I promise I have more posts in the works outside of my monthly book reviews. These last few months have been very chaotic to say the least, which I can’t wait to share my new career path and what I’m transitioning too. It’s literally perfect for me, and I’m so thankful to be starting a new job in April. In the month of March, I read 3 books, one of which was a straight “no” for me – mostly because I’m really not sure what I even read. The other two were pretty good and kept me intrigued throughout the stories.
The Bear and the Nightingale
Rating: 2/5 
Description: At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.
After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.
And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.
As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.
My Thoughts: Unlike the many stellar reviews on Goodreads, I was not a fan of this book, and I think it’s because I’m not even sure what I read to be honest. The book is super slow at the beginning, which makes it hard to get into it and why it took me almost a week and a half to finish it. It just wasn’t very interesting, and the names/Russian words are hard to keep up with. You end up losing a lot of contexts, and the story for me didn’t really feel complete. Overall – it was a no for me.
The Night She Disappeared
Rating: 4/5 
Description: 2017: 19 year old Tallulah is going out on a date, leaving her baby with her mother, Kim. Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits. The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah’s friends who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place.
She never returns.
2019: Sophie is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started work as a head-teacher when she sees a note fixed to a tree. ‘DIG HERE’ . . . A cold case, an abandoned mansion, family trauma and dark secrets lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell’s remarkable new novel.
My Thoughts: The Night She Disappeared starts off as a slow burn but trust me it quickly picks up once you get a few chapters in. I like that it sets the stage immediately by providing multiple points of view and a chilling atmosphere that tells you something is off, but you aren’t quite sure what. The author really fleshes out each character that it makes the story more real and easy to become invested in everyone. My favorite part about the book though is the fact that I thought I knew would be the outcome, and I was totally surprised with how the story turned. It was a good surprise by the way!
The Midnight Library
Rating: 3/5 
Description: Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices . . . Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?
A dazzling novel about all the choices that go into a life well lived, from the internationally bestselling author of Reasons to Stay Alive and How To Stop Time.
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting new novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
My Thoughts: After reading the description, I was a little concerned with whether the author’s writing would actually be able to match the hype around the storyline. I was really hoping that it wouldn’t fall flat like the book, Cinderella is Dead, did for me. Thankfully, it did not disappoint, and it was a cute read. It does lean into almost a self-help book, but I didn’t mind how the author blended that into the storyline.
