The Aggressive Reader

Tag: writing

  • The Lamb by Lucy Rose

    Rating: 5/5

    Spoilers: Light

    First off, I listened to this story on audiobook and at first I was worried I wouldn’t understand the accent of the woman who was reading, but I am so happy I continued because it added so much to the story! The narrators name is Emma Rydal and I adored her voice! I adored this absolutely vivid story and fell in love with these characters.

    The Lamb follows Margot and her Mama who live secluded away from others. One way they get by is by eating strays…no, not animals. Strays are what they call lost people that wander in their mist. Both Margot and Mama enjoy more than anything to have a good stray to eat. Strays being men, women, and children. This was their life, until one day, a stray woman entered their home and caught the Mama’s interest.

    In the Lamb, we follow Margot’s point of view as she watches her mom fall in love with this woman named Eden and watches how their lives slowly start to change. In some good and possibly bad ways for Margot. This book was so beautifully written and just left my heart shattered and full at the same time. There were definitely some horrifying descriptions and images that will not leave my mind (those damn fingers)!

    That ending…that ending is all I’m going to say. I could see a lot that happened was coming but damn…so well written that it still broke me. I AM BROKEN AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS BOOK!

    Thank you for reading and subscribing!

  • In a Funk

    Hello followers, lately I’ve been in a reading slump (as we all have been there) and am giving an update on both my mental health and the More Than a Review book discussion with Wild Dark Shore. Well…it’s not happening…but Count My Lies book discussion is still a go! With how the world has been going lately, it has been hard to clear my mind enough to relax and read my multiple books, let alone one of them. I feel a lot of my readers can relate.

    I’ve struggled with my anxiety and depression for as long as I can remember, and I hate that it always takes a toll on my hobbies. Why it gotta take away the one thing that makes us happy?! Fighting it is an everyday battle and I’m in a type of weird funk where I want to sit down and read but at the same time, I feel like I should be up and doing something so I can’t relax and it’s a bit of a dilemma…I catch myself just getting on TikTok and scrolling through Facebook instead of doing anything actually productive. I’ve compiled a list of things to do to help me through this situation and wanted to share it in case you find yourself also through this situation.

    1. ONLY READ ONE BOOK AT A TIME. I know it’s hard but damn…you don’t need to overwhelm yourself with reading multiple books at once.
    2. ALLOW YOURSELF TIME TO DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Stare at the wall and think about the meaning of life if you have to. Clear your brain!
    3. STOP EATING SHIT. For the love of god…stop eating junk food and allowing your depression to tell you it doesn’t matter what you load in your face because it does!
    4. CLEAN FIRST…READ SECOND. A hard one for me to follow at times and I know y’all can relate.
    5. STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP. We all get in funks sometimes, so we don’t need to be mean to ourselves if we are taking time off from certain things.
    6. DONT LOSE YOUR CREATIVITY. So difficult to follow while in a depression but don’t let this world take it away.
    7. DONT FORGET TO CHECK ON OTHERS. Yes, there are times that people don’t check on you, but they could be going through a lot worse, and you’d have no way of knowing. Watch out for each other in this world.
    8. GET MOVING. I’m going to aim for 30-45 minutes of activity a day before sitting on my butt with a book. Hey…listen to an audiobook while getting active!

    Thank you so much for reading! Take care of yourselves!

  • March Wrap Up!

    What a fun and very odd month of reading! I hope you got as many reads in or more than I did! Welcome to the beginning of April! Huge things coming your way soon with More Than a Review book discussions, writing blogs, and of course more reviews. Stay tuned!

  • More Than a Review Book Discussions Announcement Numero Uno!

    Hello, my fellow AWESOME readers! I wanted to let y’all know of a new monthly segment where I will be going into deep discussions about one or two books a month! Yes, I know I already post reviews, but these are MORE THAN JUST REVIEWS! READ THE TITLE! WE ARE GOING HAM ON THESE BOOKS AND COMPLETELY BREAKING THEM DOWN TO THE KNITTY GRITTY! WE ARE LOOKING AT THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY! THESE WILL NOT BE REVIEWS, THEY WILL BE HARDCORE BOOK CLUB ANALYZING AND I BETTER SEE SOME THOUGHTS ON MY THOUGHTS AND JUST YOUR THOUGHTS AS WELL! Got it????

    I will be researching questions for each book to answer and yes, SPOILER ALERTS! I highly recommend that you read the book or books with me when I announce each month because I truly mean breaking them down to THE KNITTY GRITTY. Do you just want to see what I think and want all the details before going into a book even though it will spoil the ending? Well shit, go ahead and read the More Than a Review discussion anyway! It is whatever works for you, but I hope to hear your answers to some of the questions and your thoughts for any of it as well! We will be starting in April and there will be two book choices. Starting April 1st, we will be reading Count My Lies by Sophie Stava!

    Count My Lies follows a woman named Sloane, who doesn’t seem to know how to keep the lies out of her MOUTH! With such an uninteresting life, she makes up as much as she can to find some enjoyment where she can. What Sloane needs to remember is that she’s not the only one who does lie and that her lies land her a job with some people that she may be up for a competition for the most lies in one life…oh man. I totally over simplified that because I love going into mystery/thrillers not knowing much so I wanted to give y’all the same treatment! The spoilers and details don’t come until the DISCUSSION FOR HEAVENS SAKE!

    I will have to check but I am pretty sure this is a debut novel for this author, so I am excited to get started since I love supporting new authors! Stay tuned for the second book announcement!

    Happy reading!

    Gotta love the cat hair making its appearance in almost every book picture!

  • The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

    Rating: 2/5

    Spoiler level: NOTHING BECAUSE WHAT COULD I SPOIL THAT WOULD ACTUALLY BE INTERESTING?!

    Soooo, I got through it! Well, mostly. I already knew what happened the last one hundred pages so I DNF’d the HELL out of it! I first read this book when it was released in 2020 and couldn’t even get through the first one hundred pages so MASS improvement there. I still have to say…as a huge fan of The Hunger Games series, I was excited to get a villain origin story for Snow but was left so FRIKIN disappointed!

    First things first, why was the writing so dull? Was I the only one that thought that? The Hunger Games series was well written to me but this…THIS Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes just drained my interest so quickly. I continued to read just to see if it got better but again…DISAPPOINTMENT! These characters…I couldn’t have cared less about them and their stories…I have not read a book with characters this dry for a while…even Lucy Gray couldn’t hold my interest. I really expected more from this origin story. I expected to feel the pain of the characters but the only one I felt for was a boy in the games named Reaper who had nothing to do with Snow at all! Again, couldn’t care less about the others.

    We learn about Snow’s past and his hardships with losing his parents during the war, but why did the writing not really do his pain justice? I’m about to use the word again so get over it but it was all just so…dull. I expected more from this book because Suzanne Collins had blown me away before, but this story just wasn’t for me. The odds were not in my favor! I am hoping to be in love with Sunrise on the Reaping, which is coming out tomorrow, March 18th, and I am PUMPED for it! I will be MIA for all of tomorrow because I am ready for Haymitch’s story!

    Happy reading!

    This book is gorgeous though!

  • Welcome Back…Again!

    Damn…I started this blog in 2020 and got too lazy to keep reviewing books and let the world make me give up on writing and keeping my book opinions to myself (I know, how could I do this?) but now that the world is in utter chaos again without a pandemic, I am back and full of so much love and RAGE for my hobby of reading and writing that I will not give up! I am full of thoughts for each book I read that will either have you screaming, “YES!” in agreement or have you raging and ready to hit me across the face with a saucepan and start kicking me in the ribs…but hey, we all have our different opinions that we are ready to fight for but just because we all don’t like the same stories, let’s take a chill pill, shall we?

    I did mention before when I started my blog in 2020, that I wanted to talk about mental health as another topic for my blog but let’s be honest, all of our mental health is completely screwed right now, and we all are riding that boat together. DO NOT GIVE UP! I DON’T CARE HOW BAD YOU THINK IT IS, YOU WILL NEVER GIVE UP! We will get through this mess together! I don’t plan on swaying too much from my current reads, but I definitely know what it’s like to be in a very dark place in life. You have no motivation to do what needs to be done or even take care of yourself. I promise you that these dark days will pass, and if the world gets worse, then shit, we are going down together! You are not alone in your fight! But yes, anyways, let’s get back to our escapism into other worlds and lives.

    PEACE!