Book Birthday Review: The Centaur’s Wife by Amanda Leduc

When I say this book is unlike anything I’ve ever read, I really mean it. A crazy mix of scifi apocalypse and green fantasy, this story combines the two pretty seamlessly. And that’s something I can’t say I’ve read before. A meteor shower that takes out the human world as we know it, centaurs that live on a magical safeguarded mountain, and the most effortless mass murdering of characters I’ve ever read, this book was strangely very stressful and also very calming at the same time to read. Can you say you’ve read anything like that before?

5/5 Stars 320 pages
Published February 16th 2021 by Random House Canada

Right in the middle of this crazy world is Heather, a girl who’s known struggles all her life. Born a little different, her dad was always there for her, telling her fantastic stories of the mountain and it’s creatures. After losing him in a freak accident that caused him to fall off of that mountain, everyone thought she was crazy for saying that there were centaurs living up there. She never ended up leaving her home town, becoming an artist and making money that way. There’s also Tasha, a doctor, Annie, her wife and nurse, Elyse, a sick girl fighting her way through this apocalyptic nightmare, and B, Heather’s husband whom she has twin girls with right at the beginning of the novel just briefly before the meteors take everything out. And weaved in between the chapters are intricate fairy tales, depicting life and death, and everything in between. This book is truly beautiful and a piece of art, in my opinion.

A wild ride from start to finish, this book was everything I could have asked for and more. I say this a lot, but from the description alone I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I was sucked in from the moment I started, and I think it’s another one of those books that will be stuck in my head for a long time after I’ve put it down. It had so many twists and turns and stressful moments, like just trying to survive in a world that’s trying to choke you out and starve every human it can find to death, families fighting, food is running out, and everything these characters have known has crumbled. On top of that, Heather has twin baby girls in this new horrifying world, a husband she barely knows and frankly only married so that her children would have a father, and she’s being haunted by not only the people in her town but the life she once knew with her father, and the creatures she knows exist on the mountain but must stay a secret.

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I really found like although the world was so different from our own, everything was so easy to imagine, and I really enjoyed getting to know the fairy tales that Heather was taught as a child for myself. The characters were so lifelike despite these massive differences, and really faced the challenges that they were forced to deal with like anyone would really, even though they had their own demons to deal with while that was happening. A world where plants are very obviously trying to take over, poisonous and scary ones, but I think it really shows that humans are able to persevere through almost anything, though there was a very low percentage left at the end. It was still something.

Really what I’m trying to say is that this book is absolutely one of my new favourites. I would love to grab a copy for myself on my bookshelf so that I can re-read it any time I want, because I think it’s just so timeless, that sometime in the near future I will want to re-read it. And if you know me, you know that I’m not usually like that with books. I recommend it to anyone looking for a story of hardship with a fantastic twist on it, who like scifi and apocalypse and mythical creatures, mixed with fairy tales. I would say it’s definitely not something for kids despite that, and there are some “mature” scenes with depictions of sexual coercion that could possibly be triggering for some people. But that being said, they’re very brief and easy to skip over if you are someone who is triggered by things like that.

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here, through my Amazon Associates Link.

And if you’d like to keep up with the author, you can here on Twitter!

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well and reading awesome books like this.

Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.ca and affiliated sites.

Girl Minus X by Anne Stone Review

5/5 Stars 296 pages
Published October 6th 2020 by Wolsak and Wynn Publishers Ltd

If you’ve read one of my recent blog posts about the horror genre, you’ll know that I have an overactive imagination, whether that’s from anxiety or not, this book really dug it’s way into my brain because of that. The horrifying scenes in this book, just vaguely described as a past trauma, are things that have stuck with me, and I think are so much worse than could have been created in a horror movie. This is just one of the reasons why I loved this book so much. Though it’s torture to be able to imagine those scenes so vividly, I was helplessly addicted to this book, and I couldn’t put it down until it was finished.

Following two young girls, Dany (15) and Mac (5), we see their lives as they battle not only past trauma, but also present day trauma due to being removed from their only family, living in a house where they can’t keep up the bills and are forced to have them shut off, slowly starving to death on basic necessities from the depleted food bank, and a very interesting kind of virus plucking people away from them, and changing the world as they know it very quickly. Two very gifted girls, one mute, who have to keep quiet about their problems so that they’re not sent back to the very trauma they once escaped from.

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This book isn’t just about a virus that causes people to forget everything they know, even how to be a person, it’s about forcing old traumas up and out into the open where they don’t want to be seen. Though Dany just wants to forget about everything that’s happened to her sister, whether it’s their missing father, their mother who succumbed to the virus, their lives at both a bad foster home and a work farm, and now with their aunt being taken away to a prison camp to take care of the infected people, it’s very hard to when everything is being forced up. She has to learn to deal with it so that she can prepare for future traumas due to the virus that’s taking over her city.

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I don’t think there was a single part of this book I didn’t enjoy. Some of it I will admit was very hard to read, specifically the past trauma parts of Dany’s brain, but it was so addicting that I couldn’t stop. It was horrifying and scary and really sad all at the same time, but it also taught me a lot of things about her. Why she’s so shut off from the world, and why she’s so tough. Why she’s willing to do the things she must to protect her little sister. I wouldn’t change a single thing in this book, and I can’t wait to get myself a paper copy so I can re read it.

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If you love books about a different kind of infection induced apocalypse, like zombies but self destructive rather than the regular zombie kind of destructive, and you don’t mind pushing through the hard parts if it’ll teach you something, then this is the book for you. It’s horrifying and amazing and I’ll never forget it. I really can’t stress enough how much I loved this book, that’s why it took me some extra days to read through it because I could have easily just finished it quickly, but I wanted to drag it out so it wasn’t over so soon. This book makes me want to read more from the author.

If you’d like to grab a copy for yourself, I’ve added my Amazon Associates link here!

And if you’d like to keep up with the author, you can keep up with them on Twitter here!

Thanks for reading! I hope you’re doing well and staying safe.

Failsafe (Failsafe #1) by Anela Deen Review

5/5 Stars 200 pages
Published May 20th 2018 by Fine Fables Press

This book, unlike the last book, was something that was right up my alley, and something I knew I was going to love from the moment I started it. In a time where humans haven’t lived outside a computer for many, many generations, their world is claustrophobic and dangerous. Outside of their settlements live drones that shoot to kill on site, and although they can grow their own food, they can barely grow enough for everyone, especially now when the supplies have stopped being delivered.

 

Sol is different, however. Though she has epilepsy, she doesn’t let that stop her from changing the world that they know, and trying to save everyone she know, and more. She’s not afraid of going out into the Interspace, and her unique dreaming ability lets her know where and when the drones are going to be around, and where the supplies should be. But this comes with a cost to her health, both physical and mental.

 

Though she lives in a time where people aren’t able to chose their mates due to the very little genetic differences between everyone in their settlement, everything changes when she meets Echo one day while out on a supply run. Though he’s not like anyone she’s ever met, and she’s a little scared to trust him at first, he proves himself to be an

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amazing and very strong companion. The two will do whatever they need to do to change the world as they know it.

 

This book was exciting and interesting, and it was everything I wanted it to be and more. Though I wanted there to be a sequel, I think that it ended at such a place where I’m happy if there isn’t ever one. The characters and the story were both really easy to imagine and get sucked into, and though this doesn’t happen very often, I don’t have any questions or complaints or even thoughts leftover that I’m wondering about. In my eyes, this was a perfect book to get me out of my reading slump, and I think it’s something that I’d love to read again and again, that’s just how much I loved it.

 

If you love stories about young adults who want to change the world, no matter how different it is from out own, then you’re going to love this, and I hope you love it as much as I do. Definitely check it out if you get the chance, and it’ll make a beautiful addition to your collection! I’d love to check out other books by the author because of this one.

 

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here.

Here’s a link to the author’s Twitter, if you’d like to keep up with them!

 

Thanks for reading! I’d love to chat in the comments if you have anything you’d like to talk about, this book or any other topic! Hope you have a good day, and stay safe!

 

**I’ve been informed by the author that there will in fact be a sequel!** Patiently awaiting that.