It's been forever since I've posted a video to the YouTube channel, but I was feeling motivated yesterday after going to a book sale with my friend. Because I film and edit everything on my phone, it's sometimes a pain to make a video (the filming part is pretty easy, but everything after that takes so much energy). I'm also just not very tech savvy. But! I still enjoy making the videos even if not many people watch them. Hopefully, I'll be able to post more in the future.
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Personal rating: 3 stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.55 stars Content rating: PG (some minor suggestive comments, but nothing too wild) Trigger warnings: Gaslighting (with good intentions, but it still felt kinda icky to me) A busy witch. An enamored count. An enchanted villa filled with nosy sisters. Alessia has more to worry about than the handsome new count everyone is fawning over. Mama's health is declining, the villa needs repairs, and then there are her four sisters who always seem to be either in trouble or causing it. With his Fae blood, Massimo never expected to inherit the title of count, nor the lands that accompanied it, and he certainly never expected to fall for the town's quirky witch—especially when she clearly wants nothing to do with him. It will take more than magic to bring them together. Welcome to Zamerra where cozy fantasy intertwines with Italian cottage core and fairy core vibes. Within this gaslamp fantasy realm, you’ll find witches, fae, warlocks, house elves, and much more! (goodreads.com) Covering the cover: Super cute! Gives the perfect spring/summer cozy vibes that you find in the book! It gently high-fives you with the cottagecore aesthetic and I love that. Review: Ever since I read The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim last year, I have been looking for more cozy books set in Italy. I didn’t even really realize that I was looking for them, but I recently watched the movie Made in Italy (with Liam Neeson and his son!) and while I was watching it I kept thinking “I want more of this, I want more soft Italian stories”. So I watched Under the Tuscan Sun (did not enjoy very much, sadly) and considered rewatching Pixar’s Luca and rereading The Enchanted April (the movie adaptation does NOT do the book justice, though it is a pleasant film). Then I saw one of Darling Desi's latest springtime videos and she recommended this book and the moment she said “Italian-inspired cottagecore” I knew I needed to read this book immediately. Was this a perfect book? No. Was the romance good? Not really. Did the magic make sense? Nuh-uh. But the lore surrounding the magical beings in their world, now that…! Was a major let down as well. HOWEVER. I am in love with this book nonetheless. Listen, there were aspects of this book that I straight up didn’t like. BUT MAMMA MIA THE SETTING WAS SO BEAUTIFUL. I was giggling and kicking my feet every time the mountain scenery was described. Every time the architecture was discussed I grinned. I wanted to cry happy tears at the picture the author painted of the flowers along the dusty roads. Bellisimo! It may sound like I am exaggerating, but I truly did adore the world this book is set in. I want to go live in Zamerra. (I also want to scold all of the townspeople because they were kinda fantasy-racist toward fae, witches, and fauns… like what was that about? There was never really a reason given for their fantasy-racism either. They never said why they didn’t like fae or why they didn’t trust witches, they just hated them for no reason, which I guess is true to real racism in that it doesn’t make any sense.) The mountain town just sounds so lovely and the author did an amazing job of reaching out of the book and pulling me into the world… so much so that I could seriously almost smell the flowers, strawberries, and limonata. It might help that it is springtime right now in the real world and all of the trees around me are blooming with flowers. And I had strawberries in my fridge. Regardless, I still felt transported to Zamerra. Another thing I loved about this book was Count Massimo’s constant companion, Lucia. Lucia was his precious, darling, sweetheart cat. I could only picture my own dear menace, Elinor, whenever I read about Lucia, which endeared her to me even more. I just think the idea of the romantic interest doting on his diva cat is cute and I wanted to give Lucia a little kiss on the head. Okay, okay, with the good part over, let’s get to the bad and the ugly. I’m going to come right out and say it: I hated the romance in this book. Oh my gosh, I tried so hard to like it, but, here’s the thing: the romance was not romancing. I do not claim to be an expert on the genre, but I am fairly certain that the two characters who are falling in love should probably actually talk to each other before they fall in love, right? And, I mean, I guess they did speak to each other, but not very much. I’m pretty sure Count Massimo spoke to Alessia’s sisters more than he actually spoke to her. I was waiting and hoping for the cute, private conversations between the two leads. I wanted adorable awkwardness, or inside jokes, or maybe even a little bit about them getting to know each other. Instead, I got Alessia shushing her little sisters every time they asked Massimo questions because it wasn’t proper to talk to a count like that. And I got Massimo staring at Alessia from far away and thinking about how much he loved her even though he barely had said a sentence to her. There was some intense pining on Massimo’s part. Man was head over heels in two seconds flat. Worst case of insta-love I’ve ever seen. Meanwhile Alessia is over here worrying that her mom is dying, her house is falling apart, her finances are a disaster, and she’s got to take care of it all while her family tries to badger her into marriage and tells her that they don’t actually need her as much as she thinks they do (the evidence suggests that they very much do need her as much as she thinks they do). The whole time Massimo (the poor dear) is just obsessing over this girl he’s known for all of five minutes while Alessia is thinking that he’s nice, but she doesn’t want to get married. And they hardly interact for the whole book, and they certainly don’t have much time alone together or bother to get to know one another, but I’m expected to believe that they’re madly in love? Not buying it. I also wish there had been more of a plot to go with the “romance”. I think I would have been more interested if there was something else going on. Massimo made a big deal at the beginning about how he was part fae and how society was not accepting of him. I thought maybe he would be on a mission to improve things for fae once he became a count, but no. The discrimination is only brought up every now and Massimo never really does anything about it. He tells the people of Zamerra to stop being discriminatory against Alessia’s family of witches and they kind of listen to him, but that’s about it. Or maybe there could have been some plot about the villa that Alessia lived in since it kind of seemed like it was alive? Or maybe about the house elf who lived in the villa? Or about Alessia dealing with the fact that she’s the only one in her family without magic? I don’t know, I just wanted some kind of other plot to help build the romance. I also wanted more explanation about Massimo’s heritage considering the book is called The Fae’s Bride. I thought it might talk more about the fact that he’s fae, but half the time I forgot he wasn’t human. He had pointy ears, spoke Elvish, and apparently he smelled like trees (even though I’m pretty sure he never spends time in the trees) but those were the only reminders of what he was. I honestly have no idea why he was written to be a fae other than the fact that fae romance books are kinda trendy at the moment. I just want to make one teeny tiny nit-picky rant and then I’ll be done, I promise: Holy guacamole, they drank SO MUCH coffee in this book. Like, dang, they must all be going to the bathroom all the time! It seemed like on every page someone was offering someone else a cup of coffee. You get into a building: “hey, you want some coffee?” You’re about to leave a building: “better have some coffee before you go!” About to start a task: “coffee first!” Finished with a task: “good job, reward yourself with some coffee!” Is this common in Italy? Is this common for coffee-drinkers (I’m a cocoa person myself)? At first I didn’t really notice it, but as the story went on, I picked up on it and then couldn’t stop seeing it. SO MUCH COFFEE. Alright. I’m done. Like I said, this book may not be particularly well written. It felt like this book was so busy establishing the characters for the next books that it forgot it was also supposed to have a fleshed out romance happening. It could be aggravating at times. And yet, I really did have such fun reading it. I am absolutely going to pick up the next book in the series, which is about the next oldest sister. I desperately want to travel to the scenic descriptions of Zamerra again and I will put up with whatever not-romantic-romance I have to in order to do that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am off to roam the mountain paths, pick flowers, and eat strawberries. Until next time! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/176941602-the-fae-s-bride Personal rating: 3 Stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.56 Content Rating: PG-13 Trigger warnings: Racism, homophobia, brief mentions of abuse, recovering alcoholic and some relapse. Once you let a book into your life, the most unexpected things can happen... Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds that Amy's funeral has just ended. Luckily, the townspeople are happy to look after their bewildered tourist—even if they don't understand her peculiar need for books. Marooned in a farm town that's almost beyond repair, Sara starts a bookstore in honor of her friend's memory. All she wants is to share the books she loves with the citizens of Broken Wheel and to convince them that reading is one of the great joys of life. But she makes some unconventional choices that could force a lot of secrets into the open and change things for everyone in town. (goodreads.com) Covering the cover: (Since I always like to talk about book covers, I decided to add a small dedicated section to it… it’s my blog, I do what I want.) There are actually two lovely covers for this book. Click here to see the other one. I like how much yellow is in the other design because yellow is a prominently featured color in this book, but I feel like the blue cover has a more “Iowan” vibe. Review: I have more positive feelings for this book than negative, but I’m not sure that I would say I liked it. It fascinated me at times, and I certainly read through it much faster than I was expecting for such a slow book, but I’m left feeling a touch disappointed in it. I think my biggest complaint with it was that it was far too long. I think about 100 pages could have been cut, honestly. There was a point when it felt like things were beginning to really wrap up, with just a few loose ends, but then… it didn’t. It just kept going. And going. And goooooing. The last 50 or so pages were good, I just think they could have happened much sooner. It was like the author realized too late into the story where she wanted things to go, but didn’t go back and tidy up the plotlines to get there. There was also a secondary romance plot that cropped up out of the blue. I wasn’t mad about it, exactly, but it was odd. And it detoured so far away from the main character, Sara, that I almost forgot she had problems of her own and that she was even in the story for a few chapters. All of that said, I can’t really claim that I disliked the book either. I think I really enjoyed reading it. It was cozy and borderline goofy. The characters of the small town were fun and reliably themselves, with small surprises here and there. I’ve read a few reviews of people saying they didn’t like the cast of small town characters and thought that they were flat and bland. I don’t think they were bland, I just think that their interesting features might have been too subtle. I think they played off of each other well and each had a distinct personality. In some ways, their interactions reminded me a little bit of the show Derry Girls; they all give off the appearance that they hate each other, but they actually couldn’t get along without one another. They’re all constantly annoyed with everyone, but would be deeply hurt if anyone left the group. The humor in The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is not as good as Derry Girls, so don’t expect to like this if you like that show, or vice versa. Some of the character interactions just remind me of it. The “book about books” feature of this story was fun. I’m a sucker for a small town bookshop story. Especially a bookshop in a town full of people who don’t like to read, but slowly come to enjoy it, or if not reading, they enjoy the bookshop itself. I was just talking to my friend the other day about how independent bookshops are such wonderful places. They always feel so safe. The shop in this story, and Sara as the shopkeeper, gave off that feeling of safety as well. I’ve seen a lot of people complaining that there are too many spoilers for other books within this book. I didn’t feel that way, personally. I feel that most of the books that are mentioned are so well known that most bookish people will know about the spoilers already. But, if you’re worried about accidentally learning a plot that you didn’t want to know, the author provides a convenient list in the back of all the books that are mentioned. It was funny to me that this book was set in small town Iowa in a county near where I live. The town of Broken Wheel does not exist, but there are rumors that it’s supposed to be West Branch. If it is, I don’t feel that it is a particularly accurate portrayal. Not that I know very much about West Branch, but I know there is a library. There are a bajillion tiny, run down towns in Iowa that I think fit the vibe of Broken Wheel so maybe it’s a conglomeration of a few of them. I think the author did a good job of capturing the feeling of rural Iowa in regards to the town set up. I could picture the kind of roads and the cornfields. The singular bar and questionable diner. The mainstreet lined with historic buildings that really could be so much more if only people had the money to make them into functioning businesses. There were a few aspects that I felt could have been more accurate. There probably should have been a Dollar General store as well as one random fast food joint like McDonalds. Maybe a Casey’s gas station, but that might be too classy for Broken Wheel… perhaps if they were closer to I80. Anyway, that’s probably enough rambling out of me. Soon this review will be as long as the book if I’m not careful. I’m still not sure whether I liked The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend, but I don’t regret reading it (mostly because I was reading it for a book club I’m leading at work). I liked the writing and I agree with a review that I saw that said Katrina Bivald would make a good romance author. I would like to see her write an actual romance without the genre of “literary fiction” weighing it down. Since I’m not sure if I liked it, I don’t know that I can recommend it, but if you are in the mood for a long, rambling book about books and about Iowa, then this might be for you. Maybe? If you’ve read it, or plan to read it, or DNF’d it, let me know in the comments below! I’d love to hear your thoughts! Well, I’m off to curl up with a good book! Thanks for reading this review! Hope to see you in the next one! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25573977-the-readers-of-broken-wheel-recommend Personal rating: 4 stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.99 stars Content rating: PG-13 Trigger warnings: Abusive parents, stalker, manipulation Seventeen-year-old fangirl Rosemary Collins lives for VIGIL & ANTE Studios movies. From action-packed superhero fights to sweet character moments, she’s here for it all. But in a real-life crossover no one saw coming, the fandom’s heartthrob supervillain, Ironfall, isn’t as fictional as the film studio wants her to believe. Beyond the glamorous red carpet lies the government’s most guarded secret: the movies are real. Armed with a devilish grin and a wit as sharp as his knives, Ironfall needs her help, and refusing means he’ll kill her parents. Her only other option involves spying on him for the government’s secret superhero division. Suspended between fact and what she thought was fiction, Rosemary must join her heroes and create an impenetrable web of lies—or guarantee her parents’ safety as she watches the world burn at its adored villain’s hand. (goodreads.com) As someone who was reading and writing fanfics around 2012 - 2018 (aka the heyday of Avengers fanfiction in my personal opinion), I have read many, many stories with this premise before. And let’s be real, I gobbled them up every time I came across them regardless of how well they were written or how annoying the main character was. Marvel movies come to life? Sign me up for that adventure (at least in the sense of reading about it, I’d prefer the MCU to stay in its own universe, thank you). All of that being said, I know that the writing of this book could have used some polishing. I know that there were parts of it that were cringey and unrealistic and maybe a touch too try-hard. I am not claiming this to be a great piece of literature… however I had an absolute blast reading it and therefore I am giving it four stars. You can’t stop me, this is my blog. I did, in fact, breeze through this book in one sitting, shouting at the characters all the way through it and rolling my eyes at the particularly fanfic-y parts (even though you know I loved those too). It was a very easy read to get into with short chapters, simple writing, familiar tropes. If you, like me, have read fanfictions with the same premise before, you know where things are going right from the get go, but you’re excited to get there. Handsome villain stalking the main character? Here for it. Main character has to go through a training montage? Obviously. Secret government organization convinces the main character to spy on the villain that she’s slowly falling for? I would expect nothing less. Plot that starts to fall apart and meander aimlessly after the author has already written the scene that they were originally daydreaming about? Listen… we’ve all been there. Okay, okay, I admit, the plot was maybe structured a bit too much like a fanfiction. And I am going solely off of my own fanfic writing experience on this one, but what I mean is this: as a fangirl in a fandom, sometimes you daydream about a particular scene that you would like to see play out either in the canon content or with your OC or whatever. You can just picture your favorite character dancing or getting coffee or murdering all of your enemies because they dared to lay a finger on you. And, if you are a writer, your instinct may be to write it all down so that you can revisit that daydream whenever you want. The only problem is, if you are a writer, you might also be inclined to justify that one scene with an entire plot because how else would the characters have gotten there? So you write a fic, but after you get to the point in the story that your original scenario occurs, you start to run out of steam and then things start to go down rabbit holes that you dug in the middle of things and maybe even get ever so slightly convoluted until you either wrap things up or leave the fic on hiatus for the next ten years. At least… in my experience that’s what tends to happen. And it kind of feels like that’s what happens in this book as well. After the main character, Rosemary, and the “villain”, Ironfall, start to get closer and the heist plot starts to wrap up, that’s when the evil terrorist group shows up along with the plot twists that were maybe too heavily foreshadowed before. Still, I think everything wrapped up nicely at the end with an epilogue “post-credit scene” to boot. You can tell that the author put a lot of work in to tie all of the various plot threads together and I appreciate that. I think part of the reason I enjoyed We Could be Villains so much is because it brought me back to that fun time in the Avengers fandom. Rosemary describes eagerly waiting to hear news from convention panels and watch trailers. She and her friend talk about theories together and have posters. Ironfall is very “Loki-coded”, but the weird teenage version of Loki that many fics at the time adopted because then they could get away with having their 17 year old OC fall in love with him and claim it wasn’t creepy because of that one tumblr post that did some math and proposed that Loki is only a teenager in human years (iykyk). It’s just all nostalgic to me in a weird way. Were I not so embedded in Avengers fandom culture in my youth (*cough* and maybe also now *cough*), I don’t think I would have enjoyed this book as much as I did. While I think it can stand on its own and that others would enjoy it, I definitely think the plotting needs a bit of help and the characters could use some fine tuning. There was also a random side plot about Rosemary and Ironfall being part of the school production of Beauty and the Beast, which I found funny, but was kind of out of place. (Also, I’m still wondering how Rosemary was allowed to be in the play even though she hardly went to any of her actual classes. Don’t public schools have rules about not being able to participate in extracurriculars if your grades are low?) This review is getting long and rambling. To summarize: would I recommend this book to others? Uh…. undecided. Depends on what your own history with the MCU and fanfiction is. Will I be reading the sequel when it is released? You can bet your buns I will. Thank you for sticking with me to the end of the line, or at least the end of this review. I’d better go to a coffee shop and hope no villains and/or super spies are following me. Until next time! Image source: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61101765-we-could-be-villains Some friends of mine know that I am a writer and told me about this 48 hour "flash fiction" writing contest that the University of Iowa holds every year. They said that they all participate and encouraged me to do so as well. I wasn't sure that I would. I'm not terrible at writing short stories, but I struggle with them. I always want to explore more and go further into the world or plot I've created and end up writing the beginnings of a novel instead (which ends up abandoned deep in my files more often than not). But, this competition was only 48 hours long, so I wouldn't have very long to write and rewrite and try to perfect every little detail, it had to be 1,000 words or less, so there really wasn't room for details anyway, and the contest would provide two prompts, so I didn't have to pull something out of thin air. When the 48 hour challenge rolled around, I gave it a shot. The contest gave these two prompts: Prompt A: A thriller, the primary character is a fortune cookie writer, and it must include dish soap somewhere in the story. Prompt B: A fantasy, the primary character is an elevator inspector, and it must include a balloon somewhere in the story. I actually ended up writing two stories, both for Prompt B, because I hated the first one after I wrote it and wanted to do better just to spite myself. I get some of my best writing done out of spite for others and myself and I liked the second story better so that's what I submitted. I knew they would be announcing the winners today, and though I had high hopes, I had low expectations. I told my beloved cat, Elinor, before I went to work today that she shouldn't get too excited because this was my first year entering and there are many wonderful writers out there. She ignored me and then meowed at me to turn on the faucet for her so that she could drink some tap water. When I was at work, I quickly got caught up in the busyness of the library and forgot about the writing contest, planning on checking the results when I got home. While I was helping someone print endless copies of personal documents, the phone rang. My coworker told me it was my mom and offered to swap places with me so I could talk to her. Lo and behold, my mom was calling to congratulate me on being named one of five honorable mentions in the writing contest! While I was excited, I was also needed to help with the copier, so I was not as appreciative to my mom as I should have been for her call and hang up rather quickly (sorry, Mom!). The happy thought of having my work looked at and mentioned honorably has warmed me up all day. It will make me even happier to share the story here with anyone who might see it. If you would like to read the fantastic winning entries and the other honorable mentions, check out the University of Iowa Write Now website by clicking the button below. Then keep on scrolling here to read both the story that I got honorable mention for and the first story I wrote for this contest (which I don't hate so much anymore). Honorable mention story: Adaptable Nature Pixies were never meant to live in cities. They weren’t meant to dodge traffic, wheeze through smog, or build their homes out of litter. But, neither were pigeons. Along with their fascination with French fries, pixies and pigeons shared an adaptable nature. Despite the cement towers dominating every block of the city, pixies had still managed to carve out a corner of nature for themselves. They’d found a park on a prime slice of real estate between two highrise behemoths. Humans never noticed their petite homes made of discarded boxes or saw the smoke rising from their drinking straw chimneys. Never had a human foot trampled the pebble paths lined with bottle caps, nor knocked down the picket fences made of cigarette butts. It was a quiet, happy community. Allani, a glittering purple pixie, loved her juice carton home and her plastic bag hammock. She would lay back in the evenings and watch the light from the streetlamp catch on the chandelier she’d crafted from lost earrings. She and her neighbors had just cleared a patch to start a garden and a new coffee shop had just opened near the park--promising a world of tasty cast offs. All would be well. With a contented smile, Allani stretched eagerly one morning. It was still dark, but her chore for the day needed to be done early. She closed her front door and flapped her dragonfly wings. Buzzing into the air, she took off down the street and hummed to herself, observing the neighborhood. She waved at a rat she knew as he scurried away, dragging a soft pretzel behind him, and blew a kiss to the raccoon in the dumpster. She cried out in pure delight when she spotted a purple balloon stuck in the scraggly tree by the street. It was the same color as her hair and she loved it immediately. For ten minutes she fought with the string and the branch holding it, before freeing her prize. The few, sleepy humans who noticed the balloon watched it only for a moment. In their city there were more exciting things to pay attention to than a lone, bobbing balloon. Allani towed the purple orb to the shiny building not far from her park and used it to trigger the sensor for the sliding glass doors. Once inside, she breathed in the scent of the perfumed lobby. She admired her reflection in the floor and then made her way to the elevators. Both were out of order, but Allani was in a good mood. She could have found the stairwell and flown up, she supposed. However, she knew that elevators were important in emergency situations for paramedics and police. So, Allani decided to investigate and find the cause of the problem. She’d lived in an elevator shaft for a short time before moving to her current home and she considered herself an expert. At least among pixies. She left her balloon waiting in the lobby and pressed the button on the elevator. Nothing happened, so she pried the cover off the button panel and examined the wires. Humming again, she used her teeth to cut through a few wires and rework them to open the heavy metal doors. With a nod to herself, she entered the elevator and began poking around. Her inspection seemed to be a dead end. Nothing she could find would stop the lift from lifting, so she tried pushing a button on the panel. It lit up, but there was no movement. Crossing her arms and tapping her chin, Allani tried to think. Eventually, she snapped her fingers and flew through the crevice that led to the shaft. She fluttered up to the suspension cables and looked around. Just as she’d suspected, a fuzzy green creature sat, gnawing on the cables, a fistful of important looking wires in his hand. A gremlin. Allani wasn’t big enough to fight the machine destroying creature, but she was smart enough to get rid of him. It helped that gremlins were not so bright themselves. All she had to do was tell him that there was a helicopter landing on the roof and he scampered up the cables and away with a hoot of excitement. There was nothing gremlins liked more than air vehicles. After that, it was short work to put the elevator back in working order. Before she rode to the top floor, she went back for her balloon and brought it with her. She’d learned the key code for the penthouse days before by silently watching and she entered it to gain access to the luxurious apartment. Once inside, she marveled at the array of trinkets. When she finally found her way to the bedroom, she picked up a sparkly diamond earring. It would be perfect decor. She glanced at the two sleeping figures in the bed and then at her balloon. She knew she couldn’t keep the big purple thing, but she decided it could still be useful. She gently poked a hole near the balloon knot with her new earring. The helium whooshed out and she giggled in a higher pitch at the flatulent sound. Once it was deflated, she took the purple latex and flew toward the king sized bed. She landed on the man’s sharp cheekbone and watched him sleep peacefully for a moment. Then she pried open his mouth and shoved the balloon deep into his esophagus. He choked and spluttered. The woman next to him tiredly slapped at his arm, muttering for him to be quiet. Her wish came true a moment later and Allani sat on the man’s neck to check his pulse. Satisfied with her handiwork, she wrestled his phone over to his face to unlock it. With a gleeful grin, she typed a text message: I changed my mind. Don’t build on the park. Leave it alone. After hitting send, she took the earring and returned home. Story I started out hating, but don't mind so much now: Pat's Last Inspection Dust coated the panel and the buttons no longer lit up. The floor grabbed at shoes with years of sticky grime. Somehow, the handrail around the steel box was still shiny, but who really ever used the handrail inside an elevator anyway? Pat reached out to press the button for the top floor. One ride and then her inspection would be complete. After that she could go home to her recliner and her leftovers. Her joints rejoiced at the thought of sitting. With her boss and her knees reminding her every day that she was getting too old for her job, she wondered for the millionth time if she ought to retire soon. Just as the elevator doors started to close, someone stepped inside. She blinked and looked over her clipboard into the golden eyes of a young man. Her niece was into comic conventions and had a pair of contacts that did the same thing, but the shimmery color still unnerved Pat. “Did you not see the sign?” She asked. His hair was down to his shoulders in an unkept, but stylish shape. When he looked at her and smiled, she noticed stars painted on his cheeks like freckles. “Sign?” She wondered if the British accent was part of his character. “The ‘closed for inspection’ sign printed on neon paper?” “Are you a lift inspector?” He turned fully to look at her and she saw that his jacket was covered in patches of stars, hearts, and balloons. “Excellent career choice. Do you enjoy it?” She pushed the button for the next floor and when the doors opened she pointed, “Out. I haven’t finished my inspection yet.” “I can’t take the stairs,” he sighed regrettably and gestured to his cane. Had he been carrying that the whole time? Pat stared at the intricately carved walking stick. With her line of work, she liked to think that she was fairly observant, but she felt like the cane had been pulled from thin air. “Oh,” she shook her head, “Fine. I’m almost done anyway. You’re headed to the top floor?” “Hopefully.” “The elevator’s not in that bad of shape,” she laughed, “There’s no ‘hopefully’ about it. We’ll get there.” “Well, with elevators like this, you never can be sure,” he rapped his cane on the door, “Can’t see a thing through all this metal and there are no windows.” “Claustrophobic?” “I mean…” he waved his hand flippantly, “Well, isn’t it exciting? We step in a box in one place, push a button, and step out in entirely another.” Pat eyed him curiously, but didn’t comment. It was too late in the day to entertain whatever philosophical or phantasmical thought he was thinking. “How can we be sure of where we’ll be let out at the end of the ride?” “That helps,” she pointed at the box, displaying the floor number. He burst into laughter and didn’t stop until they reached their floor. However, when the doors opened, rather than the corridor of a low income apartment building, Pat saw a sidewalk lined with carousels, tilt-a-whirls, and roller coaster queues. Emitting an unintelligible flabbergasted sound, Pat looked around and then looked at the man next to her. He frowned and tapped his cane on the ground. “Just as I suspected,” he nodded, “This lift isn’t up to code. Wouldn’t you agree?” “What the--” “Hold that thought,” he stepped out of the elevator and walked toward a man selling balloons. He grabbed the bunch of balloons from the man and sprinted back to the elevator, shoving the balloons into the space. He pressed the “door close” button rapidly, but they didn’t close until the balloon man had nearly reached them. “What are those for?” Pat asked over the squeaking of the latex. “The lift isn’t up to code. We’d better take it in for repairs.” “I don’t understand,” she clutched at the handrail behind her and tried to process what was happening. Her best guess was that, along with a stairway, the Almighty had recently added an elevator, but the man didn’t seem like an angel. And her doctor said her heart meds were working fine. “I’m glad you let me on. Clearly this was a job for two inspectors,” he tipped his top hat--had he been wearing it before? “Two?” “We’re on the same career path, believe it or not. You deal with bothersome lifts, I deal with more delinquent ones.” “Am I dead?” “Doubt it, but you wouldn’t be the first ghost I’ve met,” he began poking balloons with his walking stick. “Anyway, let's get this box to the shop, shall we?” The balloons swelled and glowed. The floor number went higher than there were levels in the building. Pat felt her stomach flutter. When they finally stopped the doors opened to a whimsical workshop perched on a cloud. Pat gripped the rail tighter and refused to get out. The balloons floated out and the man approached the workshop, waving a clipboard. Pat’s clipboard. A woman wearing a hefty toolbelt took the clipboard and nodded before looking behind the man and waving. Pat waved shakily back. “We’ll get it fixed and have you back to your inspection in a jiff,” the woman called, “Just hold tight!” She approached with her tool belt and went straight to work on the button panel. What work she did Pat had no idea, but in twenty minutes she slapped the panel and nodded. “All set, thanks for your cooperation!” The man swapped places with the mechanic and brought the balloons with him. He hit the ground floor button on the panel and then began popping balloons with his cane. They dropped and Pat screamed the whole way. When the doors next opened, they were in the lobby of the building. The man shook her hand, his hat and cane missing, and left. When he was gone, Pat called her boss. “I want to retire. Today.” (I hope you enjoyed those stories and the silly covers I made for them on Canva! Thanks for reading!) Personal rating: 2.5 stars Goodreads rating at time of review: 3.97 stars Content rating: PG-13 (violence) Trigger warnings: manipulative partner, murder, death of parental figure, non-consensual kissing, attempted sexual assault. On a cozy fall morning, Kate Kole is nestled in a coffee shop in the city of Toronto reading her favourite novel when she accidentally kills a guy who's being rude to the coffee shop's cashier. Unfortunately for Kate, the person she killed was a fae assassin of the North Corner of Ever, visiting the human realm in secret. From there, four deadly fae assassins come to the human realm to hunt her down for breaking a fairy law and killing one of their own. Leading them is Prince Cressica Alabastian, the most feared and deadly fae assassin of the North and heir to the North Corner of Ever. After the assassins arrive in the human realm, things go terribly wrong. To Prince Cressica's horror, his assassins unwittingly get roped into running a cozy café on Kate Kole's behalf. To blend in, the fae assassins are forced to learn how to do basic human activities like cleaning up after themselves, driving without road rage, reading popular fantasy books at book club without getting into alpha male fights over what they’re reading, and in general, be nice, all to blend into regular human society. With a temper like no other, and deadly power that's unmatched, Prince Cressica seeks to get revenge on Kate Kole. But as he aims to strike where it will hurt her the most, the Prince finds himself enchanted by his human target in more ways than one. And when the darkness of the Ever Corners comes knocking at the human realm's door, he needs to make a choice that could cost him everything. (goodreads.com) I really, really, really wanted to like this book. The cover is adorable, the concept seems like so much fun, it was touted as the ultimate cozy urban fantasy—it seemed like it would be perfect for me. However… it just wasn’t for me. And the writing wasn’t even all that good. Not terrible by any means, but it reads like a coffee shop AU fanfic that has not been edited beyond a quick re-read before posting (which, to be fair, is how I “edit” all of my fanfics). I don’t want to be too harsh, but I am confused about why everyone on social media is hyping this book up so much. Let’s get into it though. First weird thing I want to mention: there’s a lot of pro-police content in this book. Regardless of your feelings about the police, I think we can all agree it’s kind of weird to have the line “And we can trust cops. Don’t let your pretentious partner make you think otherwise” (page 35) in a cozy fantasy novel. On this same note, the main character, Kate, goes to a police fundraiser (because her best-friend-sorta-sister is a cop) gala. In many fantasy books there is a ball or grand event that the characters dress up for and dance at, so it looked like this was the modern day equivalent of that trope for this book. It just seems a little off for it to be a police fundraiser, and even odder still is that the main character goes, but her love interest does not. So she doesn’t even get to dance with him at this stand-in ball, leaving me wondering why it was even necessary to have it. Even weirder, the whole scene was really just a set up to have Kate force one of the fae assassins to kiss someone’s shoe. All of the other assassins are horrified and are like “how could you do that?! Think of his traumatic back story!” even though we have not heard anything about his backstory up until this point. We, of course, later learn that the assassin she forced to kiss a shoe has very specific shoe kissing related trauma. I’m totally fine with learning that a character has trauma, but it was just weird that everyone acted like Kate should have known about his trauma even though she barely knows him. Also real weird of her and her cop best friend to force him to kiss a shoe in the first place. And for that to be the only noteworthy thing that happens at the gala. Okay, random police involvement aside, there were other problems with this story and some of them are very nitpicky. So, bear with me or don’t, but it’s my blog so I’m going to nitpick as much as I want. The romance was really not for me. The whole time I felt like Prince Cressica loathed Kate. And he was supposed to for a good portion of the book because he was trying to kill her. But when things got cozy and fun in the cafe, I still felt like he didn’t like her. He was just mean to her and called her stupid and occasionally rescued her. I don’t care how handsome he is, if I met him in real life, I wouldn’t even want to be friends with him, let alone be involved in romance. He’s kind of a jerk and he doesn’t stop being a jerk even when he admits that he has fallen in love. On the subject of the romance… I’m not a fan of how it got started in the first place. Cressica, when trying to kill Kate, kissed her against her will because his kiss was supposed to be magic and she’d be so enchanted that she would do whatever he told her, including kill herself (why he couldn’t just stab her with his fancy light sword instead, we’ll never know). The magic kiss backfires and instead he starts to fall in love with her. Sort of? There isn’t really evidence of this, they just tell us that the kiss was reversed and so now he’s enchanted. And when the kiss wears off, we’re still supposed to believe he likes her, even though he doesn’t act like it at all. And then, guess what, it turns out they are mates! Which never really gets explained so if you haven’t read a fantasy with “fated mates” in it before, sorry but you won’t be learning about it from this book. Worse still, was the power imbalance of the relationship at the end of the book. I don’t want to say too much and spoil anything, but Cressica manipulates Kate and humiliates her as the grand “happily ever after” ending to the story. And everyone is fine with that, including Kate. There were some “fairy godmothers” in this story who seemed like they were going to be cool. And they kinda were, for a little bit. But they also didn’t seem super relevant to the plot? They got into a bloody brawl with the four main fae assassins and they knit a magical pink sweater that never did anything, but apart from that I forgot about them most of the time. Nitpicky critique: Why the heck was the word “faeborn” used SO MUCH in this book? It was used to describe every little thing about the fae. Their “faeborn ears”,“faeborn feet”, “faeborn hands”, “faeborn heart”—pretty much any body part, if it was on a fae then the word “faeborn” had to be in front of it. It quickly got to be annoying along with the made up swear word “Queensbane”, which was used multiple times a page in some instances. And then, Kate would misuse big words so much throughout the story as a personality quirk. I wanted to tear my hair out at having to read all of the other characters turn into Inigo Montoya whenever Kate (a writer) used an SAT vocab word incorrectly. Okay, enough bashing. What did I like about this book? The cozy elements were, in fact, pretty cozy. I loved when it was Christmas time in the book and they had the cafe up and running. They drank warm beverages, went sledding, read books, and did generally cozy Christmas things. It took quite a while to get to the cozy part of this cozy fantasy, but when it finally did, the warm vibes delivered. The other assassins were also fun. Comedic relief characters for sure, but it seemed like they all had twisted backstories to be explored in later books. My guess is that the next book will feature the cop friend and one of the assassins falling in love because they were sort of flirting with each other in this book. Unfortunately, there really isn’t much else I can think of that I truly enjoyed about the book. So, I don’t really recommend it, honestly. I’m glad so many of the people who read it have enjoyed it, but it wasn’t for me. Well, I’m off to eat some freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and keep the fae assassins from hogging them all. Until next time! Thanks for reading! Image sources: goodreads.com and giphy.com Personal Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Rating at time of review: 3.97 Stars Content Rating: R (profanity, violence, gore, sexual content) Trigger Warnings: Violence, blood, abuse, war. As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead. Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago. Believing Nena dead, Néstor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind. When the United States attacks Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war: Nena as a curandera, a healer striving to prove her worth to her father so that he does not marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion—and Nena’s rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago—is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh. And unless Nena and Néstor work through their past and face the future together, neither will survive to see the dawn. (goodreads.com) I’m not someone who is usually drawn to the horror genre, but every once in a while I’ll come across a book that piques my interest. Though there are definitely horror elements to this book, I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a horror story. It’s really more of a historical romance that happens to have scary vampires and even scarier colonialism. Since I’m not a regular scary story reader, there were parts that gave me the creeps, but I think someone who regularly reads horror would probably find this book tame for that genre. There wasn’t much that I didn’t like about this book. Personally, I don’t care for sexual scenes in my books, but the majority of that content was “off-screen” in this book anyway, with just a few easily skimmable parts with vague descriptions. So that wasn’t terrible. Apart from that, the only thing I didn’t really care for was how the ending was tied up so neatly. Not that I didn’t appreciate a happy ending, but it was maybe a little too perfect. The characters in this story were fantastic, I was fully invested in chapters from both Nena and Néstor’s perspectives and rooting for both of them, even though they were fighting each other at times. I loved the way their relationship developed and that they were reunited after such a long time. The background characters, for the most part, felt real and well rounded, not just cardboard cutouts for the main characters to bounce ideas off of. The only people who did not seem like real people were the invading Americans, and since they were set up to be some of the monsters of the story, that made sense. The vampires were not the cape wearing, castle owning sort. So, if you are looking for suave seductive vampires with cunning plots, this is not the book for you. These vampires are described like wild animals and act like it too. There is nothing romantic about them as they attack random animals and melt out of their skin from time to time. Very gross. Since English is my first language and I have forgotten most of the Spanish I learned in high school, I was frequently looking up words. There are many terms in the story that are spoken in Spanish exclusively and a few phrases as well. Even if I hadn’t looked them up, the context that these words are used in still lets you know what’s going on, but if you, like me, have to know every detail of what is being said and you don’t speak Spanish, it might be helpful to have a translator app nearby while reading. This is a really random note to throw into this review, but this is my blog and I make the rules, so I’m going to throw it in anyway: my first experience learning about Mexico and the surrounding area during the 1800’s was from reading the Josefina American Girl books. Because of this, much of my mental image for the setting is based on the illustrations for the Josefina books. In a way, it almost made this book feel weirdly nostalgic, which added to my enjoyment. So, if Josefina was your favorite American Girl growing up (she’s in my top three favorites) and you like gory vampires, then this may be the perfect book for you! I’ve been in a reading slump most of the summer and now into the fall (partially because I’ve been focusing on my writing, partially because of work, and partially because the internet is way too distracting). It has been taking me forever to get through books, even when they’re really good. There’s one book I’ve been slowly reading since the beginning of June and it’s late September now. However, with Vampires of El Norte, I could have read it in one sitting if stupid things like life hadn’t gotten in the way. This is a good read for the upcoming spooky season, even though the book is set in the spring. The atmosphere feels almost autumnal, especially with the cold nights spent sitting close together watching in trepidation to see if a vampire will show up. If you like historical romances and don’t mind a bit of sexual content and strong language and a lot of violence then I recommend giving this book a try! I’m off to go hide my cows from the vampires! I’ll see you in the next review! Thanks for reading! Image sources: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4590322-meet-josefina https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/63892214 You know the drill, we can read and cringe together! This story continues to get more and more ridiculous. But it's still fun to read it and I hope you are having fun listening to it! And yes, I know my wording choice for many things is... super special. Let's forget about it, okay? I was a stupid 13 year old when I wrote this. If you'd like to read along while you listen, check out the text below the video! Chapter 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTUM9KCZv90&t=99s Chapter 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp5A-ySIpUY Chapter 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foSc0cvhfDU Chapter 4: Coming Together
The M.T.M was coming together beautifully. The machine was being hidden by Grandpa’s outhouse to keep prying eyes out of the children’s business. The only problem was that Grandpa wanted to use his outhouse. James convinced him to use the “nice indoor plumbing system” until the kids had finished remodeling it. And so they worked. Rosie helped James with the building and operation of the machine. Jeff helped by telling the two what they needed to do to take them into fairytales, because, you see, that is where they are trying to go, into a book. Abby collected costumes that matched the descriptions Jeff gave her. They had two tunics for the boys and two gowns for the girls. As soon as Abby brought the costumes over Rosie squealed with delight. She actually squealed. The costumes were exquisite. The boys didn’t really like their costumes, Jeff and James thought that they were too manly to wear those girly clothes. But the girls enjoyed swishing about the yard in their gowns. Abby’s was gold and white with long sleeves and full skirt. Rosie’s dress was the same shape but was blue and silver. Every day after school the kids came over to James’ house to work on M.T.M. They loved spending all their free time working on the machine. I certainly wouldn’t do that. I probably would just watch TV. But this isn’t about me, it’s about the M.T.T. THAT is what the four youths started to call themselves. M.T.T. stood for: Magic (even though it’s not magic) Transport Team. Not the catchiest name I’ve heard before, but then again, it does cover the basics. They ARE a team. The machine DOES transport them. And it IS magical, sort of… not really. So they kept the title of M.T.T. even if they might get made fun of if they ever told anyone. As I have stated before, I know nothing of science. I just don’t! Some people don’t know a thing about math, or geography, I just am one of those people but with science. So now that the machine is finished, I couldn’t begin to tell you how it works. The Magical (even though it’s not magic) Transport Machine was really finished. It took forever, but it was finished. Well, it didn’t really take “forever”; otherwise you would be too dead to read about it. So it actually took a really, really, REALLY long time to finish the M.T.M. (Like, five days.) I COULD tell you how to USE the machine, but I think I’ll let James. “I will show you how to use it.” James said melodramatically, “First you enter the outhouse, or what appears to be an outhouse.” The rest of the kids groaned, they knew that already! “Then, you place a book, any book, into the box over on this back wall.” James said, pointing, “The book’s title will appear on the screen to the left of the box. If it appears on the box to the right, then we have a problem. It will mean that this book has either been used too many times, or that it has reached the end and you need to open it to the beginning. If the book comes to the end while someone is in the book, they’ll be stuck in that world forever or until I can figure how to get them out.” The others stared at James, no one wanted to be stuck in a book for the rest of their life. Don’t worry people, nothing too bad happens to ANYONE, not even the villain. Oops I forgot that you don’t know who the villain is yet. Never fear readers, I will introduce her soon enough, because she is dying to meet you. I’ll let James continue now, “Don’t worry; I won’t let anyone get stuck in there. I can assure you that won’t happen. Want to know why? Because I added a time limit to how long you can be in. You can adjust that on this dial.” James said smugly as he pointed to what looked like an oven timer attached to the wall. “Moving on; the screen underneath the box with the book is where you select the chapter that you would like to enter into.” The screen had a blue frame and looked as if it had come off some sort of hand held gaming system. “After that you put on your costume and unlock this glass box that has the start button underneath.” To the left of the bottom screen there was a glass box with a key hole on it. Under the box the kids could clearly see a big red button. “Why is it red?” Rosie inquired skeptically. “Uh, I, it’s because… I don’t really know why it’s red. I suppose it’s because in every movie I’ve seen the important buttons are always red.” James laughed, scratching his head. “So why is it locked?” Rosie questioned. “So that no other human being can use it except us.” James responded, puffed up with pride, pride that soon got deflated. “You forgot one thing, ‘Einstein’. We don’t have keys.” Abby put into the conversation rudely. James’ eyes popped open in surprise. “I forgot keys! Oh no! How will we work it?! I am such an idiot!” Cried the teen while burying his head in his hands. Jeff coughed. “Uh, James, we didn’t forget the keys. The six keys we had made are in your back pocket. I saw them when you bent over.” James turned around and tried to nab the keys from his own pocket, he kept spinning around and finally keeled over. The keys flew into the air and landed in the toilet that James and Rosie had removed from the outhouse. “Yuck!” The four kids shrieked. They went over to the lavatory and bent to look into it. Now before I write any more about the kids I must explain something. Outhouses are usually just a hole in the ground with walls surrounding it. This outhouse was not; otherwise they certainly couldn’t have taken the toilet out. When Grandpa had ordered this outhouse it was the latest in outhouse deals. This baby had a toilet inside that was very deep, I won’t go into these disgusting details for sake of your stomach. I will tell you that the kids definitely did not want to reach a hand into the “deep toilet”. This is not abnormal of them, I wouldn’t want to either. So instead of plunging their nice clean hands into the wet, slimy filth, they got Freddy to do it. I know, I know: who is Freddy? Alfred is his real name and he is James’ younger brother. Freddy was more than willing to stick his hand in the gunk when James said that Alfred would get paid a buck for finding the keys and washing them off. Freddy probably would have done it without getting paid; he was just one of those nasty little boys who love to get dirty. I say “yuck” to them. As soon as Freddy had produced the keys, his mother called him inside for a snack. “Sorry Jamie, I need a snack.” The six year old said, dropping the keys back into the toilet. The four older kids gasped and stared, for everyone knew that Freddy had nap time right after snack and would not be back to help for hours. They would have to retrieve the keys themselves. When they all realized this, the girls instantly took a step back. “We can’t do it, we’re ladies!” Abby squealed while pinching her nose. So the boys played rock-paper-scissors to decide who had to do this nauseating task. Jeff won and James had to find the keys. I definitely will NOT describe the details of poor James’ experience. In the end they retrieved the keys and cleaned them off with the yard hose. The smell would stick with James for the rest of his life. Since they had the six keys and the M.T.M. the kids wanted to go on an adventure. Wouldn’t you? If you had the power to go into any book you wanted, wouldn’t you want to try it out? The four teens sure did. The teens all wanted to try it out, BUT there was one problem, they couldn’t decide what book to use. Jeff wanted to use Robin Hood, James wanted to use a comic book, Abby wanted to use an advice book called Let’s Talk, and Rosie thought they should go into Cinderella. They spent hours arguing over what book they should use. “How would it look inside an advice book? Not interesting, that’s how!” Was Rosie’s argument. “Oh, and Cinderella would be interesting? It’s a baby story!” Abby challenged. “I think we should use the machine for its intended purpose, going into fairytales, I would prefer Robin Hood, but Cinderella would be okay too.” Jeff pointed out. “You just want to do what Rosie says because you have a crush on her!” Abby screeched angrily. “No way, I’m just pointing out that Rosie has an excellent book choice.” Jeff screeched back. “Guys, I’m telling you, Captain Tough Guy is the best choice for our first experience in the M.T.M.” James put in. “Hey James, can we get killed in a book?” Jeff asked. “Yeah… I forgot to mention that.” James said, his face turning red. “That’s what I thought. So we should probably test it on a book that we can’t get killed in, so the girls’ choices are our only safe options.” The girls then started arguing with each other about whose idea was best. Rosie’s idea won out in the end because no one wanted to go into a boring old advice book. So they all went into the small outhouse and realized that they didn’t have the book. “Oops, I didn’t think of that.” Rosie said after they all got their costumes on. But before the four had time to become downtrodden, Freddy came into the outhouse and inserted his own book. The six year old then pressed the start button that had been left open. Then there was a swirling around the small room and the five children were sucked from our world. The next thing the kids knew was that they were face to face with Elmo of Sesame Street. “Hello, Elmo loves you!” I bet you can guess who said that. “Aaaah!” All of our favorite characters screamed. Why was Elmo here? More importantly, where was here?! The four teens looked angrily at the six year old that had accompanied them. “Freddy, what book did you put in our machine?” James asked crossly. “Um, we’re in Elmo’s Day Out.” Freddy said sheepishly. The teenagers groaned collectively. You are probably wondering what self-respecting six year old would read Elmo’s Day Out? Yeah, Freddy isn’t too happy that his mother makes him read baby books, but Mother didn’t want Freddy to read anything with romance, fighting, bad language, or bad people. Freddy had scarcely convinced his mom to let him read Elmo’s Day Out. It was Freddy’s favorite book since there was more than just rhymes in it, and when he heard that his big brother talking about going into books he wanted to visit Elmo and tell him how grateful he was for the book that saved Freddy from the horrors of Baby Blue Counts to Two. THAT is how all the teens and Freddy got to the world of Sesame Street. Elmo waited for the older kids to finish yelling at Freddy and then said, “When you fight, it makes Elmo sad.” “Well Abby no care what makes Elmo sad! Abby need to ask James how in the world we are going to get home!” Abby said turning her head towards James. “Uh, I don’t think you should encourage the baby talk, Abby.” James said. Abby snarled. “Anyway, about getting home, it depends on how long Rosie set the timer for.” James and everyone else turned to Rosie. “Yeah, about that… I thought we were going into Cinderella and I set the timer for one hour.” The other kids stood with their mouths open. An hour in Sesame Street?! How horrible! I can guarantee that is what everyone but Freddy was thinking. “What are we going to do?” Jeff asked unhappily, “We’ll be here for an hour!” “Elmo thinks that you should come shopping with him.” Elmo said. The girls looked at Elmo with intrigue. “Shopping did you say?” Abby queried enthusiastically. So the teenagers and Freddy went to the mall with Elmo. The girls looked for something more comfortable than their costumes, but all they found were dresses that looked like they were from the eighties. After shopping Elmo took them to Hooper’s store. If you, unlike me, didn’t spend the early years of your childhood watching Sesame Street, I will fill you in. Hooper’s store is a store in Sesame Street where the monsters and Big Bird sometimes hang out. And no, I will not answer the question of who Big Bird is, his name is self-explanatory. At the store the teens all asked for soda but were refused that privilege, being told that it was too sweet for them, and that it might give them cavities. When Freddy told the guy running the store that they would all like milk, a cow walked in and gave it to them. As the hour came to an end the teenagers rejoiced. No more Elmo! The hour finished and the kids heard Rosie’s recorded voice saying, “Your time is up and you will now be removed from the story you are in-- Abby, stop playing with that!” Before the kids could comprehend what was going on they felt a sucking feeling coming from the sky and they were extracted from Elmo’s Day Out. What a weird feeling it was to be “extracted” right out of a world. At home the five children noticed that it was actually an hour later in their time from when they’d left. “I was expecting the time not to change here, like in Narnia.” Jeff said casually, as he climbed out of the outhouse. “Me two; it was supposed to make it seem to our parents that we weren’t gone for very long, but I guess I didn’t hook it up right or something.” James said in the form of an explanation. The girls nodded. “Well I imagine that it’s about supper time, we should all head home.” Rosie reckoned. So they did, James walked them to his front gate and then headed inside for a hotdog. Abby went to her mother’s restaurant and had venison. Rosie went to her family carwash and her dad took her to Fast Delivery Frank’s. And Jeff had a lovely dinner on a TV tray. It was a satisfactory evening for all. The next day, Saturday, provided a chance for the young people we have come to love to go to James’ house yet again. This time, to avoid confusion, Jeff brought over a collection of his fairytale books. The list included titles such as: Robin Hood, Snow White, Cinderella, Rumplestiltskin, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Peter Pan. The rest of the kids brought over some fairytales as well like: Thumbelina, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, The Three Little Pigs, The Princess and the Pea, and The Emperor’s New Clothes. Oh yeah, James threw Captain Tough Guy in the pile too. Also, Freddy hid Cat in the Hat in the heap. The quartet took the books into the M.T.M and set them in a stack next to the pile of costumes. This took them the equivalent of five minutes. After they had packed the books into the machine they all sat on the lawn to hold the first meeting of the M.T.T. “As leader of the M.T.T., I now call this meeting to order.” James said. They appointed James as the leader because he had come up with the idea for their science fair project. Jeff was commander of books and facts. Rosie was Captain of mechanics, and Abby was in charge of club fashion. “First we have a report on the book status from Jeff.” Jeff stood on cue and announced that they now had their books in order and they would never again be tricked into going to Sesame Street. They all cheered merrily. Next was Rosie’s mechanical report of how the machine was holding up extremely well, mostly because they had only used it once. “Abby is next with her report on the costume position.” James said as Abby cleared her throat. “Eh hem, I have an exciting announcement to make,” Abby announced. “So make it!” Freddy jeered. “As I was saying… I got us some new costumes so that we won’t have to wear the same ones over again. I have cowboy outfits in case we go into a western. I found some pirate costumes for when we go into Peter Pan. And finally, I got a couple accessories for the costumes we already have.” So they put the new outfits and such into the costume pile. Then, of course, they all wanted to go in a story. I’ll save you the trouble of reading the quarreling that went on after that and skip to what book they finally decided on. The name may sound familiar to you, either from earlier in this story or from reading the book yourself. The title they chose was Rumplestiltskin. Now the title of this chapter may confuse you. You probably thought it was about the machine “coming together”, but really it is about some people who come together. So the M.T.T. went into the M.T.M. (not Freddy) and inserted the book they had chosen. I must explain something to you fairytale fanatics. When Abby had received this book for her birthday a couple of years ago, she hadn’t bothered to check why the book appeared to be twice as thick as it really was. The reason, reader, is that there was actually another story hidden under the cover of the book. You’ll see why this story matters soon enough. The four teens crowded into the outhouse and put their original costumes on over their clothing. Jeff inserted the book and unlocked the glass box. He paused-- for effect-- and then hit the big, red start button. Again came the swirling and the thirteen year old children were, again, sucked from our world. That very same day Felix was locked in his room. The last time we saw Felix he was riding to the castle with Stiltskin riding on a noble steed. We also knew that he was going to have a tough time explaining the situation he was in to his parents. Well, when he explained the position of Rumplestiltskin to his parents, they locked him in his room with his crown tied to his head. Stiltskin was thrown in the dungeon for questioning later. Now Felix was sitting on his bed being inspected by the royal wizard. Felix was being examined because his parents thought that the only way Felix would help such a vicious villain as Rumplestiltskin would be because Felix was under a spell, which isn’t true at all. That is just what the King and Queen thought. “I believe that you have a common spell set upon you Your Highness. It is called the ‘Do-what-I-want spell’.” The old wizard stated. Felix rolled his eyes. “For the last time Reggie, I don’t have any sort of spell laid upon me. I was telling the truth when I told Mother and Father about Rumplestiltskin being innocent.” The wizard, Reggie, groaned. “Your Highness, I know Stiltskin personally, he is not a nice fellow. He also happens to be an expert at spell construction. It is entirely possible that you are being controlled by him right now.” Felix rolled his eyes again. What an annoying fellow Reggie was. The wizard continued to inspect the prince. Soon the old man went away to tell the King and Queen about the “spell” that had been placed on Felix. The prince tried to go out the window like he did when he was a young boy. He was too big. That or the window had been shrunken, which, in that world, was entirely possible. That afternoon Felix had to be let out of his room to take care of the unicorns. He went into the stable yard and turned. Felix realized that he was being followed by the two men who had taken him to the throne room the other day. “Hey you two, leave me alone! The unicorns can get skittish and gore people. How would you like to explain that to my Father?” The two men understood and left the royal to his unicorns. In the pen Felix saw a bright flash of light right in front of him. “What is that?!” he asked to no one in particular. Then four kids Felix’s age stepped forth. Okay, so the book that the M.T.T. put in the machine was thicker than it appeared. I explained that before. The second part of the book that was hidden was all about Felix because the real Rumplestiltskin story was explained by the Queen earlier. So when the book opened to the second story that is where the kids went. They arrived right as Felix was going into the unicorn pen. Now you see why I needed to explain that the book was thicker. So… you want to go get lunch? Oh, right! The story! As the kids stepped out of our world and into the book of Rumplestiltskin, they noticed a stable boy standing in front of them. “Hey Jeff, who is this in the story? Is it Rumplestiltskin?” Abby whispered, leaning into Jeff. “I don’t think THIS is Rumplestiltskin, but let me ask.” Jeff paused and turned to the stable boy, or who they THOUGHT was a stable boy, “Um, do you happen to have the talent to spin straw into gold sir?” The other boy backed up uneasily. “Who might you be?” “I am Jeffrey Roberts and these are my friends: James Kingston, Abby Gail, and Rosetta Stone. You are probably freaked out because we just appeared out of thin air and all, but don’t worry, we won’t hurt you.” Jeff explained. The other kid’s face held an expression that could have defined shock. “Are you wizards? But no! You’re too young. What about wizard’s apprentices? Show me your wands and explain what spell you used to get here! I can have you imprisoned, so you better get speaking.” The boy said in a sort of befuddled way. “We aren’t wizards; we didn’t even know they existed! We’re just four normal kids, like you.” Abby said confidently. The boy’s mouth opened and he yelled one word, “Guards!” The next thing the M.T.T knew was that they were being surrounded by giant, muscular men. Felix called for the guards after the four wizards in training had tried to explain who they were. The guardsmen came in hurriedly when they heard the heir to the throne calling for help. The four other children put up quite a fight, but the thing was, they only seemed to be able to fight with their mouths. The guards easily over powered them. Felix was confused. Why hadn’t they used magic? He told the guards to make the captives hand over anything that they had with them. The four put their hands into pockets on their garments and produced these items: An odd box came from one of the boys, the one called James, a bottle of red paint that you put on your lips from one of the girls, a pair of tinted spectacles from the other girl, and a small stuffed bear from the other boy. “What are these items? Show me how they work!” Felix asked commandingly. The one called James stepped forwards and picked up his box. “You turn it on by flipping this switch,” everyone from Rumplestiltskin’s world gasped as the box showed little men trapped inside, beating up other little men. “Then to play, you just move this guy to kill off the other ones.” The fellow said rather happily. Felix was horrified. “Why do you kill the other little men?!” he screeched. “Um, it’s part of the game dude.” Then Felix and James had a long discussion about why is it a game to kill people. In the end Felix got a headache and Abby was asked to show what her potion of red paint did. “Um, it’s make-up. What else is there to know?” The girl shrugged. Felix nodded in understanding; his mother sometimes wore stuff such as that. Then was the girl with the tinted spectacles. “These are sun-glasses; they keep you from hurting your eyes on a sunny day. Although I can’t really wear them over my normal glasses.” Felix tested them out. This was a marvelous invention! Finally, the boy with the stuffed bear. “This is my teddy-bear, uh, I like to take him with me because I get scared sometimes and he comforts me.” Jeffery’s face turned red with embarrassment. Felix nodded. “They have no magic on them. You may release them.” After this other kid, who was definitely more important than a stable boy, made them show him all the stuff in their pockets, the M.T.T. was released. Abby leaned towards Jeff and asked how long the timer had been set for. “I set it for two hours.” Jeff replied casually. Abby nodded. “Let’s hope that it’s more worth-while than Sesame Street.” The other boy, whose name, they learned, was Felix, told them to stop whispering. So Felix led the procession into the throne room to show the King, Queen, and Reggie, the wizard, what had been found in the stables. The M.T.T. was pushed along behind Felix and the guards were the pushers behind them. “Um, Felix, right? I was wondering why you are so important, are you like a knight protecting the new prince or princess?” Jeff questioned. “What new prince or princess? I’m the only prince there is.” Jeff was confused; the Rumplestiltskin story didn’t say anything about an older prince! Felix stared at Jeff, “What new prince or princess?” He asked again. “Uh, I thought that there was a new baby around, you know, the one Rumplestiltskin wants?” Felix looked even more confused. “I was that baby! What are you talking about?” Jeff started to talk, but then stopped; he’d figure it out later. When they arrived at the throne room the guards opened the massive double doors. Inside the King and Queen sat upon high, golden thrones. “Who have you brought to us Felix?” The Queen asked lovingly. “These odd four appeared in the stables while I was feeding and grooming the unicorns.” Felix said. Rosie tried to suppress a giggle, it just didn’t sound right for a boy of this age to be saying “unicorn”. “You think something is amusing? The fact that you trespassed into the royal stables is not something I’d find humorous!” The King roared. Rosie quickly stopped giggling. “Sorry, um, Your Majesty, nothing is funny, nothing at all.” “You speak when spoken to, no other time.” Rosie hastily decided that this was not the best time to point out that the King had, indeed, spoken to her. Felix’s parents discussed something with Reggie and quickly declared that the children should undergo a whole magical check-up, to see if they had any invisible wands or any stray spells lingering at their fingertips. Reggie came over to them and asked them to float. The teens stared at the strange old man in disbelief. “We can’t float! We can’t do any magic at all!” Jeff spoke up, “We built a device that allows us to go into different worlds than ours and we came into yours!” Jeff would have said more but the wizard, Reggie, cut them off. “What kind of device? Is it a magical item or something more under the study of science?” “Definitely more scientific, it is for a school project.” James replied. Reggie looked intrigued. “And what is the power source?” “It uses solar power that means it runs on the sun’s rays.” Rosie answered. Reggie would have continued, but the King interrupted. “So do they have any magic or not? I don’t pay you to talk to people Reginald.” Reggie went up to the King. “I’m sorry to contradict you, Highness, but I got them to talk long enough for me to test if they have magic. It is a very complex deception, when a wizard is distracted they don’t think to suspect if their magic is being tested and can’t stop my scanning.” The King rolled his eyes. “So do they have magic on them or what?” Reggie slid his glasses into place, they fell right back down. “They have not a spec of magic anywhere upon them.” The King looked satisfied for once. “Good. So now the question is, why did you four children go trespassing into my unicorn pens?” Rosie giggled again; it was so funny to see a grown man say “unicorn”. “It was purely an accident and we are terribly sorry if we upset the unicorns.” Abby said diplomatically. And that is how things “came together”. I've been buying waaaay too many books lately and have not been reading any of them... but I've been writing so that counts, right? Anyway, during a lapse in judgement I ordered both the July and August Owlcrate boxes so hopefully I'll be filming another one of these unboxings at the end of August. In the meantime, enjoy watching me ramble on senselessly (when am I not though?) about some awesome goodies! This has to be one of my favorite boxes of all time. Such fun stuff and it all sort of matches in color! Spoilers for this box: ᪥ Howl's Moving Castle inspired reusable shopping bag designed by @annguyenart ᪥Spinning Silver Treasured Tomes pin designed by @no0nedesigns ᪥Fairy tale highlighters inspired by Six Crimson Cranes, To Kill a Kingdom, and The Wrath and the Dawn designed by @the.pearledreader ᪥Violet Made of Thorns inspired sun catcher designed by Teresa Chen (@divineliterary) ᪥Invisible Life of Addie LaRue journal designed by Lichen and Limestone ᪥Book: Garden of the Cursed by Katy Rose Pool, with a exclusive cover designed by Franziska Stern, reversible jacket art designed by Nicole Deal, foil designs by Teresa Chen, exclusive end pages designed by @lasq.draws I was very much a "Barbie Kid" growing up and loved movies and books with multiple outfit changes and fancy dresses. Princess Bride, Disney movies, Ella Enchanted, Labyrinth, all of the early Barbie movies... if it had a glamorous dress in it, I was instantly enamored. Because of this, I am also very interested in fancy clothes in books, and though I can't actually see them when reading, the descriptions are wonderful for visualizing. And since I have a closet all to myself now that I'm a grown up, I can keep the formal dresses I've acquired over the years, even if I rarely get a chance to wear them. So please join me in playing dress up and talking about books! Review for The Betrothed by Kiera Cass Review for The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller |
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