2020 Book #2 – Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

Posted in Book Genre, Book reviews, Fiction, For the love of books, Literary Greats, Mystery by rebeccabook17

Title: Phantom of the Opera
Author: Gaston Leroux
Date finished: 1/12/20
Genre: Horror, mystery
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Publication Date:January 7, 2020
Pages in book: 266
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley
NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Deep beneath the Paris Opera House, a masked man lives in silence…

Every night at the Palais Garnier, hundreds of guests sit on the edge of velvet-covered seats, waiting for prima donna La Carlotta to take the stage. But when her voice fails her, La Carlotta is replaced with unknown understudy Christine Daaé, a young soprano whose vibrant singing fills every corner of the house and wins her a slew of admirers, including an old childhood friend who soon professes his love for her. But unknown to Christine is another man, who lurks out of sight behind the heavy curtains of the opera, who can move about the building undetected, who will do anything to make sure Christine will keep singing just for him…

This curated edition of The Phantom of the Opera, based on the original 1911 English translation by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, brings an iconic story of love and obsession to today’s readers and illuminates the timeless appeal of Leroux’s masterpiece.

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review.

I absolutely love this musical and the movie they produced of it also, so I thought I’d give the book a try. I’m not usually a huge fan of “the classics” and this was no exception. I struggled through this book. Christine in this novel is a simpering mess and just was way too helpless and damsel in distress for me. And Raoul didn’t seem brave or heroic like he does in the musical to me, he seemed more immature and childish. And the Phantom in the musical seems brooding and mysterious and a little dark but in the book he’s a big whiny crybaby and honestly super abusive and crazy. The author isn’t alive anymore so I’m not really worried about hurting anyone’s feelings with this but I didn’t care for this book. I think the re-print of it is fine and the cover is actually very well done but the writing and story line itself I didn’t care for.

Link to author website

30May2019

Product Review – Cashmere Writing Gloves!

Posted in Blog tour, For the love of books by rebeccabook17

I was recently approached by Literary Book Gifts with an opportunity to review one of their products, the Cashmere Writing Gloves. For those of you that don’t know, Literary Book Gifts is an online retail store that features many reading related items. From their site – “Literary Book Gifts is a webstore that celebrates these high-quality works of literature that so many of us have enjoyed reading. Books and authors are always in mind when creating each addition to the catalog. The titles and authors are chosen to suit young adults, women, and men alike. These stories are meant to be enjoyed long after reading the final pages and the cover is closed. As designs, now they can be.” There’s a huge variety of gifts for any book lover. Some of the T-shirts and totes on the site look awesome and there’s a variety of books featured! I’m sure I’ll have to buy one of my favorites.

I received a pair of the Cashmere Writing Gloves in Heather Purple. The gloves are very comfortable and will definitely keep my hands warm on those cold nights when my hands are outside the covers to hold a book or turn a page! They’d also be great for writers to keep their hands warm while working on their next great novel!

As you can see from the photos, the gloves cover the whole back of your hand and have two finger openings, one for the thumb and then one for the other four fingers. The gloves are soft and comfortable and I’d recommend them! They’re a little steep at $52 but they’re cashmere and, from what I’ve experienced with them so far, they are a good quality product.

**I was provided with this free product in exchange for an honest and fair review.

9May2019

2019 Book #25 – Smitten by the Brit by Melonie Johnson

Posted in Book reviews, Book series, Contemporary romance, Fiction, Romance, Sometimes in Love series by rebeccabook17

Title: Smitten by the Brit
Author: Melonie Johnson
Date finished: 5/7/19
Genre: Contemporary romance
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Publication Date: May 28, 2019
Pages in book: 384
Stand alone or series: #2 in the Sometimes in Love series
Where I got the book from: NetGalley
NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

DEFINITELY, MAYBE…OR LOVE, ACTUALLY?

English professor Bonnie Blythe expects her life to play out like her favorite novels, especially now that her long-term boyfriend has finally proposed. So when a shocking discovery leads Bonnie to end her engagement, she decides to close the book on love. But the plot thickens when a brand-new character enters the scene―and quickens Bonnie’s heart.

With his brilliant blue eyes, sexy accent, and irresistible charm, Theo Wharton is like a romantic hero straight out of a Jane Austen novel. When fate places Bonnie in England for a summer―conveniently close to Theo―she realizes a hot friends-with-benefits fling is exactly what she needs to start a fresh chapter. Just as Bonnie begins to believe she’s falling in love, an eye-opening revelation into Theo’s life makes Bonnie feel like she’s wandered into one of her favorite books. Will Bonnie have the courage to risk her heart and turn the page with the dashing Brit to find her true happy ending after all?

My rating: 3.25 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review.

I was really excited about Bonnie’s story after first reading about her in the previous book in the series, Getting Hot with the Scot. I didn’t end up loving this book quite as much as I expected to. I couldn’t connect with Bonnie’s character entirely. I did relate to her love of the literary world and how much of a book-nerd she was. Unfortunately she was a little flighty for me, it felt like she was consistently running away from her problems and her feelings. And she was just so melodramatic, she kept doing like these really dramatic things in reaction to situations based on what she thought one of her literary characters would do. And Theo was a bit too thick-headed for me too. In the last book in the series, Getting Hot with the Scot, the chemistry between the two main characters was intense and leapt off the page, but I didn’t feel that as much with Bonnie and Theo. The plot was a little lackluster for me, after the excitement and drama of the beginning of the book there wasn’t anything else that was really as climactic. This one wasn’t my favorite but I did still enjoy it and I like the series overall so far. I’m onto the third in the series now (it doesn’t come out til June so I likely should have waited but I’m so into the series I just couldn’t wait!)

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

9Feb2016

2016 Book #11 – Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonegut

Posted in 2016, Book Clubs, Book reviews, Fiction, Literary Greats, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges, Terryville - Fiction Lovers by rebeccabook17

Title: Slaughterhouse-Five (or the Children’s Crusade)
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Date finished: 2/8/16
Genre: Fiction, science fiction, literary fiction
Publisher: Delacorte
Publication Date: 1969
Pages in book: 215
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Terryville Public Library

Blurb from the cover:

Unstuck in time, Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut’s shattered survivor of the Dresden bombing, relives his life over and over again under the gaze of aliens; he comes at last to some understanding of the human comedy. The basis of George Roy’s great 1972 film and perhaps the signature student’s novel in the 1960’s embracing protest and the absurdity of war.

My rating: 2.75 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I read this book for the Terryville Library’s Fiction Lover’s Book Discussion group discussion for this month (February). Also, this book will count towards my “PopSugar 2016 Checklist” reading challenge, marking off the “a science-fiction novel” box since this is a science fiction novel. Obviously this is a well known book, popular for many high-school reading lists. I never happened to read this book in high school so I was interested to read it now. It was… weird. Not what I expected it would be. I said this at my book club tonight, but for anyone that watches Family Guy it felt a lot like a Family Guy episode to me, with pretty much any random thing you can think of all thrown into one story line. That’s mostly what this book felt like to me.
Overall this book left me feeling like I missed something. I felt like there should’ve been more of a point or an ah-ha! moment, but I didn’t find one. It was a quick read and kept my interest but other than that I just wasn’t thrilled with the book. Its a classic though, even included on Amazon’s 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime listing. So I can’t say that I don’t recommend it but be prepared for a good dose of weird.

The bottom line: I have to say I would recommend mostly because this is one of those things that I think everyone should read. Like I said before though, be prepared for some just odd stuff.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page

26Sep2015

2015 Book #102 – The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George

Posted in Book reviews, Fiction by rebeccabook17

Title: The Little Paris Bookshop
Author: Nina George
Date finished: 9/26/15
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Crown
Publication Date: June 23, 2015
Pages in book: 400
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: NetGalley NOTE: I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book, or the content of my review.

Blurb from the cover:

Monsieur Perdu calls himself a literary apothecary. From his floating bookstore in a barge on the Seine, he prescribes novels for the hardships of life. Using his intuitive feel for the exact book a reader needs, Perdu mends broken hearts and souls. The only person he can’t seem to heal through literature is himself; he’s still haunted by heartbreak after his great love disappeared. She left him with only a letter, which he has never opened.
After Perdu is finally tempted to read the letter, he hauls anchor and departs on a mission to the south of France, hoping to make peace with his loss and discover the end of the story. Joined by a bestselling but blocked author and a lovelorn Italian chef, Perdu travels along the country’s rivers, dispensing his wisdom and his books, showing that the literary world can take the human soul on a journey to heal itself.
Internationally bestselling and filled with warmth and adventure, The Little Paris Bookshop is a love letter to books, meant for anyone who believes in the power of stories to shape people’s lives.

My rating: 2.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I was provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. I’ve seen this book around a lot the past couple months, it was a very popular summer read and I have seen many positive reviews on it so I thought I should give it a try. To be honest I probably could have passed on by and been perfectly. While this book has been widely praised, I just could not get into the story myself. I found the book to be extremely wordy and the main character is a 50 year old man who has lived in self-induce purgatory for the past twenty years. I could not connect with him at all, I just found his character to be so martyr-ish. And the story line was hard to follow for me in some way. There were just a lot fo random things that happened that didn’t necessarily seem connected at all and in some cases didn’t even really make sense to me. There were some parts of the book that made me tear up, there were many emotions that came alive in the story and the reader can sense love in each page of the book, love between friends, that first love that is ever-consuming, and even love that lives only in one’s imagination. The books speaks eloquently of France along Jean Perdu’s journey south, of the food, the scenery, and the people. For anyone who would like to experience the beauty of France, this would be a great book to read!

The bottom line: I would recommend this book to anyone who would like to hear of the beauty of France. This book wasn’t a great one for me but is very popular with the general population.

Link to author website

Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page