Book Review: Frostbite (Vampire Academy #2) by Richelle Mead

Frostbite by Richelle Mead
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Absolutely fascinating! I nearly cried when reading the last 2 chapters.

Frostbite is the second installment in Vampire Academy series written by Richelle Mead. Like the first book, Frostbite is really a page-turner and it'll keep you up all night just to finish a few more chapters.

I personally love the character growth in Rose. Even though she showed her vulnerable part a lot in the book, but eventually she became more matured after all that has been happened to her.

Her vague relationships with Dimitri and Mason brought up a lot of conflicts in the book. What I didn't expect is Rose's mother (which never mentioned in the first book, if I remember well), showed up in this book and "taught" Rose a few lessons direct and indirectly as a guardian.

Richelle Mead did a great job in ending the story to make us feel proud of Rose because she has become stronger.

Highly recommended to vampire lovers and YA fans!



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Book Review: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children is a story about a group of children with special abilities (for example an invisible boy, a girl who can control fire, a boy who can bring back the dead and more) who hide in a time loop to stay away from normal people which thought they're witches or ghosts and also to protect themselves from being hunted by the hollowgasts and wights. The loop is maintained by headmistress (or called ymbryne) called Miss Peregrine who can transform herself into bird form.

The main protagonist of the book is Jacob Portman whom grandfather, Abraham Portman used to live in the loop. Since young, Jacob was flooded with the stories and photos regarding the peculiar children. And one day, Abraham was killed in an awkward situation and Jacob saw the "monster" what killed his grandfather. Before Abraham died, he gave some hints to Jacob to locate the loop.

Somehow, Jacob managed to get into the loop "by accident" and met the headmistress as well as the peculiar children. During his encounter with the children, Jacob struggled in making decision whether to stay with them (in year 1940) or to go back to his own time (which is at the present time). Somehow, the antagonist (the wight) managed to slipped into the loop and kidnapped Miss Peregrine. The children want to rescue her but they doesn't know where she is...

I read the sequel before this, so when I read this book, the whole picture came clearer. Overall, this is a great story with time-traveling, gifted children with special abilities, horror of the hollows and wights, excitement of actions as well as romance between Jacob and Emma (the fire girl). But there's one thing I found it's quite illogical is, Emma used to be in love with Abraham (Jacob's grandfather) so how can she has crush on Jacob by meeting him only a few times? Anyway, I do enjoy reading this but not as good as the sequel - Hollow City. So I gave 4 stars out of 5 to this instead of full 5 stars for Hollow City.

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Book Review: Chicken Soup for the Soul: Stay-at-Home Moms

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Stay-at-Home Moms: 101 Inspirational Stories for Mothers about Hard Work and Happy Families by Jack Canfield
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a self-help/inspiration book for stay-at-home mothers. No matter you chose to be a stay-at-home mom or you're forced to be one due to environment, this book is a must-read for you.

With 101 carefully selected short stories shared by mothers who have made the choice to stay at home, or work at home to raise their children, you'll know that you're not alone. All the frustration, joy, despair and any other mixture of feelings that you have now are also experienced by the other stay-at-home moms.

If you're staying at home, you'll get tips on multi-tasking your house chores, finding joy and self-esteem from the stories. If you're working from home, Jane Green, Jodi Picoult and other moms who work from home share you their experience on setting up your home office, arranging the time for your work and your children as well as having your own personal time!

Read one story a night before going to bed, you'll know that you're not alone. While thinking back, you find it's worth to make the decision to stay at home for your children.

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My Journey as an Independent Book Seller

Recently, an independent book store located at Selangor state was closed down. This triggers my thought of the risk to become another independent bookseller.

A few friends of mine thought I'm taking a risk when I said I want to sell books at my neighbourhood. Yes, we don't have a descent book store selling fiction and non-fiction books at Sandakan and I wanted to own the first. Like other Sandakan readers, I always wonder why isn't there any book store like Popular or MPH open up a branch here? I guess perhaps they think there is still not enough readers for them to start their businesses here. Instead of wondering, I started Book Lovers.

Without any background and experience in book selling and without any financial support, I founded Book Lovers in May 2013 as an online book store with my own used books as our initial inventory. Despite all the obstacles and difficulties I encountered, I'm blessed with the support of my husband, my friends and also my beloved customers (you know who you are :)).

In November 2013, we're honoured to be invited by the owner of Urban Cafe Sandakan to have a corner (now two corners!) to have our books selling in the cafe. This is a major milestone for Book Lovers to reach out to more readers and expand the influence in promoting reading.

Book Lovers is also blessed to be able to get supplies directly from the publishers now and hence we're able to provide cheaper books to you. With our pre-order schedules (tentatively twice a month), we strive to provide you titles that we don't have in stock, subject to stock availability from the publishers.

Lastly, we would like to thank you for all your support, no matter in the form of purchases, likes or comments on our Facebook posts. We promise you we'll continue to improve our service to serve you better.

Yours sincerely,
Regina Foo
Founder of Book Lovers