Jennifer's Updates en-US Tue, 10 Jun 2025 09:40:16 -0700 60 Jennifer's Updates 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Review7643561040 Tue, 10 Jun 2025 09:40:16 -0700 <![CDATA[Jennifer added 'Shield of Sparrows']]> /review/show/7643561040 Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry Jennifer gave 3 stars to Shield of Sparrows (Shield of Sparrows, #1) by Devney Perry
Devney Perry's Shield of Sparrows “is a heart-stopping romantasy set in a world of deadly monsters and even deadlier mysteries…We invite you to grab a blade and prepare for a new world…You'll learn our traditions. In time. You'll find that they are simple, my queen. But our loyalty to our country, to our people, runs to the bone.�

“It all came back to that hidden city. To a city that held the wealth of Turan knowledge. To a city barred to outsiders. To a city bound by blood oaths and magic. To the city of the Voster. Allesaria. Ozarth. Laine. Cave ginger. Alligasks. Korakin. Fenek. Magic…This kingdom was dangerous, but nothing he could have said would have prepared me for this reality. Turah was perilous. Majestic. Horrifying. Stirring. It was every emotion, good and bad, woven into a landscape that had stolen my heart.�

Odessa’s father plans to invade Turah. He's desperate to find Allesaria. He was always going to have to satisfy the Shield of Sparrows with a union to his daughter. For years he's been training her sister as a spy, but he needs a way to choose a different Sparrow, the weaker daughter, the lesser daughter. The throwaway princess. “She will be the prince’s bride for both the Shield of Sparrows and Chain of Sevens. She. Her. Me…She had the chance to tear down generations of mystery. To shine a light on a kingdom that seemed content to thrive in the dark. And now that task had been given to me.�

Fenek and tarkin and bariwolves and grizzurs: “Not all monsters are born from the gods, my queen. Some of us were made…if you’re not terrified, you’re doing it wrong…Maybe a better princess would insist there was another option. Maybe a better princess would find a way to stay at her prince's side. But I'd never been a good princess. So I unwound my arms from his waist and stepped away…Another princess might have mustered one last fight. A decent princess would have stood her ground. But I wasn't a good princess…If I were a better princess, a selfless princess, the notion of freedom wouldn’t be so appealing. What would I do if my life was my own?... ‘What are you doing, Princess?� ‘Finding the truth.� ‘And what will you do with this truth?� ‘Set myself free.’� ]]> Review7634895964 Sat, 07 Jun 2025 07:49:37 -0700 <![CDATA[Jennifer added 'Shopgirls']]> /review/show/7634895964 Shopgirls by Jessica Anya Blau Jennifer gave 4 stars to Shopgirls (Paperback) by Jessica Anya Blau
For Jessica Anya Blau’s Shopgirls, selling “wasn’t only selling. It was understanding an entire social structure surrounding the dress, as well as understanding who the customer wanted people to think she was.� Putting on a dress was aspirational, “an effort to create the ideal self…clothes were magic. Like fresh white snow on a gritty dirt road, they transformed the mundane into the spectacular.�

“I thought about clothes…wrappings, and wondered if what you wore could change who you were. I felt like a different person when I was dressed up for work. Maybe molecules moved, synapses fired, muscle and fat shifted to fit whatever wrappings one decided defined their ideal self. Was I a different person now that I was working at I.Magnin?...was there any difference between me and the rich wife from Marin who worked as a floater simply for fun?...Did acting the part (as I did every day I worked) help you become the part?...If you knew exactly who you were inside, did it matter if you had on the apron or the skirt?�

This is the story of Zippy Jane Tremblay, named after her mother’s affinity for speediness and pep. Miss Liaskis is in Formal Dresses. Miss Yolanda is the mean one with the candy ball in her mouth. Miss Dani is the manager, the fireplug. Of all of the Shopgirls, my favorite is Miss Lena, Zippy’s colleague in Petite Dresses. “Her brain didn't appear to operate in the low places of jealousy or self-loathing or shame and embarrassment…Miss Lena was all good. She loved Jesus more than anything, and she could see the better side of every person.�

Shopgirls is a reminder that “People were more or less the same…They were just hanging out in different surroundings. Some of them had more money (Sorority Girl); some were dressed better (Miss Meredith); some were a little crazy (Jeff); some were a little mean (Miss Yolanda); some had pure hearts (Miss Lena); and some loved me purely (my mother). Still, they were all simple humans.� In the words of Miss Lena, “Jesus thinks each person is perfect exactly as he or she is born...I pray that they become better people.� ]]> GiveawayRequest720795417 Fri, 06 Jun 2025 04:36:00 -0700 <![CDATA[<a href="/user/show/10365969-jennifer">Jennifer</a> entered a giveaway]]> /giveaway/show/414587-a-spool-of-blue-thread A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
100 copies available, ends on June 30, 2025
Enter to win ]]> Review7625230887 Tue, 03 Jun 2025 14:28:03 -0700 <![CDATA[Jennifer added 'Capture the Moment']]> /review/show/7625230887 Capture the Moment by Suzanne Woods Fisher Jennifer gave 4 stars to Capture the Moment (National Parks Summers, #1) by Suzanne Woods Fisher
“Casual but serious. Relaxed but focused. Laid-back but purposeful…I wish I could be fearless…Bold and brave. What’s the worst that can happen if I put myself out there?� Kate Cunningham wonders before having “fallen into the river while photographing otters, forgotten to silence her phone while trying to catch sight of 399, and was now tagged as Zoo Girl by the truly professional wildlife photographers…There was still a story to be told about a grizzly named 399, and she was going to go after it. And the handsome ranger with the seawater eyes was going to help her get it.�

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it? Over and over, she repeated those words. And, on their heels, Thank you, thank you, thank you, God…she had actually seen Grizzly Bear 399, up close and personal. If only she'd had her camera for that astonishing moment when the bear locked eyes with her.

“Less than two weeks had passed since Kate had arrived in Grand Teton National Park, yet she felt like a different person. Being here had taught her so much about herself. For the first time in her life, she realized that seeing things differently was a gift, not a burden. So maybe God hadn't made a mistake in wiring her brain the way it was. She wasn't a mistake.� She was a miracle. And Someone was looking after her.

A beautiful tribute to the real life 399, Suzanne Woods Fisher’s Capture the Moment is about the “impressive collaboration here between rangers, law enforcement, and even a wildlife photographer� catching a poacher, saving a bear. And it concludes with “The kind of kiss that swept a girl away from here and now, making time and space fade into the background. The kind of kiss that made tomorrow seem like a blank canvas, full of hope and endless opportunities. A perfect note…to end on.� ]]> Review7371176762 Mon, 02 Jun 2025 09:57:16 -0700 <![CDATA[Jennifer added 'In Good Company']]> /review/show/7371176762 In Good Company by Kat Singleton Jennifer gave 4 stars to In Good Company (Pembroke Hills, #1) by Kat Singleton
“I swallow back happy tears as I think back to the beginning of the summer. My only friend was Charlotte. I worked all the time and didn't know what it was like to find a family outside of my own…people who contributed to the best summer of my life. Charlotte, Jude, Beck, Margo, Emma, Preston, Ryker, Camille, Winnie, Archer…My eyes find the man sitting next to me, gratitude overwhelming me at how things have changed throughout the course of the summer with him.

When I first saw Cal at Laurent Hughes's dinner party, I wanted nothing to do with him. Now, I don't want a life that doesn't include him in it. He's my home. My love. My teammate. Callahan Hastings. My former boss and my ex's older brother. My heart. Mine. For as long as I can remember, I've felt like I've had to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I wanted to be the perfect daughter for my parents and make sure they were taken care of. I didn't want to mess up, and I wanted to do everything in my power to make life easy on them, knowing they'd already been through so much. I hadn't realized how much carrying that weight was getting to me or how hard it was for me to let someone in because of the weight I was carrying.

It wasn't until Cal loved me fiercely and with no need for anything in return that I learned to let someone be there for me. He taught me that love can make us stronger and that it's okay to need someone else. Loving him is the best decision I've ever made…our life together has only just begun. This summer has been the best summer of my life, and I can't wait for many more. I'll be in good company with him by my side for all of it.� ]]> Review7618476951 Sun, 01 Jun 2025 10:38:17 -0700 <![CDATA[Jennifer added 'Spring Tide: Coastal University, Book 1']]> /review/show/7618476951 Spring Tide by Ki Stephens Jennifer gave 3 stars to Spring Tide: Coastal University, Book 1 (Audible Audio) by Ki Stephens
For Harper St. James and Luca Reynolds, “the spaces between us are like the ocean at spring tide. The highest highs and the lowest lows; that’s what separates the two of us…that girl’s spirit is filled with sunshine and rainbows and…butterflies.� And that boy is “careful and private and sensitive.� He “works himself to the bone, yet…Luca never pretends to be someone he’s not. Those are all qualities I admire, regardless of how outwardly standoffish he might seem.�

With a few white lies and a twist of fate, Harper becomes Luca’s wellness coach, physical therapist, and fake girlfriend, but it’s “only a temporary relationship. A mutually beneficial agreement.� Harper’s “just providing a service or a simple swap of secrets…I’d like to think we’re building a real friendship [but] This might be an actual crush…where I get to know the real person and not just the one I created in my head.�

Harper is dying to know Luca’s type, but instead of a litany of physical characteristics, he says, “I like being alone…I don’t experience the same type of loneliness that some people do…I feel like I can finally be myself…I don’t have to worry about what other people think of me or if the things I’m saying and doing are coming off a certain way. I can just be…So when I think about my type, I think about someone that I can be myself around…Someone who doesn’t expect me to think or act or behave a certain way…because they’re content with the person that I already am…You make me want to be the best version of myself.�

“The truth…hit me like a tidal wave. This life is too damn good, too beautiful, to cry over greasy boys with sloppy tongues…it's okay to like something and then lose it. To love and then let go. Because something beautiful, something brilliant, is waiting just around the corner.�

As its gorgeous cover suggests, this book is like a bouquet of peonies, pale, pink and perfect, flowers that symbolize happiness and healing. Ki Stephens� Spring Tide is a story with characters as layered as a croissant and a neurodivergent happily-ever-after as sweet as chocolate ice cream sprinkled with gummy bears on top! ]]> AuthorFollowing109438460 Sat, 31 May 2025 15:41:05 -0700 <![CDATA[<AuthorFollowing id=109438460 user_id=10365969 author_id=3177275>]]> Review7613434821 Fri, 30 May 2025 15:22:19 -0700 <![CDATA[Jennifer added 'The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora']]> /review/show/7613434821 The Home I Worked to Make by Wendy Pearlman Jennifer gave 5 stars to The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora (Hardcover) by Wendy Pearlman
“They say home is where the heart is. I don't believe that…Home is the details that you don't think about until you lose them.� But “what is home and what is exile when the place of one’s birth represents not only ‘the nourishment of tradition’…but also degradation and violence? Such is the dilemma for millions of displaced Syrians today.�

“This book explores the varied meanings of home through testimonies from thirty-eight displaced Syrians now on five continents,� shifting the discourse from “refugee crisis� to diaspora construction. “Each personal narrative is its own meditation� on identifying something as home through the prism of experience–leaving and returning to home, losing and finding–or not finding–home, searching for home and scaffolding a new home, belonging and abiding.

Home is not a who, what, when, where or how; home is a hybrid of all of these questions in their complexity and multidimensionality. Home is a prism of leaving, searching, losing, building, and belonging that refracts through life experience. It’s a quilted patchwork of land and country and house and identity stitched together with the common thread of belonging, “a mother’s lap where we temporarily rest before we spring into action again.�

“Home is when you close your door and feel warm…And when people arrive at something that they feel is home…When I finally got a plate, knife, spoon, and fork � when I was able to fry an egg � the house transformed from a source of fear to a source of safety. It became the home I worked to make.�

“Building home is a story that reaches inward, into people's evolving sense of self and purpose. Belonging is a story that turns outward, anchoring home in the relationships that people develop with the physical and social worlds around them.� A refugee’s story never ends with a full stop. A full stop means the end of a journey. A refugee pauses her story with three dots; because while this book must come to a conclusion, the stories therein are to be continued... ]]> Rating862525191 Thu, 29 May 2025 16:29:08 -0700 <![CDATA[Jennifer Erickson liked a readstatus]]> /
Jennifer liked Yanel’s status update
Yanel Rivera Yanel Rivera wants to read Summer in the City
]]> Review7610001806 Thu, 29 May 2025 09:56:18 -0700 <![CDATA[Jennifer added 'My Friends']]> /review/show/7610001806 My Friends by Fredrik Backman Jennifer gave 5 stars to My Friends (Paperback) by Fredrik Backman
When poet Mary Oliver asked, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life?" Fredrik Backman answered My Friends. On the run from a foster home and carrying a world-famous painting worth a fortune and traveling with a strange man whose last name she doesn’t even know, “Louisa is just a normal teenager, the best kind of humans.� They escape together on an unforgettable journey.

“Ted looks out through the train window and sees a whole life. It's strange what our memories do to us, editing our feelings…Because he remembers now that this was how they dragged the artist back to life after Christian's funeral: one giggle at a time…she laughed so loudly that you could still hear it when she was underwater. And that was how the artist decided to paint them, not the way they looked, but how they made him feel. He decided to call the picture The One of the Sea…As if those four teenagers twenty-five years ago weren't a love story, belonging to each other forever, impossible to separate. Ashes or not.�

“Life is long, but it moves at high speed, a single step here or there can be enough to ruin everything…Perhaps it was fate, perhaps coincidence, perhaps the big brother would just remember what his little brother had said, the bit about picking friends that are better than you. Perhaps knowing that you are enough for one person goes a long way.�

“‘I love you and I trust you," he smiles, and pats the stone. Then he walks back to the gate, picks up his suitcase and the box containing the painting, and nods to Louisa: ‘Come on. Not far to go now.� ‘To what?� ‘The end of the story,� he says…when they walk to the end of the pier and sit there dangling their legs over the edge, Louisa sees exactly what the four friends saw twenty-five years ago: an endless sea, a great friendship, a true love story. She hears them giggle. Detects the smell of a fart. All of it.� My Friends is a masterpiece. ]]>