You know that feeling when one of your favorite book series gets turned into a movie/tv series?
Yep.
It’s time for a Shadow and Bone show review. If you haven’t watched this amazing adaptation yet, go and do it, please!
Continue reading “A book lover’s review of ‘Shadow and Bone’”
Hello book nerds!
In today’s post, I want to give some K-drama recs for book lovers. Korean dramas are television series produced in Korea, and they range from a variety of genres such as romance, crime, melodrama, or science fiction. I enjoy the romance ones.
If you follow me on Instagram, you know I’m either finishing a K-drama or starting a new one. If you’re new to K-dramas, or just curious about all the hype, I hope you find this list helpful.
Continue reading “K-dramas for bookish babes!”
Prince Zuko, Ben Solo, and Cardan. The definition of baddies and Princes of darkness take their sweet ass time to see the light.
Their road to redemption may be slow, but they get there in the end.
Continue reading “Baddies in Lit: Do I have a type?”
I don’t want this story to end! However, I am excited for the conclusion of this series.
After Kuranosuke wraps up a photo shoot at Mr. Fish’s building, he flirts his way to the top floor and meets Fayong, Fish’s secretary and childhood friend, instead of snitching to her boss that Kuranosuke has come for Tsukimi, she takes Kuranosuke to the basement and leaks key company secrets before letting him know where Tsukimi is.
Continue reading “Princess Jellyfish Volume 8: The transformation edition”
Hello everyone! I finally made it to the thrilling conclusion of the Folk of the Air series and I really wanted to go all out for my Queen Of Nothing review. Stay tuned to see my Jude Duarte inspired looks.
*Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you click one of my links and make a purchase I earn a commission.
Continue reading “Jude and Cardan are the biggest fools in Queen of Nothing”
Wicked Fox is the last book I read in October, and it wasn’t all I hoped it would be. This story is particularly unique as it features a Gumiho. A Gumiho is a fox with nine tails that can turn into a beautiful woman to lure their prey. Gumihos are believed to seduce men in order to feed off their energy. Sound familiar? A Gumiho is the Korean name for this legend, but other names include Kitsune and Huli jing. Although the legends vary from culture to culture, Wicked Fox is the story of Miyoung, a Korean teen living in Seoul, South Korea.
The story begins by introducing both Miyoung, a Gumiho teen, and Jihoon, a human teen, in alternating POVs. Miyoung is out on a full moon hunting a man to sustain herself while Jihoon is out walking his dog the two collide paths when Jihoon confronts a goblin. Miyoung saves Jihoon but in the process reveals her nine tails to him. Soon after this incident, Miyoung becomes the new girl at Jihoon’s school, and she ignores all of Jihoon’s attempts to befriend her. Overtime, Jihoon wears Miyoung down, and the two become friends and start dating.
Jihoon glanced up and met Miyoung’s eyes with his, giving her a wide grin. He had a kimchi stuck in his teeth. And she hated that it made his goofy smile even more endearing.
Wicked Fox by Kat Cho
However, the bubble shatters two hundred pages in when a Shaman ritual goes wrong, and through a sequence of tragic events, Jihoon ends up with Miyong’s fox bead, leaving Miyoung to slowly starve. Miyoung feels like she has no other choice but to leave Jihoon as her mother attempts to find a way for Miyoung to live without her bead.
The story concludes with Miyoung and Jihoon fixing their mistakes and living happily ever after, or so I thought until I flipped the page to the Epilogue, which leaves the novel off on a cliff hanger!
I found myself struggling to get through the first part of this book because I found it to be a little slow. Miyoung, during the first half of this book, does not interact with any other kids at her school, in fact, she tries her hardest to push them away, and it works on all of them except Jihoon and his friends. I got tired of Miyoung constantly pushing Jihoon away because sometimes she was nice to Jihoon while other times she was mean.
However, once everything goes wrong with the Shaman ritual, I found myself engrossed in the book once again until Miyoung decides to leave. The story becomes a bit boring as the two teens have a few more chapters of angst and longing for each other. At this point, I thought to myself what else could happen to these two? Haven’t they suffered enough?
Apparently not! The final chapters of this story provide another wild plot twist, and I was here for it. I wanted this story to end strong, and it did with the last scene. The epilogue reveals that not everything is as it seems, and there is definitely a sequel coming. This frustrated me because I just wanted this story to have a definite conclusion, and the epilogue ruined it. I wish I could say reading the next book will give me the answers I seek, but I am not invested enough in this story to find out what happens next.
I would recommend this book if you love lots of teen angst and stories not set in the U.S.
If you are intrigued by the legend of the Gumiho and don’t mind reading subtitles, I recommend the Kdrama, “My girlfriend is Gumiho.” This Korean drama features a Gumiho, who saves the life of Dae-Woong by giving him her fox bead. Mi-ho decides to stick around, and Dae-Woong makes sure she is happy by frequently treating her to Korean Barbeque. The drama is super cute and the theme song is catchy.
Have a spooky Halloween and continue living in libros,
Gaby
Are you impatiently awaiting the second movie to the Crazy Rich Asians series? Me too. So, I did what any another impatient person would have done, and I read the sequel. If you want to check out my review of Crazy Rich Asians, the novel you can do so here.
Continue reading “Michael sucks but we already knew that”
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.
Hello Friends!
Today I thought I would recap my favorite books of 2018.
I purchased this book, went to Mary HK Choi’s signing at the LA Festival of Books and then read the book a month later. And it was amazing. Definitely a book I would reread.
2. Labyrinth Lost
This book was amazing. Sure we got famous wizards such as Merlin, The boy who lived but were are our Brujas at? Look no further, Labyrinth Lost has a beautiful mix of different Latinx cultures and religions that make up this world. In addition, we also get a strong Latinx protagonist who is Bi!
3. Warcross
Warcross is amazing! If you were a Sword Art Online lover, like me. This book will blow your mind. This story had me at the edge of my sit and I loved that it was set in Tokyo, Japan.
4. Geekerella
Geekerella was so cute. I loved the way the fandom, cosplay, and the con was written. As a sometimes cosplayers I thought this story captured that aspect well. In addition, the characters in this book were awesome. Especially Fairy Godmother Sage.
5. The House on Mango Street
I had not read the House on Mango Street cover to cover until this year and I really enjoyed it! The collection of small poetic stories were really beautiful and Esperanza’s growth through the story was my favorite part of this book.
6. Six Of Crows
I have been meaning to read Six of Crows ever since I had heard about the series but did not read it until this year. This duology honestly blew away my expectations. I laughed. I cried. (I cried a lot). And I will carry the characters with me forever.
7. Kill the Queen
This book was described as a mixture of Game of Thrones and Black sails and it did not disappoint. There was a lot of action but also betrayal and deception as well as the overall growth of the main character, Evie as she prepares herself to take back her Queendom.
8. The Princess Saves Herself in this One
Another collection of poetry I fell in love with. The poems were beautiful and heart wrenching but what I liked the most about them was the way that they filled me with both inspiration and love.
Compiling this list of favorites was a little hard considering there were other great books I read this year that did not make this list. So here are some honorable mentions.
What was your favorite read of 2018? And what books do I need to check out for 2019?
The Girl from the Other Side
Story and Art by Nagabe
Page Count: I don’t know it’s a magna
Rating: 5 Stars
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.
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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