Reading with teafortiffany

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“They said that magic, real magic, not the shite that the hedge-witches peddled with all their little bags of powders and herbs, could only be performed in exchange for a human heart.”

–Andrea Eames, A Harvest of Hearts, First Line

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Hello friends!!!

I am back with another book review! The first of this year (even though it’s the third book I’ve finished). I’m making good progress with the various books I intend to read this year, and I’m excited to continue sharing this with you. I am considering making some changes to some of the pages (specifically the Series Tracker page). I just feel like there are better ways to have things organized, but I’ll let you know when I finally make a decision.

Anyways, lets get into shall we!

This book I purchased specifically because it was compared to Howl’s Moving Castle, one of my favorite Studio Ghibli Movies (and a book I desperately need to read). I ended up selecting this book because I am attempting to do the Buzzword Cover Challenge by BooksandLala. The January prompt for the cover was “cover featuring an internal body part” and this was the cover that came to mind first! I genuinely have this challenge to thank for picking up this book to start.

This book features a young woman named Foss, a butcher’s daughter, from a village far away from the city where magic is powered by human hearts, and Magic-Workers regularly come to take pieces or all of the heart of villagers from the kingdom. When a male Magic-Worker comes to her village and accidentally takes a piece of her heart, she sets out to get it back.

Foss is a character who is physically strong, having worked with her father at the Butcher shop her whole life, but she lacks confidence. This is made apparent right from the beginning of the book and is something that continues throughout the book. Quite a bit of the book is about Foss growing and changing through this journey she takes, and what she encounters. While she lacks confidence and frequently puts herself down, I didn’t feel annoyed by her character; instead, I enjoyed watching her grow.

One of my favorite pieces of the story is the House and a lovable talking cat named Cornelius. I mean, how can you go wrong with a fun talking cat? I liked the villains for the most part, but there are many of them who are in the background. There was another character as well who seemed like they should be kind of important, but was very much just a background character. I really would have liked to have seen that character more built up, with maybe a bit more presence in the story. In the end, they weren’t a detriment to the story, but I would have liked to see more of them.

The plot itself ended up taking turns that I didn’t necessarily expect, but I didn’t really have any particular expectations when going into the novel. I’m not sure if that says more about the book or more about me as a reader. I did enjoy the story and I was entertained almost the entire time. This was a great book to take in small chunks at a time when I could fit in the time to read (I’m also trying to read a little every day this month). I think, because of this, I didn’t get too bored or annoyed with the story. I am happy with the way that it went and have no real complaints with the story.

All in all, I enjoyed the book. This book honestly made me reconsider my rule about partial ratings. When I started this book, it felt like a solid three-star. I want to remind you here, that I don’t see a 3-star book as a bad book. It’s in the middle. It’s good, but it’s not my favorite thing in the world, and I can’t think of who I would auto-recommend it to. This book is stuck between that 3-star and 4-star area where I think it’s better than just good but I don’t know anyone who I could auto-recommend it to. For that reason, I have decided to give this book a 3.75! That’s right, we’re doing quarter increments now. It also means I need to make some new graphics.

Thank you all for joining me in another review! I’m glad to be reading more and picking up some new books to read. I’m feeling pretty good about this reading year.

As always, feel free to drop a comment, a book recommendation, or a dad joke!

Bye friends!!!!