Posts

The Best Romance of 2018 in the Goodreads Choice Awards, The Kiss Quotient is about Stella, an autistic and successful econometrician, who hires an escort to teach her how to date and seduce. Pitched as a Pretty Woman read-alike, this book will capture your heart right away! It definitely got mine quickly. I remember finding out about this book and immediately wanting to read it. Helen Hoang continues to make me fall head over heels in love with her stories....

1. The Paris Wife by Paula McLain McLain fictionalizes Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. Introverted and eight years his senior, Hadley initially seems to be an unlikely match for the adventurous Hemingway. Even after their divorce, though, Hemingway described her as the love of his life. The novel features other 1920s literary figures, like Ezra Pound and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, as fascinating supporting characters. 2. The Book of Salt by Monique Truong Here’s another book featuring Modernist writers as characters....

You know how the saying goes: “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” because a lackluster cover can keep a reader away from engaging in their favorite new story. BUT! Sometimes your eyeballs get the best of you, because we all like looking at pretty things. That’s not always a bad thing, especially today, when we’ve curated some fantasy makeup looks bringing life to the book covers you would totally follow on Instagram....

It is, however, the few speaking on behalf of the majority in each and every one of these cases. While Moms and similar groups have been vocal and have made major moves enacting book bans, their new policies are not popular. Several school districts in Florida have implemented new systems that require parental opt-out or parental opt-in to accessing material in schools–including the ability to borrow materials from school libraries....

Some of these challenges have gone well. Some have been less successful (why does this lace pattern scarf suddenly have 107 stitches? I don’t…damn it). As I was contemplating the sum total the other day, however, I realized I hadn’t yet done any sort of comics challenge. And thus Comics A–Z was born. I’m going to pick a topic and then I’m going to find y’all a book for (hopefully) every letter of the alphabet under that general umbrella....

Greek mythology is having a moment. Certainly, it’s been popular for a long time, but with the rise of dark academia as an aesthetic and interest among teens especially, Greek mythology falls in line with the ideas of private schools, classic stories, and slightly foreboding possibilities. It’s also true that the youngest readers who grew up on Rick Riordan and his mythology are seeking out YA titles as they enter their late teens and early adulthood....

Crossword puzzle books are a perfect way to get into cruciverbalism. We all need activities that get us away from screens and devices. Working through all the puzzles in a book is the analog version of completing all the levels in a video game. So let’s wear down some pencils. Getting to Know Your Puzzles Crosswords come in generic and artisanal varieties. The books you can often find among the magazines at grocery stores likely have puzzles that were generated almost entirely without human hands and minds....

For the uninitiated, Sarah J Maas (SJM) has written a young adult novel for DC Icons (Catwoman: Soulstealer), a young adult high fantasy series (Throne of Glass), a new adult fantasy series (A Court of Thorns and Roses), and one adult fantasy series (Crescent City). She published her first book, Throne of Glass, in the summer of 2012 and has not stopped since. She now has 16 books on the market, three of which were impressively published in 2018, and the fans and fan-made products to back her up....

I’m screaming. It’s August 2018, and I’ve just gotten an ARC from a popular author, one I never expected to get. Yet here it is! I dive right in. And…I’m turned off. The hero’s been with literally hundreds of girls. Okay, fine. But his reason for falling in love with our heroine? She’s not like other girls. She’s…”strong.” A “fighter.” “Not interested in clothes and shiny things.” We’re legitimately expected to believe that out of hundreds of girls, this one’s the only non-girly-girl of the bunch....

In FKA USA, the United States has dissolved in the wake of environmental disasters and the catastrophic policies of its final president. Named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Best Books of Summer, it’s a science fiction satire that is unlike anything you’ve ever read before…where the fate of humanity rests on a talking goat. We have 5 copies of FKA USA by Reed King to give away to 5 Riot readers!...

We were all villains in the beginning. All heroes in the end. It’s up to you to decide where you stand. Don’t miss the epic conclusion to The Renegades Trilogy from #1 New York Times bestselling author Marissa Meyer. “Edge-of-your-seat action.” —Bustle “Blends sci-fi and action like a young adult X-Men novel.” —Paste; “Will keep readers on their toes as they try to untangle the complex lines between hero and villain, friend and foe, right and wrong....

Sharpen your blade. Harden your heart. Journey to Faerieland in the #1 New York Times bestselling Folk of the Air trilogy. What started with The Cruel Prince and The Wicked King finally ends with the jaw-dropping finale, The Queen of Nothing. To win her place in the High Court of Faerie, Jude must risk her own life and defy the Fae that despise her mortality. Caught between her ambition and her humanity, Jude will learn the meaning of true power in this explosive, dazzling series from award-winning author Holly Black....

Those words emerged during a long board meeting in mid-November of the High Plains Library District (HPLD) in Colorado. The Board’s focus that evening was to reevaluate and update various library policies of the district, including the Programming Policy (beginning at page 111), which hadn’t been updated since April 2015. One of the meeting attendees pointed out language in the newly updated policy that she felt was controversial (minute 50)....

I was a scaredy cat as a kid. The Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland had me convinced I was going to die and the scene in The Goonies when they put Chunk’s hand in the blender still has me scarred to this day. I thought horror, then, wasn’t for me and, as such, I avoided that descriptor like the plague. Over the years, my friends dragged me to a few horror movies that I wasn’t a fan of (Paranormal Activity, Dead Silence, and The Skeleton Key) so I was firmly convinced I was right....

“Practicing social distancing and limiting excursions like grocery shopping means stocking up so you don’t run out of essentials like toilet paper and coffee, but for any culture fiend, the real travesty would be running out of books. While many bookstores have temporarily closed, there are still options for having new books delivered to your door (or e-reader). Now, just in time for World Book Day, hotels around the globe have opened up their private collections to transport you to faraway locales with destination-inspired stories....

In Love Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters represents how intergenerational trauma impacted the lives of women in pre-independence India. We see fiercely intelligent women being held back by social expectations and cowardly men. Rising above domestic ambitions was not an easy feat. We see Virmati constantly getting torn between her desire for education and an illicit love for a married man who was unwilling to walk the talk. The man in question never got separated from his first wife and even though he was highly educated, the liberal education didn’t reflect much on his thought process....

Imagine the surprise and delight in my tween heart when I saw the trailer for the movie adaptation of Ella Enchanted. Now a classic of YA literature, the story is a cheeky retelling of Cinderella. And our gal Anne was to star as Ella herself. Ella Enchanted As in the Charles Perrault tale, Ella is a young girl forced to work for an evil stepmother and two spoiled, bratty stepsisters....

Nothing could tear Detective Michael Bennett away from his new bride—except the murder of his best friend. NYPD master homicide investigator Michael Bennett and FBI abduction specialist Emily Parker have a history. When she fails to show at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, Bennett ventures outside his jurisdiction. The investigation he undertakes is the most brilliant detective work of his career…and the most intensely personal. A portrait begins to emerge of a woman as adept at keeping secrets as forging powerful connections....

1. Take Stock The key to any successful mission is prep. You’re going to need a plan of attack if you want to keep your old book nice. That means identifying not only the book’s most serious issues, but making sure that you’re not going to hurt it. List everything you want to do to the book before you start. Then, one at a time, test any cleaning supplies that you want to use on small, unimportant pieces of the cover, dust jacket, pages, etc....