Month: September 2022

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Book Tag | Meet the Bookstagrammer

Hi friends! I’ve posted some of these on my bookstagram, but never here on this blog! So let me (finally) introduce myself. My name is Mandy, I just turned 30, and I live in sunny California with my husband and toddler. My pronouns are she/they. I love reading, writing, and talking about books!

How long have you been book blogging?
I have been bookstagramming and book blogging since 2017 — the blog was launched as The Wanderer Literary Journal with some college friends contributing to review articles, but eventually I branched out on my own and became Roses And Reviews.

What was your first review?
My first review was of Wild by Cheryl Strayed.

What is your favorite book?
My all-time favorite book is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. She is easily my favorite author.

What are your favorite genres?
I love classics, historical romance, magical realism, fantasy, mythology, poetry, and YA

What is a fun-fact about you?
I can read fortunes—palm reading, tarot, and astrology are my love languages ❤ I also love gardening! Planting flowers and herbs and garden crops is something I look forward to every spring.

What do you like to binge watch?
I am obsessed with period dramas!! Regency and Tudor history are my favorites, and my dream vacation is a Jane Austen tour through England.

Where else do you post your reviews?
You can find me on GoodReads | StoryGraph | Bookstagram | TikTok | Amazon

#MeetTheBookstagrammer

I am tagging a few friends for this challenge, but I would love to see everyone’s answers so if you see this consider yourself tagged!

Louise Reads | myhoneyreads | sanjariti reads | paperbacktomes | Tessa Talks Books | Elaine Howlin | Spines in a Line | The Classics Club | Books With Michelle | BOOKSWITHNATASA

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True Beauty by Yaongyi

True Beauty Volume 1: available November 8, 2022

True Beauty is a romantic-comedy / slice-of-life / coming-of-age comic that has been published weekly on Webtoon since 2018. I started reading it early on; I got sucked into Jugyeong’s world, and have been following her ever since. When I saw NetGalley was offering an eARC of the first volume, I jumped at the chance to read and review it early!

Jugyeong Lim is just an average ugly girl, mistreated by her family and bullied at school. She thinks that if only she could be pretty, all her problems will be solved. So she teaches herself how to use makeup by binge-watching Youtube tutorials. She slowly masters the art of makeovers, and her dramatic transformation leads to her overwhelming popularity and fame, but what will it all cost her?

Living in a society where people are judged based on their physical appearance, Jugyeong navigates both high school (and the series follows her to college) life, while her self-esteem, romantic life and career are constantly in flux.

It has been a joy to watch Juyeongs character arc. She has come a long way since the beginning of the series, and she is an MC I love to root for.

For Jugyeong, ugliness was a barrier, locking her out. But prettiness can be a cage, too—I love this series because it explores beauty standards and the cost of beauty, how beauty creates a hunger for praise and approval, the pros and cons of social media, and so much more!

The artist Yaongyi is one of my favorite comic artists right now. Her digital art style is not only beautiful but also very unique. She blends semi-realistic drawings with mild, photograph-like coloring, creating a stunning and recognizable style.

True Beauty Volume One will be available November 8, 2022. Remember, Pre-Orders Matter!

New episodes are uploaded to Webtoon every Wednesday.

True Beauty also was adapted into a K-Drama, which you can watch on Rakuten VIKI.

Thank you to NetGalley for offering me an early eARC of this title. All opinions are my own.

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BANNED BOOKS WEEK SEPT 18-24

I have been following the Book Ban Battlegrounds covered by The American Library Association and the things I am seeing every week are SHOCKING.

Book challenges and book bans are increasing in libraries and schools all across the country. A majority of the books that have been targeted nationwide focus on sexual orientation, gender identity, race, and racicism–which are exactly the books that we need to be reading.

In a time of intense political polarization, library staff in every state are facing an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. Most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ persons.

“This is a dangerous time for readers and the public servants who provide access to reading materials. Readers, particularly students, are losing access to critical information, and librarians and teachers are under attack for doing their jobs.”

– Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom

Book bans harm communities. Students cannot access critical information to help them understand themselves and the world around them. Parents lose the opportunity to engage in teachable moments with their kids. And communities lose the opportunity to learn and build mutual understanding.

Take a stand. Read banned books. Talk about banned books.

Here are five steps you can take now to protect the freedom to read.

1. Follow news and social media in your community and state to keep apprised of organizations working to censor library or school materials.

2. Show up for library workers at school or library board meetings and speak as a library advocate and community stakeholder who supports a parent’s right to restrict reading materials for their own child but not for all

3. Help provide a safety net for library professionals as they defend intellectual freedom in their communities by giving to the LeRoy C. Merritt Humanitarian Fund.

4. Educate friends, neighbors, and family members about censorship and how it harms communities. Share information from Banned Books Week 2021.

5. Join the Unite Against Book Bans movement to learn what you can do to defend the freedom to read in your community.

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The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Set in the Mexican Yucatán, this is a story about a mad scientist, his human-hybrid creations, and his insidious intentions. It is also an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, but with a fresh feminist perspective.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Historical Fiction | Science Fiction | Horror

Doctor Moreau is a man of science and a purported man of God. Ironically, and hypocritically, though, he uses scientific experiments to play god over his creations, animal-human hybrids who he and his patron hope to use for slave labor. When the doctors daughter Carlotta starts asking questions about the world she has always known, she discovers a tangled web of secrets and lies—and must decide which side she wants to be on.

“Her whole life had been a pretty fiction, a story the doctor had spun.”

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau

In SMG style, this story is oozing with gothic language, vintage fashion, complex characters, fast-paced action, and sizzling romance.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of my auto-buy authors because everything she writes is golden. She uses beautiful images and paints stunning magical settings just with a few words. I love her style, and The Daughter of Dr. Moreau is as good as Moreno-Garcia’s previous works. I especially loved Mexican Gothic, and Gods of Jade and Shadow. This is yet another great and amazing tale from one of the greatest storytellers of our Generation.

Thank you to Netgalley for gifting me an eARC of this title. All opinions are my own.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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Marple: 12 New Mysteries

For the first time in 45 years, Agatha Christie’s beloved character Miss Marple returns to the page for a globe-trotting tour of crime and detection. This wonderful collection is written by all of the newest greats: Naomi Alderman, Leigh Bardugo, Alyssa Cole, Lucy Foley, Elly Griffiths, Natalie Haynes, Jean Kwok, Val McDermid, Karen M. McManus, Dreda Say Mitchell, Kate Mosse, and Ruth Ware join Agatha Christie to create a new compendium of Miss Marple’s adventures.

Agatha Christie is quite literally the best-selling novelist of all time (outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare). She is best known for her 66 detective novels and 14 short story collections, 19 of which feature Miss Jane Marple as the MC. She is one of Christie’s best-known characters. Because she has such a strong personality and style, it is difficult to replicate her character in a way that stays true to Agatha Christie.

Unfortunately for me, I did not love it as a collection. I really wanted to like it. I tried for a few weeks to read this and set it aside each time, hoping it would get better, and it never did. I really wanted to DNF it, but because I like some of the authors I decided to push through, and luckily libro.fm came through with a September ALC, so I was able to finish it on audio. I think that the authors had a hard time duplicating her character at best, and disrespectfully bungled her character at worst. Though there were a couple of standout stories that I did enjoy: Jean Kwok’s The Jade Emperess, Naomi Alderman’s The Open Mind, and Natalie Haynes’ The Unravelling were among my favorites.

Because each author has their own idea of Miss Marple, IMO, they did not align with the real Miss Marple, or with Agatha Christies writing. There was too much variety for me to believe it was the same character, and each author’s creative liberties clashed too much to be a cohesive collection. The essence of Miss Marple herself became muddled, as if there were too many cooks in the kitchen. This is the limitation with short story collections, and sadly it just wasn’t for me.

While some of the stories may have been “fine”, all this collection of stories did was prove that Miss Marple could only be written by Agatha Christie.

Thank you to William Morrow – HarperCollins for sending me an Advance Reading Copy of this title. All opinions are my own.

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Marionette by Antonia Rachel Ward

Marionette by Antonia Rachel Ward is an erotic horror novella inspired by traditional folk tales and set in fin de siècle Paris.

Fleeing a life of poverty and prostitution, exotic dancer Cece Dulac agrees to play assistant for an erotic séance hosted by mesmerist Monsieur Rossignol. As the séance plunges into perversion, Cece falls prey to Rossignol’s hypnotic power and becomes possessed by a malevolent spirit and a cursed gemstone.

George Dashwood, an aspiring artist, witnesses the séance and fears for Cece. He seeks her out and she seduces him, but she is no longer herself. The spirit controlling her forces her to commit increasingly depraved acts. When the spirit’s desire for revenge escalates to murder, George and Cece must find a way to break Rossignol’s spell before Cece’s soul is condemned forever.

I found this book devilish, depraved, and delicious.

Thank you to Brigids Gate Press for sending me an Advance Reading Copy of this title. All opinions are my own.

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