Moon and Coffee

books, travel, nursing, and all of life's in-betweens

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Lilith by Nikki Marmery

Have you ever picked up a book and thought, “This seems bad, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt,” because why not? Well, that was me when I picked by Lilith by Nikki Marmery. It’s a book that stars Lilith (shocking, right?) who was Adam’s first wife before Eve. If there’s one thing you need to know about me, it’s that I actually enjoy fiction based on Biblical mythos, especially when it’s mixed in with other myths from the time.

Unfortunately for me, this book couldn’t even meet my (low) expectations.

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Where to Go From Here

When I started this blog, I had told myself that I’ll only keep the blog if I manage to keep myself consistent. For the first few months, I did just that: kept myself consistent and managed to churn out a number of reviews. But being a book blogger is a lot easier when you don’t have work draining you. 

At the end of 2021, I wrote a post basically attempting to explain myself and my plans. 2022 started great, but writing is hard and so is reading, apparently. In 2022, I only managed to read 30 books – still a lot, but considering the fact that in previous years, I read 50+? Yeah, it was a change. I found it challenging to pick up books, let alone write reviews for them. 

In 2023, I was able to read 51 books. Even had a few reviews drafted. But writing is hard. No matter what I did? I found myself doing something else. Blogging was the last thing on my mind.

But writing is a lot like being a cat. Sometimes, it wants nothing to do with you. Other times, it was all your attention. 

I’m sitting here typing on my NEO2 and quite frankly? This is the most I’ve written for this blog in ages. 

But what does this mean?

For those who may not be aware, blogging costs money. To keep this domain? I pay real dollars. I’ve come to a crossroad where yes, I can afford this. But I ask myself, why when I can save the money? Yet, it’s hard to let this place go. 

I can obviously do what others have done and switch to alternative platforms. Saving the reviews is easy: they’ll go on Goodreads and StoryGraph with the raw versions saved on Google Drive. Most people seem to be olusing TikTok and Instagram for their book recommendations, anyway.

Yet, I can’t seem to bring myself to shut down Moon & Coffee. 

So I won’t.

Moon & Coffee will remain up. Reviews will go up, albeit slow, but they’ll go up. I’ll keep the review requests closed until further notice. One day, I’ll reopen them. But for now, I’ll focus on talking about the books and series I enjoyed. 

I’ll probably start with something most recent because I don’t think it’s fair for me to review something I read back in 2022-2023. But we’ll see where the writing muse takes us, right?

Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

Let’s get this out of the way: I tried to love this. I did every mental gymnastic trick in the book to fall in love with Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant. How could I not? It has everything that would normally attract me to a book. But, alas, Into the Drowning Deep was the biggest disappointment so far of 2023. Hello major reading slump!

So what went wrong? Oh, where do I begin?

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Parasitology (Parasite, Symbiont, and Chimera) by Mira Grant

banner with the words: Parasitology (Parasite, Symbiont, and Chimera) by Mira Grant

Where do I begin with the Parasitology series by Mira Grant? The Parasitology series – or the Forced Evolution series – consists of Parasite, Symbiont, and Chimera. All three books are thick monsters. So rather than talk about them individually, I wanted to cover the entire series in one post. It makes it a whole lot easier. 

And to be quite frank with you?

Despite the fact that the books are about 500 pages each? There isn’t much to say about them individually. Parasitology as a whole, though? That’s another story. 

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She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

After reading She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan, I stopped and wondered if I read the same book as everyone else. I thought, “Something is wrong with me.” So many people whose reviews I trust had enjoyed the book. Me, on the other hand? 

I can’t deny that She Who Became the Sun is an ambitious novel that captures the atmosphere of fourteenth-century China. However, I often found myself lost, bored, and frustrated. In short?

I’m bitterly disappointed.

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When Night Breaks by Janella Angeles

Second books in a series/trilogy/duology usually fall in one of two categories: exceeding the magic captured in the first book or falling short of expectations, leaving readers unsatisfied. Unfortunately, When Night Breaks by Janella Angeles lands in the latter category. Look, my friends, I adored Where Dreams Descend, but I can’t say the same about When Night Breaks. The final book in the Kingdom of Cards duology disappointed me. So now I’m left asking:

Where did it all go wrong?

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Hey everyone, it’s been a minute.

Ok, it’s been more than a minute. Talk about understatement of the century! I honestly didn’t mean to be gone for such a long time – about nine months, give or take. While I was able to post more on my old Instagram, even there my posts slowed before stopping altogether. 

What happened?

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The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng by K.S. Villoso

Thrilling. Bewitching. Marvelous. Astounding. Those are just a few words that I can use to describe K.S. Villoso’s The Dragon of Jin-Sayeng, which concludes the epic trilogy known as Chronicles of the Bitch Queen. I cannot believe that this book blessed my eyes. Just when I thought that K.S. Villoso’s writing couldn’t get better; she proves me wrong by knocking my socks off with this phenomenal book. 

Thank you so much to Angela Man and Orbit for sending me a free copy. My views are my own. 

Oh dear, where do I even begin? 

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Book Reviews Speed Dating Style Vol. 1

There are those books where I have a lot of things to say after I finish reading. Other times, however, I don’t have much to say. Plus, sometimes I’m just lazy. It happens. Rather than try to make individual posts for these books, I decided to create this Speed Dating edition. 

Because why the heck not?

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Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix by Julie C. Dao

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Kingdom of the Blazing Phoenix does not live up to its predecessor, Forest of a Thousand Lanterns. It pains me to say this because I enjoyed the previous book. But the book deities weren’t kind to me in this round. I had to force myself to finish this book. Why didn’t I DNF it? I needed to know what happened to Xifeng. But aside from that? I could care less.

So, what went wrong?

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