Book Club Picks – Rachel Reads & Reviews

Book Club Picks

Author Highlight: Michelle Moran

I have already extolled Moran’s virtues in historical writing in previous posts but after several more books in her catalogue, I have to expound on how deftly she immerses the reader into the ancient world. It probably helps that she had previously majored in archeology and has travelled extensively on dig sites so she has…
Nancy Drew ReRead P4

The final seven wrap up the Nancy Drew series in a . . . well t didn’t really wrap it up as Nancy Drew lives on forever and the series followed that cue without any sappy goodbyes or retrospectives but act like its just another day in her life. So let’s get to the final…
Author Highlight: Gloria Chao

So I decided to spend the week reading Gloria Chao’s catalogue of books. Which okay that was easy since there’s only four and she’s addictively readable. While each premise seems light, she also deals with the more difficult frustrations of coming of age as a Taiwanese American daughter of immigrants and the difficulties of communication…
Nancy Drew ReRead P3

Now onto the vacation series, otherwise known as #30-40 more or less. This was a very exciting set as it combines my favorite book trope, travelling with Nancy Drew mysteries.
Author Highlight: Neil Gainman

Initially I was going to stop at Gainman’s classic child horror tale, Coraline, but I saw that he has several fairytale adaptations in his repatoire so I felt I had to read them to complete my fairytale TBR pile. Let’s get to it! The Sleeper and the Spindle was the only “high school” level book…
Nancy Drew ReRead P2

I know I started the year with a Nancy Drew reread, and finally twelve months later I get to the rest. I’ve been busy. Nonetheless, I almost got the whole collection minus 4 of them that had already been checked out from the library. Or stolen. It wasn’t quite clear. Anyway, onto the second reread…
The Bloody Chamber (and Other Stories)

You know how darker, sexier retellings of fairytales are all the rage? Well you have Angela Carter to thank for that subgenre in fairytale retellings with her collection of short stories that subvert and invert these popular tales to pay homage to their darker origins while making it slyly progressive. Putting the females in peril…
Fullmetal Alchemist Vol 11-17

Even though the library didn’t have vol 9 or 10, I had to know what happened next and went straight for 11. Thankfully, it was easy to sum up what had happened in between though I was shocked. Armstrong has a sister!! Prince Ling’s body was taking over by Greed! May has joined up with…
Thoughts on Chain of Thorns

Well, I’m all caught up on The Shadowhunter Chronicles as I finished Chain of Thorns this week. So all that’s left is the final trilogy and the last book in The Eldest Curses trilogy. Woo-hoo. I must admit I procrastinated for almost the entire year before getting to CoT because the prospect of 800 pages…
November Books

Hotel of Secrets by Diane Biller It is New Years Eve in Vienna and Maria Wallner is determined to rebbuild the Wallner Hotel, her family legacy even though her mother neglected it throughout the economic downturn. The hotel is her life and provides a distraction from romance which all of Vienna is waiting for her…