Gen’s Book Nook

What a reading year it has been! I read over 240 books this year, and found a delightful amount of five star reads among this number. For this end of year post I’ll leave my 2025 pg13 and younger five star books for your enjoyment and or inspiration. :)  Mockingjay, Susanne Collins Long Lankin, Lindsey Barraclaugh Gallant V.E. Schwab Rise of the Empress duology, Julie C. Dao Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster, Jonathan Auxier Shadow and Bone (book 1), Leigh Bardugo This Savage Song, V.E. Schwab  Fire and Hemlock, Diana Wynne Jones Worlds of Ink and Shadow, Lena Coakley Bad Badger: A Love Story, Maryrose Wood  How to Train Your Dragon books (especially #8-12), Cressida Cowell The Book Jumper, Mechthilde Gläser Heartless, Marissa Mayer The Mirror Visitor Quartet, Christelle Dabos The Ickabog, JK Rowling Princess Academy, Shannon Hale Happy New Year!  And as always Happy Reading! -Gen

Your favorite literary reviewer is back! ;) And back with another V.E. Schwab review. The Dark Vault is a volume of two books: the Archived and the Unbound. These books follow Mackenzie, a girl who is part of a secret society called the Archive—a dimension of the world where the dead are kept on shelves, their bodies a History of their lives. Mackenzie is a keeper, a role she inherited from her Da (her grandfather). Mackenzie’s mission is to hunt Histories who wake up and return them to their shelves, keeping them from wreaking havoc in the realm of the living. Mackenzie’s life is full of secrets and lies from her part in the Archive and she is also navigating her own private loss. When she and her family move into a hotel-turned-apartment her life gets even harder and more complicated as more and more Histories start waking. What is going on in the Archive? And will Mackenzie get to the bottom of it with her life—and relationships—intact?  I rated both these books 5 out of 5 stars...

 I just finished the Mark of Cain, a companion novel/sequel to Long Lankin. I gave it a three out of five stars, it was okay but not nearly as good as Long Lankin. I liked the middle of it a lot but the plot felt convoluted and rushed at the end, and I was hoping for a longer happy ending. Overall the Mark of Cain missed the mark (I guess that’s a pun lol) for me.  Happy reading! Geneva 

 For this post I will be sharing not a book but the (in my humble view) greatest miniseries of all time. Over the Garden Wall is a show with ten ten-minute episodes chronicling the adventures of two lost brothers in a place called the Unknown. I honestly don’t have much to say about it except you should watch it. :) It is really weird, it’s funny and cozy, and a little spooky. It’s become an October favorite for me, I just introduced my mom to it this year and it’s been really fun to watch it together. You can split the episodes up but it also works great to watch them all at once. I’ve now seen this five times and I catch something new each time and love it just as well with each repeated viewing.  Stay tuned for my review of the Mark of Cain by Lindsay Barraclaugh (it’s another book in the Long Lankin world).  Happy reading! Geneva 

I'm in my second term of online classes, so my reviews have become fewer and farther between but I'm back for now! :) Do you like fairy tales? East Asian re-tellings of fairy tales? Fairy tale villain origin stories that don't make excuses for said villain but delve a little into the psyche and choices made along their journey into evil?        If you said yes to any of the above I think you'd love this duology. I love both of these books so much! The Rise of the Empress duology is an Evil Queen/Snow White re-telling.  Book one, Forest of a Thousand Lanterns tells the origin of the Empress (Evil Queen), Xifeng. The entire way through the book you're rooting for her to make the right choices but watching her sink lower and lower, as she becomes more willing to do more despicable things to achieve her ends. The world is rich and imaginative, very immersive. Despite the darkness of the plot, I found it fascinating and was on the edge of my seat waiting to see what ...

      I first came across this series while I was browsing at the library. On a top shelf there it was, the first book, A Winter’s Promise. This quartet was written in French originally and translated into English. It’s an excellent translation, and the books have a French feel. Almost from the first page I felt transported into a different world. Christelle Dabos is a master at creating immersive fantasy systems similar to Diana Wynne Jones’ — strange and whimsical, beautiful and dangerous.        Book one introduces us to Ophelia, our protagonist. She lives on an Ark—one of twenty-one different land masses all suspended in air—called Anima. Anima gets its name from being home to Animists, those who can put life into objects. Ophelia has reached marriageable age and her mother is desperate to marry her off, though Ophelia would rather spend all her time in the museum she runs. Ophelia has the gift of “reading”, the ability to sense an object’s past an...