Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan // A stunning, solid, proudly Asian sequel that suffers from second book syndrome

“This is a language I understand. A language of pain and horror I, too, have learned.  That too many girls have had to learn.”

1. Girls of Paper and Fire ★★★★★

Releases 5th November, 2019 (today!)

Thank you to Julie from HBG and the publisher for letting me read an early advanced reader’s copy of this book! Forever grateful ❤

In November of 2018, I hit a milestone in my reading life – I found a book with a clear Malaysian Chinese influence, which as a Malaysian Chinese kid, I never found but was internally.

And I fell in love with it. From the court intrigue to the discussion of sexual assault and to its presentation of beautiful, fierce Asian girls, there was so much to love in it. After I had devoured it in one sitting on a school night (it was worth it), I eagerly searched up the next book and was MASSIVELY anticipating the publication of this book.

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My New Favourite Anthology – Ever? // Hungry Hearts Book Review

Wow, this was truly such an experience. This was an absolutely phenomenal anthology which spoke to my soul and heart, lived up to all my expectations. It is most definitely one of my favourites of the year and perhaps of all time, and even may be my favourite short story anthology ever.

I’m Actually Reviewing the Books I Read aka My Recent Reads (The Start of a New Feature On The Blog!)

Two facts about me as a reader: I read a lot of books every month (I’d say I read an average of 10-12 books each month), and I am very bad at regularly writing reviews, let alone in a timely manner.

This is becoming even more apparent when I’m writing my monthly wrap ups, and I often don’t have much space to go into good detail about the books I read.

When I saw the Recently Read feature go around the blogosphere, I knew it was the perfect opportunity to go into further depth into the books I read while actually publishing some semblance of reviews (while also looking like a good book blogger).

I’ll try and publish two of these per month, the first one mid-way through the month (which serves as a mid-month wrap up) and one just before/after I publish my monthly wrap ups (to wrap up the second half of the month).

Since I read 7 books and I am physically incapable of not rambling, let’s just get into it, shall we?

Stronger Than A Bronze Dragon: A Compelling Own Voices Chinese Historical Fantasy! (Blog Tour + Review)

Hi friends! I am incredibly excited about today’s post, as I am going to be able to fulfill my goal of participating in a blog tour, and what’s more, about a great YA Chinese historical fantasy novel! Being a huge history buff and being able to identify with the representation, I was incredibly excited for this book and was incredibly excited when I was chosen for the blog tour! Let’s just get into it, shall we?

My Favourite Book of the Year, Wherein I Cried At Least Six Separate Times aka Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

“It’s okay not to be okay.”

I guess writing about my 5 star crisis helped to break that horrible jinx that I was going through this year, because I found a five star read less than a week after scheduling it.

And as you can see by the title, it’s this masterpiece.

Spoiler: I loved it.

Review: Imagine Us Happy by Jennifer Yu // An Unforgettable, Heartbreaking Read About Toxic Relationships Feat. Complex Teens!!

This was an incredibly intense novel, but I do think it is one you should pick up if you feel like you can handle the subject matter. Imagine Us Happy deals with a toxic relationship between two people who are going through their own issues, and it was hard to read at times. Though I just said that it was a difficult book to read at times, Yu’s writing style was so smooth and readable, and I, therefore, binged it in a matter of hours on a school day, because I just couldn’t put it down.

My Disappointed, Excessively Long Queen of Air and Darkness Review (feat. pretty headers!)

★★★½

Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices, #1) by Cassandra Clare ★★★★★

Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices, #2) by Cassandra Clare ★★★★½

My tl;dr version of this whole review:

This was in my top five most anticipated releases in 2018, maybe even in the top two. I had such high hopes for this, and this book did not even come CLOSE to them.

Queen of Air and Darkness is the final book of the Dark Artifices trilogy, and boy was it a hot mess of chaos.

Though I did have problems with this, I did enjoy and do not regret my time reading this. In this review, I’m just going to be breaking down my review with different sections, with one section focusing on a particular overarching thought I had on the book. This is a fairly common reviewing tactic, but hey, ya girl’s still experimenting.

It also gives her an excuse to use these new pretty headers but shhhh

There will be spoilers mixed in with this review, for Queen of Air and Darkness (which will be in white text, and that you highlight to see – thank you to Elise @ The Bookish Actress for that idea! You should also check her review out, which will be better than mine will ever be!) as well as for Lady Midnight and Lord of Shadows (which I’ll try not to mention, and even if I do, I will mostly not hide them).

So, if you haven’t read this, come back and we can chat about it!