Monday, May 15, 2017

Review: Uncorking a Lie

Uncorking a Lie Uncorking a Lie by Nadine Nettmann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I totally picked an ARC of this up at ALA Midwinter because the title had cracked me up when I saw it in the Midnight Ink catalog. What a pleasant surprise when it turned out to be a fun read! I love that each chapter had a wine pairing. While I read too fast to try out any of the pairings, I did enjoy reading what was suggested and trying to guess what the chapter would be like based on them. If you like wine and mysteries, then this might be a good fit for you. I'll have to check out some of the other books in the "A Sommelier Mystery" collection.

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Friday, May 12, 2017

Review: Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer

Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer by Kelly Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It cracked me up a number of times. I loved the idea of chickens with super powers, and I loved Sophie really working to learn to take care of the chickens on her own. The only reason I'm not giving this book five stars is that there were a couple of little things that just seemed off to me. It didn't feel realistic for Sophie to bring up the lack of brown people where she lives so often. I get mentioning once or twice, but this just seemed a little over the top- especially considering that Sophie spends most of her time on the farm since school hasn't started yet. She hasn't really seen many people period, so to put emphasis on there not being anyone who looked like her or her mom, people thinking they were immigrants, etc... so many times seemed forced. I was also confused by the reporter, Joy, towards the end of the book. I get that Jones wanted to introduce a Spanish speaking character (even though the focus on throughout the book had been on skin color rather than language), but why not make the person from a country were people are known to speak Spanish? All of the Filipino people I know speak Tagalog- not Spanish. Don't get me wrong- I still enjoyed the book and laughed out loud several times. I just think a good editor should have picked up on these things and helped Kelly Jones to make this a 5 star book.

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