I had already written this post but I never ended up posting this because I went on hiatus -- where I also decided to rebrand everything, shortly after. But I asked on Instagram if you guys still wanted to see it and majority of you all said yes, so here we are!

I've been meaning to dive into more blog post topics other than reviews, as you guys can probably tell, and I've decided I really want to start getting into book box reviews as well.

I decided to purchase my first book subscription box (kinda, because I used to get comic ones a couple years back lol) and review it for you.

This was my first time buying an OwlCrate box. I see them often on my feed but I've never really been interested until recently. The only reason why I'm never really interested in subscription boxes is because you do get random items for random book series and sometimes, you aren't a fan of all of them.

The purpose of these reviews is to give you guys my opinion on the box, my first impressions, and whether or not I think the products are worth it.

With that being said, let's get into my review of my very first OwlCrate box!

Like I said above, I got the April 2019 box which the theme was The Dark Side.

For starters, what really drew me to this box was the fact that April's theme was based on YA villains, whom I love the most. I believe OwlCrate said there would be items based on books like Throne of Glass, Shadow and Bone, Six of Crows and something Schwab related; which I'm a fan of all of them so I decided to go for this one.

I wanted to mention that I do live in Canada, so for the box and shipping, I believe I paid roughly $50 and it arrived in a fair amount of time; probably a week to a week and a half since I got the shipping notice.

When I purchased this box, I wasn't really sure what to expect. Like I said, I've only really received comic-related boxes in the past and I was honestly quite pleased with them because the themes weren't so generalized.

I had previously received a Doctor Strange box that included all things Doctor Strange (from mugs, to Funko Vinyls, to shirts, etc.) and I've also received a general Marvel box (which again, I received comics, and collectibles). But because this box is so broad, I wasn't sure what to expect.

Guess what I'm bringing back to my blog! Reviews! A couple of people had asked me to bring back reviews because sometimes Goodreads isn't as easily accessible to them and what not, so I thought I would start bringing them back onto my blog! 

But, because it was super draining that I was reading faster than I was blogging, I'm only going to post reviews of select books onto my blog; that might be because it's a popular book or because I have a strong opinion on the context itself. So, not every book I'll read will be reviewed on here to save me more time on blogging and will make me feel less drained!

I've been really excited to bring these posts back and hope you guys are excited too!

Strange Weather by Joe Hill 

Strange Weather is a bind up collection of four novellas written by horror writer Joe Hill and it consists of Snapshot, Loaded, Aloft and Rain.

*So I wanted to do something a little different with this review, and I wanted to not only talk about this collection as a whole, but I also wanted to talk about each of the stories individually as well.*

**Trigger Warning for gun violence**

I definitely wanted to read this collection before Full Throttle had come out - which it is out now and I definitely did finish reading beforehand, mainly because I wanted these to be the expectation setter for the next collection as weird as that sounds. I just thought that four stories would be easier to consume first than the eight or however many is out with Full Throttle and I'm happy I did.

I genuinely enjoyed this collection as a whole and seemed to really enjoy Joe Hill's writing throughout the whole collection. I'll admit, a couple of stories were a little off for me or some parts bored me, which I'll get to in a little bit but I did really like this set for the most part. 

Snapshot

Snapshot follows a kid who is haunted by a man that carries a Polaroid camera which steals memories. This story is probably one of my favourites in the collection because of how much the characters really consume you. (I cannot remember the kid's name for the life of me, so we're going to call him kid throughout the review lol) Right from the very start, I felt very attached to the kid as if he was my own son - as if we're that much apart age-wise lol, but I genuinely wanted to protect him at all costs. The fact that he's so driven to protect his previous babysitter who is now elderly was so precious to me, but he figured everything out when it came to the Phoenician and wanted to defeat it right away. I had watched an interview with Joe Hill after reading this novella and I loved how he related this novella to a person witnessing a loved one suffering with dementia and I thought that was the sweetest thing.

Loaded

Loaded follows a mall cop who had just gotten custody of his son, and has just witnessed a mistress shooting her boss. This was the story that made me feel the most uncomfortable. I can read anything; you guys know how much I love horror and all that, and I can even bare scenes with sexual assault and what not, but gun violence always gets to me, so this was a hard pill to swallow. For starters, this is the longest story between the four; I believe it's at least half the book. This story also has multiple ways of portraying gun violence, not just the one with the mistress who kills her boss; but also, the mall cop automatically assumes the lady who is Muslim and also in the shop (held hostage) is the reason why the gun violence is occurring, so he shoots her, not knowing it was not her and that she was also carrying her baby - which by the way, was so heartbreaking. What made me so uncomfortable is that this is a real-life thing; like it could potentially happen and thats scary. I also read an interview from Joe Hill about this story and he says he wants the readers to be uncomfortable because it seems like media coverage doesn't make people worry enough and after reading that interview, I get what he means. More people seem to be concerned about books and movies than they do with what's happening in reality so it makes sense that Joe Hill has incorporated this in his collection as well. It's a hard pill to swallow, but also a huge slap in the face.

Aloft

Aloft follows a man who skydives but falls on a strange cloud. I think this was my least favourite of the four. Not because it was written poorly but because I was really bored for most of it. I really liked the fact that Joe Hill tried to incorporate the whole "aliens are real" within this story and it seemed to fit the reality of what people in our society believe. (I think aliens are real, fight me). I'll admit it was quite interesting at first but it seemed that the more I read through the story, the more I was losing interest.

Rain

Rain is about a storm occurring across a city in Colorado, although it isn't raining water, but sharp crystals than can kill anyone or anything that isn't under a sustainable shelter. This was my second favourite of the four. I found the concept to be very interesting especially because of how vivid Joe Hill draws the scenes! You witness the main character's pain as he sees his future wife being ripped to shreds just a couple of feet in front of him and you can feel his heartbreak and devastation. And I think this is an important twist to a story to make people be afraid of all the climate change we are dealing with right now. I mean, I can't say if the sky will ever rain nails though.

Overall, I quite enjoyed this collection by Joe Hill. You can really see a lot of writing techniques and what not that Joe has inherited from his dad because at some points, I forgot that I was reading a Joe Hill book and not a Stephen King collection. 

I also really enjoyed the fact that Joe Hill decided to dive into different societal occurrences that are popular right now and give it a little more horror twist - as if some of them even needed it; Snapshot with dementia, Loaded with gun violence, Aloft with aliens, and Rain with climate change. Although I did have a couple of rough spots with some of the stories, I do think some of them I'd read again (Rain and Loaded for sure.) 

What do you guys think? If you'v read Joe Hill's Strange Weather, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Also, what do you guys think of this way of reviewing short stories? Love it? Hate it? Let me know on here or on my Instagram! 

It's been a little while since I've written any of my book advice blog posts - and some of my readers probably have no idea that I have this segment.

Because I'm nosy but also quite observant, I like to see what other people in the community are curious about; or even need advice on. That's when I decided to make these kinds of posts. I don't have very many and it's been over a year since I've written them so I thought I'd bring them back and rebuild this segment; mainly also because I have a whole list of things I could write advice for. 

If you want to read some of my previous posts, you can search them up at the top right of my blog via web browser, but if you're lazy like myself, I'll link them all here: Where to Get Signed Books, Where to Find Cheap Books, How I Write My Reviews, How to Find Time To Read More. (Please keep in mind theses were published over a year ago when I was still getting in the hang of blogging lol) 

Something I've noticed people as a lot is how to take off stickers from a book without the sticky residue. I mean, have you ever been so excited to read a book that you just purchased but first, really wanted to take off the sticker that's been bothering you? So once you get around to taking the sticker off, there's sticky residue and even worse, some parts of the sticker still stuck to the book. And no matter how hard you try and pick it at, it doesn't come off. 

Well first of all, you wouldn't have this problem if you shopped at Indigo *winky face* and I'm not saying that because I work there and am a blog affiliate, but because the stickers peel off so smoothly. But, if you aren't able to purchase from the wonderful Indigo, then I suppose this blog post is for you.

(I wanted to just say that this isn't a step by step how-to; but more so but what I do and hopefully, if you try it out, it'll help you guys as well.)

Clockwork Princess is the final book in Cassandra Clare's The Infernal Devices series.

I can't believe this series has ended.

(I also think it's the second series I actually fully finished besides A Court of Thorns and Roses)

But for the first time ever, I wasn't dreading the ending. I wanted to continue this series until the end because I wanted to consecutively spend as much time as I could with these characters.

For starters, I've grown to love these characters so much throughout this trilogy. Even if that does include Gideon and Gabriel whom I didn't really like at the beginning.

I love the relationship made between Gideon and Sophie as well as Cecily and Gabriel.

I have also started to like Gabriel as a character as he starts to realize much of his flaws and moving past it throughout the series. During Clockwork Angel, Gabriel is shown to be very annoying and somewhat transgressive, per se. Although he was very loyal to his father, he wanted to protect his father even though he did horrible things.

From the start of the book where his father is turned into a worm through demon pox, up until the end where Jem is sent to be a Silent Brother, Gabriel as a character has grown a lot and I truly appreciate that. I also love the loyalty that has grown upon him towards Will and Charlotte.

As for Cecily, I wasn't a huge fan of her character at the beginning. She really starts to grow on you though and I think I really started to appreciate her character once she started accepting her brother's fate as a Shadowhunter.

A lot of people tend to relate Cecily as a side kick character in The Infernal Devices, but I've never seen her as such. I see her as more of an extra side character, per se, like Gabriel and Gideon. When it comes to side kicks, I see more of Sophie being Tessa's side kick to be honest.

I loved seeing more of Will, Jem and Tessa as always. Although, seeing the bond between Will and Jem during the time Jem was dying and Will losing his parabatai was heartbreaking. I think I cried the most during those parts because you truly felt Will's heartbreak. His mourning when Will thought Jem died because his parabatai rune started to fade and bleed, when Will found out Jem was Brother Zacariah as they were fighting Mortmain. Even as Will goes through the depression because although Jem isn't dead, he won't get to see Jem as much as he used to. You can tell how much Will loves him by the way he talks about Jem. He never talks about him in passed tense. (He never says he was his parabatai.) It was truly heartbreaking.

As for Tessa, I think her character development was the weakest in this book. I mean. yes, we get her backstory and yes, she does defeat Mortmain and the Clockwork Army by shapeshifting into an Angel and defeating them. But it wasn't anything like I would've imagined for an ending impression and I was really disappointed in that.

I think a lot of the ending was based on Will and Jem's relationship alongside building relationships with other Shadowhunters (Will and Tessa's included) that Tessa didn't get that huge character twist most of us were waiting for.

I mean, we know that her mom was a Shadowhunter and her dad was a demon (which is technically impossible) and her mother is actually Starkweather's daughter switched with a mundane at birth.  But it wasn't a huge wow factor to me for some reason. I was just expecting a lot more to it.

The last character I really wanted to talk about was Charlotte. And it's mainly because what she's going through is what many women still go through to this day. It's frustrating to see Charlotte doubted and her ideas discouraged because she's a women. Like, the Consul trying to use Gabriel against Charlotte so he can "find proof" and kick her out was such an annoyance. I'm really happy that Consul Wayland's goal was diminished because he was killed and Charlotte became the new Consul (as Will was turned into the new head of the institute) because she deserved that. They both really did.

Something I really wanted to touch upon that I didn't in the earlier reviews was the use of different languages. I'm really happy that Cassandra Clare incorporated the use of different languages in this novel. For example, Jem's mom is from Shanghai and dad is from England, I'm really happy that Jem knew how to speak Mandarin and taught Tessa throughout their engagement. I loved that he talked to her in his Native language and she was learning to understand certain phrases. I loved that Will did the same but with Welsh. I really loved that element because it really humanized these characters, if
that makes sense. It didn't make them seem like regular, English speaking characters, but it allowed them to stick to their cultures they were based in.

I also really love how all these series' are tied together. Like how in this book, we see Magnus and Henry create the portal for the first time which Clary and Jace use in City of Bones or City of Ashes (one of the two, I can't really remember lol). I love how in the Epilogue, Jem mentions the new generation of Fairchilds, Lightwoods and Herondales (referring to Jace, Clary, Alec and Izzy) to Tessa. It truly gives you such excitement and extends your love for this series. Because you get to see different characters grows and families expand.

I'm so sad this series is all over, but I'm super excited to see Tessa and Will in the future series Cassie is coming out with, and I'm excited to dive into the rest of the Shadowhunter world!

What Shadowhunter series do you like most? Let me know in the comment or on my Instagram, I'd love to know!