Rokk 'n' Roll @rokkster - Tumblr Blog

I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

It's a cosy little read, which gave me T. J. Klune vibes with a side order of Hallmark movie. Just a side order, though, it's not a romance book, it's a book about finding your own path, about grief and friendship. The cast of various magical creatures were a delight, although the misunderstandings involved with the minor characters were a touch contrived and it also felt like Max was giving up too quickly. Three customers in one week who might have had an issue? That's literally just working retail. In fact that's good for working retail. So a little bit annoying but at the end of the day there is a happy ending that doesn't result in our heroine making out with the local florist, and where her city life isn't entirely set by the wayside. Hallmark tropes avoided, thank goodness. They're really not for me.

4 out of 5 stars

#TheTinyMagicBookshop #NetGalley #Rokk reads #August Bloom #e-ARC

storyweavingspider

You have the option to redo your life from any point but with full memory* and no trauma effects from it. What age do you choose?

0-3 years old

3-7 years old

8-13 years old

13-18 years old

18-21 years old

21-25 years old

25+ years old

I wouldn’t, set me free

Remaining time: 3 days 1 hour

*As of the moment you first read this poll. Unless you already have specific winning lottery numbers memorized you aren’t going back with that knowledge. You can remember the majority of the information from your prior life, but it won’t cause traumatic/PTSD effects - it’ll feel like you’re remembering someone else’s story in great detail. Unless you do something to change it specifically, all world events will remain the same including major economic events, wars/famine/pandemics, etc.

Anything can be changed if you can figure out a way to start the change yourself, however.

#heading back to ~13 #taking woodwork instead of settling for graphic design #continuing with hockey through my GCSEs #taking German instead of Maths at AS/A-level #studying linguistics instead of media tech at university #could have been so much different

acanthostega-lover6003

People who knit, how do you typically count rows?

Stitch markers

Pen/pencil and paper

Row counter device

Row counter app

I don’t count rows/just by measuring/reading my knitting

Other

I don’t knit/results

Remaining time: 2 days 23 hours

#selected other because there's no 'multiple' option #I've used row counters and pen and paper and measured and also just counted if the piece is short enough

I received an e-ARC of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

The world building in this one was interesting and the magic system was reminiscent of Mistborn without being a direct copy of it. There are different types of magic people can become imbued with, which give them extra abilities, and there are different levels within the categories that signal how rare an ability is. The magic comes from an aurora like wind (or two) that 'selects' people for skills, so not everyone gets one.

There's a lot of world building going on, which gets a little bit repetitive at times, but the character development is decent although perhaps a touch on the rushed side. There are a lot of point of view characters, and some of the scenes could probably have been cut without too much of the story being lost. Don't get me wrong, I liked Thom and all, but a lot of his scenes felt a little bit like scenes the author wanted to write to get them out of his head; the lore behind him is decent but kind of secondary to the main plot. Like a whole other book could have been written about him and his journey and I would have read that as well; having finished this book it feels a little bit like Thom was written into a corner and Fenne's plot overtook it. With good reason, since once you get past all the world building it's a pretty good book, with a solid finish. Will be looking out for the sequel, assuming that there is one.

4 out of 5 stars

#TheMistral #NetGalley #Felix Mosse #HRCYED 2.0 #New Releases challenge #Rokk Reads

strangetrashqueen

#gnu terry pratchett #night watch #vetinari #discworld

datsderbunnyblog

I love the dynamic in the Discworld fandom on this site, I think it's mainly because there are a lot of dormant fans, if you will, who've read and loved the books for years but haven't engaged much recently, who sort of reappear whenever a fun post is doing the rounds. It's fantastic. We get the cozy small fandom vibe without the screaming matches, but also get the popular posts from time to time, y'know?

datsderbunnyblog

YEP. In fact for some people it’s Emotions Day right now.

datsderbunnyblog

To everyone tagging and commenting with some variation of “Oh, I almost forgot that it’s tomorrow!”

“Damn! Damn! Damn! Every year he forgot. Well, no. He never forgot. He just put the memories away like old silverware that you didn’t want to tarnish. And every year they came back, sharp and sparkling, and stabbed him in the heart. And today, of all days...”

That’s so very meta of you.

datsderbunnyblog

IT'S EMOTIONS DAY TOMORROW

datsderbunnyblog

#oh I need to read enough discworld to understand what emotions day is

For anyone who's confused today, I won't spoil/explain what the 25th of May is in the Discworld fandom, because I think a big part of what's special about it is the way the plot unfolds in the book.

What I will explain though is that it'll make sense when you reach a book called Night Watch, which is the 29th book in the overall series and the 6th book in the City Watch subseries. If you haven't got that far yet, just take your time and enjoy the series! If you want to start with the City Watch stories then the first book you should check out is Guards! Guards!

And have fun!

datsderbunnyblog

It's that time of year where this post appears again like Reg Shoe digging his way out of his own grave

discworld-heritage-posts

Discworld Heritage Post

#gnu terry pratchett #the glorious 25th of May

penny-anna

Bookriot 100 Must-Read Sci-Fi Fantasy Novels By Female Authors Bookriot 100 Must-Read Sci-Fi Fantasy Novels By Female Authors

ok let's do another one! this time we have Bookriot's 100 sci-fi fantasy novels by female authors.

just to pre-empt a few possible objections to the list, it was published in 2016 and:

JK Rowling's public transphobia downward spiral began in 2018.

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells) was published in 2017 and Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) was published in 2019.

The Fifth Season (NK Jemisin) was published in 2015 & given that the editor included a different NK Jemisin I presume Fifth Season simply hadn't hit all-time classic status yet.

The editor stated upfront that they included 1 book per author.

I have no idea what We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Shirley Jackson) is doing there given that it categorically is not SFF.

How many of Bookriot's 100 sci-fi fantasy novels by female authors have you read?

0-10

11-20

21-30

31-40

41-50

51-60

61-70

71-80

81-90

91-100

Voting ended onMay 24

#19 #I've read other books by a couple of the authors listed too #but only counted the specific novels listed

I received a copy of the English translation of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

2.5 stars out of 5

Some of the speculative fiction in this book was interesting, but I found the stories more disjointed than I'd expected, and didn't pick up on plots discussed in the blurb at all. It felt more like a selection of short stories where the characters happened to have the same names than a cohesive story. Each chapter is well written, but there didn't seem to be any kind of climax or closure, just another chapter rolling on in. There might have been something lost in translation, or I might have just not been the target audience. It's not bad, it's just not what I was looking for.

#TheWhiteDesert #Luis López Carrasco #NetGalley #e-ARC #HRCYED 2.0 #New Releases

I received a free e-ARC copy of this book from NetGalley in return for a review (which is somewhat belated; I thought it was due out in May).

It's a pleasantly educational read, with some interesting footnotes, although I did feel that one or two of them could have been included in the main body of the text without disturbing the flow of the writing at all. The subtitle feels a little misleading; the descriptions of our raindrop's journey at the start of each chapter did very little for me. Rather, it was the language used and the obvious enthrallment of the author that kept me reading. He's obviously passionate about the subject, and surrounded by other people who are equally passionate about adjacent subjects. It's well written and easy to read; maybe not all in one sitting, but still decent.

4 stars out of 5

#TheWaterlands #arc review #netgalley #rokk reads #non-fiction

I am once more wishing time travel was real so I could go back 60 years and Have Words with whichever horticultural genius decided that sycamore trees were a good idea for a residential street with gardens.

Sure they look nice, but the amount of little saplings I just had to pick out of our sidings...

#it was not a good idea. It was a Bad Idea.#summer tasks #gardening

I received an e-ARC of this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Having re-read the original trilogy in preparation for this, I wasn't disappointed to read this one. It's another dual plot book, this time following Max and Ben, the sons of Todd and Viola. Todd and Viola feature in the storyline too, but Max and Ben are the viewpoint characters.

As with the original trilogy, there's a lot of humans being human type politicking. Bigotry, zealousness, the same corruption of power that featured in the Chaos Walking trilogy, although without the ambition of Mayor Prentiss. The enemy this time is interplanetary and also possibly historical; there's a Pied Piper retelling going on behind the scenes, but this time from The Land, which I love we get more of their lore, and hope it continues into the next book. The ending is a cliff hanger, but I'm very much looking forward to the next book already.

#PiperattheGatesofDusk #NetGalley #e-ARCS #HRCYED 2.0 #New Releases #Rokk Reads #Patrick Ness

I received a copy of this from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Solid 3.5 stars out of 5. A little bit of a slow burn, but the plot twist was an interesting one. I had some suspicions of the character whodunnit after a certain event part way through the book, but not to the level at which the plot climax was revealed. I'm not 100% convinced that certain parts of Margot's subplot were necessary, but they did provide a little filler between the main scenes so I guess there's that to say for them. A bit of a slow burner for me, but I could see this making a decent book club book.

#TheSecretLivesofMurderersWives #NetGalley #e-ARC #Rokk Reads

spin-the-wheel-polls

You can only drink the drink you get from this wheel for a month!

https://wheelofnames.com/uh3-8jf

how're you feeling?

Great!

okay, I could do it

okay, I couldn't do it

dead

horrible

im allergic/intolerant

Results

Voting ended onApr 9

#coffee #I could do it probably #I would hate every goddamn second of it #probably end up severely dehydrate #I barely hydrate enough as is and I like water

lobsterenthusiastt

duality of man

big-ender

walking around with a sword in the mall

sonofcoulson

Inadequately protecting the leader of a female only desert town. Although I died in the process...so no jail for me! Yay!

kawaii-pigeon

Being a horrible horrible little dinosaur

sadmac356

Uhh…bothering my neighbors I guess? Though they don't seem to mind

everything-but-the-not-natural

Gardening and cleaning up the town?

rokkster

Improper infrastructure management

I received an advance copy of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review

3.5 stars out of 5

A quirky dual plot line novel, set in communist Romania.

Darkly humorous but a little difficult to follow on occasion. The time skips and location jumps meant that I wasn't always sure of how far along the separate plots were, plots that didn't really combine until quite near the end. The absurdity did make it a little more tolerable, and the scene incorporating the title was farcical in the extreme, an almost sad indictment of a totalitarian education system.

Fun if you can keep up with the plot, but I personally found myself having to re-read several times to make sure I knew what was going on.

#Astronaut!#NetGalley #Oana Aristide #rokk reads