Park Bench by: Christophe Chabouté

Description from the Publishers through Netgalley

With his masterful illustration style, bestselling French creator-storyteller Chabouté (Alone, Moby-Dick) explores community through a common, often ignored object: the park bench.

From its creation, to its witness to the fresh ardor of lovers, the drudgery of businessmen, the various hopes of the many who enter its orbit, the park bench weathers all seasons. Strangers meet at it for the first time. Paramours carve their initials into it. Old friends sit and chat upon it for hours. Others ignore the bench, or (attempt to) sleep on it at night, or simply anchor themselves on it and absorb the ebb and flow of the area and its people.

Christophe Chabouté’s mastery of the visual medium turns this simple object into a thought-provoking and gorgeously wrought meditation on time, desire, and the life of communities all across the planet. This could be a bench in my hometown or yours—the people in this little drama are very much those we already recognize.

My Review:

At first, I wasn’t sure that I was going to like this.  It is strictly images and roughly drawn ones without any words.  However, as you turn each page the stories that are told are magnificent.  You see the lives lived and only constant is this one park bench.   I absolutely love this graphic novel and the more I think about it, the sweeter the story is.

I gave this book 5 crowns.

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May I Be Happy by: Cyndi Lee

So technically, I did not finish this book with less than 100 pages left to read but she made me so mad that I don’t care. I don’t understand how someone who is supposedly such a wonderful yoga instructor could be such a down right mean person. She is into fat shaming others and her own beliefs about her body image are so poor. Like I mentioned in my update, she mentioned the name of her yoga studio 3 times in the first 50 pages and the constant name dropping of celebrities pissed me off. What made me give up on finishing this book is when she was talking about her mother’s caretaker. When she says that she never saw her eat, “and we all know that is usually a sign of secret bingeing” I was done. How does she know what is going on in this woman’s life. She reinforced a stereotype on this woman who spends 12 hours a day caring for her ailing mother. I am just so mad at this woman. To me, she should be ashamed of herself and I would never support her as a yoga instructor.  I did not give this any crowns but wanted to put it on my blog because I wanted to warn my readers as to the crap that is this book.

Fireblood by: Elly Blake

I received this sequel from Novl publishers because I read and reviewed Frostblood the first book in this series.  I couldn’t be happier with their generosity nor more thankful.

I am not a fantasy reader but this series is something special.  Ruby is a kick-ass female who is not afraid to defend herself against some pretty vicious opponents.  She does struggle and I like that we see that in her.

The beginning was a bit slow for me but it picked up its’ pace towards the middle of the book.  The ending…a cliffhanger.  I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book.  But I have to wait until 2018 for Nightblood!

I gave this book 4 crowns.

Rose Harbor in Bloom by: Debbie Macomber

I realize that this is the second book in a series but I thought I had read the first one.  In all honesty, I’m not sure if I did and if I did, it was years and years ago.  I listened to this on audio but wasn’t lost with the story line.  The book did just enough retelling of the first book for me to piece together what I missed.

I don’t want to say much about the story line because I don’t know what would be a spoiler for the first book.

The characters in the story were very lovable and I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  I will definitely look for the rest of this series.

I gave this book 4 crowns.

Look Again by: Lisa Scottoline

This is my very first Lisa Scottoline book and it will not be my last.  I listened to this on audio and really loved the characters in this story.  They were written so well rounded that I could believe that I was listening to a real story.

This is a story about a reporter who falls in love with a sick little boy and then is able to adopt him.  One day, she receives a flyer of a lost child in her mail and recognizes the missing boy as her son.  She struggles with trying to figure our if her child is really the boy in the photo and what to do if it is.  I wasn’t sure how this would end and if it would end abruptly but it didn’t.

I really liked this book and can’t wait to pick up more books from this author.

I gave this book 5 crowns.

Yoga Bitch by: Suzanne Morrison

This was a fun read.  Suzanne has a way of bringing the reader along with her on her journey.  I could imagine the scenes that take place in Bali and I can feel the tension and then release of it after a good yoga session.

It reminded me a bit of Eat, Pray, Love but had more humor and less food.  This was a good read but to be completely honest, I don’t remember too much about it and I finished reading it exactly 1 week ago.

I gave this book 3 crowns.

Love Lies Beneath by: Ellen Hopkins

So this is one of 2 of the last Ellen Hopkins’ books that I had left to read.  This is unlike her YA books in that this is not told in prose.  I’ve heard many people say that they did not like this book but I really enjoyed it.  She does have some prose throughout the book and her writing style flows very well throughout this book.

I loved the premise of this story and appreciated the twists that Ellen Hopkins usually provides her readers.  If you haven’t read anything by this author before, I think you should give her a chance.

I gave this book 4 crowns.