Book Review: Blackbird Fly

After a lot of disappointing reads, Blackbird Fly was a breath of fresh air. It managed to deliver what it meant to deliver. It was fast-paced, straightforward, a little bit angsty, awkward in the most positive way, heartwarming and relatable. Apple Yengko, our protagonist, is a Filipina who migrated to the U.S.A with her mother after her father’s death. Even though she has spent most of her life living in the US, Apple still finds herself some sort of an outsider among her American friends and acquaintances. Throw in her mother who has piously followed the Filipino practices despite the…

Book Review: The Story Spinner

Objectively speaking, there’s no way that Storyspinner could have earned a four star rating from me.  The grounding still needs work, the world building insufficient, some of the characters are underdeveloped and the plot simplistic. But Becky Wallace’s storytelling hit all the right spots for me so I wasn’t able to stop myself from being generous.  I didn’t regret giving away my four stars. Storyspinner immediately hooked me from beginning to end.  I couldn’t remember a single moment that I got bored or getting annoyed about this or that.  2015 made for a lot of disappointing reads that reading Storyspinner…

Book Review: The Eternity Key

The Eternity Key was a disappointment compared to its predecessor, Into The Dark, which actually managed to be one of my best reads in 2013. I was surprised that The Eternity Key bored me to no end. Objectively, it’s not a bad book.  But then, how do you define a book that spent most of its time searching nonsensically for the Key of Hades and the compass? Add the fact that I had to wade through a lot of unnecessary internal monologue of our main characters that it was exhausting. And then, out of the blue, Tobin, one of the…

Book Review: A Wicked Thing

It’s such a wicked thing that I spent most of my time cursing this book instead of appreciating it.  A Wicked Thing is not exactly a retelling of Sleeping Beauty but more of a sequel telling us the ‘what-could-have-been’ after Princess Aurora woke up and decided that the Prince is not hot enough to be her true love. With A Wicked Thing, Thomas proved that there are really many ways on how to spin a yarn and what she did with this well-worn tale is definitely inventive and refreshing. I liked that the author didn’t the follow the usual fairy…