Tag: book review

Book Review: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

Published on by essieofwhoLeave a comment

Booktok and online book reviewers in general has really let me down. After years of reading really bad books that are highly praised, I finally gave up on trusting them. I really don’t like the books they review nor do I like the books they praise.

Even though I really don’t like the popular books, there are sometimes books that slip through the cracks and I end up liking it. Sometimes, I can see why they are popular, but I also don’t know how to feel about them. One of the books that have slipped between the cracks is Heather Fawcett’s Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Fairies.

Continue reading “Book Review: Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett” →

Book Review: Young Queens Collection: The Velvet Messenger by Megan Hess

Published on by essieofwhoLeave a comment

It’s October 1st, which means Halloween is this month!

I own a few Halloween themed children’s books, but the one I picked to review this month is The Velvet Messenger by Megan Hess. It is a part of the Young Queens Collection book series. I like to occasionally collect Megan Hess’ books (I’ve slowed down my collecting a lot in the past few years) because I like her artwork. To me, The Velvet Messenger’s plot and illustrations reminds me of Halloween, or of a spooky story, which is why I decided to save my review for October!

Continue reading “Book Review: Young Queens Collection: The Velvet Messenger by Megan Hess” →

Book Review: Fame, Fate, and The First Kiss by Kasie West

Published on by essieofwhoLeave a comment

It’s now officially fall! Fall means many things for many people, but on many of the book social media sites I used to follow, it means they will post content relating to books in the horror genre. (Probably because they want to talk, and even promote, books that are good for the Halloween season of fall.)

I, on the other hand, never really liked horror movies, books, or anything relating to it. Gothic novels? Yes, I’ll read those. Suspense novels? Sure! Thrillers? I’ll read them. But horror? Nope. No way. And the same thing goes for anything macabre and contains a lot of gore. It doesn’t matter if the books are in the horror genre. I won’t read them.

This is why I tend to favor books that tell stores with horror elements in them in a different way. Or it isn’t the most important part of the story. This is the case for the young adult romance Fame, Fate, and The First Kiss by Kasie West.

Continue reading “Book Review: Fame, Fate, and The First Kiss by Kasie West” →

Book Review: The Apple Creek Announcement by Wanda E. Brunstetter

Published on by essieofwhoLeave a comment

For many years, I’ve had a pile of books I want to review here on this blog, but don’t. Sometimes I forget about them until I stubble on a save post that I never finished. Other times it’s because of other reasons. These reasons can include not liking the book and not knowing what to say about it.

In the case of The Apple Creek Announcement by Wanda E. Brunstetter, I read this book three years ago. Although I finished this book years ago, I ended up struggling to describe in a review post.

Continue reading “Book Review: The Apple Creek Announcement by Wanda E. Brunstetter” →

Book Review: The Boys of Benjamin Boulevard by Samantha Robinson

Published on by essieofwhoLeave a comment

It’s been a few weeks since I published a book review post. To be honest, I’ve been watching so many YouTube videos reviewing books. This caused me to suffer from book review burn out… and made me question if I really felt ready to review any of my read books in a post.

In order to get back into writing book review posts, I decided to review The Boys of Benjamin Boulevard by Samantha Robinson. This book, and it’s sequel, are published on Amazon’s print on demand service. Right now The Boys of Benjamin Boulevard is no longer in print and is no longer available to read including on Kindle. The sequel is still available to purchase and read, but in print version only. There aren’t a lot of reviews on The Boys of Benjamin Boulevard or it’s sequel, so I don’t know how my review may impact either book.

Continue reading “Book Review: The Boys of Benjamin Boulevard by Samantha Robinson” →

Kate Spade New York: All In Good Taste Book Review

Published on by essieofwhoLeave a comment

While during a recent clean out and organization of my things, I came across some books I wanted to write review posts for. One of those books is All In Good Taste by Kate Spade New York.

The book, which was published in 2015, is by the fashion and lifestyle brand, Kate Spade New York. I’m a fan of Kate Spade New York and really love shopping the brand. At the time I purchased this book, I wanted to own some of the books by Kate Spade New York. I decided to pick All In Good Taste first because it is about the do’s and don’ts of entertaining.

Continue reading “Kate Spade New York: All In Good Taste Book Review” →

Book Review: What Happens After Midnight by K. L. Walther

Published on by essieofwhoLeave a comment

When I read K. L. Walther’s novels for the first time, I felt very conflicted. The first novel I ever read by her was The Summer of Broken Rules. I wrote a review about the book here.

The Summer of Broken Rules was, and still is, a book I feel conflicted about. On the one hand, I like her writing style. On the other hand, I hated the amount of Taylor Swift references, which is what it is famous for. When I heard Walther wrote another novel, I was curious about it. I was hopeful I would enjoy this novel more and here writing style would shine through more. With this hope, I decided to read it.

Continue reading “Book Review: What Happens After Midnight by K. L. Walther” →

Book Review: The Summer of Broken Rules by K. L. Walther

Published on by essieofwhoLeave a comment

For many years, Booktok has been a major influence on which books become popular. A few years ago, I heard about a popular Booktok novel called The Summer of Broken Rules. It was written by K. L. Walther, who became extremely popular because of this book.

Back then, it was highly recommended by a YouTuber that I used to follow. I didn’t know at that time that the YouTuber was also a huge Taylor Swift fan and loved the book because of it’s ties to her. Today I don’t follow the YouTuber because of many reasons. One of the minor reasons is her incorporation of Swiftie references throughout her videos.

After reading the book, I felt very conflicted about how to talk about it online. This is why it’s taken me years to figure out what to say or if I should recommend reading it. Although I still feel very conflicted about how to talk about the book in a review post, I’m tired to stumbling across my book review post in my saved drafts files. So, I’m going to review it, no matter if I am sure about what to say or not.

Continue reading “Book Review: The Summer of Broken Rules by K. L. Walther” →

Book Review- Sugary Girls: The Art of Eku Uekura (Japanese Edition) by Edu Uekura

Published on by essieofwhoLeave a comment

For many years, I enjoyed collecting art books. I own art books from movies, artists, and other media. As someone who has always loved art, I loved collecting them.

Since the 2020 Covid pandemic, I have substantially slowed down in collecting art books. This is mostly because there isn’t very many new art books I wanted to collect. One of the new books that caught my eye was Sugary Girls, The Art of Eku Uekura. It is an art book of girls wearing clothing inspired by deserts by Japanese artist Eku Uekura. Even though I have owned this book for more than a year, I decided to write a post about it now. To be honest, the only reason why I didn’t talk about it is because I wanted to enjoy looking at it without worrying about thinking up what to say in a review post.

Continue reading “Book Review- Sugary Girls: The Art of Eku Uekura (Japanese Edition) by Edu Uekura” →

Book Review: Maybe This Time by Kasie West

Published on by essieofwhoLeave a comment

Even though it is January, I am really enjoying taking the time to read summer young adult romance novels. I have quite a few that need to be read, but so far I’m really enjoying reading one of my favorite genres of books.

While trying to decide on a book to write a review of, one of these romance novels stood out above the others. It is Maybe This Time by Kasie West. Even though the book is one I consider a “summertime” young adult romance, it starts in January and takes place throughout the whole year. Since I’m in the middle of reading books out of season, including other Kasie West novels, I decided to write a review Maybe This Time.

Continue reading “Book Review: Maybe This Time by Kasie West” →