Read Game Craft

I have already read and loved Emery Lord's other books and The Names They Gave Us was no different. It delicately balanced the lighthearted moments of a summer camp book with gut-punching, emotional moments. All of the characters had deep and carefully created backstories, inner lives, and motivations. That can be very difficult to balance when dealing with an ensemble novel like this one, but Lord handles it masterfully. When you have a larger number of characters, it can get to a point where the characters don't feel as fully fleshed out and are more like decorative pieces, but this is not the case in Names .  Some of my favorite parts of the story were the times when our main group of counselors would spend their evenings off and build a campfire. This was their time to unwind and vent about their days. I really enjoyed these parts because they served as wonderful and natural spaces for character development. They were also some of the funniest and most heartwarming sc

                                    Photo by  NeONBRAND  on  Unsplash In high school, I studied Creative Writing. This entailed writing and reading and talking about writing for three hours every day. After graduation, I purposefully took a break from writing. I still loved it, but I was so spent. I needed to give my brain room to breathe. That's part of why I'm not majoring in English or writing even though I love both subjects. I love psychology just as much and I wanted to learn new things. So for a while I didn't write anything for myself. I've never read as much as the year in like tenth grade where I read 108 books. Even after I graduated high school and had more time on my hands. I started working a lot and have never had that same time and I've also picked up new activities (gaming, knitting, watching things I never got to living in the woods) that take up time that could otherwise be spent reading. And I'm mostly okay with that.  I think I've l

When I first started this blog, my guidelines for the books I would read were that they would be by and about women. Hopefully, I would maximize the amount that the books I read would include and focus on characters who are also otherwise marginalized. Recently I've been thinking about how this limits me, but I'm still not really interested in writing about a bunch of straight, white guys. Luckily, Henry Montague (Monty) is only two of those things and Percy is only one. I've also been thinking about changing the name of my blog, but I have no idea what I would change it to. So if you have any ideas let me know. You can order it from Amazon  here . This book follows Henry Montague and his best friend Percy and Monty's younger sister Felicity as they embark on a Grand Tour of Europe. Along their way, they're supposed to drop Felicity off at finishing school in Marseilles. Their tour is turned on its head when Monty steals something he thinks is just a useless

Since my list of books I was looking forward to in the Fall was so popular, I thought I'd make a list of books that I'm looking forward to coming out this Spring. Most of these will be coming out in March and April and might give you some ideas for books to read over Spring Break.  Obsidio by Amife Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (Releasing March 13) Obsidio is the third installment in The Illuminae Files.  While you could mostly read the second installment before the first, it seems that the third is best read after the first two. This is not official, but is my opinion based on the synopsis.  Synopsis (May be spoilers for 1&2) Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza—but who knows what they’ll find seven months after the invasion? Mea

It's been a while since I've written a dedicated review post, so I feel like the fact that The Belles  has motivated me to write this already tells you how much I loved it. You should all go read it and go buy it now. I'd hoped to have a review up at its release date, but I'm in college and in midterms right now so things have been a bit crazy. Once I was able to dedicate some time to reading it though, I was able to read it in two or three sittings.  Synopsis: This is the official version and what you can find on Amazon, but I've shortened it because I think the full synopsis gives too much away and I'd recommend discovering it as you go along. Camellia Beauregard is a Belle. In the opulent world of Orleans, Belles are revered, for they control Beauty, and Beauty is a commodity coveted above all else. In Orleans, the people are born gray, they are born damned, and only with the help of a Belle and her talents can they transform and be made beautiful. B

I would've preferred to have written this post a earlier in the month instead of almost halfway through, but I also figured that reading stories by and about black people should be limited to just this month. So I'd rather present this month as an opportunity to read and learn some new things and to continue that beyond just this month. If you only read one book off of this list this month you'll have plenty to read later as you go through the rest of the year. I also wanted to make sure I was sharing books by black authors because I and other white people have said enough and I'd rather take this as a chance to point you to the voices that you should lend an ear to. These authors are all doing really amazing things in literature and the world as a whole. I haven't read all of these because this list also serves as a reading list for me to educate myself. Dear Martin by Nic Stone Justyce McAllister is top of his class and set for the Ivy League—but none o