Tag: book blogger

This sequel SLAPS

Today I am excited to finally review Protect the Prince by Jennifer Estep.

Protect the Prince is the second book in the Crown of Shards series, and it was released this past July. Kill the Queen, the first book in the series, was such an addicting read! An Evil Queen, gladiators, magic, and a kick-ass heroine what more could you want?

“Summer queens are fine and fair, with pretty ribbons and flowers in their hair. Winter queens are cold and hard, with frosted crowns made of icy shards.”

Kill the Queen was all about Everleigh quest to survive after her cousin, queen Vasila, along with the help of Maeven, decided to murder her entire family along with anyone else attending the seven spires ball. Evie, as the only survivor of her family line, runs off and joins the Black Swam Troupe, an old gladiator group. Evie does not reveal her true identity at first but as she grows stronger she comes to the conclusion that she must avenge her family and her Kingdom.

Protect the Prince picks up right where we left off in Book one. Everleigh is the queen of Bellona and she feels undeserving of the title, even though she won the duel to death against her cousin. Along for the ride are old favorites from the Black Swan Troupe: Paloma, Cho, Serilda, and Sullivan who all act like political advisors as well as bodyguards. As soon as Evie ascends the throne, she is sent to Andvari on an apology tour: the Andvarian King lost his son and a politician during the Seven Spire massacre. Luckily for Evie, her gladiator crush, Sullivan, is the illegitimate son of the king and sets up a meeting between the two kingdoms. Things heat up in Andvari when the King insists that Evie marry his remaining son thus creating an alliance between both their kingdoms. Maeven and her assassins return to take out Evie and the Prince, complicating their alliance.

After the events of the first book, Evie is surer of herself: she can kick ass without a doubt. However, she is unsure of her role as queen. I wanted to scream at Evie that she is the most powerful queen Bellona could ever have but sadly I could not. Evie is much more powerful than we initially thought. Recall in book one that Evie is immune to magic which thus allowed her to defeat her cousin even after being hit by Vasilla’s lighting.

There is more to Evie’s immunity than deflecting magic, turns out Evie can force that immunity out of her body. Extremely useful when surrounded by a bunch of magic wielders.

I loved this addition to Evie’s power! I’ve read plenty of books that deal with magic, but I’ve never read about a character who is immune altogether. That is a game-changer in my opinion

Sullivan continues to play the same games with Evie by denying becoming her boyfriend. His excuse once again is “noble” because he knows she will not gain anything from their relationship. Conveniently, we learn in this novel how Sullivan developed this insecurity. Sully comes around eventually which made me extremely happy: I have been rooting for these two to get together since their initial meeting. I am a sucker for the prince angst. I don’t want to spoil just how they get together but it is such a beautiful scene.

I felt like Clara Oswald throwing flowers at the 10th doctor when he married the queen. I Love my OTP and cannot wait to read more about them in the next book.

This book is not as bloody as the first one but there is still plenty of mature content. I would recommend these books to anyone who wants to jump into fantasy and wouldn’t mind some spiciness.

🌶️🌶️

Until next time readers continue living in libros,

Gaby

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My Latinx Heritage month TBR

I did not learn about Latinx heritage month until, I was in college and even then, I thought, “oh this must be new that’s why I never heard of it”.

Nope.

While researching this topic, I discovered that Latinx heritage month began as a weeklong celebration in 1968. Later, Regan expanded it to a month-long celebration, starting on September 15th. According to the U.S.’ government’s website, this celebration begins in the middle of the month because the 15th and 16th of September are Independence Days for many Latin American countries.

Continue reading “My Latinx Heritage month TBR” →
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Girls of Paper and Fire review

Dear Readers,

For my third book of the Summer I decided to pick up Girls of Paper and Fire. Girls of Paper and Fire follows Lei, a 17-year-old, baker who lives in a remote village. Lei is a member of the paper caste which in a world run by demons means that humans are pretty low on their list of priorities. Every year, 8 girls are chosen to “serve” the demon King, a muscular demon who shares some features with a bull. Ever since a raid on her village took the life of her mother, Lei has been resentful of the demon king so when she is chosen to serve him, she puts up a fight. During her time in the palace, Lei makes friends and falls in love and it is because of that love that she is able to start a fire.

Girls of Paper and Fire is not the kind of book I would normally read. I love to read fluffy contemporary and romance novels, but I really wanted to read Girls of Paper and Fire. This book discusses sensitive topics such as rape and sexual abuse and is a bit graphic when it comes to scenes regarding violence, but overall was a fantastic read. Lei is an amazing character she is stubborn and not afraid to speak out no matter the consequences.

The Paper girls’ official job is to serve the King and learn how to become ladies. However, they are rarely given the opportunity to use these skills. In actuality, the girls are just sex slaves for the King. What most surprised me about this book is that Lei is told that the paper girls hold such high status in the Kingdom and families will do anything to have their daughters become a paper girl and these girls in the paper caste want this job too.

Or that is what we’re told.

None of the girls Lei lives with want to be there, they were either forced by their families or were unfortunate enough to be chosen. However, because they cannot refuse the king, they must do whatever he wants, or they’ll be exiled and even killed. I think that is the most heartbreaking part aspect of this book.

When Lei begins to fightback, I rooted for her because she reclaimed her power.

This book is incredibly written, and the world of this novel is so twisted and evil it made me want to finish this novel sooner. This book made me uncomfortable, but I couldn’t stop reading it so I give this book 4 out of five stars.

Until next time friends,

Gaby

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I hate to say it, I hope I don’t sound ridiculous but I hated the novel To All the boys I loved before

I’m Back!

Same hot mess but now with a bachelor’s degree. I breifly fell off the edge of the earth for a bit there, nothing wild happened I just needed extra space and time to focus on schoolwork.

I thought I kick off my new unemployed/ super free status with a review of Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before. For those of my readers who haven’t read this book or seen the iconic Netflix movie I will quickly summarize the plot. The story centers around Laura Jean Song Covey, a Korean American teen, living on the East Coast. Laura Jean is the 2nd of three sisters and she loves to stay at home, bake, scrapbook, and knit. For the most part Laura Jean’s life is pretty much sheltered, and her sisters are really her only friends. Laura Jean has never had a boyfriend, but she has had plenty of crushes who she writes love letters too with no intention of ever handing these letters out. However, when Laura Jean’s letters are accidentally mailed out, she ends up in a fake relationship with Peter, who she thought she no longer had feelings for.

This story is a slow. After her older sister, Margot leaves for college in Scotland; Laura Jean spends 30 pages sad about her departure. At this point I was tapping my fingers on the desk wondering when Peter would make his grand entrance and the plot would kick off. However, after the initial excitement of their fake relationship I was bored but I continued reading anyways. The book continues with not much excitement happening between Laura Jean and Peter’s relationship until their Ski Trip when everyone becomes super noisy about their sex life.

Unlike other readers on goodreads who were annoyed by Laura Jean’s personality, I found her to be more boring than anything. I have similar hobbies to Laura Jean, and I like staying home but not to the extent that Laura Jean enjoyed her alone time. Moreover I found Margot annoying, she constantly caused Laura Jean stress about college by reminding her that she was doing things wrong at home. Let your sister be a teen Margot!

Kitty was more interesting than her two sisters, in my opinion, she is sassy and can be a brat but at the end of the day she only wants to help her sisters.

So some of you may wonder how does this book compare to the movie? In my opinion the movie brought a lot of these characters to life and made them more interesting. Movie Peter and Laura Jean are the cutest! And I tolerate movie Margot. The Movie also made Kitty shine even more.

I would recommend this book to readers who are curious about the story behind the movie or if anyone is impatient and wants to find out what happens to Peter and Laura Jean after the events of the movie.

I would give this book 2.5/3 stars as it is a pretty average read and good world to jump into if you need a quick and easy read and a great distraction.

Until next times friends continue Living in Libros,

Gaby

PS.

I began reading the sequel and I had to put it down after 100 pages because I was so bored. I’m hoping the movies continue to bring life to these characters.

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The Girl from the Other Side

The Girl from the Other Side

Story and Art by Nagabe

Page Count: I don’t know it’s a magna

Rating: 5 Stars

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Hello readers!

For today’s post I want to review the first book “The Girl from the Other Side”, a magna series. For those of you who are not familiar with Magna they are similar to comic books except they come from and are translated from Japan. A lot of Magna ends up becoming anime series such as Sailor Moon or Attack on Titan.

So what’s so great about the girl from the other side? In short everything. The series follows a young girl named Shiva who lives in an abandoned village with her demon guardian whom she calls teacher. In the first book we learn that some kind of sickness took over the village and Shiva was left in Teacher’s care. However for some reason Shiva cannot touch teacher or she will catch the curse and turn into some ugly creature…Forever. I know right so crazy.

Anyways Shiva is so sassy! And maybe part of that is because she is so young and kids don’t really have a filter but I found Shiva’s personality refreshing. I also loved that Shiva just rolls with the fact she lives with a demon now as if that is normal. Shiva does not ever show that she’s scared of teacher and I loved that.

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The reason I loved this book and this is what originally drew me to purchasing the first story was that the whole series gave me this Hades and Persephone vibe and as I read the magna that vibe was further validated. I mean Shiva may live with a creature of darkness but that doesn’t stop her from napping out in the woods or collecting flowers to make a cute little crown for Teacher. In addition, Shiva not being easily spooked by Teacher’s otherness reminded me of the duality of Persephone as she is both the Princess of Spring as well as the Queen of darkness.

I’m not sure how the rest of this series will go but I do remember reading a summary of the series that Shiva at some point was going to travel away from the other side, which is where she lives with Teacher, in order to find her grandmother and ask her just why Teacher came to be her guardian. And with the way the first edition to this series left me feeling and left me hanging you bet I’m going to purchase the next installments.

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