The Beautiful Life

Cuentos de buenas noches para niñas rebeldes by Elena Favilli My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a LOVELY book filled with empowering stories for girls of all ages. I bought this book for my 6 year-old niece and we were reading one of this stories every night, and it was amazing how much she loved it and would bring it to me every night. Unfortunately I came to live to Japan and left the book back home so it took me longer to finish it. But finally I managed. The book itself is a work of art, it gathers not only the amazing stories of 100 magnificent women but also 100 beautiful portraits by 100 different female artists. The stories in it are one page long and easy to read and explain even to small kids, and tell the lives and most important achievements of important women like Jane Austin, Frida Khalo, Malala Yousafzai, Michelle Obama, Alek Wek, Maria Montessori, Cleopatra, and many many others. From all around the world and from ancestral times to thi...

Rough Guide To Japanese Dictionary Phrasebook 2 by Lexus Ltd. My rating: 2 of 5 stars It's a good Japanese guide and phrase book if you're a native english speaker, I could read and understand it all but since Spanish has a much more similar pronunciation to Japanese, it's very confusing to try and learn it from an english stand point. It has lots of advice on how to navigate through Japanese culture and traditions and that's what I liked the most about the little book. I feel like this book is for the people who don't know any Japanese and has to carry the book around for reference. View all my reviews

Parade by Shūichi Yoshida My rating: 2 of 5 stars This book falls completely into the "slice of life" genre that is so popular in Japan. It is narrated by 5 different characters throughout a time range of a few months. Ryosuke, Kotomi, Mirai, Naoki and later Satoru, find themselves living in the same apartment and sharing a life... the thing is they were not friends before, they just happened to be there and stay... they all have their own problems and ways of dealing with them, feeling that oversharing with the other inmates will cross the line that makes their living together be in total harmony. All of them one way or another know that their living arrangements are not permanent and for this reason find easy to oversee the superficial life they all share. Meanwhile, young Satoru their newest roommate lives a dangerous night life and has a very rare pastime, also they discover their own neighbor is running a shady business, and violent as...

The Toymakers by Robert Dinsdale My rating: 5 of 5 stars Fantasy in times of war, life-long love, magic toys, new life and life loss... all of this you'll find in this story... all this you find in the Emporium. It was heartbreakingly beautiful!! I've no way to describe all the feelings this book made me go through, it gave me wonder, despair, sadness, happiness, wonder again! Few books have made me feel tearfully grateful is over the way it is... and as happy as this one did. This book talks about harsh topics such as teen pregnancy, war atrocities, post-war trauma... but at the same time introduces them to you in a way that's not as horrible as it is in our minds. The author really told the story through a veil of fantasy that even though told very difficult stories everything seemed just as fantastical as the world inside the Emporium. I absolutely loved this book, and I can't wait to read more from this author! View a...

The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler My rating: 3 of 5 stars 3.5 stars haha It was a good story, I read its summary a long time ago so I didn't remember what it was about and it turned out it was nothing of what I was expecting, it was a surprise! Even though I liked the story, it was one of those books where the characters could've sold many things much before things went bad if they just talked to each other honestly, but it's not an easy thing to do in many stories apparently. This book is told in two time lines, the first in present time where a librarian is sent a book who turns out to have data about his past relatives; and a group of traveling performers (like a circus, before the circus was a thing) from the 1700s who stumble upon 2 very unusual characters that become the start of a curse that lasts for generations. We find circus performers old and new, mermaids, a wild boys, an electric boy, a tarot reader and among others a ...