It’s been a few weeks since our last minis post, since we have both been pretty busy with life and etc! But now we’re back! Hope you enjoy these minis 🙂

I’m gonna be real here for a second: I HATE Valentine’s Day. I think it’s a stupid capitalist holiday created to make people spend money. I hate seeing all the red and pink everywhere. And I know that makes me a bit of a grinch but hey, I’m not against romance! I just think you should be telling the person/people you love that you love them every day, not just on this one day.

So I didn’t want to write an entire post on love and relationships in books. Don’t get me wrong, as much as I am a grinch I do like a good romance when it’s done well. But there are amazing books out there without romance! And sometimes I just don’t want to read about romance, I just want some good action and fighting and politics and friendships, y’know?

I wanted to share both sides: some of my favorite books without any romance (for those of us feeling non-romantic) and some books with my favorites couples (for those us feeling like reading about some romance).

eARC provided by St. Martin’s Press for review (via NetGalley)

Alright listen up you all! This book has been criminally under-exposed, seeing as how it comes out in less than two weeks and I’ve seen it absolutely nowhere except on NetGalley! If you’re a high fantasy fan, I think you’ll enjoy this one.

This book had pretty much everything I love – a cast of characters that all have their own strengths and weaknesses and are all fun to read about; magic!; an innovative world setup that I haven’t seen before; fight scenes on both small and large scales; and epic quests (or not so much as a quest as a fleeing from a recently discovered murdery conspiracy).

Hey, friends! Mackenzie and Shari here. We’re always mentioning how fun it would be to do more joint posts, so we’re taking every opportunity to do one. 😉

M: I definitely say something like this every time the month comes to an end but like, how is January over?? I swear we JUST started 2019. APPARENTLY, time has no regard for my feelings so a month has passed already.

S: Tell me about it! It hurts me because I just want the days to SLOW DOWN so I can enjoy them more, you know? It looks like we both had a great reading month though — let’s share our wrap-up!

Here’s our set of mini reviews this week!

Shari’s Minis:

"Hilarious and charming. The most lovable duo since Frog and Toad." --NYT-bestselling creator of the Dog Man and Captain Underpants series, Dav Pilkey

Narwhal and Jelly . . . and Otty?! Exuberant Narwhal and skeptical Jelly test the waters of adding a new friend to their pod when they meet Otty the super-adventurous otter in the fourth book of this blockbuster early graphic novel series!

Dive into three new stories about the joy of adventure and the power of friendship! In the first story, Otty the otter makes her debut splash; while Narwhal greets her with immediate enthusiasm, Jelly's not so sure about her...mostly because he worries she'll take his place as Narwhal's best friend. Readers will easily see why Narwhal's so excited to meet Otty, a boisterous explorer who even has an aunt who's a real live sea captain! But readers will also relate to Jelly's uneasiness seeing his best friend making a new pal.

Jelly tries to work out his jealousy in story two, and in story three, the new trio say "Ahoy, adventure!" and discover they all have more in common than they thought . . . including a love of waffles! Jelly also takes over the "Super Waffle and Strawberry Sidekick" comic providing a sidekick's-eye-view of defeating the dreaded dEVILed egg!