Sorority Blogger

Thank you Andrew David MacDonald, Scout Press, and NetGalley for giving me an advanced copy of this book to review. (Image courtesy of Goodreads.com) Zelda is a young adult with high functioning fetal alcohol syndrome. She has a love of vikings; when she discovers that her older brother Gert has gotten involved in some things she's not sure she approves of to make enough money to support them both, she decides to go on a quest to create her own legend and help support her tribe. Along the way she learns more about being the hero in your own story, and that sometimes people you meet will be both heroes and villains at the same time. In the end, it's up to her to decide how her story will turn out and who she still wants to be a part of it. The more I read this book, the more I really loved Zelda's character and couldn't wait to see what her next decision would be. The whole time, I was rooting for her, Gert, AK47, and their tribe while at the same time realiz

This year, in order to broaden my reading horizons, I participated in the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge for 2019. The challenge offered prompts of different types of books to read throughout the year. For those of you who've been reading, you've seen all of my reviews for the books I've read for the prompts this year. For those who haven't (or who want to see any reviews again) I'm going to include the 'book number' (standing for the order that I read them in this year from 1-62 [so far]). Here are all of the prompts and the books that I read for them: A book becoming a movie in 2019 The Sun is Also a Star  (Book 37) A book set in space The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy  (Book 54) A book that makes you nostalgic Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald: the original screenplay  ( Book 2) A book by two female authors The Royal We  (Book 24) A book written by a musician (fiction or nonfiction) Satchmo: My Life in New O

Hello readers! I've decided to participate in two reading challenges this year: the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge and NEWTS. You can find out more info on both challenges in previous Overview posts. I've completed the NEWTS challenge, and you can see which books I chose all in one place on my NEWTS Wrap Up post. The first book I'm reviewing in this post I read just for fun. The second was part of the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. Here are my book reviews for my 61st and 62nd books of 2019: Book 61:  The Haunting of Hill House   by Shirley Jackson I gave this book 3/5 stars on Goodreads. This book didn't have a prompt. I saw it at the airport on my way home from Austin and had to get it. I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. I picked it up because I absolutely LOVE the show on Netflix, even though I knew the story was totally different. A scientist, two young women, and the heir to Hill House agree to stay at the house for a

Hello readers! I've decided to participate in two reading challenges this year: the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge and NEWTS. You can find out more info on both challenges in previous Overview posts.  Both of the books reviewed in this post were for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. Here are my book reviews for my 59th and 60th books of 2019: Book 59:  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest   by Stieg Larsson I gave this book 5/5 stars on Goodreads. This prompt for this book was: "A book set in Scandinavia." This is the conclusion to the (original?) trilogy of Salander books by Stieg Larsson. There is now a 4th book by a different author. I highly recommend all three of the original. I have not read the new book yet. I don't want to give too much away about the prior books, but basically, if you have no knowledge of the trilogy, they follow a man named Blomkvist and a woman named Salander as the two form an unlikely friendship an

Hello readers! I've decided to participate in two reading challenges this year: the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge and NEWTS. You can find out more info on both challenges in previous Overview posts.  Neither one of these books were actually read for either challenge, though. The first book was the second in a series. I had read the first earlier in the year and wanted to read the second as well. The second book I just thought sounded really interesting when I was browsing at my local library. Here are my book reviews for my 57th and 58th books of 2019: Book 57: Smoke in the Sun   by Renee Ahdieh I gave this book 3/5 stars on Goodreads. This book had no prompt. It was a 'just for fun' read. :) This is the second book in this series. The first book was the 49th book that I read this year. You can see it's review in a prior post. There will be some spoilers for the first book below. If you wish to skip to book 58's review to avoid

Hello readers! I've decided to participate in two reading challenges this year: the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge and NEWTS. You can find out more info on both challenges in previous Overview posts.  The first book reviewed in this post was actually not for either challenge. I've been receiving Book of the Month deliveries every month, and wanted to try to read as many of those this year as I can too. The second book in this post was for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. Here are my book reviews for my 55th and 56th books of 2019: Book 55: The Turn of the Key   by Ruth Ware I gave this book 3/5 stars on Goodreads. (This is another that could have been 3.5 if half stars were options.) This book had no prompt. It was a 'just for fun' read. :) This book follows Rowan Caine, a nanny who comes across a job listing that seems too good to be true. Which is of course, exactly what it turns out to be. The story is written in a long letter to a

In addition to the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, I decided to try the NEWTS reading challenge inspired by Harry Potter. The challenge was created by this wonderful youtuber:  Book Roast NEWTS . This was supposed to be completed in August, but I decided to just try and finish it even if it took me longer.  For NEWTS I decided on the Magizoologist path. The Magizoologist path requires an O in Care of Magical Creatures, E in Charms, and E in Herbology. You must complete all prior letters to achieve the required letter as well. Here is the breakdown of what I read for the Magizoologist path. Reviews for all of these books can be found in prior posts. Their book number for 2019 will be italicized in parentheses to help locate their posts: Care of Magical Creatures A. Follow the Spiders! Why couldn't it be follow the butterflies! Book title that starts with a letter A, for Aragog! A Midsummer Night's Dream  (Book 48) E. Book under 300 pages How to Skimm Your Life

Hello readers! I've decided to participate in two reading challenges this year: the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge and NEWTS. You can find out more info on both challenges in previous Overview posts.  The first book reviewed in this post was for NEWTS; the second was for the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. Here are my book reviews for my 53rd and 54th books of 2019: Book 53:  Yes Please   by Amy Poehler I gave this book 3/5 stars on Goodreads. The NEWTS prompt I chose for this was "Herbology: E: An audiobook." This was the first audiobook I've ever decided to listen to. I'm a very visual person, and so audiobooks are not that easy for me to follow along with. That said, I did really enjoy that Amy Poehler herself read it, and she added a level of comedy and fun that you probably can't get from the physical book. However, I'll probably read the physical book at some point too. As I mentioned, I'm frankly not very good at

Hello readers! I've decided to participate in two reading challenges this year: the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge and NEWTS. You can find out more info on both challenges in previous Overview posts. Both books reviewed in this post were part of my NEWTS reading. Here are my book reviews for my 51st and 52nd books of 2019: Book 51: How to Skimm Your Life   by theSkimm I gave this book 3/5 stars on Goodreads. The NEWTS prompt I chose for this was "Care of Magical Creatures: E: Read a book under 300 pages." This book was a coffee-table style book with some tips and tricks for life hacks and the like. It was written by the creators of The Daily Skimm which sends emails with brief overviews and breakdowns of things happening around the world/in the news. Some of the chapters were definitely more useful or interesting to me than others. However, someone else might love completely different chapters than I did. The format and style of the book

Hello friends! I've decided to participate in two reading challenges this year: the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge and NEWTS. You can find out more info on both challenges in previous Overview posts. Here are my book reviews for my 49th and 50th books of 2019: Book 49:  The Flame in the Mist  by Renée Ahdieh I gave this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads. The NEWTS prompt I chose for this was "Care of Magical Creatures: O: Grab onto Fawkes' tail! Read a book with a bird [or you know, a phoenix] on the cover." Set in a fictional world in the time of samurai in a similar country to Japan, this books follows Mariko. She is the daughter of a samurai who is destined to marry one of the king's sons. However, on the way to the royal palace, her caravan gets robbed and she is assumed dead. Thus begins her adventure of hiding undercover in a group of bandits (The Black Clan) dressed as a boy to try to find out who attacked her caravan and attempted t

Welcome new readers and welcome back continuing readers! This year, I've been participating in the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge; you can find out more info in my Overview post or on the Pop Sugar Website. I also decided to try out the NEWTS challenge back in April. Last week's post discusses that challenge a bit. Here are my book reviews for my 46th and 48th books of 2019 (book 47 was an ARC and got it's own post): Book 46:  The Ivy: Scandal  by Lauren Kunze and Rina Onur I gave this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads, but may have given it 3.5 if half stars were available. The Pop Sugar prompt I chose for this was "A book set on a college or university campus." I rounded up on this rating because it's the fourth in a series, and even though I read the first three a while ago, it let me pick back up the series and filled me back in on some details so I wasn't lost. The main character of the series, Callie, is a California na

In addition to the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, I decided to try the NEWTS reading challenge inspired by Harry Potter. The challenge was created by this wonderful youtuber:  Book Roast NEWTS . This was supposed to be completed in August, but I decided to just try and finish it even if it takes me longer.  For NEWTS I decided on the Magizoologist path. The Magizoologist path requires an O in Care of Magical Creatures, E in Charms, and E in Herbology. You must complete all prior letters to achieve the required letter as well (though I'm going to be going a little out of order). Here is the description of the requirements for Magizoology: Care of Magical Creatures A. Follow the Spiders! Why couldn't it be follow the butterflies! Book title that starts with a letter A, for Aragog! E. Book under 300 pages O. Grab onto Fawke's Tail! Read a book with a bird on the cover. Charms A. Read a book that you think has a gorgeous cover E. Read a comic/graphic novel/ma

Welcome new readers and welcome back continuing readers! As some of you know, this year, I've been participating in the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge; you can find out more info in my Overview post or on the Pop Sugar Website. I'm only reviewing one book this week for a number of reasons. First, life's been kind of hectic between work and getting engaged! And trying not to annoy my fiance (still so strange to call him that) too much with beginning to wedding plan. Also, in addition to the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge, I decided to try the NEWTS reading challenge inspired by Harry Potter, and I'm working on getting a post together about that.  The challenge was created by this wonderful youtuber: Book Roast NEWTS . I'll have more on what I decided to do for NEWTS (plus a review of the 45th book I read this year next week.) Here is my book review for my 44th book of 2019: Book 44:  Dragonology Chronicles: The Dragon's Eye  by Dugald A. Steer

Welcome new readers and welcome back continuing readers! This year, I've been participating in the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge; you can find out more info in my Overview post or on the Pop Sugar Website. Here are my book reviews for my 42nd and 43rd book of 2019: Book 42:  The $1,000 Challenge  by Brian J. O'Connor I gave this book 3/5 stars on Goodreads, but may have given it 2.5 if half stars were available. The prompt I chose for this was "A book with pop, sugar, or challenge in the title." The author of this book was at the time of writing a personal finance columnist that decided to try a challenge for himself and his family in a time of financial strain where he lived. His goal: over 10 weeks, cut $100 a month from 10 different categories to total $1000 a month in savings. The author was funny at times, and the writing style was easy enough to get through. However, some of the items that he brings up as savings either don'

Welcome new readers and welcome back continuing readers! This year, I've been participating in the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge; you can find out more info in my Overview post or on the Pop Sugar Website. Here are my book reviews for my 40th and 41st book of 2019: Book 40: Babe: The Gallant Pig  by Dick King-Smith I gave this book 3/5 stars on Goodreads.  The prompt I chose for this was "A book you see someone reading on tv or in a movie." (This was on the Rory Gilmore reading list). Farmer Hogget wins Babe the piglet at a fair, and takes him home planning to one day have him for dinner. However, Babe gets adopted by a sheepdog named Fly and learns to herd sheep as well. Over the course of the book, Babe teaches readers and Fly alike not to judge a book by its cover, and that sometimes being polite gets you a lot farther than trying to force people to listen to you. I thought this was a cute, easy read, and could be fun to read with kids

Apologies that this went up a day late. Yesterday was the anniversary of a day that frankly words cannot describe. To all of the first responders and people who helped each other 18 years ago, thank you. To all those lost, rest in peace. There truly are no words, and so the blog will be taking a brief hiatus this week as a version of a moment of silence. Never forget.

If this is your first time visiting Sorority Blogger: Hello! I'm glad you're here. This year, I've been participating in the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge; you can find out more info in my Overview post or on the Pop Sugar Website. Here are my book reviews for my 38th and 39th book of 2019: Book 38:  How Not to Die Alone  by Richard Roper I gave this book 3/5 stars on Goodreads.  The prompt I chose for this was "A book that's published in 2019." Andrew works at a government job where he visits the homes of the recently deceased to try and find out if they have any living relations that need to be contacted. If they don't, he helps with the necessary planning for the deceased. No matter what he thinks, feels, and experiences at work, he still gets to come home to his wife and children and put it all behind him for a few hours (at least that's what he's told his coworkers). The truth, is a bit more complicated than tha

For continuing readers, thank you! New readers, welcome! This year, I decided to take the Pop Sugar Reading Challenge. For more information, check out my Overview post or visit the Pop Sugar website. Now for the book reviews:  Book 36:  Where'd You Go, Bernadette  by Maria Semple I gave this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads. I was torn between 3.5 and 4 but chose to round up. The prompt I chose for this was "A Book with a Question in the Title." Bernadette Fox is a stressed out mom trying to make life work for her and her family in Seattle, but she's reached a breaking point. When things start to fall apart around her and somewhat because of her, she disappears. Her daughter, Bee, begins trying to track down her mom and learn about why her mom disappeared by combing through emails, texts, news paper articles, etc (basically anything she can get her hands on). Bernadette's husband tries to deal with the fact that his wife has vanished,

Thank you Flat Iron Books for giving me an advanced copy of this book to review. (Image courtesy of Goodreads.com) Orpen is a teenage girl who was raised on a secluded island off the coast of Ireland in a post-apocalyptic world. With only her mother and her mother's partner Maeve to guide her, Orpen trains and learns to fight and survive in a world threatened by skrake, a zombie-like menace that has wiped out most of human life on the planet. When disaster strikes, Orpen ends up carrying an unconscious Maeve in a wheel barrow across destroyed Ireland, looking for other survivors and a city where she hopes she can make a new life, but is she really prepared to survive life and other humans off the island? There were a lot of things that I loved about this book. First, I love that it flips back and forth a bit between the present and the past. I feel like that transition helps you better learn to understand Orpen as you continue reading. I'll admit, I'm normally