🐈🚗💀🪄🧙‍♀️🐺 Three Books from 2025 and a Reread

The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett depicts how people are a mix of good intentions, bad decisions, not what they seem, and more than one can imagine. I was listened to this through the Libby app and I sped it up to 2x because the tension of what was going to happen was unbearable. The main character, PJ, is on a voyage of the damned road trip with two orphans, his estranged daughter, and cat named Pancake. Pancake has the special abiltiy to be able to predict when someone is going to die. So that's unexpected. There is so much dying, but in ridiculous and funny ways. I found this book darkly, macabre, and humurous as it explores what do we need: Something to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. Annie Hartnett has a special gift for writing about kids, pets, and death. 

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2025/06/contemperary-dark-humor-not-single.html

🐈🚗💀

 

    The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, by Caitlin Rozakis, is about a parent dealt an unexpected hand concerning their child. Vivian, a recovering people-pleaser, has a young daughter, Aria, who has been attacked by a werewolf, changing her into one. This sends the family in a really unanticipated direction. Vivian and her husband move to a snobby small town in Connecticut to place their daughter in The Grimoire Grammar School, a magical school. This book could be an interesting study on the pressure on couples who have a child with a chronic problems that require lifestyle changes. They find themselves ushered into a community they didn't want to join, but they do so for their daughter. 

🪄🧙‍♀️🐺

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS

    Catching Fire is the second book in The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. Should I enjoy a story that features children murdering each other? Collins took some of her inspiration for the story from Greek Mythology. The Athenians had to send fourteen adolescents, seven female and seven male, every nine years as tribute. They were put into a labyrinth to be hunted down by the Minotaur. This theme and the fascination with reality television fused to create her story. It feels plausible. Her plot and characters are strong.  Katness is conflicted about killing others, but also wants to survive. It's hard to look away. As the middle book of a trilogy, Catching Fire keeps the reader engaged, moves the novel and the series forward, while at the same time building excitement for the finale.

🔥🐦‍🔥🔥

I have enjoyed many T. Kingfisher books. What Stalks the Deep is the third novella chronicling the adventures of a sworn soldier of Alex Easton. The books are shelved in horror/fantasy. I say this every time, but I'm not the biggest fan of horror, but to read Kingfisher, I'll endure it. She is an evocative writer and does twisty plots with twisted characters excellently. This isn't the strongest of the series, but it is still memorable and worth the time.     

👾👾👾

🌹⛴️🦵Dystopia, 🧙🦊🐓Fantasy, and 🎩🏰👒Jane Austen

 

    The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa is a dystopian novel that blends elements of magical realism, set in Japan. Things disappear from the island like perfume or boats. When the islanders wake up, they can tell that something has vanished and feel a compulsion to rid the island of every vestige of it. Once the object is gone, they can't remember it, even what it was called. A few of the population can remember everything. They are hunted and arrested by the memory police. The Memory Police gradually shrinks the world. With each disappearance and adjustment, the people of the island continue on with life. This book reminds me of Animal Farm by George Orwell. There is the top story: items disappear and the islanders adjust, but there is more going on. To describe the book in one word, haunting. 

🌹⛴️🦵

This is the second Sangu Mandanna book I've read. https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Sangu

A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping is in the same magical universe as The Very Secret Society of Very Irregular Witches. I would classify them as well-done Romantasy. Using the vehicle of cozy romantic fantasy, Mandanna explores the desire of those in power to stay in power at the cost of others, specifically those not from the "proper" families or who are not "typical." I found it an encouraging read.

🧙🦊🐓

    I listened to The Book of Fatal Errors by Dashka Slater on my Libby app because it was read by Kevin R. Free. He is one of my favorite narrators. I would put the book at an upper elementary reading level. I found the pace of the plot slow at first--there was a lot of world-building going on--but it demonstrated, in a nonmoralistic way, what it's like to be the weird kid and find a path through the shame of finding delight in things your peers don't. 

🧚‍♀️🚂🧚‍♂️👹🧚

    I decided to reread The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins because I found her prequel about Haymitch so good, and I wanted to re-examine him. It is a dystopian novel about the United States, now called Panem, after a terrible war. The winners, the Capitol, force the twelve surrounding districts to send two tributes between twelve and eighteen, one male and one female, each year to the Hunger Games, where they fight to the death until only one remains. It reminds me of Roman Gladiators using children. Katniss is from the poorest part, District Twelve. Only one person, in fifty years, has won from her district. But Katniss is a survivor. This year may be different.

🏹🔥🪶

    It is book club season again. Yeah! The theme is short books. We started with Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. It is the first one accepted for publication, but wasn't published during her lifetime. I had read it many years earlier and found it difficult to follow. As I researched it for book club, I gained a better understanding of the structure and flow. I appreciated the sly wit and sarcasm more than in the past. I doubt if it will ever be my favorite Jane Austin book, but I like it better than I have before.

🎩🏰👒

🐅🏰🐁🧙‍♂️👸Two Rereads, One History, and Awesome Adult Fantasy

    The Waiting Game: The Untold Story of the Women Who Served the Tudor Queens by Nicola Clark was recommended to me by my daughter. She said it was action-packed and fascinating. Henry VIII and his wives' lives have filled many books, but this book focuses on the women surrounding the queens--the ladies in waiting--some of whom became queens themselves. Using source material from accounts, records, and letters from the time, Clark creates a vivid picture of the intrigue and the danger of being a woman in Henry's court. 

👸🫅👑

    Louis Sachar is best known for his Young Adult book Holes, a wonderful coming-of-age book filled with magical realism. His novel for adults, The Magician of Tiger Castle, shares many of the same good qualities, including quirky characters, magic, a reluctant hero, and a cadre of good-hearted people trying not to be defeated by those ruled by selfish ambitions. Even though aimed at adults, the book retains some of the lovely charm of YA with a satisfying ending, tigers, strong-willed princesses, and magic.

🐅🏰🐁🧙‍♂️👸

 

    This has been a week of rereading, starting with Matt Dinniman's series, Dungeon Crawler Carl Book VII, This Inevitable Ruin. Dinniman balances slapstick hilarity with pathos and struggle. This book was exceptionally long. I read it quickly because it was fast-paced and I wanted to know what happened. In my reread, I wanted to revisit Carl and Princess Donut, knowing they survived. It was an examination of the nuts and bolts of how it happened. Dinniman relies on a combination of skill, social capital, and luck. 

I recently discovered that the next book in the series is scheduled for release in May 2026. Whoot!

👑🍩🦖

    With the release of the Apple+ Series Murderbot, based on the series, I have been hungry for more of Murderbot's adventures. Even though Murderbot is genderless, it is still quite human--an anxious, overclocked human with built-in arm guns. So lovable. I listen to the audiobooks read by Kevin R. Free. He is excellent at creating personalities with subtle voice changes. I have no problem keeping several characters straight. He is an award-winning narrator. He has won the Golden Voice by Audiofile Magazine. Here is a link to an interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRdusDvttdE&t=15s

🎧🤖🦾🦿👂

🦊🔐💻 The Latest Richard Osman!

 

    Richard Osman reminds me of Fredrik Backman because he writes with heart, but not sentimentality. Osman's latest book, The Impossible Fortune, the fifth installment in the Thursday Murder Club series, is an excellent addition to the series. I'm glad all the members of the Thursday Murder Club are going strong. Osman's characters continue to evolve and grow while facing the struggles of aging. This series is quite fun in a screwball comedy sort of way.

On another note, I watched the movie made from the first book on Netflix, and was somewhat disappointed. They nailed Elizabeth and Ibrahim, but I thought the material was too rich and complex for a 90 minute movie. It needed to be a series.

🦊🔐💻 

    I was visiting my six-year-old granddaughter last week, and she was listening to the audiobook of Olive's Ocean by Kevin Henkes, the Newbery Award winner for 2004. I was  ntrigued. The protagonist, 12-year-old Martha Boyle, is struggling with weighty material: the sudden death of a school friend, worry for an aging grandparent, finding herself attracted to a boy she'd previously disliked, wanting to be a writer  but unsure how. Changes wi hin and without. I think this would be a good book for a parent child book club. So many complex topics are thoughtfully addressed.

🌊🐚❤️

    I was familiar with Kevin Henke ' picture books. I love the bright illustrations and hilarious plots. Here are some of my favorites.

❤️📚❤️