This book is definitely my favourite for the month of February. If you like time travel, magic and romance then you will love this book. I finished the entire book in 3 sittings. The story is based in mystical New York and revolves around an ancient book that will save all people with magic from being caged by a magical barrier that is located on the Manhatten bridge. Once a person with magic enters the city they can never leave. I found the story very well written and it kept me guessing literally till the last page. Reading level wise, this is an easy read. Overall I would give Lisa Maxwell’s The Last Magician a 4/5

 

It took me quite a while to finish this book and not because I didn’t like it, quite the opposite really. I don’t know about most people but I get invested in the story and its characters. So when they’re going through something really horrific it affects me to the point that my heart hurts and I need to take a break otherwise I will be upset for the rest of the day. So it took me almost a month for me to finish The Tattooist of Auschwitz, which for me is a very long time. The book is based on true events and proves that love, empathy and kindness can bloom in even the harshest environments. The story is about a Jewish man who is forced tattoo his fellow Jewish people with a specific code number that identifies them as concentration camp inmates. The story shows how he tries to save the people he is permanently marking and how he finds love in one of the most abhorrent places on earth to date. This book reminds people of the horrors Jewish people went through during WWII but it also shows the lengths people would go to protect each other and knowing if they got caught they would be killed. The entire book was a journey, one I thoroughly enjoyed and gave me hope for humanity. I give Heather Morris’s book a 5/5

 

This is the sequel to Caraval and is told in a new perspective. The storyline now focuses on Scarlet’s little sister and the Caraval’s grandmaster Legend. I had high hopes for this book and though it was okay, it was nowhere near as good as Caravel. I don’t know why but it was subpar compared to the first book Tella was a little dumb for my taste. I like my female protagonists to be headstrong and independent. Tella was a little too obsessed with boys and thus made really bad choices. The men in this book almost had identical personalities, macho alpha males with little depth. This is unfortunate because the back story of legend was something I was really looking forward to. Don’t even get me started on Jacks. Legend was supposed to be an anti-hero so I get why he was portrayed the way he was but Jacks was supposed to be the good guy! I’m not going to spoil the book if you do decide to read it but don’t trust that little weasel. I give Stephanie Garber’s Legendary with a heavy heart a 3/5. I expected better.

 

I resonated with this book on a personal level. A Girl Like That, tells the story of Ziran a Muslim girl who lives in Saudi Arabia who is of Indian heritage. She’s not exactly the poster girl for Islam because she’s rebellious and outgoing than most of the girls around her and that has managed to ruin her reputation among her community mainly because she got caught with a boy by the religious police. Now as a Muslim myself I found the situations Ziran gets into and the dilemma   she has about her identity to be disturbingly accurate and at the same time somewhat hilarious. I found the characters and situations that they were in to be completely realistic and the book did a good job bringing light to topics that often go unspoken because of cultural and religious stigma while simultaneously being humorous. The book talked about the immigrant experience, coming of age and wanting to experience new things that are culturally frowned up on, trying to fit in into a specific bubble, judging people and making assumptions. I found the book to very enjoyable and realistic so I’ll be giving Tanaz Bhathena’s book a a 4.5/5.