Tiny Navajo Reads: Food Wars! Vol. 6

Food Wars! Vol. 6 (Shokugeki no Soma #6) by Yuto Tsukuda

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*Published June 2, 2015*

We continue our adventures in Food Wars! and reading this really makes me want to get just a 30 day free trial in order to watch the anime for this awesome manga!

The contestants for the Totsuki Institute’s annual Fall Classic have been chosen! A decades-old event, the Fall Classic has been the grand stage for fierce cooking battles for years. The chosen participants, each aiming to be crowned winner, begin their training! But as they do, someone special visits Polaris Dorm.

Honestly, for me, the best part about this volume is that Soma gets to have a battle between he and his father, like they used to do. Yes, Soma’s dad shows up at Polaris Dorms to see how he’s doing, and in typical Yukihara fashion, they have a family shokugeki. Soma has improved, even his dad and dormmates see it, but his father still beats him. In return, Soma’s dad gives him some advice to help him through the annual Fall Classic. Then he’s gone in a flash, off to cook around the world once again.

I like the interactions that Soma has with everyone around him, that’s where the heart of this series is, along with the food. And the food makes me drool, it truly does. I just need to read them again if just to get the recipes that show up in each volume.

Have you ever made the recipes that show up in books? How did they turn out? Comment below and let me know!

Tiny Navajo Reads ARCs: Spin the Dawn

Oh today’s going to be exciting!!!

Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

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*To Be Published July 9th, 2019*

I received this ARC from NetGalley. This in no ways affects my thoughts and review of the book.

I saw this book on NetGalley and saw that they were sending out ARCs and I wanted to read this so badly so I asked and I recieved!!!

Project Runway meets Mulan in this sweeping YA fantasy about a young girl who poses as a boy to compete for the role of imperial tailor and embarks on an impossible journey to sew three magic dresses, from the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Maia Tamarin dreams of becoming the greatest tailor in the land, but as a girl, the best she can hope for is to marry well. When a royal messenger summons her ailing father, once a tailor of renown, to court, Maia poses as a boy and takes his place. She knows her life is forfeit if her secret is discovered, but she’ll take that risk to achieve her dream and save her family from ruin. There’s just one catch: Maia is one of twelve tailors vying for the job.

Backstabbing and lies run rampant as the tailors compete in challenges to prove their artistry and skill. Maia’s task is further complicated when she draws the attention of the court magician, Edan, whose piercing eyes seem to see straight through her disguise.

And nothing could have prepared her for the final challenge: to sew three magic gowns for the emperor’s reluctant bride-to-be, from the laughter of the sun, the tears of the moon, and the blood of stars. With this impossible task before her, she embarks on a journey to the far reaches of the kingdom, seeking the sun, the moon, and the stars, and finding more than she ever could have imagined.

This was such a good book! I actually quite liked it and it’s description of being a cross between Project Runway and Mulan was accurate. I also loved that it was very much about a girl wanting, and better able, to do what is generally accepted as a man’s occupation.

Maia has always dreamed of becoming the country’s best tailor, but being a girl all she can do is marry and hopefully marry well. But when her father is called to compete to be the emperor’s royal tailor, Maia takes her father’s place and goes. Unfortunately for her, there is more to this competition than meets the eye and Maia has to keep herself and her eyes in check to make it out of this alive.

Once the book got to the competition aspect, I was more intrigued. The only bad thing about it was that it was very short and quickly passed over. I would have loved to find out more about the competition and have that take more time. Granted this is because the main event for this book in the gathering and construction of the materials for the three dresses of legend, made from the sun, the moon, and the stars.

I loved the magic and the competition. I loved this whole book, and I definitely want to read the rest of the series. I need to know what happens to Edan and Maia and their magics as the series continues.

What do you think of books that are centered around competitions? Do you want long competitions or short competitions? Comment below and let me know!

 

Tiny Navajo Listens: The Night Circus

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, read by Jim Dale

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I absolutely LOVE this book! I love the audio for it even more. This is about my third or fourth time reading/listening to The Night Circus and I love it!

The circus arrives without warning. And it’s a circus unlike any other before. Instead of being a single tent with three rings, it is a circus full of multiple tents, each with their own attraction. And it is only open at night. The reason for this circus because there is a competition, a competition like none other; a competition that has gone for a very long time between two very different people. They seek to play through others each round, but they play to see whose method to magic is better.

Celia Bowen is considered a natural talent by her father, Hector Bowen, who teaches her how to rely only on herself for her magic and her abilities. Marco Alisdair, an orphan who is adopted by “Alexander,” is taught charms and spells, writings and symbols for his magic. The two know that they are meant for a competition, but nothing else when they are thrown together. Marco knows who Celia is, but Celia has no idea who Marco is. Once the circus starts up, the competition begins and tents full of magic and wonder pop up.

As more and more tents appear, and the longer the circus runs, Celia and Marco start to fall headlong in love, the tents start to become more than attractions, they become declarations of love between the two. And the longer the circus runs, with no end of the competition in sight, the harder it becomes for Celia and Marco to keep going, to keep the competition going. Their lives are no longer the only ones that are affected by the competition at this point, the lives of all those who love the circus, who live in the circus, and those who just see the circus once, are affected.

I just love this book! I lovelovelove this book! I love the writing, I love the narration, I love the setting and the magic and the circus itself. I quite honestly wish I could live in this book and go to this circus. It sounds absolutely amazing, and I love the way it’s described and I love the magic!

The narration is also one of my favorites. Jim Dale, the narrator for the American version of Harry Potter does amazing with this. I love the way he pulls you in, the inflections of voice and the different voices he assigns to everyone. Yes, it is one person talking, but he is able to change his voice in such a way for EVERYONE,  that you start to forget that there is only one person narrating. For me, that’s when you know you have an excellent narrator when you forget there is one person doing the narration.

What audiobook pulls you in? Why did it pull you in? Comment below and let me know!