Help! I'm looking for a book I read years and years ago that I can't remember the title of exactly my brain says its the Girl in the Wall but when I search for it the books that pop up is not the book. The title page was a muted brown with vines?
Pretty much the synopsis is: Her dad disappeared, and she felt that he was living in the library. She ends up making her own space in between the walls of her home to the point her youngest sibling thought she had ran away?
She ends up exchanging letters with who is going to be her step-brpther? Theres a costume party/halloween party and she makes a luna moth costume?
Dark of the West, by Joanna Hathaway (Glass Alliance #1)
Hello! This is my first entry, and I feel like you should know.
I’m not a writer, nor do I aspire to be, but I find a lot of comfort in expressing my feelings with words. And when I ramble too much in my journal, focusing on specific topics always helps. So let’s talk about books. This book, in particular:
I finished reading this book back in April 2020, it was my first in a lot of ways: my first quarantine read, my first “grown up book”, my first full read in English (cause, ehmm, Enlish is not my first language)...
Anyway, I’ll let you know real quick how I came upon this book, cause it’s definitely not a popular book (at least not at the moment). It all began with Dylan Matthews, from the YouTube channel Dylan is in Trouble (by far my favorite Youtuber EVER but that’s a story for another time), when in this video he mentions that Dark of the West is coming out soon, that Joanna, the author, is his friend, that he helped edit it and that if there’s ever the possibility of a movie adaptation he’s most likely gonna play one of the characters cause the author said he’d be good for it.
Of course, I immediately go buy it. For starters, I love this guy, he seems to have great taste in entretainment, he’s writing his own novel and I NEED TO KNOW WHO HE’D PLAY in a movie adaptation
Let me just say, before I actually start talking about the book, that Joanna Hathaway is one of the most interesting and thoughtful people I’ve ever seen on the internet. In my experience, she’ll always reply to your DMs and take your opinions seriously. You can follow Jo here.
So, without further to do, here are some of my thoughts on Dark of the West...
First of all, this review won’t contain spoilers, cause one of my main purposes is to get you to read this book. Second of all, most of this post is coming from the journaling session I had 10 days after I was done reading it and I couldn’t stop thinking about it so, do with that information what you will.
Dark of the West is a marvelous work of fiction. It takes place in a whole other world, with WW2 scenery and themes. There we will find a kingdom with a Princess: Aurelia; and a very young militaristic nation, where we’ll meet the son of the General: Athan. The story is narrated by both of them, letting us know both sides of the story. They each have a very distinctive voice and quite unique thoughts so it’s definitely a plus that we get to know them like this.
One of the main aspects that make this world believable and so amazing is the fact that the world building is very well done. This world exists by itself, there’s a past and there’s a future, and we just get to see a little part of our main characters’ history.
As always, for the plot to kickstart, a terrible thing occurs in Athan’s life. His father is absolutely sure that the person responsable for it is the Queen, Aurelia’s mom, and he’s determined to get his revenge. The General ends up sending Athan undercover to dig into the royal family’s secrects and make sure that he can get some leverage, to put it simple. But guess what, there’s a cute princess, how could he ever stop himself from falling in love with the princess. Spoiler alert: he can’t.
Now, don’t get confused, this isn’t just a love story. I has war, wicked secrets and touches on quite dark topics, but I promise it’s an adventure from start to finish. The thing is, if you (like me) have never been interested in war strategy, pilots, horses and family drama, I can almost assure you this book will change your mind.
It is beautifully written, not too flowery, not too flat. It has an amazing plot, very interesting characters and will most likely keep you on the edge of your seat googling reference pictures so that you can get the full feeling (not that you need them).
You can get the book here, and you should...
And if you read it, check out the author’s readalong where she shares writing experiences and all sorts of references. All explained for you right there!
Also, this is only the first book of a trilogy! The second book, Storm from the East, is out now (might write about it in a later post). And I’m patiently waiting for Book 3!
If you’ve made it to this point, I thank you wholehartedly, and I invite you to follow me if you wanna see more! My ask box is always open for questions and recommendations, and if you’ve read this book and wanna have a spoilery talk about it make sure to DM me!
I know this was all over the place but I’ll get better.
Okay so this might be a long shot but there was a book I read when I was in primary school and I can’t for the life of me remember the name. The cover was green with this really beautiful and detailed art of a woman wearing a cloak and sitting near a fire in this forest. I’m pretty sure it would have been either YA or NA fiction. I don’t remember much of the plot but I remember in the beginning she was sitting by herself in the dark forest and hearing noises. I have been wanting to reread this book for years but I’m having no luck finding it or remembering the name. Any help would be so greatly appreciated ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
(I can’t remember but the title might have had the words night or fall in it
Please if you know this book can you tell me the title because I forgot it but here's some basic things that I can remember
The story is told by two kids, one a white boy that just recently moved to town, the second being a little Latina girl
The story changes narrative by chapter like one would be the boy the next would be the girl etc.
There's on part where she let's him borrow a pen and she has a crush on him but the boy doest and he just thinks she wants her pen back
Later on the boy starts realizing he's gay and there's this like one cute scene where he's hanging out with his friend and his friend is like "do you know what popcorn is in spanish?" And the boy goes 'popcorno?' And his friend is like "No it's palomitas, little doves and I think that's when he starts to developer a crush on his friend
And at some point he goes to visit his old house ?
Idk that's all I can remember but please spread this I wanna find the book so bad.
I regularly check the little free libraries near me. I’ve got two close by, and I genuinely love this little routine. Quick look, quick browse, quick happy moment.
I’ve found some real gems there. And yes, I do drop books off too. 🙈
You also randomly end up chatting with people sometimes, which is honestly kind of nice.
Yesterday I found a piece of pure childhood nostalgia.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.
Might not be a big deal to most people, but I actually didn’t know the book at all. I loved the movie as a kid, and now the original story is suddenly sitting in my hands. Such a lucky find.
I rarely get this excited about a random book, but here we are.
I just love these little free libraries
I’m honestly excited to finally read it and see how it holds up against the movie in my head.
