Happy St. Patrick’s Day!☘️

Super excited to share with you today my review for this chilling story that completely entranced me!This was such an amazing buddy read so happy I had someone to discuss the end of the world with!☘️☘️☘️☘️💫

My Thoughts

A terrifying tale that was haunting, chilling, and far too real!

Who Will be with you when the world comes to an end? And what kind of person will you be?

This book was riveting and unique. A post apocalyptic psychological thriller, Who would’ve thought? Hanna Jameson that’s who! And can I just say I am so happy about this, this was such a compelling thought-provoking journey and I am so grateful to have taken it. This is a book that will completely ensnare both your mind and your heart. This book hit a little too close to home, it was simultaneously humbling and terrifying.

John is a historian/professor who is at a convention in Switzerland at an isolated hotel. The hotel guests start receiving updates on their phones of nuclear bombings, whole cities being annihilated, panic ensues. Most of the guests flee even though there is news that no planes are flying. When the dust settles there are only 20 people remaining in the hotel one of them being John. Everyone shifts to survival mode it is every man/woman for themselves, yet they all need one another to really survive. Shortly after the beginning of the end a body of a young girl is discovered, is the murderer still amongst them? Not going to say much more than this, but I do think the murder mystery played a significant backseat to the psychology of surviving the end of the world.

The story was told through John’s journal entries as he documented the days after the nuclear distruction. What I found so compelling about this was the social structure that formed in this time of severe crisis. Really made me think what would I do in this situation? What part would I play if I were in this hotel? The setting of the hotel itself was extremely eerie, the thought of being in a huge hotel with only 20 people was tremendously unsettling. The relationships and bonds that formed during this time, the lines that were drawn, the alliances formed, we’re all very intriguing. I really just love everything about this book, I loved how the story was revealed, how we got to know the key players right along with John. There was the perfect amount of mystery that added some major tension to the book. This is a book I would absolutely recommend to all thriller lovers. It was refreshing, unique,Disturbing, haunting, and seriously absorbing.

*** many thanks to Atria and my girl Melisa for my copy of this book ***

About the Book

The Besties

Mackenzie @ PhDiva

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Have a brilliant day!☘️

Berit☀️✨

Hello book buddies, Vicci Here,

Sorry for being away for a while, real life got in the way for a spell.

Anyhoo, it hasn’t stopped me from reading some great books, and this one was just stunning!

This book is written all in verse, but it wasn’t the “Roses are red” type of thing, oh no, it is done Slam Poetry style!

Why did i pick it up? – I stumbled across Slam Poetry after reading Colleen Hoover’s Slammed a few years ago, I wanted to see what else was out there so I went to the go-to place, YouTube! While there I discovered so many wonderful video’s, some made me laugh, and some made me cry, while some just made me sit and hold my breath, if you haven’t seen any I would really recommend it, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.

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The Poet X
By: Elizabeth Acevedo
Narrated by: Elizabeth Acevedo
Length: 3 hrs and 30 mins
Publisher: HarperAudio

My Thoughts

I listened to the audiobook, which was OUTSTANDING, the narrator Elizabeth Acevedo is also the author of the book, and her words, her voice, it is just B-E-A-Utiful!

I am going to purchase a copy of the book just to be able to highlight the whole thing!

The story is from the POV of Xiomara Batista (pronounced C O Mara), a pretty young Dominican girl living in Harlem, daughter to a very religious mother who is desperate for her to be confirmed.

Xiomara is a believer, but also questions her religion much to her dismay, she is scared to tell this to her mother.

The only way she feels that she can release her thoughts is to write them down in a notebook that was gifted to her by her brother.

That’s when I feel like a fake.
Because I nod, and clap, and “Amen” and Aleluya,”
all the while feeling like this house his house
is no longer one I want to rent.

She is also a young girl, getting thoughts about boys and sex, normal young girl thoughts, but it also shows the other side of this and the unwanted attention that young girls get.

When I’m told to have faith in the father, the son, in men – and men are the first ones to make me feel so small.

Her teacher introduces her to slam poetry, and it is like a lightbulb has been switched on in her mind, all of her thoughts, and feelings can now make a kind of sense to her when she writes them down and performs them.

She tells me words give people permission to be their fullest self and aren’t these the poems I most needed to hear?

This is an incredibly powerful book, a few times I cried listening to it, and most of the time I was just in awe of the beautiful way she writes.

I would recommend listening to the book, but i would also tell any young girl to read it, it has some brilliant and very powerful messages in it.

I only know that learning to believe in the power of my own words has been the most freeing experience of my life. It has brought me the most light. And isn’t that what a poem is? A lantern glowing in the dark.

🎧🎧 – Narrated by Elizabeth Acevedo the author of the book, her voice is so wonderful, I can not recommend this book highly enough, it is just so stunning!

81DitPFuVqL

About the book

Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.

But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers – especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, whom her family can never know about.

With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself. So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out. But she still can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.

Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.