Maddie’s Bookcase

  Christmas by the Book by Anne Marie Ryan First, I want to say Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. I hope you all have had a great holiday season and a wonderful Christmas! Title: Christmas by the Book Author: Anne Marie Ryan Genre: Fiction Published in: 2020 Age suggestion: Young adult and up Spice-o-meter: Spice-free My rating: 4.5 out of 5 My thoughts: I rated this book 4.5 out of 5. I really enjoyed this book. It was a very wholesome Christmas season read that takes place in a small village in the United Kingdom. It felt a bit slow in the beginning, but I actually got used to the pace and realized it wasn't so much "slow" as just different than what I'm used to. The books I usually read have a lot of action, this one didn't have action so much but it told the story of an entire community and their struggles and their journeys to find happiness around Christmas. The book was told from many different perspectives, which I'm not usually a fan of, but

  Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi Title: Before the Coffee Gets Cold Author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi Genre: Fiction Published in: 2015 (Japan), 2020 (USA) Age suggestion: Young adult and up Spice-o-meter: Spice-free My rating: 5 out of 5 My thoughts: I rated this book 5 out of 5. I loved this book. It was actually a collection of 4 short stories, each of which had a different theme but they all fit together in the end. They were all beautifully woven together. I adored the writing style and the comfort the words brought to me. This book was just… soothing. There isn’t really another word for me to describe it as. Even with some of the sad topics in the book, this book was extremely calming for me to read. It felt good to read this. The setting of the book was a cafe in Tokyo, Japan. This cafe was well known for the rumor that in it, you could travel back in time. In each of the short stories, different people decide to time travel to say things they wish they had said o

  My review of Crushed Love: Should I Say It or Not? by Moon Dena Clay Title: Crushed Love: Should I Say It or Not? Author: Moon Dena Clay Genre: Romance Published in: 2020 (self published) Age suggestion: Young adult and up Spice-o-meter: 1 of 5 My rating: 4 of 5 My thoughts: I rated this book 4 out of 5. I really enjoyed this book overall. I liked the plot of the story and I liked the characters. It was a shorter book, more like a novella rather than a novel, but the length fit the plot well. My main struggle with this book was the grammar, but since the author is a pen pal of mine that is based in India, I understood that English is not her first language. She also self-published this book. The only other struggle I had was that there was a major time jump with a very short explanation and no real warning. I caught on quickly to the new timeline. I still liked the story and did not find myself struggling to get through it like I have been with many romances recently. It's somew