It’s the second Tuesday of the month and time for another Show Us Your Books, hosted by the lovely Jana and Steph. Come link up with us or just hop around and find some new books to read!
As I write this, I’ve read 97 books this year. I made my goal for 100 books, so obviously I will make that and go beyond. I don’t really care about the amount of books I read in a year – I do the Goodreads challenge more so just to keep track of what I read – but it’s still fun to hit your number!
Show Us Your Books with a #bookreview for Far Far Away and Fatal Throne, among others #ontheblog #bookbloggers Share on XFirst up, let’s see what I’ve reviewed on the blog since the last Show Us Your Books link-up:
Bring Me Their Hearts by Sara Wolf – it even includes a fun gift to go along with the book! (review here)
The Long Way Around by Quinn Anderson AND The Academy by Quinn Anderson (review here)
The Lucky Ones by Tiffany Reisz (review here)
And now, a couple new book reviews to share!
I actually read and reviewed this book back in 2014, so you can read my review here, or just check out my mini review below. The reason I re-read this book is because my book club read it last month. I knew that I’d loved the book, but I couldn’t remember set details, so I made time to read it again so I could better discuss it. The verdict this time around? I really loved it, so at this point, I highly recommend!
Basically, Far Far Away is narrated by Jacob Grimm (from the Grimm brothers), and it follows Jeremy Johnson Johnson. Jacob hasn’t moved on after his death, and he thinks that protecting Jeremy might be his way of doing so, but he also just really cares for Jeremy and wants the best for him. This isn’t a fairy tale re-telling, but it does feel like a fairy tale. Also, since it’s narrated by Jacob, it has an adult quality to it – so I think this would be a great read for young adult and and adult readers. Everyone in my book club really loved the book too, and they are all older than myself (I’m 28) if that tells you anything.
Fatal Throne: The Wives of Henry VIII Tell All by Candance Fleming, M.T. Anderson, Stephanie Hemphill, Lisa Ann Sandell, Jennifer Donnelly, Linda Sue Park, and Deborah Hopkinson is such a great novel. It’s categorized as YA, but I think adults would really love it too.
Obviously you can see that it’s written by a variety of authors and that’s because each of the wives is written by a different author and M.T. Anderson is Henry VIII. I think this set-up was a great idea and it was done very well. Each wife has their particular story told, and with different authors writing, it felt like different women. In between each wife, M.T. Anderson has a few pages in Henry VIII’s point of view about that particular wife/time period.
I think every single wife was fascinating, and I loved learning more about them. Yes, this is a fictional account, so aspects of it did have me wondering “did that really happen?” but I feel like the authors tried to stay as true to facts as they could. This is one that I would really recommend reading as well, whether you know much about King Henry VIII or not!
Tell me: Do any of these books stand out to you? Have you read any of them already? Share your thoughts!
Don’t forget to enter my fun giveaways before you go:
Your choice of book from my list – New Required Reading giveaway (it’s a blog hop so enter more giveaways too). Open until September 18 and it’s INTL.
Two Mermaid Prize Pack giveaways (each one has a book and two other suitable items). Open until September 28 and it’s U.S. only, I’m afraid.
Fatal Throne looks so good. I love anything about the drama of Henry VIII.
Fatal Throne definitely sounds interesting and glad it was done well with the multiple authors. You don’t see that very often unless it is an anthology.
I love the sound of both of these! I’ll add them to my (way too long) list!
I do love fairy tale retellings. I hadn’t heard of Far Far Away before, but I’ll look into it! Thanks for the reviews.
Ive always been a little bit obsessed with King Henry VIII and all his wives!
Fatal Throne sounds like a fun one. I love the idea of having a different author narrate each wife, that’s such a creative idea. I may have to pick that one up!
You are doing awesome on your reading challenge this year! I know you’re going to go above and beyond 100 books at the rate you’re going and that’s amazing!! Far Far Away sound interesting to me, and I like that it isn’t a “new” book because sometimes it’s easier to find books like that at the library!
I love when I read a book, like it, read it again and love it!
I agree that each of his wives were fascinating.
i am quite intrigued by Far Far Away! my book club has read books that i’ve already read recently, i re-read two but skipped the other, and i was useless in the discussion for the one i skipped haha.
Well done on your reading challenge! Seriously 97 books!
Far Far Away sounds interesting – thank you for sharing.
Fatal Throne sounds really intriguing and I love the concept behind it. Definitely adding it o my TBR!
I like that Fatal Throne book! We just can’t get enough of Henry the VIII can we?!
I’ve unintentionally reread a book three times and every time I read it, I remember how good it is.
Fatal Throne sounds really interesting!
Fatal Throne sounds really interesting and like a YA I could actually get into!
Great job already almost meeting your goal for the year! I think this is the first year in a few years I’m not going to even get close to mine. Fatal Throne sounds so interesting- especially with different authors for the different wives.
97 books! WOW!
Fatal Throne sounds like an interesting read. I do like historical fiction and I like the idea of each wife’s story being written by a different author.
Fatal Throne sounds like an interesting book. The cover looks so intriguing!
Fatal Throne sounds fascinating!
I love reading and watching and learning about the Henry VIII era. His wives fascinate me. I’m definitely adding both of your read this month to my tbr list!
I rencently read Far Far Away, it was definitely different. I like the sound of Fatal Throne. I will have to check it out.
I haven’t heard of Fatal Throne, but I’m really drawn to that cover. Also, love the premise as well.
These both sound great but I am really quite interested in Far Far Away. I am glad to hear that you liked it just as much during your second read.
Fatal Throne sounds like it deals with the type of history I love learning more about, and reading about for that matter.
I just learned about Fatal Thrones at ALA this summer, but now I want to read it! Glad to read about it on your site. Not sure exactly what you are supposed to do with the Show Us Your Books post, but thanks for sharing these with us!
Wow, 97 books is pretty amazing! Fatal Throne sounds very intriguing and I can’t wait to read it.
Fatal Throne is SO awesome! I agree that every singe wife had a very intersting and well written story. Like I had no idea that I needed to know so much about Henry VIII’s wives but looks like I did because after I was done, I spent literally WEEKS down Wikipedia rabbit holes on each wife! I met two of the “wives” at ALA and basically fangirled all over them hahah.
The Fatal Throne sounds interesting!!! 🙂 What a fun idea. 🙂 XO – Alexandra
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