Book Review: He Knows When You're Awake by Alta Hensley

My thanks to Netgalley, Avon and Harper Voyager, and Alta Hensley for the eARC of this book in exchange for a review. 

I'll start by saying that I did not read the first book. My hope was that I did not have to read it first and for the most part, I think I'm right in saying it's not necessary. I'll also say that I'm not the biggest fan of Christmas but the title intrigued me. The focus is not necessarily about the holiday itself though, it's more of a backdrop and occasional set piece for certain moments, think ice skating, gift shopping and looking at Christmas trees and so on. With all that said though, I'm sorry to say I didn't like this as much as I'd hoped I would.

The book follows Sloane Whitmore, a jewelry designer who is feeling stifled at her job where she is unable to design jewelry pieces that she would love. She's tried getting loans from the bank to start her own business but she keeps getting turned down. A chance encounter with Cole Asher, a billionaire and a recluse, leads Sloane to the opportunity of a lifetime: work for Cole Asher and design the jewelry line of her dreams. The catch is that she has to move into his penthouse, where he's built a workshop for her and her jewelry line needs to be done by Christmas for it to launch by New Years. Their attraction grows and soon they try their luck at being together. But Cole has other motives behind funding Sloane's jewelry line and there are people who would do anything to destroy him. Including hurting someone he has come to love.

My first issue had to do with inconsistent characters. Sloane seemed like she was tough and had a good head on her shoulders but she was quick to follow and do anything and everything for Cole. She would talk about her struggles with pleasing her mother in one breath and then in the next, mourn the fact that she wasn't going to spend the holidays with her family. Now, usually this is par for the course, the lead character has issues with a parental figure and it explains some of the character's background. But readers don't get more than just the talking about what happened in the past. It didn't have much reflection as it was being revealed and as a result, the emotional impact felt like it was nonexistent.

I can't even tell you anything about Cole's background. I think his father was a drunk and abusive? Other than that, I don't know where he used to live, why he came to the city, what he was interested in most to make himself money. He had a mentor with questionable morals and followed his way of things for a while before he made changes. He was more consistent in character but not by much.

The characters being inconsistent then lead to a lack of chemistry. I'm reading this book for the romance and it all felt very bland. Their connection felt like it was only surface level, nothing felt like true depth and as a result, I found their connection to be bland. Even their steamy scenes felt boring. It's not a good sign when the couple you're supposed to root for feels like they would be better off moving on from each other.

Which leads to issues with the pacing. The book has scenes focused on Sloane making her jewelry, Cole watching her on cameras and then the two of them together. Wash, rinse and repeat. Which would have been fine if they were interesting together but the lack of chemistry made it difficult to enjoy them as a couple. Not to mention, the biggest threat of the book is Cole's former mentor, a character that spends most of the story off page. There was no sense of urgency, no real feeling of peril. Readers know that there is something Cole is hiding about that man but we don't get enough of a chance to feel true concern for what could befall our leads. And then it wraps up in the blink of an eye and the book is over.

I wanted to love this, really I did, but I'm left thinking this might not be the best fit for me as a reader. I might try another book by Hensley somewhere down the road but it won't be anytime soon.

Rating on my Scale: 3 Stars. I hope this book finds its audience. I'm sincerely sorry this book and I didn't click. 

Book Review: Road Trip with a Vampire by Jenna Levine

My thanks to Netgalley, Berkley Publishing Group and Jenna Levine for the eARC of this book in exchange for a review.

I have a confession to make. I actually have the rest of the My Vampires series. I remember borrowing the first book from my city's digital library and enjoying it so much that I bought myself a copy and returned the library one. Then I proceeded to get to about the 40% mark and then left it unfinished. And I bought the 2nd book not realizing that it was actually a series and left it on my tablet for another day.

I had to go searching for it on my tablet because it's been a few years and it had fallen way down on my list of things to read in my digital library. And then I went ahead and hunted down the details of the first book because I could not for the life of me remember why I put the first book down for so long. Looks like it came out around the time I was coming out of the newborn trenches, the ones so deep the Mariana looks at us floundering in the deeps and gives a nod of respect to the trench we're in. I'm in them for a second time now but I like to think I have more experience with sleep deprivation to the point that I can read all the books I want while simultaneously handling screaming tantrums and soothing lullabies.

I was tempted to read both previous books as fast as possible before reading Road Trip with a Vampire before I realized this would be the perfect opportunity to try a book and see if it could stand on its own without depending a lot on the previous installments for me to enjoy the story. I am happy to report that YES, you can read this book without having read the others. Also, you will most definitely WANT to read the other books once you're done with this one.

This was just so sweet, it made me want to curl up with my hands under my chin and just sigh and smile because awww, that was so good.

This book follows Grizelda Watson, known as Zelda, a witch who has left her bad reputation behind for a new start in California as a yoga instructor. Zelda used to hang out with vampires but has spent the last 10 years avoiding them and her magic, in favor of a new peace and being an overall better person than she was in her long and storied past. That all changes when amnesiac vampire Peter Elliot shows up, having been sent by her old friend Reggie, so that Peter can have someone to look out for him while he tries to regain his memories. Zelda decides the least she can do is help him and together they try to figure out who Peter used to be. When Peter gets a threatening note about a job left unfinished, Peter and Zelda come up with a plan: visit places mentioned in Peter's journal to see if they can jog his memories before the sender of the message tracks them down.

I loved Zelda. I loved her name, her attitude, and I even loved her past, which is that apparently she had a reputation for pulling off elaborate pranks. She made me chuckle and smile and that is everything when you're following a romatic lead through their trials and tribulations. I thought Peter was charming and enjoyed hiw flustered he got with Zelda and how the two of them would flirt and slowly learned about each other. It was all just exactly what I wanted to read after the last week of horrible weather and horrible stories on the news about the floods that happened less than an hour away from me. Zelda and Peter made me forget about worrying enough so that I could be able to fall in love with their story. I'm starting My Roommate is a Vampire in the morning because yeah, okay, I NEED to sleep, tell me what else is new.

The book is written from Zelda's point of view, allowing us to see how hard Zelda has worked to become someone better. We can see the pain she feels for mistakes she made in the past and how it drives her to choose to change. I liked how that theme, making a choice to be better, was worked into Zelda's story and into Peter's, because the more we learn about Peter, the more readers see that Peter wants to believe that change is possible, even for him. Funny enough because as is, Peter doesn't know who he used to be. All he knows is that Zelda makes him want to be better, to be deserving of someone like her, and isn't that just exactly what romance needs? It gives me fuzzy feelings and makes me smile just thinking about it. Some of the chapters start with a bit about Peter, filling in things from his past about what his job used to be and how all of it brought him to Zelda. Others have bits about Zelda's past and how her practical jokes created a reputation with a mind of it's own, practically. I liked how reserved he was and how little details like his music choices were enough to expand on who Peter was and who he chose to be for Zelda. The story just worked for me with making me love the characters and then, in turn, love the story of how they fall in love.

If I have to make any complaint, it would be about how I wanted to know a little more about Zelda's past, where she came from, who her family was, things like that. The same for Peter. I was also a little irked by the final conflict of the story, the reasoning that Zelda came up with for why she and Peter would not work out. I thought she was being way too stubborn and refusing to see the truth about what had happened and I wanted someone to tell her that earlier but she did eventually work it out, better late than never. Still, I would have slapped her upside the head because really? You were going to give up on love because you were what? Mincing words about what had happened and what you thought had happened? Ugh, romantic leads, I tell you. There always has to be something, no matter how small, to make their happily ever afters feel earned. Still, sigh, this sweet couple earned their love story ending and this author has earned a new fan. Seriously, I will be reading the rest of the series, probably within the next week, and I'll be keeping Jenna Levine on my list of automatic preorders. If the pattern holds, my hope is for a new book by this time next year. I'm looking forward to it.

Rating on my scale: Going with 9 stars because Zelda really did need a smack to head. Just a few times, nothing too violent, I wouldn't want a vampire coming after me for knocking some sense into his love. Still, this is a great book, exactly what I want to see in romance stories, and I hope the rest of the series is just as good.

Book Review: Pitcher Perfect by Tessa Bailey

My thanks to Netgalley, Avon and Harper Voyager and Tessa Bailey for the eARC of this book in exchange for a review. 

Let's start by saying I have read a LOT of books by Tessa Bailey. Seriously, I think I've lost count of just how many I've read. Off the top of my head, I loved the Bellinger Sisters books. I HATED 2 out of the 3 of the Hot & Hammered series. I mostly liked the A Vine Mess duology, I didn't like Wreck The Halls. I've also read the first, let me check, 3 books of this series, and I'll be honest, I haven't been consistently rating them very high. Still, I keep coming back because when I find a Tessa Bailey book that is AWESOME, it knocks me off my axis and I decide to read the next book set for release by Tessa Bailey.

I'll be reading book 5 of this series, no doubt about it.

Okay, first off, this book can be read on its own. All that is needed to understand this world is that the books mainly focus on some kind of professional sports figure and their love interest. Book 1 followed a professional golf star, book 2 followed said golfer's best friend, a professional hockey player. That set up, the hockey team, is where the next 2 books continue, with book 3 being focused on another teammate from that hockey team and book 4, THIS BOOK, now focusing on a rookie player from the same team. The reader sees some of the team interaction from said previous leads, and the introduction of this book is a scene from a previous installment, just from a different perspective. I appreciated this because let's face it, I read that book a while back so while I figured that couple would end up the focus of a future book, I didn't remember all of the specifics about their encounter. It also helped to fill in the background of our leads and cement them as a couple I genuinely wanted to read about and see them get their happily ever after.

So Pitcher Perfect follows Skyler Paige, a senior softball pitcher at Boston University who attracts the attention of rookie hockey player Robbie Corrigan at what was supposed to be some kind of challenge between a group of baseball players versus the hockey team I mentioned before. She's a no-nonsense, tough-as-nails, one of the guys type of character who thinks Robbie is only making fun of her when he keeps calling her hot and tries to get her to go out with him. A bet leads to a short coffee date where the truth is revealed. Skyler is in love with her brother's best friend and she has no idea how to get him to notice her. Robbie volunteers to fake date Skyler in the hopes that the guy will get jealous and relaize his here to now unknown affection for Skyler. All the while, Skyler wants Robbie to tutor her in how to keep her true love's attention, starting with flirting lessons and escalating from there. At the same time, Robbie is trying hard to prove that he can be the guy of her dreams by participating in a week long competition with her family where the pair are forced to make a united front to her family, where Skyler has always felt like the odd man out.

And that's all the first quarter of the book!

By this point, I was charmed I tell you. I loved Skyler's quips and her sense of humor. I loved the sudden realization that Robbie had that his past had come back to bite him when he finally met the girl of his dreams. Their interactions were sweet and yearning and their chemistry made me almost swoon except I was smiling the whole time so it was more giggling than falling back in a faint. I can't remember the last time a couple felt like something I wanted to read. The pacing of this book just flies by because of the banter and the nature of the setting, being the family competition back at Skyler's childhood home. I read every scene and just wanted them to get on the same page but at the same time I enjoyed the journey of them getting to the right place for their relationship to work. I'm even invested in what I believe will be the future leads of upcoming books in this series. Which is funny, because as I said before, I read the other installments of this series and I have not felt quite so eager to get to the next book until now.

I could go on but I'll end this by saying I'm buying a copy of this soon to go with the other Tessa Bailey books I've loved. It deserves the place it has earned on a shelf with my other favorite romances.

Rating: I'm going to play it safe and say 8 Stars on my scale. I'd rate it higher but I worry that this might be a fluke for the series for me and then I'll have to wait for yet another Tessa Bailey book that I fall head over heels with again in the future. Best to temper my expectations and wait with crossed fingers for book 5. Here's hoping I love it to bits, like this one.

Book Review: Deathly Fates by Tesia Tsai

My thanks to Netgalley, St. Martin's Press/Wednesday Books and Tesia Tsai for the eARC of this book in exchange for a review. 

The title is what first snared my attention. Followed quickly by the eye-catching cover. So with my interest sufficiently piqued, I read the synopsis and all the pieces fell into place. I wanted to read about Kang Siying and her work as a priestess that can make the dead walk. I will say my initial impression was that this would be something akin to a romantasy story, focused on the developing relationship between Siying and Prince Ren. I'm happy to say this was secondary to the main plot of court intrigue and the precarious balance between two countries on the brink of war. Never judge a book by its pretty cover. Let it snare you but then stick around for the unexpected story. You won't regret it. 

Deathly Fates is about Kang Siying, a priestess taught by her father to raise the dead and help guide them home. When her beloved father falls ill, Siying takes a job that leads her across the border and into Wen, where the people are displeased with the King of Sian. Her task is to find a particular dead soldier and bring him back to Sian. Except, when Siying places her talisman on him, the soldier returns to a state of living. He also turns out to be the missing prince of Sian, younger son of the King. Prince Ren is living on borrowed time though and now Siying and Ren have to find ways to gather qi, or life force, to bring Ren fully back to life. Together they begin a journey back to Sian, working to restore Prince Ren's qi by purifying evil spirits along their path. As they travel, they start to uncover the truth about the state of the country and that there may have been more to Ren's death than what is seems.

I loved Kang Siying. This is the no-nonsense, level-headed priestess of my dreams. She's cool and collected, working hard to keep her family safe and to provide everything she can for them with enough of a sardonic edge to her that had me squarely in her corner from page one. Prince Renshu, Ren, is the perfect opposite of Siying, hopeful and teasing and loyal to a fault. Together they make quite the pair, working together to save Ren's life and learning to trust each other more and more with every new obstacle that comes their way. I was rooting for them together within pages of their meeting. They are the kind of couple that make hearts sing. I loved their banter, their conflicts and their hope as they came together to be a force that could change the fate of the kingdom.

One unexpected aspect of the book was the actual work that Siying does as a priestess. I understood that she could raise the dead in order to return them to their families but the actual act of it on the page was thrilling to see. The vengeful spirits needing to be exorcised for Ren were tragic and terrifying in equal measure, and the addition of these characters and their backstories helped to fill in pieces of this world. I enjoyed the vibe of mixing romance with murderous ghosts. All in a day's work for our heroes. 

The only complaint I have is with the pacing. In stories like these, a lot of the time spent on the actual act of journeying from location to location does not make it into the book. Understandable of course, as I'm sure it would make for dull reading and make the story drag if the journey is not the focus of the plot. Still, in this book it felt like the characters are here and then quickly end up there, making scene changes feel like more of a snap of your fingers type of move instead of a smoother transition. As a result, some things felt a little rushed with the development in the middle of the book. It doesn't detract too much from the story and I still loved where the characters ended up. If this is where the story leaves them for good, then I'm okay with that.

Rating on my scale: I'm going with 9 stars. The pacing just irks me a little, enough that I feel like the stars I give this should reflect that. Read this if you like romance and women who can make skeletons do their bidding. It's a surprising combination but the payoff is worth it.

Book Review: I'll Find You Where the Timeline Ends by Kylie Lee Baker

My thanks to Netgalley, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group/Feiwel & Friends and Kylie Lee Baker for an eARC of this book in exchange for a review. 

I have quite the number of books by Kylie Lee Baker but life has gotten in the way and I have not read a single one of them until now. I liked this book and I feel bad saying that because I didn't really really like it or even love it. From what I understand, this is a little more light-hearted compared to Baker's other books so I'm going to chalk this one up as a it's me, not you, and try to explain the why's of it all.

So, I'll Find You Where the Time Ends follows Mina, a descendant of a dragon god who can time travel as a result of her ancestry. She is in training to work for the Descendants, an organization that works to keep the timeline safe. There are rogue agents who apparently take it upon themselves to change things in time and the Descendants go back and try to correct things in unobtrusive ways to best preserve the timeline. They have to make sure that no one notices them or what they do in order for their work to be what it is supposed to end up as. Mina is on track to become an agent, her goal being to find a sister that no one else remembers except her. While trying to finish her last requirements, Mina meets a rogue agent who claims if she doesn't help him, the world will end sometime in the future. Mina has to figure out if she wants to help the rogue agent or focus on finding the truth about her sister, and how both missions involve the organization Mina and her family have loyally followed for so long.

Okay, first of all, one star off for the development of the world which seemed a little lacking in some parts. The whole idea of the Descendants seemed interesting but I had no idea how they really worked to keep the timeline safe. There were instances every now and then to explain why this one thing, like a bug, changed things for the worst, but it didn't seem to have much bearing on the story. Mina was tasked with finding the bug, I remember that, but I don't remember why it was important. It was just something she was tasked with doing to get points to become an agent. I wanted to see more about this organization. I feel like little reports added between chapters, something explaining a task and how changing it worked in fixing the timeline, could have helped with developing the Descendants organization. The way it's presented in the book, I know there is the big boss, there is Mina's mentor, Hyebin, and there are Mina's parents who also work for the Descendants. And that's all I can tell you about an organization tasked with keeping the timeline safe. That's why it feels lacking. There could have been mentions about a big event they keep safe, how they have to run scenarios constantly to curb tampering with the timeline on that scale. I know that Mina was tasked with getting a boy to kiss her, and somehow doing this proved she could be an agent, which made no sense because I thought they weren't supposed to be noticed when they traveled in time? Ow, I think my head is spinning after that sentence.

Next, a second star off for the way the story wrapped up. For most of the book, readers are told by Mina that as a descendant, she seemed more human than the others and how this detracted from her overall self. She was supposed to be smarter, better adept at picking up languages, things like that because of her heritage. Instead, she was struggling with Calculus so she needed tutoring, and she was messing up on her assignments in the past which resulted in her mentor having to redo the missions without her. It all could have led to some interesting development if it had been a gradual reveal that Mina's self-assessment was wrong, but the ending just turns into a whirlspin and boo, that wasn't what I expected. I don't want to veer too much into spoiler territory but I think it goes without saying that a story about a girl who doesn't think she measures up to her peers would eventually find out they are more than what they appear to be. I just wanted it to feel more organic to the story. Also, if the ending was going to be that, why didn't something give earlier? Why wasn't there a system in place to recognize signs of corruption in the Descendants? It all seems like loose ends that were tied off too quickly and it makes me feel a little disgruntled about the resolution to the story.

After all is said and done, I thought this book was a sweet story about a girl who gains the power and confidence to stand up for herself and what she wants. She gets most of what she wants and is ready to move on with her life. So, okay, good for Mina.

Rating on my scale: 5.5 Stars. I wanted to like this so much more than I did and that makes me so sad. BUT, I have so many other books by Baker, and I can see that the talent is there, so I'm going to try reading everything else I have until I find a book I love. So see? There's hope for me yet.

Book Review: Moth Dark by Kika Hatzopoulou

My thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Young Readers Group/G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers and Kika Hatzopoulou for the eARC in exchange for a review. 

When I started reading this book, I wasn't sure what to expect. The book starts some time after a big world event and the lead came off a little weird to me. But I kept reading and slowly I was sucked in, caring about Sascia, Mooch and her darkmoths, her cousin Danny, her cohort from school, and Nugau. I loved this so much, I want to buy copies for all the readers in my family. For now, I'll settle for reading the rest of Kika Hatzopoulou's books.

Moth Dark follows Sascia Petrou, a young student who is in love with the Darkness that appeared in the world 6 years ago. Now 18, Sascia was supposed to be working with other students to study the dark but has taken a little more of a different route to her studies. That different route means Sascia is constantly exploring the Dark and one day Sascia sees a humanoid shape climb out of it. That turns out to be Nugau, and their mission is to kill Sascia. When Sascia finds Nugau again, Nugau doesn't know who Sascia is and things continue from there. Sascia realizes that the world inside the dark, Itkalin, is always at a different point in time from their world, and somehow Sascia is at the center of a war between humans and elves. As the two of them work to try to find a way to have their worlds be at peace together, Sascia and Nugau are drawn together again and again, caring for each other, willing to anything and everything to keep the other safe and with their worlds determined to fight, that connection might not be enough to keep them together.

So yes, when I started the book I thought Sascia was a little weird. She had a side hustle taking people "fishing" so they could capture dark insects to keep as pets. She'd had the opportunity to study at an Ivy League school but messed up with focusing enough time to study and was now taking remedial courses and retaking exams so she can get into Columbia. And she's seemingly obsessed with the Dark, apparently to the point that her expeditions leading people to fish for dark insects allow her to experience their wonder/awe/terror again and again when they first encounter Dark creatures. That's all in the opening chapter and I just thought come on kid, you know you're playing with fire. So when Nugau comes out of the manhole Sascia is working at and starts to chase her, I felt vindicated. And then thought okay, so that's how the story is going to work. Sascia is a kid who makes foolish decisions but then has to work to show why she's important, how she makes a difference, why we should root for her. To the point that not only had I started to root for her and but I wanted to shake everyone who told her that her differences were bad and that she needed to make other choices.

Nugau was a pleasant surprise and a truly wonderful character. Nugau is a genderfluid elf princet. The elves on the other side of the dark can change their gender, which is then depicted by the color of the Darkprints on their face. Nugau shows up time and time again as either gender or even intersex and it was great to see a society where this is considered the norm. It didn't matter to the character what gender they were because the essence of Nugau never changed and I loved their depiction. The strength they had as they tried to lead, as they tried to teach Sascia about the Dark, and the compassion they had in trying to save their world, it was all heartwrenching and I wanted Nugau to just be happy. I had violent feelings for their mother, and I adored their friends, Thalla and Orran.

All the characters are given their due thanks to the way the book is written. Danny, Sascia's cousin and best friend, is given the chance to shine in chapters showing their past. We get to see how they were as kids together, how they encouraged each other and partnered to explore the Dark and made discoveries that would help the world. They were exactly what they were shown to be, family, and I loved Danny's own love story with a fellow classmate. Tae, Andres, Shivani and Crow round out the rest of the cohort that are some of the best minds in the world working in a lab with Danny and Sascia to study and understand the Dark. They're each important, have unique talents and play important roles in the course of the book.

The way that the book is structured helped with highlighting the way the timeline works between Itkalin and our world. There are various chapters interspersed through the narrative, showing different past points in Sascia's life. Each highlights an important moment that has shaped Sascia into the person she is in the current timeline. I enjoyed each tidbit given and every question answered with this structure. 

The magic of this world, which I think it should be called because of the wonder it invokes, and because it's the word Sascia uses, is so interesting. I loved the idea of the Dark creatures that have entered our world and how Sascia and Danny have managed to work out how to help them flourish here and help people. I loved Mooch, a Darkmoth that has chosen Sascia as their person to help through thick and thin. I loved how Sascia's choice to protect the moths helped to prove how important she was in working to resolve the conflict between the two worlds. It's all so richly detailed and a wonder to behold, just like Sascia knew it was from the start.

In the end, I loved this book. I thought it was a beautiful story about how making a better choice is possible. I'll be reading more books from Hatzopoulou as soon as possible.

Rating on my scale: 10 Stars. Really, I have no complaints about this one. Read this book if you think Pacific Rim and The Time-Traveler's Wife put together sounds like a great idea. That's the best I could come up with to compare this book to and I loved both those things. I'm sure there are other things to compare this book to but I came up with those two when I was sleep deprived and now they're the only two I can come up with. Just read this book and have beautiful day. 

Book Review: Pocket Bear by Katherine Applegate

My thanks to Netgalley, Macmillan Children's Publishing Group and Katherine Applegate for the eARC of this book in exchange for a review. 

This is my first time trying a book by Katherine Applegate but it won't be the last. I'll be buying a copy of this book and reading it to my kids. Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect when I decided to try this book. Truth be told, I saw the artwork for the cover, read that the synopsis had a cat as a character and made my decision then and there to try reading this. At the time, my own cat was having health problems and I thought reading a sweet book about a cat would help. It gave me great comfort to read this and I hope my kids love it one day soon.

Pocket Bear is about a a small stuffed toy bear, named you guessed it, Pocket Bear, who has an interesting history. Pocket Bear was hand-made during World War I, designed in a way so that he could fit in a soldier's pocket and seem like he was gazing up into his soldier's face. These bears were meant to provide luck and love for their owners. Nowadays, Pocket Bear runs a home for giving other lost and thrown away stuffed animals a second chance at finding a new child to love them. He runs the place with his cat best friend, Zephyrina, who goes out at night to scavenge for food and lost toys to take home. When Zephyrina finds a teddy bear in a restaurant trash can and decides to bring it back home, it sets in motion a story about finding comfort, love and family where you least expect it.

This was a sweet story, told from Zephyrina's point of view, and I have to say Applegate nails the cat attitude perfectly. I loved the sass, the reasonings behind what Zephyrina chose to do or the moves to make. I could see the calculations that went into showing how a cat really fits into a family and how Zephyrina's choices proved that cats are intelligent and loving creatures. I believed the friendship between Zephyrina and Pocket from page 1 and I loved every moment of their sweet story together.

I thought Pocket was tragic but I understood the hope he stood for, the love that went into the making of him. I'm not a fan of stuffed bears but I recently made an amigurumi stuffed bear for a family member for their new baby. I worked hard on putting everything together into a whole toy that I hope will bring comfort to the baby when they are old enough to keep it with them when they sleep. With that in my head, each interaction with Pocket and Dasha, the child who runs the Second Chance home for toys with her mother, Elizaveta, tugged at the heartstrings just a little bit more. I also learned a lot about the history of stuffed bears that I had never heard of before. That history lends this book a feeling of maturity that I can respect as this allows for the reader to learn and grow and think with every new situation that comes up in this adventure. I love when a book treats its reader like they are smart without talking down to them. This is the kind of book I want my kids to read and enjoy but will also allow them to ask me questions about the wars mentioned and the effects they have on families. It's a great book with ideas that can make kids think and consider things in different ways than they had before and that makes it a very respectable read.

I should also add that I too have several shelves where my childhood stuffed toys are kept safe so that also endeared me to this story. And my cat that I mentioned earlier had his own tiny stuffed toy, a snowman, that he loved to bits and took with him everywhere until it was misplaced. All this to say that if you had anything like a stuffed toy when you were a kid, this story will make you remember them again and think about who they might have been once upon a time. It also makes me think about the stuffed friends I'm giving to my kids and how I hope they feel love and comfort and magic when they have their toys with them. My kid calls all of his stuffed animals his friends and after reading this book, I can believe in that just a little bit more. It's a magical tale filled with hope, which makes it the best kind of kids book, in my opinion.

Rating on my scale: I'm giving this 10 stars and pulling out my stuffed puppy I've had for almost 30 years and giving him a hug. My puppy has been sitting on my baby recliner for the last 3 years but after reading this book, it's high time he takes his place by my pillow again. You're never too old to appreciate the effects of a well-loved stuffed animal, after all.