Mr. Popularity (Big Nate)

2 stars Note: this is the first I have read of anything Big Nate-related. An okay collection of comics originally published 2009 to 2010. The collection was fine, mostly I just don’t think it was a good fit for me personally. I had a difficult time assessing who this book was targeted toward. The characters…

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Horrible Harry and the Christmas Surprise by Suzy Kline

2 stars This was a very easy read. There are only four chapters, each of which are pretty short. This book was okay. It is the first Horrible Harry book I have read. It was cute and the writing was simple. I did like the ending, but overall it wasn’t a very interesting read for…

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Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison

2 stars This book is pretty much what Bridget Jones would have been like in school, although less charismatic in my opinion. It was okay. It was a pretty quick read, but for me it wasn’t entertaining or insightful. It’s a pretty run of the mill tween book filled with fat shaming, jokes about suicide,…

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Tovi the Penguin goes to the Seaside

2 stars A cute story with nice illustrations. This is a very simple story. It is more of a description of events rather than a story with a plot. Not much character development, but the pictures were cute and interactive.

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Junie B. Jones is a Beauty Shop Guy by Barbara Park

2 stars  This is the first book I have read in this series. The antics of Junie B. Jones are reminiscent of Ramona Quimby, but the first person narrator really got on my nerves. Having Junie narrate the story with all of her age-appropriate grammatical errors was very irritating to me. It really took away…

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Junie B. Jones and the Mushy Gushy Valentime by Barbara Park

2 stars Found a copy of this book in the Lending Library and decided to check it out for an easy read. The story is simple, the writing is okay, but I really did not like the narration. Junie’s narration really bugged me with her misprounciations and incorrect use of past tense verbs. I understand…

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Ghostgirl by Tonya Hurley

2 stars I’m kind of conflicted about this book. There were parts I liked and parts I didn’t like. So please excuse the ramble that is about to follow. I really liked the concept of the book. It took an old concept (ghostly unfinished business) and put a cool new spin on it. There were…

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Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave

2 stars I won this book in a giveaway. Overall, not really my kind of book. I really enjoy wine and have liked other vineyard-based novels, but this one was not my glass of wine, so to speak. I was really intrigued by the opening quote, “You have to grow about eight hundred grapes to…

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Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriquez

2 stars I received an ARC of this book through The Reading Room/Bookstr. Definitely a disturbing and macabre collection of stories, but that wasn’t what I disliked about it. What I really didn’t like was that most of the stories didn’t really have a plot or resolution. They were more just a collection of creepy…

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I Wish… by Jillian Harker

2 stars  A cute book, but not much for plot. I liked the illustrations and the characters, but this book read like the introduction to a series, not a book in and of itself. Nothing really happened outside of Benji meeting the new toys.A nice picture book, but not much of a story.

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