Very brief post today! Resting and recovering from a busy weekend. Thank you for stopping by!
Olivia Update 🐾
Olivia had another wonderful week! She enjoyed spending lots of time with my partner and myself, as we were on staycation. We still have another couple of days off, and Olivia is excited for even more cuddle time.
Life Update
Today is the first day I’ve felt relatively okay since my back injury. It’s been rough, but I’m happy to have spent time resting and recovering. That said, energy is a bit low today, but I’m sure it will return this upcoming week!
Reading Update
For a video recap of our week, and our progress on the ARCathon readathon please check out our youtube video! ARCathon is hosted by Marti and Britt!
Details are in our Friday Reads post below. We also added The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell to our virtual library shelf. Expect a library haul next week!
Hi everyone! We had a good reading week – we have now finished 9 NetGalley books for ARCathon! Our NetGalley feedback ratio is currently 87% (note: we started this readathon with a 75% feedback ratio). Finally, we are almost all caught up with our TBR game reads and only have two books left to complete.
NetGalley copies are designated as NG. These are provided in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the publishers and to NetGalley, all opinions are my own. ARCathon is hosted by Marti and Britt!
Want to read with my cat Olivia and I? Make sure you head over to our booktube channel for reading sprints! Bring your books, have a beverage ready – it’s going to be a bookish Caturday.
Synopsis (from Goodreads): Lately, Molly has been feeling that she might have fallen into a fairy tale: she’s reinvigorated the family bookshop Thomas Marlowe—Manuscripts and Folios, made friends in her new home of Cambridge, England, and is even developing a bit of a romance with the handsome Kieran—a bike shop owner with a somewhat intimidating family pedigree.
Having recently discovered The Strawberry Girls, a classic children’s tale, Molly is thrilled to learn the author, Iona York, lives nearby. But while visiting the famous author at her lovely cottage in nearby Hazelhurst, an old acquaintance of Iona’s tumbles off her roof to his death.
Then, when one of Iona’s daughters—an inspiration for the original Strawberry Girls—goes missing, Molly begins to worry this story might be more Brothers Grimm than happily-ever-after. Especially after Molly learns about the mysterious long-ago death of Iona’s husband and co-author of The Strawberry Girls…could past and present crimes be linked? Molly must put the clues together before someone turns this sweet tale sour.
Review
A dark fairy-tale of a cozy mystery. And an absolute pleasure to read.
This is the second book in The Cambridge Bookshop Series by Elizabeth Penney and I was so excited to read it, especially after enjoying Book 1 – Chapter and Curse. They both have their charm and Book 2 was an absolute delight to read. I loved learning about the mysteries that cat lover and bookshop part-owner Molly Kimball gets pulled into along the way.
This time, Molly is meeting with Iona York, co-author of The Strawberry Girls to discuss her latest book, The Strawberry Girls. While visiting, a family acquittance of Iona’s, Robin, has tumbled off her roof to his demise. Additionally, Iona’s daughter suddenly goes missing and is nowhere to be found. Was Robin’s death an accident? Or could there be a link between the two events, and perhaps to a crime committed in the past that still leaves questions to this day? Molly, yet again, is left to uncover the truth.
This book will have you hooked and wanting to know more after the very first chapter. In fact, every chapter leaves on a bit of a cliff-hanger, encouraging you to keep reading which I absolutely love. Molly is a character that truly seeks to support her friends and family and is fiercely loyal to them, and I think that acts a powerful driving factor as to why she is so invested in helping to investigate these cases, despite not being a formal investigator herself.
I loved the mysteries in this book, which had a scavenger hunt feel to them at times, but I truly loved one element which is the incorporation of a story-within-a-story. The Strawberry Girls was co-written by Iona’s former, Nate, who also had a similar suspicious death to that of Robin. Passages of the book are incorporated into the novel, and I absolutely loved that! It really helped set the stage and evoked mystery and intrigue in the story, while also making you feel as if the real-life characters of the book were in their own dark fairy tale.
Cats Puck and Clarence are always a joy to read, and we hope to see much more of them in future instalments!
Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for an advanced eGalley of this book. All opinions are my own.
Title: Radium Girls Author: Cy Release Date: 23 August 2022 Pages: 136 Publisher: Format: E-ARC Letter Better Publishing Services, Iron Circus Comics Source: NetGalley
Synopsis: It’s 1918 in Orange, New Jersey, and everyone knows the “Ghost Girls.”
The proud holders of well-paying jobs at the local watch factory, these working-class young women gain their nickname from the fine dusting of glowing, radioactive powder that clings to their clothes after every shift painting watch dials. The soft, greenish glow even stains their lips and tongues, which they use to point the fine brushes used in their work. It’s perfectly harmless . . . or so claims the watch manufacturer.
When teeth start falling out, followed by jawbones, the dial painters become the unprepared vanguard on the frontlines of the burgeoning workers’ rights movement. Desperate for compensation and acknowledgement from the company that has doomed them, the Ghost Girls must fight, not just for their own lives but the future of every woman to follow them.
A stunning graphic novel retelling of the shocking and inspiring true story.
Review
This graphic novel did a good job of giving an inside look into the lives of “Radium Girls,” a group of women in the early 1900s that were instructed to point the tip of their paintbrushes with their mouth when painting dials, thus leading to radiation poisoning.
It is very grim to read about the working conditions women had to endure, and it’s very frustrating that they were lied to about the inks, being told they were harmless and not to worry about applying the brush to their lips.
The illustrations within are fairly simple and I think that allows the story to make quite a big impact. There are two colours used, greens and purples. I’m not sure I am a fan of the used of coloured pencils, and think perhaps the illustrations would have looked even better had the crayons been blended together. As is, the colouring looks a bit unfinished/unpolished but I still overall enjoyed the illustration style.
I recommend this to anyone who is interested in learning more about this topic. Before reading this book, I didn’t know that these events happened and I feel like I learned quite a lot about both the events that took place and the importance of having conditions in place that protects workers from these sorts of occupational hazards in the future.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing an e-ARC in exchange for a review copy. The expected release date is August 23rd 2022.
Themes
Educational: reviews the lives of working-class young women who suffered radiation poisoning from painting dials on watches with self-luminous paint.
Fighting for compensation/acknowledgement from the watch manufacturer company.
Occupational hazards in the workplace.
Feelings
Emotional
Informative
Reflective
Rating
Numerical Rating: 3.6 stars
QOTD: What is the last children’s book you’ve enjoyed? Let us know!
Olivia’s had a great week. She was eagerly awaiting and preparing for the arrival of one of our close friends who she hasn’t seen in about a year or so! He used to cat-sit for my partner and I and so they are good friends.
We have also given Olivia a bib-trim. Her mane was getting a little bit too long and was starting to cause a bit of trouble while eating and drinking. Now that she’s had the trim, it’s a bit easier for her. And I’m sure it may help with cooling her down during the hot summer.
Life Update
I am recovering right now from a back injury so today’s update will be short.
In better news, we’ve started a TikTok! Let me know your thoughts – I may try to do mini reviews and share them here when I upload my ARC reviews. I like this challenge because it gives me an opportunity to enhance my verbal review skills.
Linking you to my Friday Reads post for the books Olivia and I have read this week. We finished reading 8 books. With my back injury, it’s been nice to cuddle with her and get some reading in.
We’re still working through Lore and The Nine: Origins. Unfortunately, there have been a few issues with The Nine: Origins I’ve encountered – perhaps it would have benefitted from more feedback from others with different experiences. Of course, I’ll share my honest opinions when I’ve finished but may review this as part of my August wrap up instead of a full feature post.
We are in a bit of a sticky situation right now – from our Libby app, we’ve signed out The Family Remains – one of our most anticipated reads of the year! But we have SO many books to read, so perhaps we’ll read this next month. But gosh, we’re so excited to read it.
Hi everyone! Here are all of the books I’ve read this past week! (Please note that my Youtube Video extends beyond this past week. And I forgot to add a children’s book!). This one will be very brief – currently resting from a lower back injury, but recovering well. Enjoy!
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery, Stacy King (Adaptor), Crystal S. Chan (Contributor), Daria Rhodes (Lettering), and Kuma Chan (Illustrator). (NG)
Note: NetGalley copies are designated as NG. These are provided in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the publishers and to NetGalley, all opinions are my own.
We have so many books that we love written at least a decade ago that we wanted to focus on a few books that we’ve enjoyed and categorize them by mood. There are more than 10 books. Enjoy!
From Eve to Dawn: A History of Women Volume 1. Origins by Marilyn French. I can’t believe how much I’ve learned from this book, and I’m happily continuing the series. I think this could be updated and even more inclusive now, but it’s a good place to start.
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. Everything Baldwin writes belongs in the must-read section.
A Stranger at Home by Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, Christy Jordan-Fenton, and Liz Amini-Holmes. A must-read.
Dark
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. This book really impacted my world view.
Deathnote by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. Disturbing, but you can’t stop once you’ve started it.
Emotional
Night by Elie Wiesel. Deceptively short read; however, its impact lasts forever.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. My all-time favourite book. The theme of adjusting one’s expectations really helped me a lot with some very difficult decisions.
Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin. Again, read this with a box of tissues.
QOTD: Have you read any of these titles? Let us know!
