Edrie Elen

Fascinating and absorbing. I was left with a very sad, bittersweet feeling at the end - yet it was still satisfying because yeah, that's real life. The writing is beautiful and draws you in (an accomplishment for a first-person narrative), and the details are well-researched enough to feel real. Enough twists and turns and chillbump-raising moments for a mystery addict, though maybe not for a suspense novel. I can't wait to read the next one!

Public Service Announcement: Robert Galbraith = J.K. Rowling, of Harry Potter fame and the almost-singlehanded ensurer of the continuation of the love of reading in the Millennial Generation. Pretty sure most people know that already but just in case, I wanted to put it out there. Knowing that really affected my expectations of this book – whether that's good, bad, or indifferent I'm really not sure.

The Cuckoo's Calling (1st in the Cormoran Strike series, 2013) is Rowling's attempt at a detective novel aimed at fans of hard-boiled crime. I had such ridiculously high hopes for this book! Which, I am happy to report – I found mostly met and justified. Overall I think “hard-boiled” is a bit overstated, as Rowling (I can not refer to her as Galbraith, so help me) seems to shy away from anything particularly descriptive as far as violence or sex, though the language is colorful at times.

We're first introduced to the secondary main character, Robin – I can't think of her in anything but that term, because while yes, there are technically TWO main characters, Robin and Strike, Robin is decidedly in the background.

Robin might be a pretty girl, but she could not hold a candle to the woman he had just left.

From Charlotte he had learned that the kind of money he had never known could coexist with unhappiness and savagery.

When her mouth puckered into hard little lines around the cigarette, it looked like a cat's anus.

“I usually, like, ricochet off the bouncers and they have to push me in.”

~Check out all my reviews over on The Bent Bookworm!~ Hunted is the second in the Spirit Animals series, and is written by one of my favorite authors of all time - the amazing Maggie Stiefvater! In fact, when the library was missing (of course) their copy of the second of the series, I didn't hesitate to buy a copy for myself because I was so sure it would be awesome. 3.5/5 stars, rounded to 4. I was mildly disappointed. It's not a BAD book, by any means, I just wanted so much more from the characters! I feel like we are barely getting to know them as they traipse all over the world doing all these different things - which all keep getting interrupted. The plot WHIZZES along...which I think will be very good for the young middle-grade readers the series is aimed at. I thought we'd left the horrible, sniveling Devin behind in the first book, but oh no! He comes back. Somehow bullying pre-teens are much scarier to me than even literal backstabbing adults. I actually felt sick during some of the scenes with him, he's just so hateful! Our quartet is off to find another reclusive Great Beast, to ask to borrow its talisman to use in the fight against the Conquerors coming from a far land. The Conquerors have a powerful new weapon in their quest to control all of the known lands - a replacement for the Nectar, the Bile, which forces the spirit animal connection. Along the way all sorts of things happen...choices are made. I like that the characters make kid-style decisions, they're not adults in kids' bodies. Of course some of the choices cause problems...but hey, that's what happens.Finn is an new character in this book, and I am SUPER intrigued by him, especially after what happened in the very last scenes of the story. Even though he's an adult, I feel like we will see a lot more of him. The ending is, as one might expect, a cliffhanger - and QUITE a cliffhanger at that! The ending and Finn are what made we round this up to 4 stars. I'm immediately picking up the next one.Blog Twitter Bloglovin Instagram

"Crimson suits you best."

Such a seemingly innocuous comment haunts Aileana Kameron both waking and sleeping, because it was spoken to her by the faery that killed her mother. Traumatized and hungry for revenge, she takes comfort only in hunting, killing, and devising weapons against the faeries loose in the world. Of which there seem to be more and more...

First of all, can we talk about the cover? I am absolutely in love with this cover. I want her hair. And I'm going to steal her lovely little dagger to double as a letter opener. The cover set my expectations for this book extremely high.


Expectations that were...kind of sort of met? First of all, the setting. Edinburgh. I kind of have a love affair with Scotland. Or at least the idea of Scotland that's in my mind, since I've never actually been there (sadly). I think Elizabeth May loves Scotland too, because her descriptions of Edinburgh make it sound lovely - even with the bloodthirsty faeries thrown in. Also, Aileana has this amazing, ship cabin imitation room with hidden compartments and a pixie in residence. I am supremely jealous.

Aileana herself...I kind of want to smack over the head with a 2x4. While at the same time I want to go hunt faeries with her. Every time I thought I was going to get to really like her, she would say or do something else that left me like:

And she was so, so full of herself. Confidence? She has it in spades. In fucking spades. Arrogance. Bravado. Foolhardiness. Also tendencies to the dramatic. See above face.

This is who I am: a night creature who thrives on death and destruction.

I don't yield. I don't retreat from him or let him intimidate me.

faeries

I'm beginning to realize how much our secrets define us. A few days ago, he and I would have hunted together and returned to our respective lives, the same as always. Now our boundaries are fading, and we grasp those last few secrets we still do have, because baring one's soul is so much more difficult than pretending.

is

“In the end, they couldn't avoid their true nature any more than you'd be able to. Unless I'm wrong. When you imagine yourself years from now, is it the Seer you're with? Or is it you and me, planning our next slaughter?”

I really regret that I listened to the nay-sayers and put this book off for SO long. Ridiculous. A few of them really turned out to be shamers, which is awful and sad. I really wish I could find the review I read that said Wild (Strayed, 2012) was a drug and sex filled orgy. The hell?!? Yes, both are mentioned and are, at some point, part of the author's life. She is brutally honest and upfront about her struggles and how she deals with them. She doesn't recommend trying heroin. She definitely feels guilt about cheating on her husband. Did I agree with all the conclusions she seems to draw? No. But I still felt it was a good book worth reading.

As a hiker myself, I can say Cheryl starts off as what is possibly the worst prepared thru-hiker in history. I cringed as I read the descriptions of her gigantic pack (aptly named Monster), the way she buys guidebooks but doesn't read them, and instead of preparing in the last week of her trip, spends it hooking up with a guy that she already knows is very, very bad for her. I wanted to shake her, and I suspect I share that feeling with most of her friends and remaining family at the time. After her mother's illness and death, Cheryl makes a string of bad choices involving cheating on her husband – a man she continuously claims to love and probably the best relationship to ever come into her life, at least the way it is portrayed – and using heroin. As she approaches rock bottom, she knows she needs to make changes but seems to lack the willpower to do anything at all. She changes her name, and not just back to her maiden name, but a new name she picks almost straight out of a dictionary because it is the only thing that “feels” right. She goes with her brother to put her mother's dying horse out of it's misery (thank you, Cheryl Strayed, for making me ugly-cry). Her divorce is finalized – but her relationship with Paul is far from finished. THAT, is probably the part of her story I am least understanding and sympathetic to. She cheats on this man that she admits is lovely to her, who will TAKE HER BACK after her multiple affairs, and yet, she still can't let him go. Darling, you can't have your cake and eat it too. I'm assuming she's figured that out in the 20 odd years that have passed since this part of the story. I hope so. Her description of the notarizing of their divorce decree was a bit unsettling. But, each person's story is different. Who am I to judge?

Afterwards, we leaned against the cold bricks of a building and kissed, crying and murmuring regrets, our tears mixing together on our faces...snowflakes were melting onto his hair and I wanted to reach up and touch them, but I didn't.

I realized I was having a kind of strange, abstract, retrospective fun. I noticed the beauty that surrounded me, the wonder of things both small and large.

It had only to do with how it felt to be in the wild. With what it was like to walk for miles for no reason other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. The experience was powerful and fundamental.

~Check out all my reviews over on The Bent Bookworm!~ “Please don't go and die on me, my lady,” she said. “If you go and die, nobody else will employ me, as you bloody well know.”If you haven't read the previous books in this series, they are very enjoyable cozy mysteries with a long-running plot regarding the main characters, and I highly recommend you start with the first book, [b:Her Royal Spyness 383514 Her Royal Spyness (Her Royal Spyness Mysteries, #1) Rhys Bowen https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1174342700l/383514.SY75.jpg 2309133].

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is such an iconic piece of literature, I was really surprised to recall that I hadn't read the actual story! It's talked about so much, and everyone knows about the Headless Horseman. Since it's almost Halloween, it seemed like the perfect time to go through some classics that have escaped me.

Obviously, this is an older work, and as such the style is very different from what modern readers now expect. I was prepared for that (and for the derogatory terms used). However, I was still expecting a creepy, hair-raising tale...and honestly, was a bit disappointed. The lead up was great! Ichabod is SO ripe to be scared out of his wits, whether by normal or supernatural means...but nothing really happens. It seems that nothing too horrible went on, that maybe it was after all just a joke. The best part of course is the slight feeling of “what if...” we are left with, and the locale that Irving has built up. His descriptions of the place, the stories of hauntings, and the general feelings of creepiness for the place that he gives us are worth far more than the actual main incident (which is astonishingly short, even given the short story form). Yawn.

3/5 stars. It was okay, but I was expecting better. Was this really THAT creepy when it was first published? I wonder.

I had resisted reading this for a long time, a little turned off by the idea of being inside a suicidal person's head. But someone gave me a copy and well, I felt I needed to read it because hey, great American literature!

Well. All the feels. Really, all of them. I think at this point in my life I somehow identify with Esther even more than I would have at 20 years of age. The fear of the descending jar is palpable, her despair so real...and then the timid sweetness of relief. Not without scars, but strong.

This is one of the better Newbery books I've read in recent years. I feel like the selections now seem to focus a lot on being politically correct as opposed to good stories that instill a love of reading in children. The story within a story drew me in, and I found the characters both realistic and sympathetic. I still had a few questions at the end but overall was very satisfied with the ending.

Full review on The Bent Bookworm!

I like the time period of these little novels, and the fact that they're set in England (Anglophile much, maybe?). Georgie is an amusing, endearing heroine and the rest of the cast of characters surrounding her is original and quirky enough to keep me reading. I like that the family storyline moves along just a little in each book so far, not hitting you with it all of once. It continues the line of being very tame with lots of dropped hints and some innuendo, but nothing a 13 year old couldn't read. It's definitely written for adults, it's just very mild and nothing at all racy even though there are repeated allusions to people's sexual activity or preferences. I felt like Georgia's relationship with Darcy progressed a little in this book, and more than just the heart-fluttering romance of it – I feel like they are getting closer as people, not just as a crush or an obsession.

This one moved slower than the other 3 that I've read. The actual crime event didn't take place until page 142 (out of 305). The mystery part was, I thought, very far-fetched. The ending was rushed and contrived, just way too convenient. I did some serious eye-rolling. I did like the way all the creepy, “Transylvania” vibes everyone was so jumpy about, were explained logically. Given the setting, I was a little afraid that this one was going to descend into the paranormal. Nothing wrong with paranormal, but in a historical mystery...please spare me. So yay, that was good.

Overall, 3/5 stars. It needed more mystery, less build-up. Also a more satisfactory ending rather than just a sudden explanation, which was what it felt like. I'm definitely going to continue on with the series, but that's because of how much I enjoyed the previous books, not this one.

~Full series overview here on The Bent Bookworm!~The Reptile Room starts off (after the necessary doom-and-gloom letter from the narrator, of course) on a much better note for the Baudelaires. At last it seems they may be going to live with someone who genuinely cares for them and has their best interests at heart. BUT WAIT. Let's not get too carried away. This is, after all, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and indeed they do seem to be the MOST unfortunate of children.Soon after they arrive at their new home – another relative, this one a eccentric but lovable scientist, disaster strikes and they find themselves being hunted by the horrible Count Olaf once more. Only of course, since they are children and have been greatly traumatized, no one believes them. Because why would you? Naturally, things go from bad to worse and the children find themselves in a desperate fight to avoid being kidnapped right under the nose of the law. Sunny, the little rascal, plays a very important part in this one – eliciting a few eyerolls as somehow she manages to have the mental compact of about a 7-year-old in the body of a 15-month-old, but you know. Realism isn't the point here. In the end, they narrowly avoid Count Olaf once more.Blog Twitter Bloglovin Instagram Google+

~Full series overview here on The Bent Bookworm!~The Bad Beginning as a title does not exaggerate. These poor kids, let me tell you. It starts off with introducing us to the Baudelaire siblings – Violet, Klaus, and Sunny – just as they've lost their parents. Their solicitor, Mr. Poe, is a well-meaning but incredibly thick man who has no idea how to care for children and truly seems unable to see past the end of his constantly dripping nose. The siblings go to live with the evil Count Olaf, who is somehow VERY distantly related to them (how is it their parents have SUCH weird distant relatives and no near ones?) and cares nothing for them except how to get his hands on their money, as their deceased parents were quite wealthy. They move into his horrid house, where there are treated as little better than slaves. There is some comic relief, and also a consistent ray of sunshine in the form of Count Olaf's neighbor (who, despite being well-meaning, is just as dense as every other “good” adult in this book).The siblings are far from being normal children. They are all extremely gifted in some form, even Sunny – who is still a baby but is able to both communicate and act on a much older level. Violet is an inventor, and Klaus is a devourer of books and therefore just a general compendium of knowledge. Are they believable? Hardly. But neither are the adults.The dark, twisted tone of this book really surprised me. This is for children!?! There are elements of abuse of the Baudelaire kids on all kinds of levels, twisting of the law in the worst possible way...and yet, the siblings refuse to be put down and refuse to give up. They stick together and eventually overcome the evil...but the evil is still lurking...and Mr. Poe is just as dense as ever.Blog Twitter Bloglovin Instagram Google+

I bought this because the article I read about it (that I've lost the link to, it might have been the NYT piece, it might have been a random one from an ENM group on FB, I'll never know because I didn't save it) made it sound interesting and right up my alley, like two people coming into their autonomy and discovering the beauty of expansive love and community. Then it arrived in the mail and I read the dust jacket.

insert record scratch sound

Whoo, boy, I got the ick BIG time. But I decided to read it anyway because I'm SURE it'll be being talked about and I want to know what I'm up against.

Update and TL;DR: I'm disappointed. It's not as gross as I thought it would be but it's not good either. 3 stars because the writing is good enough to have kept me going.
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First of all, I understand that this is a memoir, not a how-to or even a self help book. Thank all the powers that be for that, because I highly doubt even the author would recommend anyone follow her particular path into non-monogamy. As someone who identifies as polyamorous with a healthy seasoning of relationship anarchy, I have SO MANY PROBLEMS with the entire way the author and her husband approached this. At least she was honest in the telling, I guess? I don't see how she could have been DIShonest, with as awful a light as she painted both herself and her husband in during their bumbling first forays into non-monogamy. The book is well-written, the first 2/3 or so like the proverbial train crash you can't stop watching.

Second, the events of the book happen over 10+ years. There's a lot of growing and changing that takes place, in many ways, not just in how the main couple approaches their non-monogamy. Parents age and fall ill, children grow up, jobs change. So I'll give them some grace based on the fact that while as a reader, I got to rush through all the nitty-gritty bits, they were actually living through them in real time. Again: memoir. This is their story, as painful and nauseating as it may be at times.

Third, there are many, many flavors of non-monogamy, most of which can be approached ethically (i.e., with everyone involved being fully, knowledgeably consenting). That I don't agree with/think their decided on flavor is unhealthy and toxic doesn't mean they're wrong. It may be wrong for me and I may have logical reasons for that – but that doesn't mean it's ethically wrong. I may still have the ick, but. You do you, booboo.

Following are some of my problems with their journey and their chosen flavor of non-monogamy at the end of the book. There are some spoiler-y things here, though I think you could still read the book and enjoy(?) it and form your own impressions.

- Her husband comes off (in the first chapters, at least) as a man disinterested in anything but work and sex, and his motivation for “allowing” his wife to see other men (something she feels incredibly guilty about and even resistant to at first) is that he finds fantasizing about her being with them hot, and wants to know all the juicy details. ICK. BIG ICK. Not because there's anything wrong with that as a kink, when EVERYONE is fully aware that that's what's happening and consents. But she outright lies to the first few men she sees, leading them to believe that she, also (!!) is cheating on her partner. This causes her and at least one of them some real emotional turmoil and pain.- I have a real problem with how they treated other people. How they upheld their marriage like it was some sacred thing to be protected at all costs (and oddly enough, they don't seem to be religious at all). How despite continuing in this lifestyle, they seem to ashamed of it to teach their kids about alternate relationship styles – when their oldest discovers it by accident, they act embarrassed and as though it's a personal failing (but don't worry, Mommy and Daddy love each other VERY MUCH!!!!). Ew. The nuclear family is not some god-ordained thing, folks. It's okay to have expansive love in our lives, and you should teach your kids that.- The author has little to no confidence in herself and her worth. She constantly tries to make herself smaller for other people, especially as she's dating. At one point she writes, “How do I dress up for her (her date partner's fiance'), but not outshine her?” The face she even considers this motivation for how she asks or dresses (another person's insecurities)...sigh. Also the kind of treatment and behavior she allows and excuses from some of the men she dates...is disturbing. - OH, THE DRAMA. Sure we all need to vent our emotions sometimes, but there are ways to do that, that don't involve exploding on other people either in anger or just...feelings. I mean are we 15 or 35, here? The whole flinging herself out of bed to sob on the floor at one point struck me as childish at best and manipulative at worst, and there were several other passages where she is just SO DRAMATIC over things that are not a big deal (I'm not saying they didn't FEEL like a big deal, because it's totally okay to have your feelings – just not to act or require others to act as a caretaker for those feelings). I definitely wanted to give her a little shake and tell her to grow up.- A large part of the author's frustration and even health problems are due to her letting her resentment and anger towards her husband build. Thankfully, she (and they) do go to counseling to work on this, but it's such a stereotypical situation for our society – the overworked mom, running around trying to fulfill all this expectations and both run a house/take care of kids AND have a career, meanwhile the husband works, comes home and – does nothing. Ugh.- The end conclusion is that the author's marriage is safe NO MATTER WHAT, partially due to the having children together! Which naturally results in a hierarchal approach to polyamory/ENM, which I have ethical problems with, and then upholding “marriage” as an institution in general is problematic, in my opinion.

All those complaints aside, there were a couple of good quotes.

“Maybe we only need one rule. Let's just promise to be honest with each other, and then help the other person process whatever emotions come up.”

“Love is vast. Abundant. Infinite, in fact. And the secret is this: love begets love. The more you love, the more love you have to give.”

The fact that this book was banned/challenged isn't really surprising, I guess, as much irresponsible drinking and illegal drug use as there is in it. It was a rather eye-opening read even for an adult though...at least me. I kind of wished there was more development of the characters, but it was still good.

The Iron King is a fun, fluffy read with a little danger, a little romance, and a lot of faeries. Also a little Alice in Wonderland - that part left me a bit flabbergasted...exactly how does the Cheshire cat fit into the faery world of redcaps and chimeras? But ok. It was definitely interesting. The hands down BEST part of this book is all the descriptions of the various fae, the Winter, Summer, and Iron Courts. I haven't read many books based around the fae, so to me at least the Iron Court construct was entirely new and OMG IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. Holy shit balls batman. Consider me successfully creeped out and a little sad.

The characters...well, the MC is actually not that compelling. I was not a real Meghan fan, but I definitely didn't hate her. Her motivations I could understand though, and her love for her little brother melted my heart. Her loyalty was also something I could relate to...Meghan is incapable of putting any goal or end result before the people she cares about, even when the result would be the greater good. Now Robbie, I loved. I hope we see a LOT more of him in the next books! Ash was...ooooh, look, tall-dark-handsome-brooding-powerful-hero = instalove. SIGH. He had some cool powers though. The romance was meh. Meghan is very young and naïve and...well, maybe that's my almost-30-year-old self being jaded but I just wasn't feeling it AT ALL.

3.5/5 stars overall. I'm looking forward to the next book and can't wait to see how this Iron Court thing plays out! It wasn't a true hangover ending but it's SO wide open for more possibilities...
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I won an e-book of this from a blog giveaway ages ago, and finally got around to reading it! Sadly I don't remember which blog.

~Full series overview here on The Bent Bookworm!~Whoo-boy, here we go – The Miserable Mill picks up where The Wide Window left off, with the Baudelaires going off to yet ANOTHER guardian, this one the most mysterious and incomprehensible yet. Things are getting extremely repetitive at this point, so much so that I was tempted to not read this one. But the books are so easy to get through and so FAST to get through that I persevered.This book gives a new spin to the Baudelaires mistreatment – they actually ARE slaves in this one, for the most part! Thrown into a sweatshop/poorhouse type sawmill, they are used and abused and try to hold each other together. Hope seems to be slipping away from them as they are too exhausted to do anything at the end of the day. But then Klaus breaks his glasses and has to go see the “optometrist.” And all is not as it seems...because nothing ever is, for these kids. Of course no one believes them when they say they are being stalked. Of course no one sees anything wrong with 3 children working in a sawmill – actually, someone does, but has no guts to do anything about it, typical of the “good” adults in these stories. In the end, they of course barely escape per the usual. However, this time, the ending doesn't have them going off to another relative, it has them going somewhere else entirely, so maybe the next book will have a change in plot. I very much hope so because I really think even most children would be bored with these by now.Blog Twitter Bloglovin Instagram Google+

This is one of those cute little cozy mysteries. That I'm slightly embarrassed to admit I like to read. Sometimes. But there it is. I didn't go into this with high expectations (um...the very pretext is a communicative, NICE ghost), but I was pleasantly surprised by endearing characters and an entertaining story line. It's very homey and Lori sounds like someone I'd like to be friends with. Not for diehard thriller fans or realists.