Weekly Mews: Welcome February (January Wrap Up and February's TBR List Poll--Please Vote!)

I am linking up to the Sunday Post hosted by Kim of Caffeinated Book Reviewer and The Sunday Salon (TSS) hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz  where participants recap our week, talk about what we are reading, share any new books that have come our way, and whatever else we want to talk about. I am also linking It's Monday! What Are you Reading? hosted by Kathryn of Book Date where readers talk about what they have been, are and will be reading.

As part of my monthly wrap up, I am linking to Nicole of Feed Your Addiction's Monthly Wrap-Up Post.

Happy February! 

It was quite the week. It was my week to work from the office.  I was reminded of the early pandemic days when I was often the only one in the office, now that most of the other staff are able to work from home full-time temporarily. It certainly wasn't as slow as it was then though. It's always busy these days, and then add in the fact that so many staff are calling out. Friday was an especially rough day--more so emotionally exhausting than anything else. It was the kind of day when I come home and hug my daughter tighter and longer.

Earlier in the week, I accompanied my mom to the hospital for a couple of medical procedures, each on a different day.  At the first appointment, the doctor identified the problem, and the second was with a specialist. Unfortunately the specialist wasn't able to resolve the issue either and so she will be talking to the surgeon next week to see what the next steps might be. I felt really bad for my mom, having to fast for so long, not to mention going under deep sedation twice, so close together. She is doing well though. We are both anxious to hear what the surgeon says.

On a happier note, the cast lists came out for the summer shows my daughter auditioned for. She has two parts in the ballet, Cinderella, and three in the musical, Mary Poppins (including her first solo!). She is looking forward to learning her parts. Rehearsals begin this coming weekend. 

My favorite coworker keeping an eye on me as I work.

Sleeping kitty

Last Read

This past week I read Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano and Hooky by Míriam Bonastre Tur. My daughter warned me Hooky would end on a cliffhanger and, sure enough, it did. I can only hope we do not have long to wait for the next installment. The second Finlay Donovan book was just as good as the first. It was such a fun read! 

Reading Now

I am nearly finished reading Marion Lane and the Deadly Rose (#2) by T.A. Willberg. The situation is dire at Miss Brickett's Investigations & Inquires but I have high hopes Marion and her friends will find a way to save the day in the end. I am still on schedule with my Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas reading. 

What are you reading now? 

Up Next

It is that time again when you help me choose the next book I will read! I am feeling a romantic reading mood coming on and these three titles jumped off my TBR shelves at me. Which one do you think I should read next?

Well Played (Well Met #2) by Jen DeLuca

Stacey is jolted when her friends Simon and Emily get engaged. She knew she was putting her life on hold when she stayed in Willow Creek to care for her sick mother, but it's been years now, and even though Stacey loves spending her summers pouring drinks and flirting with patrons at the local Renaissance Faire, she wants more out of life. Stacey vows to have her life figured out by the time her friends get hitched at Faire next summer. Maybe she'll even find The One.

When Stacey imagined "The One," it never occurred to her that her summertime Faire fling, Dex MacLean, might fit the bill. While Dex is easy on the eyes onstage with his band The Dueling Kilts, Stacey has never felt an emotional connection with him. So when she receives a tender email from the typically monosyllabic hunk, she's not sure what to make of it.

Faire returns to Willow Creek, and Stacey comes face-to-face with the man with whom she’s exchanged hundreds of online messages over the past nine months. To Stacey's shock, it isn't Dex—she's been falling in love with a man she barely knows.

Another laugh-out-loud romantic comedy featuring kilted musicians, Renaissance Faire tavern wenches, and an unlikely love story. [Goodreads Summary]

Recipe for Persuasion (The Rajes #2) by Sonali Dev

From the author of Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors comes another , clever, deeply layered, and heartwarming romantic comedy that follows in the Jane Austen tradition—this time, with a twist on Persuasion.

Chef Ashna Raje desperately needs a new strategy. How else can she save her beloved restaurant and prove to her estranged, overachieving mother that she isn’t a complete screw up? When she’s asked to join the cast of Cooking with the Stars, the latest hit reality show teaming chefs with celebrities, it seems like just the leap of faith she needs to put her restaurant back on the map. She’s a chef, what’s the worst that could happen?

Rico Silva, that’s what.

Being paired with a celebrity who was her first love, the man who ghosted her at the worst possible time in her life, only proves what Ashna has always believed: leaps of faith are a recipe for disaster.

FIFA winning soccer star Rico Silva isn't too happy to be paired up with Ashna either. Losing Ashna years ago almost destroyed him. The only silver lining to this bizarre situation is that he can finally prove to Ashna that he's definitely over her.

But when their catastrophic first meeting goes viral, social media becomes obsessed with their chemistry. The competition on the show is fierce…and so is the simmering desire between Ashna and Rico. Every minute they spend together rekindles feelings that pull them toward their disastrous past. Will letting go again be another recipe for heartbreak—or a recipe for persuasion…?

In Recipe for Persuasion, Sonali Dev once again takes readers on an unforgettable adventure in this fresh, fun, and enchanting romantic comedy. [Goodreads Summary]

Dial A for Aunties (Aunties #1) by Jesse Q. Sutanto

What happens when you mix 1 (accidental) murder with 2 thousand wedding guests, and then toss in a possible curse on 3 generations of an immigrant Chinese-Indonesian family?

You get 4 meddling Asian aunties coming to the rescue!

When Meddelin Chan ends up accidentally killing her blind date, her meddlesome mother calls for her even more meddlesome aunties to help get rid of the body. Unfortunately, a dead body proves to be a lot more challenging to dispose of than one might anticipate, especially when it is inadvertently shipped in a cake cooler to the over-the-top billionaire wedding Meddy, her Ma, and aunties are working at an island resort on the California coastline. It's the biggest job yet for the family wedding business—"Don't leave your big day to chance, leave it to the Chans!"—and nothing, not even an unsavory corpse, will get in the way of her auntie's perfect buttercream flowers.

But things go from inconvenient to downright torturous when Meddy's great college love—and biggest heartbreak—makes a surprise appearance amid the wedding chaos. Is it possible to escape murder charges, charm her ex back into her life, and pull off a stunning wedding all in one weekend? [Goodreads Summary]

 

Thank you for voting! What will you be reading next?

My TBR List is hosted by the awesome Michelle at Because Reading. It’s a fun way to choose a book from your TBR pile to read. The 1st Saturday of every month, I will list 3 books I am considering reading and let you vote for my next read during that month. My review will follow (unfortunately, not likely in the same month, but eventually--that's all I can promise). 

What I Have Been Watching

My husband and I watched the final episode of the first season of Jessica Jones. Kilgrave is the villain of nightmares. It had been long enough since I had last watched the show that I only had vague impressions of what was coming. It's just as dark as I remember. Luke Cage makes his first appearance during the season and I clapped when Rosario Temple's character, Claire Temple shows up in the season finale. She's one of my favorite Marvel characters from the television shows. I was also happy to see the actress appear in The Book of Boba Fett, which my husband and I have both been keeping up with. I had not expected to see so much of the Mandalorian in the Boba Fett series, but I am not disappointed. I cannot wait to see how this first season of the show wraps up. 

Amazon Prime dropped Chuck just after I started season three and my husband surprised me by subscribing to HBO/Max for the month so I could continue my re-watch of the show since it's now airing there. Okay, so maybe that is not the only reason he signed up for it . . . It worked out well though, because guess what else I found on HBO/Max? I have finally been able to introduce my daughter to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. She's loving it and so am I. 

Have you watched anything interesting lately?

January Monthly Wrap Up

Here is what I finished reading in January:

• The Witch Haven by Sasha Peyton Smith 
• White Witch, Black Curse (The Hollows #7) by Kim Harrison
• Circe by Madeline Miller
• The Maid by Nita Prose
• Dressed for Freedom: The Fashionable Politics of American Feminism by Einav Rabinovitch-Fox
• The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

I kicked off January with Sheila's (of Book Journey) First Book of the Year, reading The Witch Haven, a Christmas gift from my daughter, which I enjoyed. I can never resist a novel involving witches! I also finished reading two carryover books I had started in December. January's TBR Poll winner Circe was amazing. I would have named that as my favorite book of the month, but then I read The Girl with the Louding Voice. All in all, it was a very good reading month with no disappointments.

I managed to get a few of my backlog reviews published this past month and posted fairly regularly. Hopefully I will be able to keep that up this month. 

This Past January In Reading Mews:

• Weekly Mews: Happy New Year! (First Book of the Year / December Wrap Up)
• Top Ten Tuesday: My Top Ten Most Anticipated Books Releasing In the First Half of 2022
• Where Is Your Bookmark: The Witch Haven & Connect 5: Series Reading
• Weekly Mews: A Hot Cocoa Kind of Week
• Top Ten Tuesday: Most Recent Additions to My TBR
• Bookish Mewsings: The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba by Chanel Cleeton & The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
• Where Is Your Bookmark: An Exiled Goddess & Earthquakes
• Weekly Mews: A Bookstore Run, Leg Cuddles & Good Books
• Top Ten Tuesday 2021 Releases I Was Excited to Read But Didn’t Get To
• Bookish Mewsings: Borrow a Bookshop Holiday / The Charm Offensive / Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors
• Where Is Your Bookmark: Snuggling Under a Blanket with a Mystery
• Weekly Mews: High Winds, Good Books, and More Hot Cocoa
• Top Ten Tuesday: New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2021
• Bookish Mewsings: Witches Get Stitches / The Ex Hex / Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop
• Where Is Your Bookmark: My Current Read & Just in Time for Cinderella
• Weekly Mews: Cookie Time & Six Degrees of Separation (From No One is Talking About This to Becoming)

In case you missed it - in this past week's Reading Mews: 

• Top Ten Tuesday: My Top Ten Books Read with Character Names In the Titles
• Where Is Your Bookmark: Bookish Mewsings on Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano (& Connect 5: Groundhog Day)

How did your January shape up? Do you have a favorite among the books you read?

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© 2022, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Where Is Your Bookmark: Bookish Mewsings on Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead by Elle Cosimano (& Connect 5: Groundhog Day)

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme where readers share the first sentence of the book they are reading, hosted by the amazing Gillion Dumas of Rose City Reader. Friday 56 is a weekly meme in which readers share a random sentence or two from page 56 or 56% of the book they are reading, hosted by the wonderful Freda of Freda's Voice.

Book Beginning: 

Christopher was dead. [opening of  Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead]

Friday 56: 

"Everything okay?"

"Fine." I couldn't make my smile hold a convincing shape. There was a dead guy in my washing machine (or, at least, part of one, which might actually be worse," Someone was trying to murder my ex, there as a suntanned girl in Julian's kitchen, his social media accounts were set to private, and he wanted to have a talk. [excerpt from 56% of Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead]

My Bookish Thoughts: 

Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead (#2) by Elle Cosimano  

(Minotaur Books, 2022; Mystery/Crime Fiction; 360 pgs)

Source: NetGalley (all opinions are my own)

I loved the first novel in the series, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It, finding it funny and quite the page turner. Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead is no different. 

In this second installment, Finlay, as usual, has a lot on her plate as a divorced mother of two. Her agent is pressuring her to start on that next novel. She cannot help but worry about her business partner and friend, Vero, who is keeping secrets. Not to mention Finlay is dealing with relationship issue--figuring out what kind of relationship she has with her lawyer lover and what about that sexy cop who keeps showing up in her life? Then there is Finlay's biggest problem of all--finding out who put a hit out on her ex-husband, not to mention trying to keep him alive. He may be a rotten guy, but he is the father of her children. 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead. It offers a peek into the dark world of women's online chatrooms, the importance of cybersecurity, more of the Russian mob, and how to overcome writer's block. Okay, so maybe not that last point. It can be over the top, but it works. It was half the fun wondering how Finlay would get herself out of the situations she put herself in because it seemed pretty impossible to me. She keeps getting in deeper no matter what her intentions are though. She and Vero are both very capable and resourceful (and it helps to have connected friends). I am really curious to know what exactly Vero is hiding though--hopefully we will find out in the next book (it's not so much a cliffhanger, but more of a loose thread). 

One of the reasons I enjoy this series so much is the humor. It is also action packed, balanced out by a bit of romance. I admit I am leery of love triangles and am still not sure how I feel about the one Finlay finds herself in with Julian and Nick. I like both guys, to be honest, although I think Nick might be the better choice for her. 

If you enjoy humorous mysteries and an entertaining escape, this is a great series to try out. 

Does this sound like something you would want to read? If you have read it, what did you think?

Connect Five Friday is a weekly meme where readers share a list of five books, 

read or unread, or bookish things, that share a common theme. 

Hosted by the  Kathryn of of Book Date.

Although Groundhog Day officially got its start on February 2, 1887, at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, as a publicity stunt involving a groundhog named Phil who can predict whether winter will linger or spring will come early, a tradition still very much alive today (Phil's success rate averages about 50/50), it was really the 1993 film starring Bill Murray, Groundhog Day, which was set in and around the official Groundhog celebration, that gave the term "groundhog day" a different meaning--the repetition of a day over and over (although the trope itself is probably much older than that).

It is that second meaning that got me thinking of books that use a variation of the groundhog effect as a plot device.  My Connect 5 list today is made up of such books, one of which I have read (In a Holidaze) and the others, which are books I am looking forward to reading.

In a Holidaze by Christina Lauren ~ The only one on the list I have read (I really enjoyed it!)

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…but not for Maelyn Jones. She’s living with her parents, hates her going-nowhere job, and has just made a romantic error of epic proportions.

But perhaps worst of all, this is the last Christmas Mae will be at her favorite place in the world—the snowy Utah cabin where she and her family have spent every holiday since she was born, along with two other beloved families. Mentally melting down as she drives away from the cabin for the final time, Mae throws out what she thinks is a simple plea to the universe: Please. Show me what will make me happy.

The next thing she knows, tires screech and metal collides, everything goes black. But when Mae gasps awake…she’s on an airplane bound for Utah, where she begins the same holiday all over again. With one hilarious disaster after another sending her back to the plane, Mae must figure out how to break free of the strange time loop—and finally get her true love under the mistletoe.

Jam-packed with yuletide cheer, an unforgettable cast of characters, and Christina Lauren’s trademark hijinks, this swoon-worthy romantic read will make you believe in the power of wishes and the magic of the holidays. [Goodreads Summary]

Paris on Repeat (Wish and Wander #1) by Amy Bearce

GROUNDHOG DAY gets a hilarious French twist in this delightful upper middle grade novel about first crushes and friendship when an eighth-grade class trip to Paris goes horribly wrong and the worst day of one girl’s life keeps happening over and over.

Fourteen-year-old Eve Hollis is ready to push through her fears and finally let her crush know how she feels. And what better place to tell him than on top of the Eiffel Tower in the City of Love? But things don’t go as planned, and Eve is sure she’s had the worst day of her life— until she wakes up the next morning to realize the whole disaster of a day is happening again. She’s trapped in a time loop.

Desperate to make it stop, Eve will have to take some big risks and learn from her mistakes or she’s destined to live the most awkwardly painful day of her life over and over again, forever. [Goodreads Summary]

Life After Life (Todd Family #1) by Kate Atkinson

What if you could live again and again, until you got it right?

On a cold and snowy night in 1910, Ursula Todd is born to an English banker and his wife. She dies before she can draw her first breath. On that same cold and snowy night, Ursula Todd is born, lets out a lusty wail, and embarks upon a life that will be, to say the least, unusual. For as she grows, she also dies, repeatedly, in a variety of ways, while the young century marches on towards its second cataclysmic world war.

Does Ursula's apparently infinite number of lives give her the power to save the world from its inevitable destiny? And if she can - will she? [Goodreads Summary]

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

Aiden Bishop knows the rules. Evelyn Hardcastle will die every day until he can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest at Blackheath Manor. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others. With a locked room mystery that Agatha Christie would envy, Stuart Turton unfurls a breakneck novel of intrigue and suspense.

For fans of Claire North, and Kate Atkinson, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a breathlessly addictive mystery that follows one man's race against time to find a killer, with an astonishing time-turning twist that means nothing and no one are quite what they seem. [Goodreads Summary]

End of the World House by Adrienne Celt

Groundhog Day meets Ling Ma’s Severance in End of the World House, a thought-provoking comedic novel about two young women trying to save their friendship as the world collapses around them.

Bertie and Kate have been best friends since high school. Bertie is a semi-failed cartoonist, working for a prominent Silicon Valley tech firm. Her job depresses her, but not as much as the fact that Kate has recently decided to move from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

When Bertie’s attempts to make Kate stay fail, she suggests the next-best thing: a trip to Paris that will hopefully distract the duo from their upcoming separation. The vacation is also a sort of last hurrah, coming during a ceasefire in a series of escalating world conflicts.

One night in Paris, they meet a strange man in a bar who offers them a private tour of the Louvre. The women find themselves alone in the museum, where nothing is quite as it seems. Caught up in a day that keeps repeating itself, Bertie and Kate are eventually separated, and Bertie is faced with a mystery that threatens to derail everything. In order to make her way back to Kate, Bertie has to figure out how much control she has over her future—and her past—and how to survive an apocalypse when the world keeps refusing to end. [Goodreads Summary]

Have you read any books that use the groundhog effect? Would you recommend them?

 I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Be sure and tell me what you are reading and are up to!

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© 2022 Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Top Ten Tuesday: My Top Ten Books Read with Character Names In the Titles

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely Jana at The Artsy Reader Girl.

This week's Top Ten Tuesday topic is the Books with Character Names In the Titles (Submitted by BookLoversBlog and Lucy @ Bookworm Blogger). I wanted to feature books I have read, and evidently I have a lot of books with character names in the title. Looking over my five paw reviews of books with memorable characters, I was able to narrow it down to these ten books:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

LaRose by Louise Erdrich

Emma by Jane Austen

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Dear Emmie Blue by Lia Louis

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

What are some of your favorite books that have a character's name in the title? 

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© 2022, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Weekly Mews: Cookie Time & Six Degrees of Separation (From No One is Talking About This to Becoming)

I am linking up to the Sunday Post hosted by Kim of Caffeinated Book Reviewer and The Sunday Salon (TSS) hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz  where participants recap our week, talk about what we are reading, share any new books that have come our way, and whatever else we want to talk about. I am also linking It's Monday! What Are you Reading? hosted by Kathryn of Book Date where readers talk about what they have been, are and will be reading.

I am linking up to Stacking the Shelves hosted by Team Tynga's Reviews and Marlene of Reading Reality a meme in which participants share what new books came their way recently. 

Can you believe it is the last weekend of January? It seemed to both drag and fly by at varying points of the month. The wind went away the beginning of the week and came back full force toward the end of the week, although all is calm out there this morning. The temperatures are starting to get warmer. I am very ready for spring.

As I write this, I am shaking off the last of the sleepy dust and Mouse is getting ready for a full day of dance. Anjin is tucked in bed getting some last minute zzz's before his day starts.  Mouse had a virtual Girl Scout meeting this past week followed by a parent meeting to talk about the kick off of cookie season--which means soon my house will be full of boxes of cookies to sell. 

I realize it is not February yet, but I am jumping in a weekend early to take part in February's Six Degrees of Separation since next weekend I will be posting my January wrap up and February TBR poll where you help me decide what I will read next. 

February's starting point is No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, a novel I know very little about (I think it focuses on the impact of social media on a woman's life and how that frames loss and grief suffered in her offline life), and so I am focusing on the title itself. 

It's actually a good jumping off point for a variety of topics, but the book that first came to my mind was Me & Emma by Elizabeth Flock. I don't really want to go into too much about this book only to say it deals with the issues of child abuse. One of those dirty family secrets hardly anyone wants to talk about or, in some cases, acknowledge. 

I go from there to Laura Lippman's mystery novel, Hush Hush, which I chose solely because of the title and not the subject matter. Because, going back to Me & Emma, the victims are often told to keep quiet about what is happening and not talk about. 

Secrets long kept have a way of coming out--and often need to. Which brings to mind Shout by Laurie Anderson Halse, a memoir in verse I read the end of last year. A survivor of sexual assault, the author learned to speak up for herself and wanted to share her story so others will know they are not alone and give them hope. 

I am currently reading The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré about a young Nigerian woman, girl really, who faces what many would see as insurmountable obstacles, including child marriage and cruelty and abuse, and yet she continues to work toward making her dreams come true. 

Adunni in The Girl with a Louding Voice longs for an education and to become a teacher, which brings me to the next book in the chain, Tara Westover's Educated. Tara mostly had to educate herself, raised by survivalist parents who feared the government and were preparing for the end of the world. She would eventually go onto college and earn her doctorate. 

Going back to choosing a book more so because of its title, Michelle Obama's Becoming popped up in my mind. Although, some of the themes from this one do carry over from one book to the other. Learning, growing, becoming. Whether facing trauma, hardships, grief, or discrimination, the fictional and real life girls/women in these books come into their own, each through their own journeys, becoming who they are today.

And there you have it: from No One is Talking About This to Becoming. Where would your chain go?

**Six Degrees of Separation is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate of Books Are My Favourite and Best in the host chooses a book and participants take it from there: creating a chain of books, each connected to the one before. Seeing where we end up is half the fun!**

This Week In Reading Mews

New to the Shelves:

My husband surprised me with a couple of manga books from my wish list this week:

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas by Yoru Sumino, illustrated by Izumi Kirihara

Spy x Family, Vol. 1 by by Tatsuya Endo, translated by Casey Loe

Currently Reading: 

• The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré 
• Hooky by Míriam Bonastre Tur
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Blog Posts:

• Weekly Mews: High Winds, Good Books, and More Hot Cocoa
• Top Ten Tuesday: New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2021
• Bookish Mewsings: Witches Get Stitches / The Ex Hex / Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop
• Where Is Your Bookmark: My Current Read & Just in Time for Cinderella

Tell me what you have been up to! What are you reading, listening to and watching? What new books did you add to your bookshelf? How was your week?

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© 2022, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.

Where Is Your Bookmark: My Current Read & Just in Time for Cinderella

A weekly meme where readers share the first sentence of the book they are reading and say what they think. Hosted by the amazing Gillion Dumas of Rose City Reader.

This morning, Papa call me inside the parlor. [opening of The Girl with the Louding Voice]

A weekly meme in which readers share a random sentence or two from page 56 or 56% of the book they are reading. Hosted by the wonderful Freda of Freda's Voice.

Don't cry, Adunni, I warn myself, don't you never, ever cry for any nonsense foolish man like Morufu. [pg 56 of The Girl with the Louding Voice]

At the moment I am reading The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré. The opening does not give much away but I was immediately curious about what her father wanted to tell her--suspecting it would set the stage for events to come. By page 56, my heart hurt for Adunni. I had already felt a range of emotions from anger to frustration to sadness by then. All of which I imagine Adunni felt too. 

The unforgettable, inspiring story of a teenage girl growing up in a rural Nigerian village who longs to get an education so that she can find her “louding voice” and speak up for herself, The Girl with the Louding Voice is a simultaneously heartbreaking and triumphant tale about the power of fighting for your dreams.

Despite the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in her path, Adunni never loses sight of her goal of escaping the life of poverty she was born into so that she can build the future she chooses for herself - and help other girls like her do the same.

Her spirited determination to find joy and hope in even the most difficult circumstances imaginable will “break your heart and then put it back together again” (Jenna Bush Hager on The Today Show) even as Adunni shows us how one courageous young girl can inspire us all to reach for our dreams...and maybe even change the world. [Goodreads Summary]

Does this sound like something you would like to read? What are you reading right now?

Connect Five Friday is a weekly meme where readers share a list of five books, 

read or unread, or bookish things, that share a common theme. 

Hosted by the  Kathryn of of Book Date.

This weekend is auditions for the Cinderella ballet my daughter's studio will be performing this summer. What better way to kick off the weekend than with Cinderella re-tellings?! Here are five I have read in the past ten years--all of which I enjoyed: 

The screw through Cinder's ankle had rusted, the engraved cross marks worn to a mangled circle. ~ Opening of Cinder

Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer ~ A science fiction retelling with a twist - humans, androids, a prince and a cyborg mechanic, a deadly plague and the threat of a hostile takeover. 

Aisling's mother died at midsummer. ~ Opening of Ash

Ash (#1) by Malinda Lo ~ A young women grieving the loss of her father and wishing to escape her cruel stepmother is tempted by the promises of a dark and dangerous fairy, all the while falling for the King's Huntress.

I have a magic mirror in my basement and I'm going to use it. ~ Opening of If the Shoe Fits

If the Shoe Fits (Whatever After #2) by Sarah Mlynowski ~ A magic mirror transports two siblings into the Cinderella fairytale where they must set the story right before being able to return home. This Cinderella must prove she is no damsel in distress before her fairy godmother will help her. 

Once upon a time, humans lived in peace across the land of Varis. ~ Opening of The Black Lily 

The Black Lily (Tales of the Black Lily) by Juliette Cross ~ In this dark romantic tale, our heroine sets out to assassinate the prince the night of the ball. It is humans against vampires--can they find common ground? 

Here is my dirty little secret: as a journalist I have spent nearly two decades writing about girls, thinking about girls, talking about how girls should be raised. ~ Opening of Cinderella Ate My Daughter

Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the New Girlie Girl Culture by Peggy Orenstein ~ A look at how parents can maneuver in a culture of perpetuated gender stereotypes and the media. [Okay. So this one really doesn't count as a Cinderella retelling, but it has Cinderella in the title. That has to count for something, right? Yeah, I didn't think so either. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of another Cinderella re-telling I have read (I do have a list of ones I want to read though!).]

Have you read any of these? What Cinderella retellings would you recommend? 

 I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Be sure and tell me what you are reading and are up to!

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