As soon as I heard the announcement for this book, I knew I needed it more than anything. Necromancy!! Fighting to prove yourself after betrayal!! Hints of enemies/rivals to lovers!! By an author I love!! I mean come on, it sounds incredible just from that right? AND THEN!! The cover reveal happened and omggg it’s epic and beautiful, and by my favorite cover artist (Tommy Arnold). And the fact that he also did the covers for the Locked Tomb series? Yes. I’m 10000% in.

A friend was kind enough to send me an ARC of it, and the publisher actually sent me one as well! So thank you friend, and thank you Simon & Schuster! Now let’s get into the actual review part haha. Just so you know, this will be a lot of me gushing about all the different things I loved. This book really hit the spot for me, and it is definitely a new favorite.

This was an absolute gem of a book.

After 5 years of living in China with her grandmother, 10 year old Lina is finally able to move to the US to join her parents and her younger sister. As soon as she steps off of the plane in Los Angeles, she soon learns that her family’s life is not as wonderful as they had made it sound in their letters.

I was 13 when my family moved to Canada and I related so much to Lina’s experiences of immigrating. School was so different and while I understood English, I didn’t understand a lot of the slang and I was afraid of mispronouncing words so I opted to talk as little as possible. Reading about Lina’s struggles brought me to that time in my childhood and while I never had a book like this growing up where I could see my experiences in a book, I’m glad it exists now and more kids (and adults!) like me can read it.

Hi friends! Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is Rewind, so I chose to go back to the old topic of Cozy Reads! I’ve been really enjoying the rise of cozy fantasy and sci-fi books lately. I mean, they’ve always been around, but they seem to be getting more attention lately. So I wanted to share some with you all!

Thank you to Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl for hosting/organizing Top Ten Tuesday! Find my past Top Ten Tuesday posts here.

New month, new Top Ten Tuesday!! Today I’m going to share some of the 2023 debut books I’m excited about. I’m thankful for these kinds of topics, because normally I’m so bad at keeping track of new releases! But these make me actually look up new releases and write them down haha.

Thank you to Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl for hosting/organizing Top Ten Tuesday! Find my past Top Ten Tuesday posts here.

I know that not all of us have been readers since we were tiny humans. Not all of us were lucky enough to have that exposure! I was one of those fortunate enough to start reading very early, as my parents are both big readers. My friend Brooke (who I met on Bookstagram) is also someone who started reading early. To celebrate that, and the books we read as youngsters, she create a rereading challenge for 2023. It is called “23 and Me – The Books That Made Me.” It’s about rereading the books that were super formative for you! The information post from Brooke is below, along with the specific prompts.