Posts By: Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction

Apr 23

The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things by Ann Aguirre: A Dual Review with Danielle Hammelef

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Dual Reviews, Reviews 13 ★★★½

(No actual dueling—or even arm-twisting—was involved. Don’t worry, this is a dual review, not a duel review. Sorry if you’re disappointed.) Today I have another dual review of a book from my Make Me Read It Giveaway (as part of the Wrap-Up Round-Up). Danielle Hammelef was once again my winner (which just goes to show that entering often is well worth it!) and she chose to make me read The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things. Once I read the book, I sent it along to her. Once again, Danielle took me up on the option of doing a dual review, which I was really excited about since it’s such a fun way to review! Read on to see what we thought of the book… Danielle and I disagreed about this book somewhat (which sort of makes this review more fun, in my opinion). I think it mostly came down to whether… Read more »

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Apr 22

Sunday Post & Giveaways Galore – 4/22/18

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Sunday Post 14

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on my blog and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead. This past week on FYFA (and in my life): I got to meet with one of my CPs this week, which was really fun! It was the craziest thing—she found me via #CPMatch on Twitter, and when I visited her profile I learned that she lived ten minutes from me. Even weirder, she actually used to live in my neighborhood, just down the block from me. So, we got together for coffee Friday and talked about our books. Such a great opportunity, since neither of us get to talk writing all that often. My daughter had her first two track meets this week. I have now learned that track… Read more »

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Apr 17

Expectations About POC Names in Books. Let’s Discuss.

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Let's Discuss 33

I have to start by pointing out the obvious: As a white woman, my opinion on this subject doesn’t matter all that much. Some people might even say I shouldn’t get to have an opinion on this. But I do, so… I’m giving it… with this little disclaimer that you can take it or leave it as you see fit. I actually started writing this as a note in my review of Picture Us in the Light, but then it was getting really long, and I thought I’d turn it into its own discussion post. I happened across a random comment on Goodreads where someone said they wondered if Disney was afraid to use names that sounded too Asian in Picture Us in the Light, since all the characters have American-sounding first names. This seemed like a strange reason to write the book off to me, especially given the fact that the… Read more »

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Apr 15

Sunday Post & Giveaways Galore – 4/15/18

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Sunday Post 34

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on my blog and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead. This past week on FYFA (and in my life): I don’t know where my head has been this week, but it apparently hasn’t been attached to me. It was one of those weeks where I just felt so scatterbrained. On Sunday, I forgot to show up to something at church. Then I forgot to order books for my co-op language arts class and missed half my daughter’s guitar/voice lesson because we assumed her teacher was out of town—we had reasons, but I won’t go into a long explanation. Suffice it to say, I should have checked. Today, I figured out I was a day late for submitting something… Read more »

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Apr 13

Picture Us In the Light by Kelly Loy Gilbert: So Much I Want to Say About this Book (But I Can’t)

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Reviews 18 ★★★★½

This is one of those books that I’ll be thinking about for a long time. There was just so much substance to it, and it addressed several important topics from unique perspectives. The problem is, this is a tough book to review without spoiling things, so I’m going to be very general in my review. Trust me when I say you should just read it for yourself! What Fed My Addiction: Covers all the issues. Without feeling like an issue book. This book touches on so many topics, and honestly, that’s hard to do well. Oftentimes when I read a book like this, I feel a little overwhelmed or like I’m constantly being hit over the head with another issue, but somehow Gilbert manages to weave them all in so seamlessly that I almost don’t notice they’re there. This is because Gilbert focuses so much more on Danny’s emotional journey than she does on the… Read more »

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Apr 11

Why Is Voice in Writing So Hard? And Do You Think About It When You Read? Let’s Discuss.

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Let's Discuss 38

I actually started writing this as a completely different post (how I read differently now that I’m writing more seriously), but I ended up writing a lot about this voice, and I decided to go with it. Maybe I’ll write that other post another time. But for now, I’m talking only about voice. What is it that makes it so hard to capture? Is it something we think about when we read, or is it just there? Voice in Books First of all, if you’re sitting there wondering what I’m even talking about, let’s define “voice” when it comes to writing. Voice is simply what makes a character stand out as an individual—what makes the character sound like them. Voice can be established in a lot of ways—little repeated words and phrases, an attitude (such as a snarky teenage voice), worldview, phrasing, apparent education level that’s evidenced in word choice, etc. It’s actually… Read more »

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Apr 08

Sunday Post & Giveaways Galore – 4/8/18

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Sunday Post 30

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on my blog and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead. This past week on FYFA (and in my life): This week was another busy one! My two acting classes (at our homeschool co-op) had their final performances on Tuesday and Saturday. It was a little bittersweet since these are my final final performances. With Danielle headed off to public high school next year, our time at the co-op is done (at least for now—I suppose you never know what the future might hold!). I’ve been having some weird nerve pain in my arm this week as well, which has made all sorts of things unpleasant—including typing for too long. But I still managed to get a couple of… Read more »

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Apr 06

Bite-Sized Reviews of Tyler Johnson Was Here, Dark Breaks the Dawn, Tom Sawyer and What Maya Saw

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Reviews 12 ★★★★

I’ve got four bite-sized reviews for you today: three YA books and a classic! I hope these bite-sized reviews will be enough to feed your fiction addiction! I’d read that this book was a bit grittier than other books with similar storylines, so I was ready for that when I started reading it. I would agree with that assessment, but I don’t think that it necessarily made the MC less relatable. The story is told from the POV of Tyler’s twin brother, Marvin. Marvin realizes his brother has flaws and has gotten himself involved in some things he shouldn’t, but he also knows the person Tyler is—he knows him in a way no one else can. So, when Tyler is killed, Marvin has trouble reconciling people’s reactions—both the people who want to paint Tyler as a thug and people who want to use him as some sort of symbol of… Read more »

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Apr 03

Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi: This Book Is the Definition of Delightful!

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Reviews 18 ★★★★★

You guys, I think I could sit here and gush all day about this book! Just everything about it—love the characters, the setting, the pacing. And then there’s the writing … the book took me a little longer to read than usual because I sat down and underlined every line that I loved. And there were a lot of them. I regret nothing. What Fed My Addiction: Fantastic middle grade voice. The main reason I started underlining my favorite quotes was because I’m using this as a study of how to nail middle grade voice—which is tough, trust me. If I can get my book even halfway to this level of amazingness, I will die and go to writerly heaven. Chokshi manages to make Aru funny and sarcastic and flawed and still oh-so-lovable. I think that just about every middle grader on the planet will be able to relate to Aru in one way… Read more »

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Apr 02

(My Actual) Sunday (Monday) Post & Giveaways Galore

Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction Sunday Post, Uncategorized 25

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer ~ It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on my blog and share news about what’s coming up in the week ahead. This past week on FYFA (and in my life): As much as I wish all of the things in my April 1st Sunday Post were true, alas, they were not. Sorry if I had you excited about my pretend book deal there for a minute. I hope someday I can actually make that announcement (maybe minus the part about killing off my main character in my MG—I’m guessing that wouldn’t go over well). If you didn’t read yesterday’s April Fools’ Sunday Post, go check it out. I’m hoping some of my “creative” pre-order deals and giveaways will give you a laugh! I didn’t want to let you guys miss… Read more »

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