Tag: book blog

The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale by Haley McGee: Book Review

Good hello, lovelies! Happy Wednesday! I finally finished a book! I finally finished a physical one! I finally finished one I needed to read for review! Thank you, Ayesha and Kaitlin from Penguin Random House, Doubleday Canada for a copy of The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale.

Haley McGee is in debt. The solution? A yard sale of gifts from her ex-boyfriends.

But first she has to ask herself… What does love cost?

Surely the ways we invest in our romantic relationships should be reflected in the price. But how? Is the mixtape from your first love worth more than the vintage typewriter from a philanderer? Does sitting on an X-Acto knife wedged between seats on a bus to see the boyfriend you lost your virginity to increase or decrease the value of the necklace he gave you? Should you be compensated for the miserable times or do they render an item worthless?

In this hilarious and heartfelt memoir, Haley McGee sets out to calculate—with mathematical precision—the exact cost of love, and whether all of her former relationships were worth it. Goodreads StoryGraph

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The concept of the book really sold me. I was so looking forward to reading about finding the value of love. But I really struggled to finish the book. Partly that’s on me and what I’m going through, but it was too much math. I know, I know, that’s exactly what synopsis states that Haley finds the formula for love. It was just too much for me.

The best parts were Haley revisiting her past relationships; going through the best and worst moments with her ex-boyfriends. My favourite and biggest payoff was the ending between Haley and T.

Who am I to review a memoir of someone’s life already lived? I appreciate what Haley got out of the experience the success of a solo show and a book, I just didn’t buy it. The beginning starts with her in debt and decides to have a yard sale that just doesn’t happen. Haley instead creates a solo show which is interesting to learn about, I just think the show was a visual experience and better illustrated the emphasized how the formula works that the price of the items aren’t realistic to sell for. I don’t know, I liked a few moments/quotes enough to tab them, but they’re in the last 50 pages.

If you love math and want to check out The Ex-Boyfriend Yard Sale, go do it! Released February 2022.

As always, thanks for reading!

Sarah

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Ready Player One by Ernest Cline: Book Review

Good hello, lovelies! Happy Thursday! Here in Canada, we’re back to being in a winter wonderland. It took me almost two hours to get home yesterday, a drive that’s usually 40 minutes. I’m thinking I’m going to skip treatment today and stay inside.

On a completely unrelated note, I’ve started using an app, Flora, to help me focus on reading and writing for this week. I really want a better balance between being productive and resting. Last year was all rest and nausea. I’m hoping by being productive in 25-30 minute intervals I can have the best of both worlds. Without the Miley Cyrus reference.

Enough of my rambling let’s get into the review!

My Lame Synopsis: A video game with a hidden game within to win them all. Goodreads

Red background with yellow-orange font. There’s a tiny key in the O letter and a tiny video game player below it. — Ready Player One

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Well, I finally succumbed to the hype and picked this bad boy up. I saw the movie back in 2018, but didn’t remember the story. I knew only the basic stuff like that it’s filled to the brim with 80s references and that its plot revolves around a treasure hunt in a VR game.

After finishing the book, that’s pretty much exactly what it was. Sure, some characters die and there is plenty of action, but there’s not a whole lot of character growth or deep plot development.

Don’t get me wrong, it was fun. While I wasn’t alive in the 80s, I still understood a lot of the references from being a film student. Not that I studied the Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, but you get it. Pop culture references don’t make a book a good one.

It’s a fun action book, a fluff piece. Wade goes through a lot, but Ernest Cline barely touches on his grief or the struggle of other characters.

Cline’s focus is on technology and perhaps greed too. The very fact that it’s a VR game the world uses for escape, then each player creates an idealized version of themselves makes me believe Cline looked at beauty at very surface level, I.e. birthmarks and getting buff. The book could have been so much more. For a book set in the future, it included outdated language and ideologies. For example, technology being able to fix disabilities, or race no longer being social issues. If that was true then the cast should have been more diverse.

As always, thanks for reading!

Sarah<3<3

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The Man Without Shelter by Indrajit Gara: Book Review

Good hello, lovelies! Happy Monday! Look at who’s posting, this girl! I feel like my nausea is somewhat managed and now I’m trying to get back to posting on a regular basis 😊. I hope this is a lovely beginning to something I stick to.

Bonjour et merci beaucoup to Estelle for sending me The Man Without Shelter to review. Beautiful name, by the way.

I finally finished it! My chronic fatigue made it really hard to get through The Man Without Shelter. I could only read a few pages at a time before falling asleep.

My Lame Synopsis: Set in Paris, France, a man named Arnault finally gets released from prison after 20+ years. Lucy, a young lawyer stumbles across Arnault trying to build a life for himself. Goodreads

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I wish it was longer! I know that’s weird to say after saying I could barely stay awake reading the darn thing but it was trying too hard to be a shorter book when it needed to be longer and chronic fatigue is a real thing. There were moments in the book where it felt like Indrajit Gara was summarizing the story instead of telling it. One chapter starting with mentioning Lucy but not including her for several pages of ‘summarizing’ of what was happening. On the other hand, there are some great elements like the drama with Lucy’s firm and Arnault’s case. I also loved bringing in real events like a terrorist attack, real French social concerns like stronger security in public places, public transit strike, a large number of African refugees and homeless people.

The book showcases issues with homelessness, the prison system and the justice system. I like that it’s France specific, but can apply to other places like Canada, where I’m from, too. For the film nerds out there it gave me Bicycle Thieves or Italian Neorealism vibes; a slice of life story with real struggles.

The Man Without Shelter is pretty inclusive but does have words that I don’t appreciate. It is a translated book, it reads like one so I’m not going to dwell on some of the words used.

Overall, it was a good read and happy with the experience.

As always, thanks for reading!

Sarah<3<3

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Watch Me: The Sky is Everywhere: Book Vs. Movie

Good hello, loves! Happy Tuesday! I finished something look at me go! Happy new year! I’m still trying to get use to the fact it’s 2023 now like what. Haha.

I reread the book when I recently saw that AppleTV Plus recently released the movie adaptation. I say recently, when it was nearly a year ago now and I reread the book in November. I’m working on posting more!

I first read The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson back before my blog was a thing so don’t have a review to look back on and see what I thought of the book back in 2016. Other than I know I read it and enjoyed it for the most part, I couldn’t remember anything about the actual story. Look at me have some motivation to post something!

Side note: Spoilers ahead.

Mini book review: Jandy Nelson captures grief so well. There’s some beautiful moments, some that have magical realism. A few lovely quotes. However, there’s some outdated ideas and terms used.

Movie trailer: here.

Leave it to Apple to fix any issues I had with the book. But also take what’s good about the book and make it even better. AppleTV Plus is really making a great name for itself. The cast is diverse. The visuals are gorgeous with the magical realism scenes especially. It’s a good movie!

Here’s a great example of the movie being better than the book and I’m okay with that. Like I said above, the book had some outdated ideas and terms; if anything it needed to be updated. Like the scene with Sarah on the beach was great and how to be gentle with someone who’s grieving. We don’t always make the best decisions while grieving like Lennie kissing Tobi, her dead sister’s boyfriend, but I get why she did and how they found comfort in each other.

Skip the book and watch the movie.

Okay, spoilers are done.

As always, thanks for reading until the next one!

Sarah<3<3

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Anxious People by Fredrik Backman: Book Review

Good hello, lovelies! Happy Monday! Today is my first day back to posting in a while, sorry about that. It’s been difficult to manage work, my nausea, reading, and my blog. Hopefully I can continue to make time for writing.

After reading A Man Called Ove and it becoming an all time favourite book, I didn’t hesitate to pick up Anxious People.

My Lame Synopsis: A random group of people find themselves in a hostage situation. Goodreads

Flat lay people featuring Anxious People by Fredrik Backman. Also has An Unkindness of Ghosts and A Little Life lined up against 2022 planner.
Anxious People cover is of a man and woman facing away, standing at a railing. White text, yellow-orange background and the character are wearing dark blue. — Anxious People

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I was really excited for Anxious People and maybe overhyped it in my head? Either way is was just not as good as A Man Called Ove, speaking of which, have you seen the trailer with Tom Hanks? I kind of hate that they changed the main character’s name. I’ll still watch it of course.

Anyways! I liked the book fine, but I wanted to love it. Backman’s writing is once again incredible, but I didn’t connect to this story like A Man Called Ove. The first half was especially not it. The second half gave me more enjoyment after revealing themes of grief, life, depression, suicide and a few others. Maybe enjoyment is the wrong word, but you get it..

As always, thanks for reading!

Sarah<3<3

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Watch Me: Heartstopper: Graphic Novels vs. Show

Good hello, loves! Happy Wednesday! Did you catch the last Watch Me? I discussed The Hobbit, check it out! Today’s Watch Me is going to be a little different though, due to what happened recently.

Side note: Spoilers ahead.

What happened recently: Heartstopper, show and graphic novels has a lovely message about Coming Out and it would seem some ‘fans’ didn’t get it. On Monday, Halloween, the actor that plays Nick Nelson, Kit Connor was forced out by ‘fans’. The very character he portrays on the show having a journey of coming out when he wants to. Charlie went through being outed the year before and didn’t want Nick experience it too. I hope anyone who contributed to the harassment toward Kit feels ashamed. He’s only an 18 year old kid. This is no different from Becky Albertalli being forced out a few years ago. Why? Why do people feel the need to gate-keep strangers’ sexualities? Why do people invalidate bisexuality?

Miss Singh telling Nick’s friends, a few rugby lads to not speculate other people sexuality. — Miss Singh

Charlie telling Nick he doesn’t need to tell everyone. — Miss Singh

I’ll say it here first, Heartstopper is officially my new comfort show. I’ve watched season 1 several times since august when I watched for the first time. There’s so much representation, only missing disability, but hey, the show doesn’t make jokes about disability like my old comfort show (Brooklyn Nine Nine), but that’s a story for another day.

Both the show and the books are so wholesome, I hope to get a show with wlw that’s just as wholesome. Queer men have had the spotlight long enough let’s share it with queer women and non-binary people!

I just had to reread the graphic novels before writing this because I watched the show so much I couldn’t remember anymore what was different between them. But also helped my reading goal this year, she’s struggling. There’s of course some changes that makes sense for the show like the teachers were changed they include less of them and the show hasn’t shown Charlie’s little brother so he might not exist either. For the most part I like the changes the show made like giving more screen time to Elle, Tao, Tara and Darcy. I didn’t love that Imogen part that they added, but I grew to love it with every watch. The scene where Nick is trying to explain how he’s feeling to her is just lovely.

I hope you enjoy that collage of Charlie and Nick together. ❤️

I truly love how the show used the best parts of the story from the graphic novels like the scene of them playing in the snow, the comic style and after they kiss at the party when Nick is trying to explain what’s he is feeling. Charlie running to meet again in the rain for another kiss.. The show honours the original format with incorporating the graphics of leaves, flowers, birds, the square blocks for transitions. You can see in the few pictures above that there’s a theme of blue and yellow with Nick and Charlie too that’s a lovely touch.

Something I also want to touch on is Harry Potter, tigger warning for this part. The graphic novels were written before JKR came out as a bigot. We all knew before that that Harry Potter was problematic but it was so beloved, especially by the queer community, that still happened. I’m not saying anything about supporting her because I don’t, she can stick it where the sun don’t shine. However, my question is where’s the line? Where do we start supporting queer media and stop supporting JKR?

I saw people boycotting Heartstopper graphic novels because of the HP reference several months ago. It’s just one and for sure protect yourself if it’s triggering for you. I just don’t see the same boycotting for other books written before JKR came out a bigot. When I read volumes 2, I completely forgot about it, after I was uncomfortable talking about it openly. I was worried I would seem transphobic, which I’m not. Interestingly, I don’t see the same for Felix Ever After, which has several HP references throughout the book. We shouldn’t be ‘punishing’ books that were written before that are queer. The references don’t make or break either stories. Felix Ever After is also an amazing book about a trans POC character being ‘outed’ as trans, someone posting pictures of Felix before transitioning, using their dead name. Sound familiar? It’s never okay to out someone. Maybe the people were part of outing Kit needs to read Felix Ever After too.

Okay, spoilers are done.

As always, thanks for reading until the next one!

Sarah<3<3

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The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel: Book Review

Good hello, lovelies! Happy Monday! Today is my first day back to work and so I decided to write this the night before. Aren’t you proud? All weekend long, though, I couldn’t decide how I wanted to spend my time. I kept switching between reading Legendborn, Empire of Gold and watching Conversations With Friends. I wanted to finish the show already to write a new Watch Me. I’ve been having a lot of fun writing and planning for more posts of those, but I also wanted to finish Empire of Gold and Legendborn in October. Since I am returning to work, I was just chipping away at each, switching between them all weekend long.

I love The Glass Hotel cover, it’s just breathtaking. Whoever created it, like thank you.

My Lame Synopsis: Vincent, a bartender at this hotel witnesses something strange, something written on the glass the day she also meets the owner of the hotel, Jonathan. Goodreads

The night sky with a corner of two glass walls meeting into a corner in the middle of the cover. — The Glass Hotel

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Since reading The Glass Hotel I’ve also read Sea of Tranquility which has made me change my view on this one. On its own, I don’t think the plot is as strong as Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the book. It was lyrical so much so it was almost poetry. It was gorgeous; it was like candy for my soul. I did notice a lot of similar themes that were in Station Eleven in The Glass Hotel, the writing especially beautiful in both. However, The Glass Hotel was so slow, the plot could have been stronger. I wanted more from the characters for this one. I loved it, but not my favourite Emily St. John Mandel book.

As always, thanks for reading!

Sarah<3<3

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Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? By Lizzie Damilola Blackburn: Book Review

Good hello, lovelies! Happy Thursday! Let’s not dillydally and jump right in. Thank you Kaitlin from Penguin Random House, Doubleday Canada for a copy of Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?

Meet Yinka Oladeji: a thirty-something, Oxford-educated, British Nigerian woman with a well-paid job, good friends, and a mother whose constant refrain is “Yinka, where is your huzband?”

Yinka’s Nigerian aunties frequently pray for her delivery from singledom, her work friends think she’s too traditional (she’s saving herself for marriage!), her girlfriends think she needs to get over her ex already, and the men in her life . . . well, that’s a whole other story. But Yinka herself has always believed that true love will find her when the time is right.

Still, when her cousin gets engaged, Yinka commences Operation Find-A-Date for Rachel’s Wedding. Aided by a spreadsheet and her best friend, Yinka is determined to succeed. Will Yinka find herself a huzband? And what if the thing she really needs to find is herself?

Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? brilliantly subverts the traditional romantic comedy with an unconventional heroine who bravely asks the questions we all have about love. Wry, acerbic, moving, this is a love story that makes you smile but also makes you think—and explores what it means to find your way between two cultures, both of which are yours.

Born and raised in London, Lizzie Damilola Blackburn is a British-Nigerian writer who won the Literary Consultancy Pen Factor Writing Competition in 2019 with an early draft of her debut novel. She has been on the receiving end of the question in the title of her novel many times, and now lives with her husband in Milton Keynes, England. Goodreads

Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband novel is propped up on a Bean shaped pillow beside a 2022 planner and baby’s breath laying on hardwood. — Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

It’s so interesting to me that I grew up believing men have jobs and aspirations while women look forward to marriage similar to Yinka where I was asked about my boyfriends after I turned 20 and she lives halfway around the world. Sure, it’s cool to go to uni and get a job, but happiness for a woman is finding a man, getting married and having kids. So much media growing up telling me happily ever after is when the guy gets the girl.

I’m around Yinka’s age but I definitely don’t have my life as put together as hers. I dream to be able to live on my own one day. Despite living across the world, being part of very traditional values also impacted my relationships like Yinka’s.

By half way through I was getting frustrated because I’ve already had to the work internally that happiness isn’t in finding a man, finding love that Yinka was just discovering for herself. Due to my disability I’ve had done a lot of the work Yinka starts in the later half of the book. I wish Lizzie Blackburn spent more time with Yinka being single and finding herself more. Maybe my disability makes it a harder pill to swallow that I can’t get married or loose my government benefits and can’t have kids while that’s still an option for Yinka as shown by the ending.

I wonder how sex will affect Yinka, once she decides to finally have it, how that would affect her and her relationship. There’s nothing wrong about someone deciding to save themselves for marriage; it can change the dynamic once introduced to a relationship. I know based my own experiences and research on other’s experiences. if Blackburn did a sequel for Yinka, I would 100% read it.

I would also pick up a sequel (if it existed) because I loved Yinka’s friends and family. It was also lovely to read about Nigerian culture with older women called aunty out of respect even if they’re not actually related, the food, the Yoruba language etc.

There were a decent selection of diversity, if I were to nitpick, the book could have used more representation for disability and religion.

I highly recommend Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?, be sure to check for trigger warnings as we all need to take care of ourselves. Released Jan. 2022.

As always, thanks for reading!

Sarah

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The BFG by Roald Dahl: Book Review

Good hello, lovelies! Happy Wednesday! I finally hit 60 books for this year! It’s hard to believe there’s just over two months left of the year. Where did the year go? I did spend I good chunk in bed with my nausea but still.

Who’s ready for my reviews of Dahl’s books to be over? Ahah, if that’s you, you’ll be happy to know that this is the last one. If you have enjoyed my reviews, thank you.

My Lame Synopsis: A girl and a giant. Goodreads

The giant’s legs frame the left side of the cover and a small little girl is looking up at the giant in the bottom right corner. The background is turquoise. — The BFG

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The BFG is one of the few books I read as a kid. It was so lovely to reread. Honestly, it was just so charming it’s one of my favourite children’s classic.

It was cute and all, but also not free of being problematic. What’s a Dahl book without being problematic though?

As always, thanks for reading!

Sarah<3<3

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