Because You Love to Hate Me edited by Ameriie

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Publication date: 2017
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 339
My rating: 3 stars
Ages: 16+

What is it about some villains that make them so intriguing? How did villains become villains? What is it that the villains really want? Through 13 different short stories we find the answers.

Each short story in this collection was inspired by a question asked by a book blogger, who then includes commentary after that story.

I had two favorite stories: "The Sea Witch" by Marissa Meyer, which shows how the sea witch who provides the Little Mermaid with legs came to be the sea witch. The other was "Beautiful Venom" by Cindy Pon. Pon takes the Greek myth about Medusa and transplants it into China in one of the best ways possible. I think the reason I liked both of these stories so much is that it really does show how these familiar villains became who they are. In the case of Meyer's story, the sea witch was an outcast who thought she found love only to be heartbroken. In "Beautiful Venom," Pon focused more on the part of the Medusa story that we tend to glaze over.

I was a little disappointed in some of the stories because I was expecting all of them to be like the ones I mentioned above—the origin stories of villains. Which did happen in some of the stories, but a lot of them turned the villains into heroes.

I did like the commentary from the bloggers; in fact, some times those where my favorite parts.

One of the stories does use the f-word repeatedly.

*I do not receive compensation from Amazon.

All These Wonders ed. by Catherine Burns

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Publication date: 2017
Publisher: Crown Archetype
Pages: 327
My rating: 5 stars
Ages: 16+

Seeing Pluto for the first time. Surviving a concentration camp. Sharing custody of a dog. Summer camp. Each person has a story to tell, a story to share, about facing the unknown. The Moth has collected these stories into one volume, to share with the world.

I love these slice of life stories. They could be funny, sweet, sad, or happy. Each person shares something from their life that we can all identify with, even if we've never worked with a space craft or was a spy in WWII or been a refugee. But we've all lived life, experiencing new things, encountering death and birth, living through all those moments that make life what it is.

Because these are transcripts of oral stories, the voice of the person is kept intact, in a way that written stories seem to lose. I kept telling my family about certain stories I had read, even reading one out loud in it's entirety to my mom as she made dinner one night ("A Phone Call" from Auburn Sandstrom). Others I just summarized, though I'm sure really poorly.

Well worth reading. These are the things that help us see that we are a human family, connected by the things that are universal.

Some hard language and references to sex.

*I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

The Time Chamber by Daria Song

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Publication date: 2015
Publisher: Watson-Guptill Publications
My rating: 4 stars
Pages: 80
Ages: all ages

The red haired fairy wonders what the world is like outside of her Time Garden. Once the girl falls sleep, the fairy creeps out and discovers many wonderful things.

I wasn't sure how much a "story" this book would have, since it's also a coloring book. And while there aren't very many words, the story is lyrical. Song's drawings just add to the magical feeling of the story about the red haired fairy.

Mostly, I was eager to start coloring and make the book and story my own in a way. So I pulled out my colored pencils and colored while catching up on my TV shows. One thing I learned what that I need to sharpen nearly all my pencils. Another was that once I made a color decision, I was going to have to stick to that throughout the entire book, if I wanted to appease any sort of perfectionism. Also, my fingers got a little tired from coloring.

The drawings are intricate and detailed, not at all like your child's coloring book, meaning that it could provide you with hours of relaxation and entertainment as you decide on color schemes and watch the drawings come to life.

*I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.

Halley's Gift and Eight Other Extraordinary Tales by Carey B. Azzara

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Publication date: 2015
Publisher: By the author, produced by Boston Writers Publishing
Pages: 232
My rating: 2 stars
Ages:18+

In nine short stories, the reader is introduced to nine different people who overcome trials in a variety of ways. From Halley learning to use her gift to Elysha fighting for her life and her treasure.

I liked that Azzara's stories are about people overcoming their difficulties, even if I didn't think that the way that some of them overcame them was the best way to do so. And I have a lot of respect for someone who puts their fiction out there for the world to see and judge.

That being said . . . I guess it's time for my judgment. It's difficult to turn off my editor's eyes. I've trained to have them and sometimes I can, but sometimes I can't. I think that Azzara would have benefitted from the help of a substantive editor during the revision phase, and a proofreader/copy editor before printing. I came across chronological errors, as well as some typos. In one story, it seemed that Azzara's character bio for the main character was left in--because I couldn't make it fit into the story.

It's obvious that Azzara loves to write. It was clear that he did a lot of research for his stories.

There is some language and sexual situations.

*I received this book from the author in exchange for this review.