Children of Anguish and Anarchy | Tomi Adeyemi

4 1/2 years is a long time to be away from Zelie and company, but I am so excited to finally read the conclusion to the Legacy of Orisha trilogy!! Friday and Saturday I re-read Children of Blood and Bone and Children of Virtue and Vengeance, and now it’s time to bring the story on home today with this third and final installment!

*cue vaudeville stripper music*

What’s your CU | RE for the day?

Made a new BBD Currently Reading logo and tag today.

The Lies of the Ajungo | by Moses Ose Utomi

Everyone should read this at least once!

Took some new pics for my review on IG, but for my Tumblr review last month of this great new novella, check this out:

Zach never had many opportunities to learn about his Chinese heritage growing up in Maine, so he is woefully unprepared when he discovers he was born to host the spirit of the First Emperor of China for a vital mission: sealing the leaking portal to the Chinese underworld before the upcoming Ghost Month blows it wide open. After his mom’s soul gets taken by demons and one of history’s most infamous tyrants mistakenly binds to his AR gaming headset, Zack must journey across China to heist magical artifacts and defeat figures from history and myth, all while learning to wield the emperor’s incredible water dragon powers to save the mortal realm before losing his mom forever.

We really enjoyed this story!

Before we share some of the books with the kids in our families and circles, we like to prep-read them so we can get the proper pronunciations right and get our best voice-actor chops sharpened up, otherwise these kids can be ruthless if you phone it in. Lol. But we had so much fun reading it that our original purpose took a backseat to our enjoyment. Even the chapter titles were hilarious. Though we were familiar with some of the history, mythologies and more, most Westerners will find this story both exciting and informative and see that Chinese culture is not the monolith many assume it to be.

I’m not personally familiar enough with the middle grade genre to know if one should expect character development or not, but I’m going to give it a pass since I loved its framing leaning into the idea of good and evil as shades of grey that based on one’s perception and motivations aren’t always so easily distinguishable from the other. This is the perfect age group to introduce this idea and honestly is something many adults need to grasp as well.

Publisher Description (with some edits): Twelve years ago, Sarah Baker was abducted by the Watt Lake Killer who sexually assaulted her for months before she managed to escape. The killer was caught, but Sarah lost everything. Struggling with PTSD, Sarah changes her name to Olivia West and finds sanctuary working on Broken Bar Ranch, which is broken in more ways than one. But as her scars finally begin to heal, a cop involved with her original horrific case remains convinced the Watt Lake Killer is still out there. A lure is set, and a fresh body is discovered. Now Olivia must face the impossible — could the butcher be back, this time to finish the job on her? As a frigid winter begins to isolate the ranch, Olivia’s determination to shut out her past may destroy not only her chance at love, but it could also cost her her life. 

I really enjoyed this book. I decided to pick up more thriller and horror stories this month, and this book did not disappoint. The opening captured my attention immediately and held it through the end. White did a great job at building the suspense slowly, managing several plot lines at once, creating flawed characters within flawed family dynamics, all while still handling most of the tropes well. I don’t often read suspense thrillers because I can usually guess all the twists pretty quickly, but even the ones I saw coming a mile away she mostly still handled very well which left me feeling satisfied.

Work this month has been hectic so the planned June weekly updates have turned into an end-of-the-month wrap-up. Why break things up into weekly manageable pieces when you can cram it all at the end and drive yourself crazy? 🤪

TRYING OUT A NEW MONTHLY WRAP-UP GRAPHIC: Despite my minor reading slump for the last several weeks, 11 books in a wrap-up can make for a long post, so I made a quick graphic for rating references instead. It may not be the best graphic for this format, but we’ll see if I can figure out something better in July when I’m not so inundated with work. I may reblog with blurbs and/or separate post reviews in the coming days. The slump left me in a bit of a funk and fog so I may also need to revisit these ratings later to see if they deserve more or less love.