Made By Smree

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs My rating: 5 of 5 stars What a delightfully quirky book! I was a bit ehhhh on the photos at first, but they really did add a unique twist to the story. Can't wait to read the sequel now! View all my reviews

A Warrior's Path by Davis Ashura My rating: 5 of 5 stars Let me begin by saying that Mr. Ashura was gracious in gifting me a copy of this novel, with the only request being that I review it once I finished reading it. I have been incredibly lax in upholding my end of this bargain (so sorry!), but that all changes here and now. Right. So let's begin. I will be perfectly honest here; though the book takes off running and immediately transports the reader into the well-developed world, it took me to just under 100 pages into the story to feel like I understood enough to fully be involved in the goings-on. The world created within this novel is incredibly detailed and complex, and the cast of characters are rich and vibrant...it just took me a bit to catch up to them, so to speak. This is a very 'meaty' novel, and honestly the best comparison I can find for it is that it is very Tolkien-esque in it's style, given the level of detail. The h...

In my last post, I detailed how I've been making blankets to donate to Hospice. I've tried to use an assortment of colors/styles/etc, to accommodate a variety of people. It's no secret that I am a huuuuuuuge nerd, and especially fond of superheroes and the like.   So naturally, when I saw this Spider-Man fleece in the remnants section of Hobby Lobby, I knew I had to get it. Not only because I liked it, but I just knew I needed to buy it. I debated keeping it for myself, at first, but then I figured someone coming through Hospice could use it more than I could. I even distinctly recall telling someone about it, telling them "You never know, someone might come through, and Spider-Man could be their very favorite. thing. ever." So I finished it up, trying to find an appropriately spiderweb-ish edging to use on it.   When I took the blanket to Hospice, the workers in the volunteer department mentioned they had a young boy that might be interested i...

Recently, I've been making blankets to donate to the local Hospice. A lady at church (who heard me somewhat complaining that I loved making blankets but had no one to give them to) told me about it, saying that the workers would give blankets to patients as comfort items, and then it would be something for the family to keep as well, later on. I thought  it was a fantastic idea, and jumped in whole-heartedly.  I thought originally I would make just straight up crochet blankets, like this one.  While gorgeous, they are very time consuming (and unfortunately time is a precious commodity these days). I remembered seeing on a few websites things about adding crochet edging to fleece blankets, so I began looking into that as well, thinking those would be a nice way to supplement what I could crochet.  I purchased a Skip Stitch blade from SkipStitch.com (which, by the way, is completely awesome and SO worth it), obtained a stockpile of fleece, and set...

Otherworld by Jared C. Wilson My rating: 5 of 5 stars If you are a fan of religious thriller fiction in the vein of Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker, then you definitely need to give this book a read. The book takes the idea of aliens/UFO sightings/ETC and weaves it into a quite believable tale about what really is behind it all. My only (incredibly small) complaint was that sometimes the jumping around to different perspectives among the characters was a bit hard to get used to at first, but it ended up making perfect sense once I had gotten a bit into the book. Actually, it helped the story come together as it progressed, if that makes sense. So if you find it difficult, stick with it! The book is worth it, I promise! View all my reviews

UnEnchanted by Chanda Hahn My rating: 2 of 5 stars I downloaded this book for free from Barnes & Noble because it seemed to have a unique premise. The reviews I read were generally favorable too, so I thought it might be worth a shot. The premise is indeed very unique, but the book is bogged down by SO. MUCH. CLICHE. that it's almost maddening. It's repeated time and time (and time) again that the main character, Mina, is 'not like other girls'. I understand the urge to make your character unique and relatable to the myriad of "perfect" book characters, but there comes a point when it's just overkill. It hindered the story, for me, because it was just so over the top at times. A prime example was the fact that Mina, a modern-day 16 year old attending what seemed to be a normal enough high school, had no idea what Twitter was. Um, what? The pacing of the book seemed inconsistent. Scenes that did not feel pertinent to the ...

A friend of mine mentioned Goodreads to me last month, saying that I might enjoy it. So I decided to give it a whirl, and boy am I glad I did! It's very much like Facebook in a lot of ways, but it's all centered around books/reading. And it's awesome. You can log books that you have read, rate them, read and write reviews, keep track of books you'd like to read, interact with others and a whole host of other things. The website is incredibly easy to use, and so is the Android app (it even has a barcode scanner for easy book lookup!). All in all, I've loved it. If you're a dedicated bibliophile like me, it's definitely worth checking out. :)  I mentioned that one of the options provided is the ability to write reviews on books you've read, but I recently discovered that there is even an auto-publish option so that your reviews are then posted on your blog. (Can you see where this is going?) I've linked my blog to my Goodreads account, so fr...