literarystrawberry's reviews
1206 reviews

Queen Bee by Amalie Howard

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Did not finish book. Stopped at 8%.
I was willing to overlook the opening with the cliche "lacing up the corset so tight you can barely breathe" (which to my understanding is a tired misconception and /not/ how corsets were actually worn historically, but hey, this book isn't claiming to be historically accurate), and the main character looking in a mirror to describe herself (also cliche, but hey, we've all been there, sometimes you just need to get that description out to the reader, I'll allow it). 

In the second chapter I started to question if I would have the patience for the main character's "I'm not like /other/ historical girls!" attitude (can you believe, she can't /stand/ needlepoint? And you're not going to believe this, but she has /no/ interest in shopping for ribbons, and thinks the whole thing is silly and pointless! How unique!). 

And then this just made me go "What?!" out loud as I was driving (any formatting errors are mine, since I'm transcribing from the audiobook): 

"'Florence, I love your new dress!' I heard Poppy squeal to the shopkeeper's daughter, who wore a yellow muslin with so many flounces it was a wonder she could fit through the doorway. I found an unobtrusive corner near her handkerchiefs and stared hard at Florence, trying not to giggle. In truth, she looked like a giant buttercream iced teacake.

'I agree.' An amused reply came from behind me. 'So much buttercream can't be good for anyone.'

Oh, good gracious. Had I said my thought out loud? 

'You did,' the voice said. 'I heard that too, if you're wondering.'"

I know this isn't the first book to do the whole "inner narration but oops I guess I accidentally said it out loud without realizing!" thing, but it kills my suspension of disbelief so bad, has anyone ever actually done this? Especially twice in a row??

The final straw for me came a little later in the scene: 

"Poppy [supposedly her best friend at this point in the story btw] was squealing about Florence's matching ankle boots now in a voice that could break glass. Heavens, could anything be more nauseating?

A low chortle made me blink. 'You have a bad habit of speaking your thoughts.'"

And that's when I realized that while I might be able to get past some cliches and silly tropes for the sake of a fun story, this main character was going to genuinely irritate me, and I didn't actually want to listen to her for another nine+ hours. Oh well! 
Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War by Steve Sheinkin

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4.0

Very interesting and well written, and I appreciate how thorough the source notes in the back are. Gave me a better understanding of a part of history I only vaguely knew. And while of course it's not un-biased-- Daniel Ellsberg is clearly presented as the hero in this story-- I thought that Sheinkin did a good job of humanizing everyone involved
Look by Gabi Snyder

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4.5

The illustrations in this are /so/ cool
The Most Boring Book Ever by Brandon Sanderson

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4.0

I love how vibrant the colors are in this
Roar-Choo! by Charlotte Cheng

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3.0

Didn't really wow me, but I have no issues with it
The Bakery Dragon by Devin Elle Kurtz

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4.5

Well this was just delightful. Cute story (with a nice little lesson at the end), and the illustrations are so /warm/ and charming. Lively, too-- it felt like stepping into an animated film. Very glad I randomly found this one at the library
How to Draw a Dragon by Douglas Florian

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2.75

Not my favorite illustrations-- the colors are a bit drab-- but the rhyming text is serviceable as a read-aloud 
Fire Truck vs. Dragon by Chris Barton

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2.0

I understood the joke for the dragon part-- they kept setting up scenarios to make the kids and readers think he's going to blow fire (like pulling out a bag of marshmallows and saying "... You can guess why everyone loves having us at campfires!", or holding up a birthday cake with a bunch of unlit candles), and then he does something else (like making shadow puppets for stories around the campfire or blindfolding kids to hit the piƱata at the birthday party), to the frustration of the kids/reader stand-ins-- but I never really got the point of having the firetruck there. None of the proposed scenarios really needed him. I guess the kids were just hoping to see him put out the fire after the dragon lit it? But for cases like the birthday party, if the dragon really did light the candles you wouldn't actually want the firetruck to put those out. Idk, I just feel like it would have made more sense to only have the dragon, and it kind of seems like they were only contriving to have both so they could say it's a sequel to Shark vs Train 
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

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3.5

Like most classics, there were some things that did not age well
the whole "slave" thing with Haydee and wanting a mute servant in Ali, the weirdly recurring romanticization of suicide, etc.
, but overall it was an engaging read and an interesting story. One of my friends absolutely loves this book, so I got to live-react to her as I went along, and that was really fun