Tag: avengersreadathon19

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The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor – Review

In 1986, Eddie and his friends are just kids on the verge of adolescence. They spend their days biking around their sleepy English village and looking for any taste of excitement they can get. The chalk men are their secret code: little chalk stick figures they leave for one another as messages only they can understand. But then a mysterious chalk man leads them right to a dismembered body, and nothing is ever the same.

In 2016, Eddie is fully grown, and thinks he’s put his past behind him. But then he gets a letter in the mail, containing a single chalk stick figure. When it turns out that his friends got the same message, they think it could be a prank . . . until one of them turns up dead.

That’s when Eddie realizes that saving himself means finally figuring out what really happened all those years ago.

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I picked this book up out of a love for mystery, the 80s, and England. It certainly seemed perfectly catered to my specific tastes, so I was super excited to read it. I mostly enjoyed it, but found that the way the narrative was set up led to me getting confused a lot, but that may not be the case for someone whose attention span is better than mine.

Going in, we’re presented with our protagonist, Eddie. We meet him in 2016, where he is 42 and still trying to figure out his life. He is very much stuck in the past and for good reason; his childhood left him scarred in multiple ways, and he has not had a healthy way of moving past that. Every other chapter we check in with his older self, as in the chapters in between we are regaled by stories of his childhood which are the actual basis for the main story.

There are lots of small mysteries in between the big one, but I think rather than that making the waters of this story murky, it is the shift between years and how abrupt and quick it is. We would be with 12 year old Eddie in 1986 and once you’re comfortable and ready to live in this time period, you are uprooted and settled back in the skin of the older version. I will confess that it made the tension greater as it took a much longer time for anything to be resolved, but the back and forth of it made me dizzy.

There is not just one murder, but several, and Eddie seems to be in the thick of all of it. He can’t escape death, even though he tries through the years. His friend group separated when they were young because of a mix of shared traumas and solitary heart breaks, and left the kids to deal with their grief and fear on their own. For Eddie it has taken a devastating toll; he has dreadful nightmares and is beginning to crack. Through his eyes, we see the darkness over his town of Anderbury and the sick, twisted secrets the inhabitants keep, including himself.

I did not expect the book’s conclusion, and I don’t just include the discovery of the killer in this statement. There is one final twist that gave the book a different light, and it was a chilling and thrilling discovery. I enjoyed this novel, and I do think it’s great for any Stephen King fans out there. It had a very IT or The Body vibes with the coming of age type story meets the older version trying to piece together those times gone by.

4/5 stars

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An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson – Review

A skilled painter must stand up to the ancient power of the faerie courts—even as she falls in love with a faerie prince—in this gorgeous debut novel.

Isobel is a prodigy portrait artist with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread, weave cloth, or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel’s paintings are highly prized. But when she receives her first royal patron—Rook, the autumn prince—she makes a terrible mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes—a weakness that could cost him his life.

Furious and devastated, Rook spirits her away to the autumnlands to stand trial for her crime. Waylaid by the Wild Hunt’s ghostly hounds, the tainted influence of the Alder King, and hideous monsters risen from barrow mounds, Isobel and Rook depend on one another for survival. Their alliance blossoms into trust, then love—and that love violates the fair folks’ ruthless laws. Now both of their lives are forfeit, unless Isobel can use her skill as an artist to fight the fairy courts. Because secretly, her Craft represents a threat the fair folk have never faced in all the millennia of their unchanging lives: for the first time, her portraits have the power to make them feel.

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I was recommended this book by one of my closest friends who knows that I have a serious attachment to the fae, and I was not disappointed. I loved how this narrative took attributes I know I and adore from other works I’ve read on this specific supernatural race but also turned it up to 11 to make this forbidden romance exist in the highest of stakes.

We follow Isobel, a girl who is only ever known by this moniker as a way to keep the faeries from ensorcelling her. She is very popular within the faerie community as she is able to do something they are not; Craft. In Isobel’s case, this is painting, but Craft can mean a variety of things: cooking, writing, sewing, etc. If a fair one (as the fae are commonly known to the folk of Whimsy) even attempts to do a Craft, it will surely kill them or drive them mad.

She keeps her name safe from her patrons, and only accepts payment in the form of enchantments that are specifically worded and used to help her and her family: her aunt Emma and her two sisters (who were once goats but enchanted by a fair one to become twin children) March and May. One of her most frequent visitors is a fae from the Spring Court, named Gladfly. He informs her that the prince of Autumn, Rook, will pay her a visit soon for his portrait. This fair one has not been seen for centuries, and so Isobel is on her guard.

Rook turns out to be a gracious guest, and as the two spend more and more time together, Isobel lets her walls fall down. She sees something within Rook that she can’t put her finger on, but it sets him apart from any other fae she has ever encountered. She starts to feel something for him, but once the portrait is finished he takes his leave, and she thinks she’ll never see him again. However, he returns in less than a month incensed, accusing her of putting something in the painting to make him look weak, and any weakness within the fae lands is punished, especially in the royal court.

Isobel quickly realizes that she gave him human emotion, and that was the missing link she sensed but couldn’t name. Rook spirits her away to clear his name, but during their time together, the two find themselves growing closer and closer, and after a grave mistake they are left wondering whether they have doomed themselves to death. There is a law in place set by the Alder King called The Good Law. It states that a human and a fae may not be permitted to fall in love.

There is a place in the Spring Court called the Green Well, which will turn the mortal drinker into a fair one themselves, but Isobel is against a transformation of any kind. With their feelings growing ever stronger and forces beyond their control tearing them apart, it’s a race against time and a battle against tradition as the two try to find a way to stay together or live without each other.

It’s a gorgeously written story with an ending I never expected. I don’t want to ruin it, but I’ll just say that I loved how much strength the author put in being just human. It was so inspiring that although the fae are beautiful and can live forever, they lead very boring lives, and use glamours that cover up not only the less than spectacular forms but also the ratty, moth eaten clothes they wear, the rotten and maggot infested food they eat, and the courts that they inhabit. It was a much different take than I’ve read before, and I really hope that this turns into a series because I am not ready to leave this world!

5/5 stars

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The Arrival of Someday by Jen Malone – Review

Hard-charging and irrepressible eighteen-year-old Amelia Linehan could see a roller derby opponent a mile away—and that’s while crouched down, bent over skates, and zooming around a track at the speed of light. They don’t call her Rolldemort for nothing! What she couldn’t see coming, however, was the unexpected flare-up of a rare liver disorder she was born with. But now it’s the only thing she—and everyone around her—can think about.

With no guarantee of a viable organ transplant, everything Amelia’s been sure of—like her college plans, the mural she’d been commissioned to paint, or the possibility of one day falling in love—has become a huge question mark, threatening to drag her down into a sea of what-ifs she’s desperate to avoid.

Then a friend from the past shows up. With Will, it’s easy to forget about what’s lurking underneath the lightness of their time together. It’s easy to feel alive when all signs point elsewhere. On the other hand, with the odds decidedly not in her favor, Amelia knows this feeling couldn’t last forever. But what can?

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Thank you so much to Edelweiss for this eARC that completely took my breath away. I originally requested it because of the badass that Lia (short for Amelia) is. The synopsis for the book tells us she is a roller derby queen, an artist, and a nerd (see her derby name: Rolldemort!) and as such I was completely taken by her character already, and knew she was someone I would connect with. It takes no time to warm up to her, and just as quickly the world as she knows it is quickly pulled out from under her feet when a liver disease she was born with rears its ugly head.

I learned so much from this novel, and not just about biliary atresia (or BA for short). We are taken through the process of organ donation, given so many ‘don’t you ever wonder’ questions to ponder, and regaled with tales about our past presidents. Our cast of characters each have something that they’re passionate about, and that passion struggles to stay in its lane as they are all dealt a hand in this grief. Lia refuses to be seen as The Dying Girl. She doesn’t want to be anything less than she’s ever been; strong, brave, and bold, and so the second that pity enters anyone’s eyes, she completely shuts down.

It’s a hard battle to watch, both from Lia and her loved one’s points of view. For her, she sees this only as something that is her fault. She’s causing her brother to come home from college, her parents to lose hope, and her best friend to turn her into a charity case. For everyone else, they are drowning in the fact that there’s nothing they can do. They want to rally around her, to put on a brave face, but just the thought of her life going on unfinished is unbearable. So we’re left in a very uncomfortable place as Lia attempts to defy her diagnosis and distract those surrounding her from seeing her any differently.

I don’t want to spoil the book, but there were so many things that I loved about it that I want to talk a little cryptically about. If any of you are scared of reading this because you’ve already ‘been there, done that’ with other books about teenagers grappling with disease, think again. It is so much different than any other book I’ve read dealing with similar subject matter. There is a bit of a ‘flirty’ aspect with a boy, but this boy does not come in on a white horse and carry her away from her mortality. He is a strong pillar that holds her up when she is coming unglued, and only when she has made it clear that she needs that. It was so refreshing to not have that be the focus of the narrative, as Lia has so many other things to focus on.

One such thing being her best friend, Sibby. She is Lia’s advocate, whether she wants it or not. She, along with Lia’s parents and brother Alex, are warriors. They are the net saving Lia from the cold abyss of fear, and their love rips her out of many a panic attack within these pages. The relationships built between friends and family are so important in this book, and reminds us that romantic love isn’t the only important love. When you’re sick, all you want is for your mom to hold you and bring you soup. You want your best friend to watch reruns of Friends and The West Wing with you. You want normalcy, and I can’t imagine that’s any different under threat of death.

The ending took me by surprise. I cried from the first sentence of the second to last chapter, and from then on it was just a kind of cathartic release. There’s so much tension you pick up on from all of these characters who are walking the line between hope and despair; looking down every once and awhile to see dread in the form of alligators just waiting to tear them to pieces. Sometimes they slip, and the alligators nip off a bit of their foot, or snap very closely to their ankles. There’s a constant game of cat and mouse as everyone (the reader included) waits to see Lia’s fate.

It’s a beautiful, raw, and unabashedly REAL book. It’s not sugar-coated, but it also is a bright light of hope, and a strong message to all to get out there and make a difference. You could save a life; maybe even the person’s closest to you.

5/5 stars

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The Grey Sisters by Jo Treggiari – Review

Two years after a deadly plane crash, best friends D and Spider head into the mountains to face their grief. A gripping psychological thriller for fans of The Cheerleaders and Sadie.

D and Spider have always been close friends, and they are further united in their shared heartbreak: they both lost siblings in a horrific plane crash two years earlier. A chance sighting of a beloved cuddly toy in a photograph of the only survivor spurs D to finally seek closure. She and Spider and their friend, Min, set off on a road trip to the mountainside site of that terrible crash.

Ariel has lived on the mountain all her life. She and her extended family are looked down upon by neighboring townsfolk and she has learned to live by her wits, trusting few people outside of her isolated, survivalist community. A terrifying attack sends her down the mountain for help; on her way, she comes upon the three girls — a chance encounter that will have far-reaching consequences for them all.

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Thank you to NetGalley for this eARC! I requested it on a whim, falling for the gorgeous cover and the promise of a mystery following a devastating tragedy. It delivered on this pact and gave me even more than I could have imagined!

The book starts out with a pretty literal bang as we see Kat and Jonathan’s last moments on the airplane that is the catalyst for this novel. We then flash forward two years as their siblings, D and Spider, respectively, are gearing up to visit the crash site with their friend Min in tow to get some closure. 

The trip is perilous; filled with car trouble and the constant feeling of being watched. Only we know that they are indeed being surveilled by a group of mountain dwellers that are led by a Jim Jones type known as Big Daddy. We are given insight into this compound through Ariel, who has grown up within its teachings. When she encounters an accident of her own, she begins to seek help and is driven into D and Spider’s lives desperately.

What unfolds in this book is a beautiful battle for that last spark of hope that keeps us all going, even in our darkest hour. These characters are tried, tested, and come out on the other side stronger for it. The determination and will of these women is a force to be reckoned with, and it has the most satisfying happy ending. I’m not saying it’s all puppies and rainbows; this narrative drips with trauma. However, in spite of this, life finds a way. I loved how this just completely surprised me and ended up being so perfectly up my alley!

5/5 stars

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Let Me Hear a Rhyme by Tiffany D. Jackson – Review

In the next striking and vibrant standalone novel by the critically acclaimed author of Allegedly and Monday’s Not Coming, Tiffany D. Jackson tells the story of three Brooklyn teens who plot to turn their murdered friend into a major rap star by pretending he is still alive.

Biggie Smalls was right. Things done changed. But that doesn’t mean that Quadir and Jarrell are okay letting their best friend Steph’s tracks lie forgotten in his bedroom after he’s killed—not when his beats could turn any Bed-Stuy corner into a celebration, not after years of having each other’s backs.

Enlisting the help of Steph’s younger sister, Jasmine, Quadir and Jarrell come up with a plan to promote Steph’s music under a new rap name: The Architect. Soon, everyone in Brooklyn is dancing to Steph’s voice. But then his mixtape catches the attention of a hotheaded music rep and—with just hours on the clock—the trio must race to prove Steph’s talent from beyond the grave.

Now, as the pressure—and danger—of keeping their secret grows, Quadir, Jarrell, and Jasmine are forced to confront the truth about what happened to Steph. Only each has something to hide. And with everything riding on Steph’s fame, together they need to decide what they stand for before they lose everything they’ve worked so hard to hold on to—including each other.

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I want to send a huge thank you to Edelweiss for this ARC! I’m a huge fan of Tiffany’s, and this was one of my most anticipated reads for this year! I am happy to say that it did not disappoint! I was enthralled by this story driven by music; something that has always been so close to my heart. It’s so deeply threaded into this narrative, having original lyrics written by Malik Sharif were so powerful and rich coming from the mind of our deceased artist: Steph.

We are greeted by tragedy and its aftermath. The people closest to it are Quadir (Quady), Jarrell (Rell), and Jasmine (Jazzy Jazz). Quadir and Jarrell are Steph’s best friends, and Jasmine his younger sister. Their love of music tied them together and gave them outlets for the different pains in their lives, but no one was as intimate with it as Steph. They find a cache of music he had recorded before he was killed, and instead of only mourning what they have lost, they find a way to honor his memory.

What starts off as a ‘what if’ quickly becomes reality. The trio take Steph’s music and start on a journey to make him a posthumous hit. In the middle of their endeavors, Jasmine realizes that since they’re hitting the streets trying to spread the word about ‘The Architect’ (the moniker they chose for Steph) they can also keep an ear out for any leads about Steph’s murder, as the police have let the case grow cold.

It is a beautiful story of the things that bond us; be it shared interests, death, love, or history. These characters come together in such an inspiring way, and even as things get tough and scary, if one of them blinks an eye, the other is there with a fixed gaze. The feeling of respect and love that we see for Brooklyn and its residents is a driving force unlike any other. There is so much loyalty for this city, one that is most certainly heightened because Tiffany herself is from Brooklyn and writes about it with an open, expressive heart.

Something that I love most about all of Tiffany’s novels is that her characters have distinct voices that make them come alive. You don’t just hear them when they’re actually speaking out loud. You hear them all throughout their respective chapters, because Tiffany takes us inside of their minds. The slang, dialect, and personality in each line written makes this story feel so much more personal, and you can almost feel the breath of the protagonists in your ear as if they’re sitting right beside you; making sure that you know Steph’s story and can pass it on.

I loved that this narrative had so many important nuances. We follow the mystery of Steph’s death. We see a love story blossom. We float through a river of music and try to stay afloat through the many ups and downs of the industry. We get a peek into the history of not only music, but into the lives of POC in the late 90s. I learned so much about black history from this book, and I believe I am better for it.

Thank you, Tiffany, for sharing this story with me. I cannot wait until the world hears it too.

5/5 stars