the wild pursuit of pleasure, with demons waiting in the dark. For years there has been peace in the Shadowhunter world. James and Lucie Herondale, children of the famous Will and Tessa, have grown up in an idyll with their loving friends and family, listening to stories of good defeating evil and love conquering all. But everything changes when the Blackthorn and Carstairs families come to London…and so does a remorseless and inescapable plague.

James Herondale longs for a great love, and thinks he has found it in the beautiful, mysterious Grace Blackthorn. Cordelia Carstairs is desperate to become a hero, save her family from ruin, and keep her secret love for James hidden. When disaster strikes the Shadowhunters, James, Cordelia and their friends are plunged into a wild adventure which will reveal dark and incredible powers, and the true cruel price of being a hero…and falling in love."

This book... wow! Cassandra Clare is getting increasingly better at writing, continuously weaving more intricate plots and characters with every book she releases. From page 1, I felt a sense of comfort and familiarity from reading about the London group of shadowhunters, something I now realize I was really missing when reading The Dark Artifices. In fact, it's super easy to consider the London bunch separate from the New York/LA groups. This book felt right, and even though I had never read it before (obviously), it was as comforting as re-reading an old favorite. 



As usual for Clare's books, I adored her characters and their interactions. The core group - James, Matthew, Thomas and Christopher were an amazing group of friends, each who had incredibly distinct personalities. James became increasingly likeable, Matthew and Thomas have become incredibly intriguing, and Christopher is an absolute cinnamon roll who is relatable in every way and I adore him and doom come to those who may say ANYTHING bad about him.
 Lucie was a fantastic character who I had a lot of fun reading about, Alistair is super duper awesome and I can't wait to read more about him, and Grace thoroughly creeps me out. Anna has the confidence of a thousand suns and honestly was the Magnus Bane of the book (even though he was actually there but she definitely had that kind of presence).

Sadly the only character I disliked... was Cordelia herself. I found her more annoying than I care to admit. Sucks for me that she was the main character, I guess, oops! I'm not even sure what it as, there was just something that irked me, but hey, there can't be a reason for everything! 

The book had a little bit of a slow start, plot-wise, but it was compulsively readable, because it was such a comfortable read to me. About halfway through the book, however, things start to pick up. Characters who seem innocent become shady, shady characters get redeemed, and 

so
many
demons
!!!! 

I swear, these guys couldn't go outside without there being demons everywhere, and without people getting hurt. No one ever had a break! Cassandra Clare definitely has an evil plan for this trilogy, and I cannot wait to see what this may lead to! 

There were also many little side things I particularly enjoyed

 

- The book overall was never overbearing with nostalgia from TID. Yes that tugged at my heartstrings, but it never felt like it was there to bring nostalgia for old readers - It never got in the way of the main plot. 

- The side characters were brought into the plot concretely enough for them to feel real and to be appreciable. Their names are certainly going to be remembered. 

- Magic is awesome 

- Scientists (especially chemists) have FINALLY been mentioned in popular fiction!!! 

- The Wessa wedding... I'm not even gonna deny it, I cried like a little baby.


This book is definitely worth it. Go pick it up and adore it and while you read, please give Christopher (ok sure and Alistair) a hug for me <3

I'm giving this book 4.5/5 stars! 

 
Stay bookish! 
Wash your hands and stay home! 

 
 

 

The Streets are Silent

The streets are silent today. 

After spending all evening pressing refresh, waiting for emails from work, university, and events, the whole country is now holding their breath, waiting for a next step. 

Everyone woke up to an odd silence. A veil of surrealism covered everything announced by the news, combined with an odd sense of fear and familiarity...

Quarantine
Lockdown
Cancelled
Postponed
Sold Out
Shutdown

I was walking through the streets last night, looking at the dozens of posters announcing concerts, festivals and shows, knowing they would not happen. I took the bus that is normally filled to a brim at that time, but that today was eerily empty. I received email upon email about what has been cancelled and with links to online classes. 

Left and right, countries are closing borders. Governments are making decisions so quickly that plans have been shifted from next week, to this weekend, to tomorrow... Minds are as filled with what-ifs as shelves in supermarkets are empty. People are packing piles of essentials into cars, purely on the chance that stores may close. 

And the thing is... nobody knows what is next to come. 

Some countries are closing borders, others are simply limiting events. Some countries are canceling classes while others are still hosting concerts. This mix of rules and obligations that none of us can do anything about has caused stress and panic among everyone.

It is difficult not to see some individual actions as extreme - the fact that supermarkets have run out of essentials in less than a day makes little sense to me, as is the fear of others. And even more sadly, this has generated a new form of racism I have yet to encounter before.

All of this does feel familiar: it feels like a post-apocalyptic movie in the making. The ones where people still live in homes, but where everything is guarded. Where people flinch at a cough and vocally insult people who come from foreign countries, because that country is a 'source'. Where countries are closing borders and people have to be screened before being admitted places.

And despite the mass panic, despite people freaking out about something they have no control over, 

The streets are silent.  


I wrote this purely on my thoughts about the current updates about the Coronavirus pandemic. This was written in the Netherlands, based on a walk I took this morning. None of what I mentioned is fiction. I just had to get thoughts out in writing.

Stay bookish, my dears, and wash your hands. 

 

Why I Stopped Blogging... and Why I Came Back

Hey, all! 

A few days ago I promised to write a post about why I stopped blogging for several months. It is a little bit of a long story but it made me learn a lot about how the internet works. I might not be explaining it 100% correctly in the technical bits, but I promise to do my best. 

September/October got incredibly busy for me. I had a very difficult time finding the time to read at all, and with my uni coming in the way again, finding the time to post anything at all became a huge challenge. However I never forced myself to post just to 'keep up with views' and whatever - that's a mindset I do everything I can to avoid. 

However, after about a month of inactivity, I opened up my stats page to have a look - I had a consistent amount of views daily, but when I had a look at the traffic source, all of the links brought me to third-party websites, including adult sites, gambling and some weird lawyer firm that felt sketchy in every way that mattered. 


As far as I understood, when you get too few views, you get traffic through third party websites. However, nobody actually sees the blog - you get given fake views in order to keep traffic existent. In return, third party websites that pay to give you fake views are seen in your traffic source, generating, you know it! Clicks! 

This absolutely disgusted me. Not only were the 'views' I was getting fake, but these websites were suddenly linked to a project I had been working on for years. I'm someone who has to be held back from sending rants back at those 'pay for views' companies to 'grow your website'. I find that idea to be such a shame - if you have a good site, account or any other form of media, you will get appreciation. That's how it works. Now I certainly do not have any huge accounts or big followers, but that's not what I'm aiming for anyway. I just really enjoy writing and posting photos and reviews - exchanging opinions about books is something I truly enjoy. 

It took a lot for me to put my blog on private. I could not bring myself to delete it for the life of me, but at least on private I could keep it whilst it being inaccessible to such a system. 

The 'break' was nice - I could read without feeling the need to review rereads (which I find redundant), books I didn't enjoy (which I find tedious) and I could focus on other things. 

However, I recently read Shielded (make sure to look out for my review!) and truly wanted to write a review about this ARC. I've also recently had a study change - I am shifting from pure physical chemistry and astronomy, to general chemistry and journalism. I have thus been writing a lot more, which gave me a newfound energy to actually, well, write! I figured it was as good a time as any to open up my blog again to blog whenever I'd like. 

I've really been enjoying writing again! I know I'm not 100% consistent, but I will do my best. 

Stay bookish, 

 

Reading Habits: Before and After Social Media

Hey, all! 

Yesterday I arrived back in the family house from uni for a short week. It is Carnival in the Netherlands and that can get overwhelming for a small introvert with crowd anxiety such as myself. Usually, the first thing I do when I come back to France (after eating way too much bread and butter) is look at my shelves and decide what I want to read next.

That's when I started craving re-reading my Middle Grade favorites. I picked up a book that means a ton to me -  Stravaganza: City of Masks, by Mary Hoffman - and realized: I have never heard other people on blogs or Instagram talk about these books. Reviews for it on Goodreads are generally pretty decent. So, after I sent an email to the author, I got to thinking. 

As much as I have always loved reading, I started noticing a trend in my reading patterns since I started reviewing books and being a part of 'the book community'. So today, I wanted to take half an hour or so to go over what I noticed changed. 

1. Book Selection 

Before
I remember spending countless lunchtimes in the school library, looking for new titles and reading the blurb of every book I could get my hands on, before carefully selecting 4 books I had to bring back in a month's time. Some books simply didn't stick with me, while others brought a bookish love upon me that still sticks around. I _still_ squeal like an 11 year old when Rick Riordan says he will publish a new book soon! I also remember scrolling through the teen's books on amazon, looking for something that sounded promising. Mom ordered so many random books for me that, sure, were either hit or miss, but I made the decisions myself. 


After
Since involving myself in the book community, I have been introduced to some fantastical word, known as hype. Certain books were talked about by EVERYONE, while some books I knew and loved seemed to hardly be mentioned anywhere at all. I've realized that I no longer reach out to books I have not seen anyone mention, but rather end up buying the books that have been mentioned everywhere - there is a hype for a reason, right? This has certainly lead me to some amazing books, that I most likely would not have discovered otherwise. 

2. My pickiness about books 

Before
A book is a story written on pages bound between two covers. I don't care if my spine is broken in or if I dog ear pages or if the entire series is made up of different covers. I want the story and I want it now. 

After
Uuuugh I kind of wish I paid more attention to having similar covers... And I kinda wish I didn't dog ear some of my all time favorites... And the broken spines annoy me... But I won't replace my old copies for the world 

3. Series

Before
I used to be a series junkie - I would usually find the first 2-3 books in my school's library, and the time of year when the next book would come out was more exciting than Christmas. Some stand-alones were fine, but there was a certain thrill to series! 

After  
Gimme the stand alones. I do have some favorite series, but for some reason it has become incredibly difficult to find YA stand alones that aren't contemporary. I live for a good high fantasy but most of those come in HUGE series! And while I enjoy a good trilogy, I get emotionally attached to books strongly enough to just lose patience when waiting a year for a next book to come out, oops! 

But that's why you gotta learn to wait out the series's publication, then 1, 2, 3 BINGE!

4. Caring about Opinions

Before
I used to not really care if people liked the same books I did or not, or if I liked books recommended to me.  I would read and absorb a story, weather I liked it or not was simply a personal choice. 

After
Now, it is easy to _say_ I don't care, but it is difficult to enact. Seeing someone with influence tear apart at a book I loved on goodreads just because they can always breaks my heart a little, and I am always a little afraid to admit that I didn't like a very hyped book. 

However, this also works the other way around! I cannot express how happy it makes me to see a message from someone - stranger or friend - saying that they saw me recommend a book and that they loved it as well. I also love the feeling of reading a super-hyped book after a while, and completely understanding why it was so loved! 

All in all, I don't think that before or after was better for me, reading-wise. They both have their value, and have both built me to the kind of reader I am today. However, I will be trying to implement some of my past reader philosophies into my current reading and blogging habits! I'm definitely going to be exploring the books I don't see being mentioned as much once again! 

I would love to hear your opinions on the subject! 

Stay Bookish! 

 
 

ARC Review - Shielded, by KayLynn Flanders

Hey, all!

Before I get into the spoiler-free review of a book I absolutely adored, I feel like I owe you all an explanation. 

My blog has been on 'private' since October. I shut it down without warning, and more than one person asked me where it went and why I deleted it. To be honest, it is a long story. Later this week I will make sure to dedicate a post about why I closed my blog. 

But for now, I'm back! I am super happy to be back behind the keyboard, finally able to talk about new book discoveries! 

Today I come to you with a review of an ARC! I am talking about Shielded, by Kaylynn Flanders. Before you continue, click on the link and add this book to your TBR. It's that good. And don't worry, this review will, naturally, be spoiler free!

Note: This book was given to me by Delacorte Press via Netgalley. This does not, in any way, influence my thoughts and opinions. 

This cover is simply too beautiful for words!

"The kingdom of Hálendi is in trouble. It's losing the war at its borders, and rumors of a new, deadlier threat on the horizon have surfaced. Princess Jennesara knows her skills on the battlefield would make her an asset and wants to help, but her father has other plans.

As the second-born heir to the throne, Jenna lacks the firstborn's--her brother's--magical abilities, so the king promises her hand in marriage to the prince of neighboring Turia in exchange for resources Hálendi needs. Jenna must leave behind everything she has ever known if she is to give her people a chance at peace.

Only, on the journey to reach her betrothed and new home, the royal caravan is ambushed, and Jenna realizes the rumors were wrong--the new threat is worse than anyone imagined. Now Jenna must decide if revealing a dangerous secret is worth the cost before it's too late--for her and for her entire kingdom."

Shielded is so much more than I was expecting. With every sentence you can feel the world and characters being built, with every plot twist you realize how insanely detailed Flanders's idea for this series is. There are so many twists and turns and unexpected moments that the book was very difficult to put down, and even harder to stop thinking about. 

My exact face when *REDACTED* happened only about 20% in.

For those who have followed my blog for a while you know that nothing makes me happier than a good character-driven novel. I become even giddier when the plot matches the characters in intensity. Shielded absolutely delivered in these aspects. Every single character, main, side and backstage alike, were thoroughly fleshed out and had personalities that stood out. Jenna - our main character - wasn't flawless, Enzo - the prince - was absolutely adorable (imagine if Will and Jem had a lovechild who was very protective, but also dorky and smart and smells like apples and books... *sigh*...). I absolutely adored Ren, Chiara, Mari and Luc. (Mari MVP, just saying!). They were each so unique I could hear their voices in my head as I read. 

And the plot! I cannot say much about it, but I adored how descriptive Flanders was about the Wild, the feeling left after being hurt, and even simple things like the way the sun felt on people's skin. The plot itself feels as insane as something that could be played out in a fantastic campaign of D&D. The magic system is so alive, and evil of the antagonists is just dripping from the pages. 

I have to stop here, lest I go fully into spoilers because THINGS HAPPENED, OKAY!? I'm giving this book 5/5 stars, and I simply need book 2. Right now. Even if it's just an outline of it, or an idea that Flanders came up with and quickly wrote on the back of a shopping receipt. I want more from this world and its three kingdoms! 

Stay bookish!