Amy 
Lynnie 
fantasy, short story, young adult, fairy tale
The Goodreads description for The Sleeper and the Spindle says "A thrillingly reimagined fairy tale from the truly magical combination of author Neil Gaiman and illustrator Chris Riddell – weaving together a sort-of Snow White and an almost Sleeping Beauty with a thread of dark magic, which will hold readers spellbound from start to finish. "
Amy's Review
This is a dark fairy tale which takes portions of several other fairy tales and weaves them all together in the telling: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin, and Little Red Riding Hood all came to mind as I was reading. As expected, the ending is of Gaiman's signature creative design and unlike any other fairy tale that comes to mind. As an infrequent short story reader, I'm glad my friend, Ginger, recommended this book to me. If you enjoy Neil Gaiman and fairy tales, I recommend it to you!
Lynnie's Review
I really enjoyed this short fairy tale. I like when authors take stories that are known and add a twist or weave a few stories together to create something new. And of course, I love Neil Gaiman's writing so that didn't hurt. Chris Riddell's illustrations are really wonderful, though they don't come through in the Kindle version as well as they would in a paper book, I'm quite sure. This was a truly entertaining tale.
Amy
Lynnie 
fantasy, novella
Steel Scars is a novella by Victoria Aveyard from the Red Queen series. It provides Farley's back-information and tells part of the tale from Red Queen, but from Farley's point of view.
Amy's Review
It was nice to learn how Farley met Shade and ended up being in a position to work with Mare. However, it did not give me any critical pieces of information. The format was difficult to follow sometimes and the storyline was jerky. I prefer that authors stick to their full-length novels and publish the sequels sooner instead of creating sub-par novellas to attempt to fill the gaps. This series now has two published novels I loved and two published novellas which felt like time-wasters. I probably won't read any further novellas from this series and just stick to the novels.
Lynnie's Review
I enjoyed this Red Queen novella more than Aveyard's other novella, Queen Song. It was interesting to learn more about Farley and a bit about Shade Barrow as well.
That said, it's still a pretty dull read. I hope that in some way this backstory of the Red Guard will add some value to my reading of Glass Sword, but I'm starting to have my doubts.
Amy 
Lynnie 
fantasy, young adult, action
In Riders, four young men have woken up from serious accidents to realize they have special powers and are now the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse--War, Famine, Death, and Conquest. The story is told by War (Gideon Blake) as he is strapped in an interrogation chair. His story begins with his accident and covers his period of discovery about his new situation and his journey to locate the other three horsemen so that they can save the world from the evil Kindred.
Amy's Review
I’m happy to report that Veronica Rossi’s new series, Riders, looks as promising as her first series, Under the Never Sky. I will not say that I liked Riders better than Under the Never Sky (to which I awarded 5 stars), but I did feel that Riders was another compelling story full of engaging characters and action. This was entirely different and not at all what I expected. This is one of those storylines you cannot describe to friends without sounding ridiculous. It sounds silly or unrealistic or ambitious. However, the way Rossi weaves the tale, it is entirely believable. The main character, Gideon, sucked me in from the first page and kept me wanting to turn each page. The story is creative and engrossing. The section which describes the journey to Norway, however, was slow and boring. I don’t feel it brought the story forward in any way except geographically. It was a buzz kill. Otherwise, I was fully engaged. Rossi left the book in a good place for the sequel. I can’t wait to read what comes next for Gideon and the gang!
Lynnie's Review
There are a lot of things to like about Riders, but a lot of things that also got on my nerves. While many of the characters were interesting, others were really flat (Daryn, I'm looking at you) & I found myself annoyed that we didn't get back to the more interesting characters more quickly. As annoyed as I was by the character Daryn, I was equally bothered by the forced, and in my opinion unnecessary, "relationship" between her & our narrator Gideon. I think I would've liked her better if the story didn't try to constantly force them together. Not all YA books need a romance.
Also, the writing style is supposed to be the "voice" of Gideon, so. Apparently Gideon can't put together too many coherent thoughts in a row, so. Sentences end mid-thought and then start again. It's a writing device that just got on my very last nerve and had me wondering if the comma key on Rossi's computer was broken. When the book got slow (it's told through flashbacks), the odd writing style was particularly jarring to me.
That said, I really enjoyed the story. The idea of living personifications of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse was fascinating, as was their mission. There was plenty of well-written action, characters to hate, and characters to cheer for. My understanding is that this is another series- the ending leaves plenty of room for the story to continue, but doesn't leave you in a cliffhanger either and I appreciated not feeling like the book ended just as things were getting interesting.
Amy 
Lynnie
contemporary fiction
After You is a sequel to a book that we both loved, Me Before You (soon to be a movie!). Picking up some time after the events in Me Before You, Jojo Moyes tells us about the continuing journey of Louisa Clark, who must redefine herself after Will Traynor's death.
Amy's Review
This
was the sequel to Me Before You, a book which required no sequel. The
author had not planned to write a sequel but felt the need to continue
Louisa’s story at the insistence of her fans. I loved Me Before You so
much that I decided to read the sequel even though I really didn’t feel
it was necessary. I was hoping to find out how Louisa and the other characters
were doing and that goal was met. However, I had also hoped
there was some good news and was severely disappointed. I would have
preferred to leave Louisa’s story where Me Before You ended.
Most
of this novel was boring, depressing, and frustrating. I understand
that people manage grief differently and that there is no right amount
of time required for people to be able to find peace with their loss.
But, I really didn’t enjoy a novel that was mostly about someone
struggling to find a purpose and joy in their life. It’s simply not
entertaining reading and I require entertaining reading. I think the
main problem with Louisa was that she had no life before she met Will
and was unrealistic to expect that she would have more of a life after
he was gone. Louisa is not the kind of person I would hang out with. She
has just enough energy to do the bare minimum to get by in life. She
doesn’t strive to improve her life in any way. She has no proactive
ideas. Instead, she reacts to whatever life throws her. She worries
about everyone else instead of herself. She doesn’t make decisions that I
think are right. I just can’t feel any sort of camaraderie for her nor
do I particularly like her. Yes, she is compassionate toward a select
few people and seemingly would do anything, including sabotaging her own
happiness, in order to help these other people. That’s sort of
redeeming but not really smart. And then, she finally finds the right
person she should spend time with, someone who actually makes her happy,
and again makes the wrong decision, in my opinion, at the end of the
book.
As much as I enjoyed reading about Louisa’s father and his
wonderful sense of humor and antics, I feel compelled to give this book
a below-average rating. It just makes me sigh.
Lynnie's Review
This is a follow up to one of my favorite books of 2014, Me Before You- a book which in no way needed a sequel, I might add.
In
After You we find ourselves watching Louisa Clark once again as she
tries to pick up the pieces of her life after Will's death and find a
place where she belongs. In typical Lou fashion there are missteps and
mistakes and laughter along the way but she is just as entertaining
(and infuriating) as she was in Me Before You. Reading about her antics is like a letter from an old friend.
This
book reminds me more of the other JoJo Moyes' books I've read- chick lit with women in need of finding themselves and perhaps a bit of
rescuing. This is a perfectly lovely book but I don't think it would be
possible to match the emotional punch of Me Before You. So, while I was
happy to spend some time with beloved characters, I also don't think
you'll miss much by not reading this sequel. It's a wonderful
distraction from a rainy weekend though, or to put a smile on your face
at the beach one day.
Amy 
