Rachel Branton

I Don't Want to Eat Bugs is absolutely adorable!

The art style in this book is more cartoon-y than "artsy", but it stands out really well! That gives it a unique feature that really stands out, in my opinion. While that may turn some readers away, the details in this book were fantastic! Just on the first page - the stuffed animals were breathtaking and almost real (in a cartoon sense). I really liked the style!

There is NOT a rhyming scheme, which is a really nice change! This story is just a story! It let's the words flow whatever way the author desired, instead of trying to stick to a rhyming scheme.

I thought the adventure Lisbon (our main character) goes on is really cute. The bird, cat and dog were all cute companions for Lisbon to learn from. The lesson about eating the food that is made for you (and not just random bugs and mice... do kids do that?) was something I haven't seen for a long time!

The final pages where it has a little activity was also an incredible touch! I always liked having activities in the book as a kid to make the book more fun, so seeing the activity page warms my heart. The activity itself is finding certain items in the storybook, if anyone is curious.

I think this book is adorable! I might have pushed the idea or theme behind the book a little more, but it was still fun and cute!

Four out of five stars!

I found this book on Bookbub!… (meer)

The Cure is the second book in the Unbounded series, after The Change. I liked The Change, it was fast paced, action romance with an SFF premise. It had its issues, like the romantic interest being the “brooding brute” trope, but overall, fun and worthy of a quick read.

The Cure, is a different story. One problem is that it suffers from being a sequel. The start of the book is full of exposition dumps. Lots of them. I believe this is done for the people who never read the first one. However, for the people who did read the first book, it is painful. I imagine, for the people who didn’t read the first book it would also be not too much fun to read all that exposition as it slows down the story to a screeching halt.

Another problem – the protagonist seems different. In the first book she was a woman thrust into a whirlwind of events and a new world. She managed to find her bearings and take control of her life. In this book, she feels much more passive and every independent action she does take, doesn’t make much sense.

Another, another problem is the romance in this one. The “brooding brute” trope didn’t go anywhere and now we get another annoying trope – let’s not talk about our problems or feelings! Seriously, the entire book is filled with “tension” over something that can get resolved with a single conversation.

Which leads me to my final gripe – some of the people in the book are hundreds of years old – how come they are so stupid? Why don’t they take care of the basic, most obvious problems ahead of time?

Where the book does shine is at the end, when the action starts. When the action happens the plot holes are not so blaring, and it is fun. The issue is that it takes a long time to get there.

So, overall, “Meh”. If you’re bored, you can read it, but really, there are much better books to read.… (meer)