Book Reviews

Uptown Oracle Reads… The Beautiful

The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh (Affiliate Links) In 1872, New Orleans is a city ruled by the dead. But to seventeen-year-old Celine Rousseau, New Orleans provides her a refuge after she’s forced to flee her life as a dressmaker in Paris. Taken in by the sisters of the Ursuline convent along with six other girls,…
Uptown Oracle Reads… Spin the Dawn

Overall, Spin the Dawn was one of my quickest reads of 2021 so far. I just couldn’t put this book down for too long because I wanted to know what happens. I’m excited to also pick up the next book.
Uptown Oracle Reads… The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab (Affiliate Links) A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget. France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life…
Uptown Oracle Reads… Ninth House

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (Affiliate Links) Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact,…
Uptown Oracle Reads… Sorcery of Thorns

Then the most important part of a whether you liked a standalone book, Sorcery of Thorns does just leave you wanting more. There’s a desire to read more about Elisabeth, Nathaniel and Silas and how there should be so many more adventures and happy endings.
Uptown Oracle Reads… Gideon the Ninth

Gideon the Ninth was a book I went into with very little information but I had been told it was good. I was luckily not disappointed at all. Gideon the Ninth is a wonderful book full of great characters, intriguing world building and also a heavy emphasis on it’s necormancy magic system (in space!).
Uptown Oracle Reads… The Merciful Crow | Not If But When You Need a Unique Magic System

Our titular The Merciful Crow is Fie, a chief-in-training who definitely isn’t ready to become chief herself. She’s our introduction to all things Crow, and their feelings towards to royals, gentry and society as a whole. Despite resentment, she has a strong leaning on her oaths, honor and duty as a crow and the covenant…
Uptown Oracle Reads… Bear Head

Bear Head is a book I went in with not much info and about a quarter of the way in I wanted to know everything about this sci-fi Earth and Mars. Our main characters are mostly on Mars and within a completed bio-engineered human body which can half-live on an area of Mars due to…
Uptown Oracle Reads… Legendborn

Legendborn is a King Arthur retelling/sequel in that King Arthur and his knights have used magic to tie themselves to their descendants, meaning they can sort of reincarnate when a great need is of them. There’s also Merlin stand-ins called Merlins and one called a Kingsmage who serves King Arthurs descendant.