Between Shades of Gray

 Score 4.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Recommended for those who like historical fiction that is poignant, tragic & moving. This is a chilling & gripping story about the struggle for survival during the horrors of WW2.

It is brutal & heartbreaking, but is sprinkled with bravery, beauty & love. Although the novel itself ends way too abruptly, it is a story that demands to be read in one sitting.

Into The Dim

Score 3. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Recommended for those who like Time travel, Scotland, hidden society’s, family secrets, medieval England, insta-love & mysterious boys. While the plot is fun, creative & interesting the MC is too much of a special snowflake & spends half of her time boy obsessed. 😒

The book starts off rather slowly, but picks up as it goes on & ends up being a pretty fun ride! Like a soap opera, or a sitcom, there’s not too much depth to it, but it’s still an enjoyable & easy guilty pleasure read.

WARNING….. Do not compare this to Outlander, but if you must…then think of this as the tween version & don’t take it too seriously or think about the plot holes.

Dorothy Must Die Series

Score 4.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Recommended for those who like retellings, fantasy & a very dark, twisted version of Oz! Starring a heroine who is independent, fierce, determined, with enough depth to be both lovable AND relatable. (Happily there is no love triangle, but the insta love romance was rather dull.)

This Series is an exciting, unique, entertaining, magical & frightening adventure, that will captivate you, if you stick with it. It slows down drastically in book 2, but the 3rd book is the best & finally reveals it’s fantastic backstory & mythology. I’m Looking forward to The End Of Oz!

The Graces

                                                   Score 3. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Recommended if you like mysterious & charming paranormal contemporary novels. Just imagine Twilight with less romance & witches instead of vampires. This story is about an outsider who is obsessed with a family of glamorous & dazzling witches. So If you relate to outsiders or enjoy adoring & envying mystical teen witches, then you’ll love this!!

(If not, you may find this to be slow paced, cliched, vague & confusing.)

It Ends With Us

Score 4. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Recommended for those who like heartfelt dramas and romances. This contemporary novel is about a brave & determined woman searching for love, safety & closure. Don’t expect this to be a typical RomCom from Mrs. Hoover, this is a powerful & sweeping drama about love, forgiveness & surviving physical abuse that will totally suck you in. This novel is deeply moving, and hard to put down. It’s biggest drawback is that feels a bit contrived at times.

Snow Like Ashes Series:

Score 3 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Recommended for those who want to read a book similar to The Hunger Games, Divergent, Shatter Me & The Red Queen series. The 1st book is brimming with magic & promise! It’s creative, captivating, full of action & quite epic! Complete with a snarky fierce heroine that’s full of spunk & is humble & kind.

Sadly, All of that disappears in the 2nd book. It’s about politics, world building & Meira’s inner indecisiveness & turmoil stuck on repeat. It’s monotonous & drags. Save yourself the time, read the 1st few chaps, then skip to the last 3 chapters. Luckily book 3 gets way better! The plot speeds up & Meira remembers how badass she used to be! (However the action sequences aren’t as engaging, because we’re stuck with her inner monologue over explaining those scenes.)

This was pretty much the Hunger games, but with magic instead of games. That being said, It can still be a very entertaining & fun adventure, if you can just ignore how cliche & unoriginal it can be. If you are looking for something new and different, then I recommend skipping this one.

(These are not my photo’s….. they belong to the mysterious & mystical entity known as the internet!!)

The Vanishing Season (also known as The Moment Collector)

Score 3.5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Recommended for those who like contemporary romances & tragedies. This is not thriller or a creepy ghost story, (although there are ghosts in it.) It is instead a coming of age story, with beautifully written characters & atmospheric prose. It genuinely & successfully captures some of the most precious moments of youth. With first love, tragic heartbreak, cruel betrayals & a realistic love triangle. The beginning may be slow, but the 2nd half is engaging. In total, this novel is moving, sad & beautiful

Every Heart A Doorway

Score 4. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Recommended for those who like short, imaginative & twisted fairytales, with bits of dark humor, fantasy & mystery. This evocative novella is creative, enchanting & nostalgic (in that it reminded me of the magic I once believed in as a child). The synopsis makes this sound like a thriller, but it’s not, it’s much more subtle than that. The book is based on the idea that there are hundreds of magical worlds, with secret doors that will only open for certain children and typically spit them back out after they’ve become “too old”.

It’s got a slow pace & the characters & worlds feel under developed. Also the characters are detached from reality  some readers might not be able to connect.

(The kids seem detached because they no longer feel at home in this world, and  spend most of their time wanting to find a way back in.)

However, the fact that it’s so whimsical, charming, weird, poetic & strange makes up for everything. With a rich prose, deep insights & fantastical magic, you will be desperate for more… long after you stumble down this rabbit hole.

-Keep in mind that this novel is quite short, and that it ends too soon. But on the bright side there are 2 more book in this series that will be coming out next over the next 2 years. One book is about Jacqueline and Jill’s trip to a wild and wicked world. And the other book doesn’t yet have a synopsis……….. I can’t wait!

The Night Circus

Score 4. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

First off, ignore the synopsis on the back of the book, It’s entirely misleading! This is not a thriller or an action packed rivalry. Instead it’s an enchanting story told in 3rd person omniscient about a traveling circus.

The simple, slow plot, & lack of character development, knocks this down 1 whole star. The romance was lackluster (until the very end) and so was the plot. Also the timeline and narration jumps were dizzying  and so hard to keep straight!! 😕 I wanted this to be so much better!!

But nevertheless it still gets 4 stars simply because of how rich and enchanting the circus is. With such an  ethereal and dreamlike quality, I often find myself daydreaming about this marvelous and magical circus. If it were real, I would lose myself there for an eternity and never wish for anything more.

Recommended for those who like spellbinding imagery and dream logic that captivates the imagination and stirs the senses. Night Circus is atmospheric, charismatic and brimming with descriptive and tantalizing magic.