Mood Reading Momma

12/15/2025

12/15/2025

12/15/2025

📚Book Review📚

✨️Title:Nos4a2 by Joe Hill
✨️Method: audiobook
✨️My rating: 4/5⭐️

This was such a great listen, and a great choice to read/listen during Christmas time. It was unique and imaginative. As a mother I could relate a lot to the main character and her lack in confidence and occasional wish that she was a better mom and that her child had better and so that made for a great connection to the main character.
The deeper meaning to this book that we all live in two different worlds (the real world and the world inside our heads) was very thought provoking and had me realizing how much more often I lived in my imaginative world as a child and how much less I live in it now as an adult with the hustle and bustle of life.
The imagery and the way the narrator brought the story to life had me hooked from the beginning to the end. You loved to hate the bad guys. And it was painful to had anything negative happen to the good guys.
One of the fun little nuggets of this book was the homage Joe paid to his father's previous writings and characters, giving them a small cameo. It was fun to hear small snippets but you could possibly miss them if you weren't paying close enough attention.
Overall, this was an entertaining read that I would recommend to someone looking for a spooky Christmas read.

12/15/2025

📚Book Review 📚

✨️Title: Murder at the Patel Motel by Maulik Pancholy
✨️Method: audiobook
✨️Rating: 4.25/5⭐️

This was such a fun audiobook! Definitely one of the MOST fun audiobooks I have been able to listen to! The characters were so much fun and felt so real. The story was a fun murder mystery that gave Knives Out vibes! It was fun, mysterious, quirky and cute. There were a few times where the main character was a little cringe in his little speeches, but it wasnt so bad I couldnt stop listening. Instead, I just got some second hand embarrassment like I do with Michael in The Office. The voice actors were so fantastic and really made the entire story feel more like a TV show than a book. I also was not expecting the twist at the end! Throughout the book I thought I had the murderer pinned and at the last minute.....BAM it was someone totally unexpected! I love stories that spin you around and turn you upside down. I definitely suggest if you are interested, you listen to this book because beginning to finish it was so much fun to listen to and a great palette cleanser from my last audio book.

12/15/2025

📚Book Review 📚

✨️Title: It by Stephen King
✨️Method: Audiobook
✨️My rating: 3.25/5⭐️

This was one of the most difficult ratings that I've ever done. Instead of immediately rating it, I really had to do some deep thinking to decide what I felt was deserved. Due to some of the content just hitting so close to home, I didnt feel like I could rate a 4 or 5, HOWEVER...the writing style and the story itself was undeniably creative and unlike anything else i have ever read and rating it anything below 3 I felt would have been an insult to the writing and the wild ride of emotions I went through all throughout. This was not simply a story. It was an entire experience. One that took me a full month to go through, which made the experience all the more deep. A full month was spent with these characters, following them on their journey of growing up and facing their fears, and I felt like I got to know them not only as a group but as individuals pretty well. I opted to listen to this rather than read it and I think that I had made the right decision. The narrator fleshed out the characters and made them feel more alive, he brought tension and fear where it was necessary and not overdone. Because I had seen the movies (original and the remakes) there were parts that should have been more terrifying that lost their overall spark due to movie spoilers, therefore the book overall was not as scary as I expected it to be. I can't take this away from the book though since it was ultimately fault for getting spoiled by the movies. To me, the book was more disturbing than it was scary. It was vile and atrocious at moments, it was sincere and beautiful in other moments. I did personally feel there was too much sexualizing of children (they were 11..) and that the book did not need to be quite as long as there were multiple parts that felt like the story was dragging. I loved that there was a deeper meaning behind the overall story, one that everyone eventually learns at some point in their life. Im not sure if this is a book that I would recommend freely. This is more of a read that I feel I would only recommend if someone was looking for something very specific and I say that because not only should you have a strong stomach to read this book, you should also have a strong mind and be in the right mind set to consume this book.

11/30/2025

November was a slow month for me..I am also still listening to It by Stephen King and I am about halfway through Brimstone by Callie Hart.

How did you do in November?

11/30/2025

The reread of Quicksilver was as incredible as the first time and Brimstone is proving to be absolutely incredible as well!

Are you reading Brimstone?

11/30/2025

📚DNF Review📚

💔Title: The Dead Guy Next Door by Lucy Score
💔Method: Hardy Copy
💔My rating: 2/5⭐️

I got half way through this book. I probably should have pushed through and finished, but towards the middle I felt like it was dragging and not really getting to the point. I understand a lot of the middle chunk of the story was character and relationship building, but I wanted more plot, which was what had interested me in this book in the first place. This was not in my normal genre realm at all and though it had its moments, unfortunately, this book just did not hold my attention. It was very easy to read and I think someone who is looking for a fun and cute rom com will really enjoy this book, but when a book fails to hold my attention half way through and I find myself waiting for actual plot work, I think its time to step away. No hate to the writer and no hate to anyone who loved this book!

11/30/2025

📚Book Review📚

✨️Title: Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff
✨️Method: Kindle
✨️My rating: 3.5/5⭐️

I have mixed feelings about this book. Overall, it was a solid read, it was an epic fantasy that definitely felt unique in its telling. What makes it so unique is that our main character Gabriel is actually telling the story in an interview style and I dont usually read books like that. However, with this unique telling, the pacing felt off with Gabriel switching from two different story lines. One story line would ramp up and get good and then we would be pulled out of it and thrown into the other story line and the process would start all over again. That being said, there were so many highlighted moments that are not easily forgettable to me. There were many highs in this book, many strong relationships and great moments, but there were also plenty of low moments that dragged. In my opinion, it was unfortunate that most of the strong relationships either ended too soon or were not given enough page time. I did really enjoy the authors prose, his writing style gave a grimdark, gritty, fantastical atmosphere. He did so well with description and immersion world building that I could visually see the action scenes and the settings to where our characters traveled. Despite all of the highs and all of the positives that this book gave me, I didnt really feel any fire to run to pick up the next book. It kind of just left me with a weird feeling. Like I enjoyed it, it wasnt bad, but I also felt like things could have been structured differently and it didnt have to be dragged out quite as long as it was.
I would still recommend this book if youre looking for a solid grimdark, epic scope fantasy about vampires because I do not regret reading this and it was not a bad read.

11/30/2025

📚Book Review 📚

✨️Title: The Bedroom Window by K. L Slater
✨️Method: Audiobook
✨️My rating: 3.5/5⭐️

This was my first K. L Slater novel and overall it was a treat. I opted to listen rather than read and found that I very much enjoyed this thriller. I enjoyed the narrator and appreciated that she didnt go overboard when using a male voice, it was just the right amount of adjustment that the reader knows a man is speaking. Her child voices were fantastic and felt oddly familiar as if she has done voices for a show or possibly a video game. The story was original, simple and yet twisty. Although I was able to predict the ending, it was still a fun ride in walking along with the characters and getting through to the final conclusion. There was one bit at the end that did throw me a little and I loved that the author threw that scene in. It didnt feel out of place, despite not expecting it to happen as the reader, it felt natural and was done quite brutally beautiful. The atmosphere of Sea Spray house touched on magical in the way that the author described not only the house itself but the surrounding area. It transports the reader into this cozy hill side by the sea. You not only can see it, you can feel the cool breeze, smell the salt in the air. The author did such a fantastic job in her descriptions that I do not see myself forgetting Sea Spray house.
I would recommend this book if you are looking for a simple, solid thriller with a fun little surprise in the wrap up events.

11/30/2025

🍎🍏Apple Picking Challenge🍎🍏
Book Edition

Have you read any of these??

11/30/2025

I can't believe November is over already!!