Book Review: “The Ragged Edge of Night” by Olivia Hawker

Holy cow. That's all I could think when I finished this book. Holy. Cow. The ending, breathtaking, wonderful -- this book surpassed all of my expectations. And then I got to the afterword -- this book is based on a true story. While somethings were changed, the majority of things stayed the same. I'm not going to tell you …

First Impression Friday: “The Last Castle” by Denise Kiernan

I think this may be one of the only posts I'm able to remember to do every week. First Impression Friday was started by JW Martin @ Storeys of Stories, where you give a short preview of the book you're currently reading and how you think you'll end up rating it. This week, I'm working …

The Seven Deadly Sins Tag

Thanks to Thrice Read for this one! I'd been struggling with finding a book tag for this week (look at me, posting four days in a row!) and this one just fell into my lap yesterday. Here we go! GREED: What is The Most Expensive Book You Own? Whuff. Do textbooks count? I've got several textbooks …

Recipe Review: Gnocchi with Pomodoro Sauce

Original Recipe Here (Warning: you do have to scroll down a lot because it's one of those blogs with a ton of story before getting to the actual recipe, so I've just linked the recipe here and will be pasting the whole recipe right below this, with my annotations in red) Ingredients 1/4 cup DeLallo extra virgin olive …

Top 5 Cozy Reads

I can't believe it's the last Tuesday in September. This month has just flown by, not to mention this entire year. I remember thinking in January that it was going to take forever to get to summer, and then that it was going to take forever to get to fall, and yet here we are. …

Almost There!

I can't believe I'm writing this, but in exactly one month and five days, I'm going to be defending my thesis to my committee.  Everything in the past 2.5 years has led up to this moment, and I can't believe it's already so close. If you'd told me just a few years ago that I'd …

Top 5 Fantasy Books

Welcome back! This is the first time in a few weeks that I've gotten to actually put up my Top 5 Tuesday post (hosted, as always, by Shanah @ Bionic Book Worm) on a Tuesday! I've been backdating my last few posts, but this time I'm getting to join right back in! This week's topic …

First Impression Friday: “The Ragged Edge of Night” by Olivia Hawker

Welcome back to First Impression Friday, where I give my thoughts on a book I've just recently started reading. This was started by JW Martin at Storeys of Stories. This week's book is an Amazon First Kindle Book entitled The Ragged Edge of Night by Olivia Hawker. I picked it up for two reasons: (1) it …

The Problem with YA Fiction: Relationships

A few days ago I came across this post on Dreamy Reads, which details some of the problems with YA fiction. She mentions love triangles and everyone having a boyfriend/girlfriend by the end of a book/series, and getting treated like you're weird if you don't have one by a certain age. I, of course, added …

First Impression Friday: “Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World” by Haruki Murakami

Welcome back to First Impression Friday, started by JW Martin. This week I'm writing about my last thesis book, the last thing I'll ever be forced to read, Murakami's Hardboiled Wonderland. My professor recommended it to me on the basis that it deals with alternate worlds that are similar to our own. Since my novel does take …