Tag: books
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Raven Cycle Wrap-Up
Maggie Stiefvater will be my downfall. It is books like these that make me remember why I gravitate towards high fantasy; urban fantasy, when done well, can utterly destroy the heart. I like my heart. To me, urban fantasy is done at its best when infused with a touch of whimsy, but that whimsy makes…
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A Song of Wraiths And Ruin: Book Review
Back in June, in an effort to support black authors, I sought out a handful of books that I might add to my reading shelf. Of the five of them, A Song of Wraiths and Ruin was the book most aligned to my usual tastes: an epic fantasy tale promising some in-depth world-building. That said,…
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Let’s Talk Tropes: Love Triangles
To the dismay of many young adult readers, the number of love triangle plot-lines exploded, in thanks, no doubt, to the success of the Twilight series. Fortunately, it did not become a staple of the fantasy genre, but a reader browsing the shelves still wouldn’t be surprised to find that a book’s synopsis hinted at…
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The Winterkeep Cover Reveal!!
Back in May, we got one of the few pieces of good news that 2020 has to offer: the Graceling Realm series isn’t over. A new book is going to be released in early 2021, called Winterkeep. You can find all of the initial information in my blog post, plus some of my expectations for…
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Reading Challenge Wrap-Up
In case you didn’t catch the The Middle Grade Reread Challenge post, here’s a little TL;DR. Last month, I challenged myself to read five book that I hadn’t read or even thought of since my middle grade years, and I gave myself a month to do it. The books I chose are as follows: Here, There…
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Setting Study: Bayern from The Goose Girl
The Books of Bayern is a middle grade fantasy quartet by Shannon Hale, centering around the country of Bayern. The Goose Girl is the first of the series. The protagonist, Ani, is from neighboring country Kildenree, betrothed to a Bayern prince she has never met. En route to Bayern, Ani’s lady in waiting starts a…
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Let’s Talk Tropes: Instalove
Look, in a single book, there’s only so much time that two character has to fall in love with each other. Books take place in a single time-frame, and often, it’s one that spans days, weeks, or maybe months. Rarely years. Even Wheel of Time, a massive fourteen-book series, only takes place over the course…
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Setting Study: Here, There Be Dragons
Here, There Be Dragons is the first of a middle grade series by James A. Owen called The Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica. It is based off of the concept that many famous fantastical settings from books are real places, and that many of the heroes of those stories were real as well. An unseen…
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A Memory of Light Spoiler Rant
I did a series review of Wheel of Time, recently, and I intended for it to serve as a book review for the final book, A Memory of Light. I mean, it makes sense, especially for this book. While for most series, the payoff is in the latter half of the final book, the entirety…
Katie Bachelder 