Daughter of a Burning City by Amanda Foody Book Review by Miranda Fraser ISBN: 978-0-373-21243-9 Welcome back bookworms, if you didn't see the original post about Once Upon a Book Club I'll include a link here: pickupabooktoday.weebly.com/fun-book-stuff/once-upon-a-book-club so you can go check it out for yourselves. This is going to be different from my normal book reviews. Not only am I going to be discussing the book but I am going to be discussing how well the OUABC did with creating an interactive experience. To begin with, this book is amazing! Hats off to Amanda Foody, this is her first book and MAN did she do a fantastic job! I mean the very reviews on the back of the book speak of the story walking a fine line between horror and fantasy, the author's wicked imagination, as well as vivid descriptions and 'velvety language'. All of those are 100% correct. This book was so original that I had the hardest time putting it down! This story is set in a traveling carnival... well that's not exactly right. It is a traveling city with shops, neighborhoods, performers, and more! The Gomorrah Festival: the traveling carnival of debauchery that caters to the strangest of dreams and desires. As interesting as that is, what really makes this story exciting is the 'jinx-work'. These are people born with true magical abilities, people who really can see into the future, people who can read minds, people who can be beheaded and yet stitched back together like they were never touched! The story revolves around a powerful jinx-worker, sixteen-year-old Sorina, an Illusion-worker who can create illusions you can see, feel, and touch. But her abilities go farther than merely making you see a beach in front of you, oh no, Sorina creates people. Her best creations are her family! Together they make up the cast of the Festival's Freak Show. Each with their own unique abilities and her- the girl who sees with no eyes. That's right, Sorina's face completely lacks eyes, and yet she can see. Are you mind-blown yet? It's going to get crazy. Early on in the story you meet Sorina's Illusions, characters who she created so that she may have a family. See, she was adopted by the Carnivals Proprietor but her adoptive father isn't enough to fill the void of the things she's missing. So she creates her family- Tree, she came with, she created him as a young child, a half man-half tree, who acts more like a guard dog than a human. Then there's Gill, her uncle, his obvious abnormalities are his gills and webbed hands, and his need for water to survive. Her baby brother, Blister, a toddler with rosy cheeks and sweetness that everyone in her family adores. Her 'grandpa' Crown especially looks after him with all his heart. Crown has nails growing all over his body in place of hair and he has to wear gloves because of his powerful clawed hands. Nicoletta, more of a motherly figure to the family, keeps them in line and manages the freak show. She has an abnormality but it is not reliable- she is stronger than ten men. Venera, is an older sister, who enjoys gossip and boys and all things girly. Her abnormality is her unnatural flexibility, she can basically melt into a box. Hawk is a younger sister, with beautiful singing and musical potential. Her abnormalities are her wings and bird like tendencies. And finally there are her little brothers- Unu and Du, a two headed drummer boy. Bickering between themselves and fighting for use of their conjoined body parts. But Sorina loves them dearly, abnormalities and all. So when members of her family are murdered Sorina can't wrap her head around how, much less who. After-all they're just illusions, they're not real people, how can they be killed!? In the quest for answers Sorina discovers secrets about Gomorrah and it's political importance to the history of the world. At sixteen it is a tad young to get involved with such a dark reality but when death seems to be following her family, what choice does she have? Her father helps her to investigate who might be behind these attacks. He feels it must be an outsider looking to get to him. But her new friend Luca, a gossip worker, believes that's illogical, and that the attacker must be within the city of Gomorrah. And for them to be able to kill someone who isn't even real, they must be powerful. Sorina finds herself in the midst of a double investigation, growing more and more confused by the day. Who can she trust? Is she even trust worthy? NOW, in an attempt to not give too much of the mystery away, because it is MIND BLOWING, I am going to stop there and move onto the Once Upon A Book Club, side of this review. If you saw the last review then you have seen this picture: Now you can see this one. Where I reveal the contents of each of the packages! I will explain these as well as I can.. The first one: The Gossip Worker sign, that's the easiest to explain, as I already mentioned that Luca calls himself a Gossip Worker. He has a sign outside his tent so that people interested in his business can find him, this makes for an amusing part of the story and it was quite a surprise to pull it out of that envelope. I have since added it to my Halloween decor as a part of the crystal ball and tarot card area. The Second one, the bag of gold coins, admittedly a little cheesy but extremely accurate to the scene in which this gift related to. So thumbs up there! The third one is the pocket watch, now I can't explain the significance of the pocket watch to you guys, but it is INDEED and important part of the story, even engraved like it is in the book! It's a real watch, decent quality and a pretty exciting find! The final one is the mask- while Sorina is the girl without eyes, she wears masks to cover her face and changes them out for fancier ones depending on what she is doing. This is a gorgeous mask, it can be worn or used for decoration and it is a pretty decent quality.
The items all matched well with their scenes and definitely came from various price ranges. The cheapest item probably being the bag of coins. Between the items I received, the cost of the book, the shipping and the time it probably takes to plan these crates- I say the price is very fair. Plus, if you're interested in partaking in book discussions than there's the added bonus of joining them on their Facebook page. Now, this is only my first crate. I do have another one to go through and see if the accuracy pans out. So far this has been a 9 out of 10 experience for me. The missing point is really against me, rather than Once Upon a Book Club, if you're impatient that you might have a hard time waiting to find a page with a sticky note on it, lol! Otherwise I am really enjoying this and will probably be continuing to receive crates when it works comfortably with my budget! Links to the author's pages are below!
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Once Upon a Book Club is unlike any of the book crates I've come across. I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with Bark Boxes and Loot Crates, its a monthly subscription box, sent to your front door. I had previously seen book crates before where they send you a book and some random items based off the theme of the crate you're choosing. But with Once Upon a Book Club the items you're receiving are INTERACTIVE with the novel you're reading! Right away I want to give credit to the creator, the brain child behind this monthly subscription, is Michelle Wolett. She dreamed of a way to bring the book to life when you're reading along. The website says that each crate takes months of planning. They read through the books and pick out significant items or moments in the book that they can bring to life for the reader. For instance, if the character puts a necklace in an old tin, their goal is for you to be able to unwrap a necklace in a tin. I think that's such a unique idea and sounded really fun! AND each crate comes in a super cute book shaped box. It's actually really exciting looking out my front window and seeing this beautiful green book-shaped box. Inside each of these beautiful boxes is a novel, a booklet (I'll get to that), and handful of hand wrapped items each labeled with a number. As you read through the books there are sticky notes that say "open your gift", your job then is to look at the page number and match it to the package with that number on it. Now, the booklet I mentioned has "Read Along Dates" and "Discussion Question Dates". The first is where you can join them on their Facebook or Instagram pages for LIVE unboxing videos, they open each of the gifts on those dates. Their thought process is that this will give readers an opportunity to have a goal to read with, give them a chance to ask any questions, and an opportunity to meet other book-club members. The second list of dates have questions listed with them, much like when you're reading a book for school and they give you some thought provoking questions to ensure you've read the book. For anyone who enjoys discussing novels in book-clubs, this is for you! Important information you should know, there are two different clubs you can subscribe to. Young Adult and Adult (18+). Like most monthly subscriptions you can subscribe for a month at a time (it renews every month) or pay for three months at a time, and I believe the final option is to pay a year in advance. Now, that gets pricey, so personally I pay a month at a time, knowing that I can tell them to skip a month if I don't want it. The titles are kept a secret, which I kind of enjoy. But they said no fear, send them an email and they'll be happy to tell you the title in advance. The Adult subscription will receive books from the genres: Women's Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, and Historical Fiction. The Young Adult subscription will receive novels from the following genres: Fantasy, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Sci-Fi, and Mystery. These are so much fun, but if you have a reader that is ALWAYS looking for a new story to read, this may tickle their fancy. I highly recommend gifting this subscription, especially with Christmas RIGHT around the corner! There's something exciting about knowing there' s a package coming just for you, and even more exciting knowing that it's a read along gift. Your book worm is going to speed through the book dying to find a page with a gift number listed on it! Here's a link if you've heard all you need to hear and you want to register for a crate right now! But if you're like me, and a little bit weary about these crates, come back on December 8th for my two part review. I have two crates, that by the time you see this post, will be several months old. I am going to review the books, AND review whether the items that came with them really do match up with the story. After all subscription crates are expensive just to be let down. So stay tuned! Read on my fellow book worms, may we one day have Belle's Library. And as always links can be found down below. I will link their website and Facebook page and let you do some exploring while you wait for the next part of this review.
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AuthorThere are all sorts of fun book 'accessories' to be found. Here's to expanding our book addiction! Archives
December 2018
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