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Tuesday, March 13, 2018

What I Read in February 2018





Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan- I loved everything but the love story in this book! I loved the idea of the bakery. I loved the side characters. I loved the baby puffin. I loved the baking and planning and the changing your whole life around bit. I did not love the love story. In fact I thought all the "love interests" were the most boring people on the planet. The characters were never fully flushed out for me and I just never liked them. She could have left that bit out and still had a great book. So for me this one only gets 3 out of 5. 
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Caraval by Stephanie Garber- This book was all over my "Suggestions" feeds it seems. I had at least 4 people tell me I would love it and so of course I put in on hold and waited the long wait to see what the fuss was about. So what did I think? Meh. I really wasn't that impressed. Another book that suffered from lack of character development and I never really felt like I cared about the main character. Actually she kind of annoyed me. I doubt very much I will continue the serious. Another 3 out of 5 if only for some neat magical elements that I enjoyed. 
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An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson- I have no idea how I even got this book. I must have put it on hold at some point because it came it at the library and after finishing Caraval I was craving something more so I ended up reading it in less than 12 hours. To be fair it wasn't terribly long but I will say that it was very intriguing. I liked the main character because I felt like she could really hold her own when it came down to it and that is one of my favorite things. If the female lead can totally stand on her own without the love interest then I am game. I loved a lot of the lore in this one and if there ends up being more I would be more than happy to dive back into that world once again. Again some awesome magic and this time with fairies! Solid 4 out of 5. 
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Life According to Steph

16 comments:

  1. Ack! Caraval is another that I've wanted to read for awhile and had really high hopes for. This isn't the first meh review I've heard so it makes me a little sad. I'm sure I'll still read it at some point though!

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  2. Bummer about Caraval. I've thought about reading it.

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  4. The puffin was easily the best character in little beach street bakery :)

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  5. The puffin was the best. I couldn’t Deal with the love BS in the second Beach Street so I didn’t finish it.

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  6. I could not read a book with bakery on the tittle, it would make me really hungry! but it sounds like a cute book.

    I am intrigued by An Enchantment of Ravens...

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  7. I really enjoyed The LIttle Beach Street Bakery too! There are two other books about the bakery that I want to read.

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  8. I love when I find a book I didn't know I had and it winds up surprising me with how good it is. That happened last year with Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore. Didn't remember requesting it or downloading it and it wound up being one of my favorite reads of the year.

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  9. I've also heard mostly great things about Caraval, but honestly it never really stood out to me. I could possibly see myself trying it out at some point, but we'll see. :)

    -Lauren
    www.shootingstarsmag.net

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  10. Ive wanted to read Caraval for awhile!

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  11. i remember liking the little bakery book but yeah the love story was just odd, so freaking odd. i was very unimpressed by caraval. i'll have to give that ravens book a go!

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  12. My relationship with romance books have been pretty hit or miss lately. I like everything you said about Little Bakery (especially the food) but a bad love story is going to drive me nuts. An Enchantment of Ravens sounds good though and adding it to my TBR. And I've also had holds come in that I have no recollection of placing either. :D

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  13. It's so disappointing when a book falls flat for you...I've only ever read one Colgan book and really liked it. Caraval was all over my recommendations for awhile too and I still haven't picked it up. Not sure if I will or not.

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  14. I agree with your review of Caraval. It was over hyped. Someone else commented that it was o.k. when reading but after finishing and reflecting it wasn't so great. Don't know if I will read the next book Legendary. Pam :)

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  15. I, too, loved the puffin. So much so that when I want to read the second book, I asked on Goodreads if the puffin dies in this book because I didn't want to read it if he did. I have the third Beach Street Bakery book on my TBR, we'll see if I get to it!

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  16. I haven't read Caraval or Little Beach Street Bakery yet. I did read Little Bookshop on the Corner and felt the same about the character development. Bummer. I would like to read Caraval eventually. I liked An Enchantment of Ravens, but wanted a little more from it. I liked the world building, the lore, and the characters, but I felt like in the middle the action got a little muddled. I also thought the romance was a little bit odd.. I dunno. I wanted to love it. I did quite love the first 2/3. I dunno! XO - Alexandra

    Simply Alexandra: My Favorite Things

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