Are you ready to find your new favorite, magic-wielding uncles, fight discrimination with the help (and occasional harm) of a snowy ghost girl, make friends with a mutant squid, and fly in a carriage carried by dragons? Check out December's Bite-Size Book Reviews, featuring terrific titles by E.S. Christison, India Hill Brown, Jordan Thompson, and Stephanie Burgis!
The Blameless
Food Group: Upper MG
Flavor: High fantasy
Key Ingredients: Sweet and special uncle/niece relationships, memorable magic system, feel-good friendships, and an exciting, nearly trope-less plot
Cookie Rating: 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪
Taste Test: You can check out The Blameless on Bookshop (support indie bookstores!), Amazon, or read my full review on Goodreads!
Chef's Note: The Blameless and Legend of the Storm Sneezer have a lot in common when it comes to loveable mentors and relationships. Marek would get along so well with Flinton! They reminded me if each other quite often. 😍
The Forgotten Girl
Food Group: Middle Grade
Flavor: Paranormal, mystery
Key Ingredients: Boy/girl best friends, awesome grandma, creepy yet pitiable ghost, book cover that peers into your soul, Christmas and snow, and discrimination awareness and activism
Cookie Rating: 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪
Taste Test: You can check out The Forgotten Girl on Bookshop (support independent bookstores!), Amazon, or Goodreads!
Chef's Note: The Forgotten Girl makes the perfect spooky Christmas read!
What Lurks Below
Food Group: Upper MG/Young Adult
Flavors: Dystopian, fantasy
Key Ingredients: Snazzy and slightly snarky protagonist, loyal and loving sibling relationships, a mutant squid, and time travel
Cookie Rating: 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪
Taste Test: You can check out What Lurks Below on Bookshop (support independent bookstores!), Amazon, or read my full review on Goodreads!
Chef's Note: Another wonderful, faith-filled Monster Ivy Publishing book with another gorgeous cover!
The Princess who Flew with Dragons
Food Group: Middle Grade
Flavor: Fantasy
Key Ingredients: Lovably grouchy heroine, enemies-to-frenemies-to-besties, human/dragon friendship + boy/girl friendship that isn't romantic, broken-to-mending sister relationship, and beautifully immersive writing
Cookie Rating: 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪 🍪
Taste Test: You can check out The Princess Who Flew with Dragons on Bookshop (support independent bookstores!), Amazon, or read my full review on Goodreads!
Why "Bite-Size" Book Reviews?
These "bite-size" book reviews are a fun way for me to promote authors and provide short, tasty reviews for readers, but they're also a way for me to raise awareness for a debilitating digestive disease called gastroparesis.
People with gastroparesis have paralyzed stomachs. Severe cases (like myself) can only eat a few bites of food at a time, so we have to make those bites count! I hope these "bite-size" book reviews help feed your mind's appetite in the same way. You can learn more about gastroparesis by reading my blog post on Gastroparesis Awareness Month.
Kristiana Sfirlea is the author of the spookily hilarious MG fantasy novel, Legend of the Storm Sneezer. Her flash fiction, featuring clueless zombies, undercover werewolves, and grumpy ghosts, has been published by Havok, and her second MG novel, Legend of the Rainbow Eater, is contracted and in the works. Kristiana dreams of the day she can run her own mobile bookstore. Or haunted house attraction. Or a haunted bookmobile! (And this is precisely why writers should never become Uber drivers.) She loves Jesus, her family, and imaginary life with her characters.