**Reading Experience: A Review of "Local Woman Wears Reading Glasses" and "Magpie Murders"**

I recently received my Quarreling Box, a subscription service that sends me two books every month with an added twist. In this case, I was excited to dive into not one, but two new titles. The first book, "Local Woman Wears Reading Glasses" by Sarah Gailey, was a departure from my usual reading material.

Honestly, I didn't connect with the protagonist of this story and I know that's more of a meeting than a great book. However, I did find the writing to be great, and it was a unique take on stories that we don't often read about. The local New England setting was also something I appreciated, as I love books set in that region. I've always wanted to visit up there in the fall to see the trees change colors. While I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book to everyone, I did enjoy it and would definitely reread it to see how the author did everything. The writing was well-crafted, and I found myself wanting to go back and re-read it immediately.

I read "Local Woman Wears Reading Glasses" to get out of a reading slump, so part of me didn't really care if I liked it or not. But if I'm being honest, I did enjoy it. It was like reading someone else's conversation, and that felt really interesting to me. So while it may not be everyone's cup of tea, I would definitely recommend it to fans of local New England settings.

On the other hand, "Magpie Murders" by Anthony Horowitz was a different story altogether. This book came out in the UK last year but is now finally available in the US. It arrived with a beautiful deckled edge copy and a lovely magpie on the cover. The book itself is a mystery within a mystery, which I found really intriguing.

We start out with an editor who begins telling her story, only to reveal that she has received a manuscript from her author that is different from the one they normally use. As we follow the editor's story, we also get to read through the "mystery manuscript," which was actually a fascinating Agatha Christie-style mystery. I loved this part of the book and found myself wanting to go back and read more of Christie's works.

However, just as we're getting into the rhythm of the manuscript, chapters start to go missing, and we have to return to the editor's story. The present-day narrative is woven in and out of the mystery manuscript, and I appreciated how the author played with structure. If you're a fan of old-timey British detective books, this might be right up your alley.

I did find myself feeling like an outsider reading "Magpie Murders," as if I was eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. While I enjoyed the book, I didn't feel like I was fully immersed in the story. The writing was engaging, and the Easter eggs for publishing nerds were fun to spot, but overall, I felt like this book might be more suited to a readers who are familiar with the genre.

**Upcoming Event: 24-48 Read-a-Thon**

Don't forget that tomorrow marks the start of the 24-48 Read-a-Thon! If you're interested in participating or just want to check out what's going on, be sure to head over to my Goodreads page. I'll be sharing updates and sneak peeks throughout the event, so keep an eye out.

**Additional Thoughts**

As a bonus, I wanted to mention that "Magpie Murders" came with a few Easter eggs for publishing nerds. If you're interested in reading more about publishing, this might be right up your alley. The author does a great job of incorporating real-world publishing issues into the story.

Overall, I enjoyed my Quarreling Box experience and appreciate the unique challenges that come with reading two books at once. While neither book was for everyone, I'm glad I got to try them out and discover new authors and styles.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello I'm kitchen regester welcome back to my channel Dylan has just grabbed a toy and he got this paper bag or plastic bags suck on it and so he's running around the room I'm trying to escape with his toy but this plastic bag is following him all over the room so this is my umpteenth time trying to film this because of my darling for a child so he's going to provide some background noise for us for the reason he likes to do that I don't know maybe he'll be a sound technician when he grows up so today is the first part of my July wrap-up and I didn't do a second half of June wrap-up because I only read one book that wasn't poetry and I'm doing all the poetry in different videos because they're kind of part of a series or whatever so we're going to talk about that one and a few other things that I have read in the first half of July so here we go I'm going to start with the books that I don't have in physical form and that is Brian K Vaughn's paper girls this is volume 2 now I wasn't overly happy with volume 1 like I really loved the art and I loved the concept but I don't know maybe it was just a bit too gory for me I'm not sure which is strange but monstrous and I like saga so I don't I don't know what's up to that but it just didn't just didn't click with me I don't know but if you don't know paper girls a set in the 80s and then kind of aliens invade and then there's like a space-time continuum and time-travel II thing and who knows but I really love vol 2 I really did I loved how they're like in the future and one of them meets themselves it's really interesting and it really asks a lot of questions about what would happen if your younger self met your older self and you know she wasn't quite what you wanted her to be that's really interesting so I really love the dynamic of that obviously Brian Kavon is a comic genius but you know like comic book genius whatever so if you haven't read a paper girls and you love comics and what where have you been so go check that out that I think is from Image Comics if I'm wrong I will you know put the actual publisher blow my face here and then you can check that out now the second book that I guess I read never going to talk about is a Harry Potter or the Phoenix by JK Rowling Rowling merciful I am doing an entire series of this with my spouse and those videos are discussion videos that you can go watch they are more podcast like they're not really a video so you can just hit play and do the dishes or whatever and those are fun to listen to but yeah that's been great this book is the longest I had definitely have opinions about this one but I'm gonna wait and you can go watch the discussion video if you want to hear more about that so the book that I read in the second half of June I didn't cover is actually Nicki Drayton's to pray of gods this is out from Harper Voyager now I talked about this on the podcast so if you listen to the reading room podcast you've probably already heard me talk about it Thank You Dylan private true protector of the bookshelves there were doing work outside so not only is it providing dock boys condos for you Dylan then also feels like he needs to provide more background noise ie barking at strangers outside we have the pray of gods by Harper Voyager now I feel like this book needs to come with some sort of like this book is weird and wacky label but on the cover because it really is I don't think this book is going to be for everyone because is rather weird and if you're not used to reading sci-fi or fantasy if that's just not your thing then it may not be for you but I think it's definitely worth the shot because it is so much fun I wish I had had this book back in May when I was reading all those super intense novels that were depressing me because this one is a lot of fun and I'm not going to tell you too much about the plot because part of the joy of this book and not knowing what's going to happen next and I think dragon is great at taking your you know mind as you try to figure out what's going to happen and just like say nope that's not it either nope we can get easier you just thought it couldn't what's interesting about this book is that it's set in futuristic South Africa and so you have a bunch of different viewpoint characters so you have one whose name is musi and I believe he is part pseudo I'm not sure if use Klose or not because I know like they're related but anyway he has to go to this man manhood ceremony where they do circumcision at a later age and then you have this little girl who's the girl depicts to uncover and she meets this guy who's kind of mysterious and you know like he seems kind of supernatural but he seems like a creeper and you don't really know what's going on with that you meet a girl named Sydney who is a like a nail salon technician and you know she has some supernatural powers but we don't know what her background is you know she's kind of down on her luck there's also a politician who really wants to be a singer for a lot of different perspectives and this novel is not going to go where you think it's going to go I can almost guarantee you that because it is absolutely insane I enjoyed every minute of it I was kind of worried to be a little too weird for me because that's very possible but it wasn't it was wonderful and perfect and if you sign up for Nicki Drayton's newsletter she at least when I signed up for it last week you need to go you get like this free package you get to decide I'll send you a bunch of stuff that goes with the book and so one of the things that I have in here if you like seasons a cards like a playlist there are stickers there's a bracelet and there's a bunch of different things that go in it so if you've read this book or you're interested reading this book definitely check out her website because they're stuff so you could get and I always love bookish swag or whatever because I'm an inner six-year-old I have an inner six-year-old somewhere anyway definitely check out this one another book that I finished I did the audiobook of this on my flight out and fight back from California and this is from Harper Voyager this is the queen of blood by Sarah Beth Durst The Reluctant Queen which is a sequel to this came out I finally got around to reading during this I have very mixed review about this book let's start with the good things I really love the concept you can see like there's a lot of trees and stuff and so the idea is that the entire society of their region lives in trees and there's a class system but where you live on the tree the queen is not by heritage it's kind of well there are these spirits that people control and that's how their magic happens so the Queen's go through school and a lot of training and stuff and then the spirits choose who they believe is the most powerful queen to be queen and that's how it basically works so we follow a girl as she goes to this chaining and then there's a queen that isn't really the greatest queen ever there's a lot of intrigue conspiracy and I really love the overall concept of what's going on with this book and I could see what the author was going for however I wasn't overly happy with like the execution I felt that there was a lot of stuff she skipped over that she could have you know sat on and explained a bit more I felt that this book really was an outline for three books probably or at least two because we go from when the protagonist is 10 to when she's like 20 20 something I don't know it's not exactly sure because a composite stuff right there but like you see her training you go through school and then you see a lot of stuff so yeah I still have mixed feelings about this book I the writing was good not you know overly exciting but the concept is really good and really interested to see what happened so I will read the second one that it's not exactly how am i party but I really wish that she had taken this book and turned it and flushed it out a bit more and it could have been really awesome so I don't know but I do know this is our first adult novel so I'm definitely willing to give her you know another chance with the second one like I definitely think she's good enough for that but yeah mixed feelings still see if you like fantasy and you're issued in reading like this then I would different check this out but if you're you know you only read one or two fantasy books a year I wouldn't probably pick this one so I know until time so the next book that I read is the 12 lives of Samuel Holly by Hanna tin T and this is a book that I preordered primarily because of the design because we know I'm obsessed and look at this this is actually printed on the hardcover look at that isn't that amazing oh it's so gorgeous and you wonder what stars and things have to do with the story and it makes sense once you read it but this book is about Samuel Holly and his twelve bullet wounds and so we alternate between stories of how he got each one of those and they goes chronologically and then you have the present which is at the end like they kind of meet how shall I explain this we move chronologically through both Samuel Holly's life and how he got his bullet wounds in chronological order but we also start in his daughter's life which is actually after he got all of them sort of anyway so we hear and thought we were in his daughter's presence and Samuel Holly's past there we go something like that and we're both are moving forward so it can get a little confusing as I described it but really I promise in the novel it does not it's not confusing it's wonderful and it really makes sense so the thing is that Samuel Holly is kind of like an outlaw he's a modern-day outlaw he goes and like retrieves things and it's kind of violent and he has guns and where we get familiar with the different pieces that he has in his kind of gun collection of how he meets Lou's mom loses his daughter and it's just really interesting I love Samuel Holly's side of the story and I did like lose sight of the story but I honestly didn't get her personally and I know I think that's more of a meeting so I definitely think this isn't a great book and the writing is great yeah I I thought this was very interesting it's a different take on stories that we that aren't read before and I did love how it's kind of like local New England setting I really love books set in New England I I don't know I've always wanted to go up there in the fall and see trees and stuff and so yeah I would definitely recommend this book it is a lot of fun and it's kind of one that once I was done with it I wanted to go reread it and immediately and see how she did it and it wasn't necessarily because it was a wild ride for me it was more like oh man that was well-crafted that kind of thing so she really does a great job with this I kind of very intriguing and I do want to reread it and huh see how she did everything it's so interesting but yeah I read this book to get out of a reading slump so I so part of me is like anything I didn't like about it I kind of take with a grain of salt but if I didn't like anything okay you know what I'm saying it's sort of like when you have an experience when you're in a bad mood and you're like well that probably was just a bad mood talking so I'm going to go with that and if I ever reread it then we'll talk about this again but it's yeah I'm very glad i pre-ordered about this copy because obviously it's gorgeous and the good story is gorgeous ooh so one of the books that I received my quarreling box was magpie murders by Anthony Horowitz and this actually came out I think last year in the UK but it's now finally out in the US it's beautiful deckled edge copy and then you have this lovely magpie on the cover this book is actually a mystery within a mystery we start out with the editor and she starts telling her story and then she's like and then I got this manuscript for my author and then we switched the manuscript and the numbering is different for the different of the manuscript and for the editors story and so we go through the entire like mystery manuscript which is kind of like a gothic risk Agatha Christie asked why don't you try to say these things why do I fry to use words I don't know anyway so we read through that manuscript and I loved that was actually my favorite part of the book was that manuscript it makes me want to go and read I get to Christie which for some reason I've never read her and I feel like that's sacrilege as we do that but then the few chapters are missing and so here we go back to her story and we read and her story which is another 200 pages and then at the end it finally ties up and I really love how playful the structure was and I loved out the present-day story and the manuscript were kind of intertwined and if you read a lot of mysteries I feel like you left a lot of Easter eggs in this book but I don't read a lot of mysteries I feel like I missed a lot I feel like this book was mainly written for people who really obsess over old timey British detective books so if that's something that you like I would definitely recommend this I felt like I was reading kind of like listening in on someone else's conversation that's kind of how this book felt for me so while I really enjoyed it I don't think that my personal reading case like I don't think I've read enough mysteries to get all the allusions in the book and plus also there are a lot of Easter eggs for general publishing nerds and they talk about different podcasts and different like publishing problems because she's an editor and she works a publishing house and I thought that was really cool Miami publishing nerd definitely geek down so that it are the books that I have read in the first half of July I saw her going on right now so you can go over and check out my Goodreads if you want to be you know nosy through what I'm reading yeah so that's all for me and I again remember that tomorrow this is Friday when this goes up tomorrow is the 24 and 48 read-a-thon you'll definitely want to check that out there are all sorts of prizes not just a reading woman but from a bunch of different bookish places like publishing houses so you can get free books or book of the month and you can select your own free books I got a book at the month subscription through one of the refun wrathfully things one time so anyway definitely check that out and I guess I'll see you in the next one bye guyshello I'm kitchen regester welcome back to my channel Dylan has just grabbed a toy and he got this paper bag or plastic bags suck on it and so he's running around the room I'm trying to escape with his toy but this plastic bag is following him all over the room so this is my umpteenth time trying to film this because of my darling for a child so he's going to provide some background noise for us for the reason he likes to do that I don't know maybe he'll be a sound technician when he grows up so today is the first part of my July wrap-up and I didn't do a second half of June wrap-up because I only read one book that wasn't poetry and I'm doing all the poetry in different videos because they're kind of part of a series or whatever so we're going to talk about that one and a few other things that I have read in the first half of July so here we go I'm going to start with the books that I don't have in physical form and that is Brian K Vaughn's paper girls this is volume 2 now I wasn't overly happy with volume 1 like I really loved the art and I loved the concept but I don't know maybe it was just a bit too gory for me I'm not sure which is strange but monstrous and I like saga so I don't I don't know what's up to that but it just didn't just didn't click with me I don't know but if you don't know paper girls a set in the 80s and then kind of aliens invade and then there's like a space-time continuum and time-travel II thing and who knows but I really love vol 2 I really did I loved how they're like in the future and one of them meets themselves it's really interesting and it really asks a lot of questions about what would happen if your younger self met your older self and you know she wasn't quite what you wanted her to be that's really interesting so I really love the dynamic of that obviously Brian Kavon is a comic genius but you know like comic book genius whatever so if you haven't read a paper girls and you love comics and what where have you been so go check that out that I think is from Image Comics if I'm wrong I will you know put the actual publisher blow my face here and then you can check that out now the second book that I guess I read never going to talk about is a Harry Potter or the Phoenix by JK Rowling Rowling merciful I am doing an entire series of this with my spouse and those videos are discussion videos that you can go watch they are more podcast like they're not really a video so you can just hit play and do the dishes or whatever and those are fun to listen to but yeah that's been great this book is the longest I had definitely have opinions about this one but I'm gonna wait and you can go watch the discussion video if you want to hear more about that so the book that I read in the second half of June I didn't cover is actually Nicki Drayton's to pray of gods this is out from Harper Voyager now I talked about this on the podcast so if you listen to the reading room podcast you've probably already heard me talk about it Thank You Dylan private true protector of the bookshelves there were doing work outside so not only is it providing dock boys condos for you Dylan then also feels like he needs to provide more background noise ie barking at strangers outside we have the pray of gods by Harper Voyager now I feel like this book needs to come with some sort of like this book is weird and wacky label but on the cover because it really is I don't think this book is going to be for everyone because is rather weird and if you're not used to reading sci-fi or fantasy if that's just not your thing then it may not be for you but I think it's definitely worth the shot because it is so much fun I wish I had had this book back in May when I was reading all those super intense novels that were depressing me because this one is a lot of fun and I'm not going to tell you too much about the plot because part of the joy of this book and not knowing what's going to happen next and I think dragon is great at taking your you know mind as you try to figure out what's going to happen and just like say nope that's not it either nope we can get easier you just thought it couldn't what's interesting about this book is that it's set in futuristic South Africa and so you have a bunch of different viewpoint characters so you have one whose name is musi and I believe he is part pseudo I'm not sure if use Klose or not because I know like they're related but anyway he has to go to this man manhood ceremony where they do circumcision at a later age and then you have this little girl who's the girl depicts to uncover and she meets this guy who's kind of mysterious and you know like he seems kind of supernatural but he seems like a creeper and you don't really know what's going on with that you meet a girl named Sydney who is a like a nail salon technician and you know she has some supernatural powers but we don't know what her background is you know she's kind of down on her luck there's also a politician who really wants to be a singer for a lot of different perspectives and this novel is not going to go where you think it's going to go I can almost guarantee you that because it is absolutely insane I enjoyed every minute of it I was kind of worried to be a little too weird for me because that's very possible but it wasn't it was wonderful and perfect and if you sign up for Nicki Drayton's newsletter she at least when I signed up for it last week you need to go you get like this free package you get to decide I'll send you a bunch of stuff that goes with the book and so one of the things that I have in here if you like seasons a cards like a playlist there are stickers there's a bracelet and there's a bunch of different things that go in it so if you've read this book or you're interested reading this book definitely check out her website because they're stuff so you could get and I always love bookish swag or whatever because I'm an inner six-year-old I have an inner six-year-old somewhere anyway definitely check out this one another book that I finished I did the audiobook of this on my flight out and fight back from California and this is from Harper Voyager this is the queen of blood by Sarah Beth Durst The Reluctant Queen which is a sequel to this came out I finally got around to reading during this I have very mixed review about this book let's start with the good things I really love the concept you can see like there's a lot of trees and stuff and so the idea is that the entire society of their region lives in trees and there's a class system but where you live on the tree the queen is not by heritage it's kind of well there are these spirits that people control and that's how their magic happens so the Queen's go through school and a lot of training and stuff and then the spirits choose who they believe is the most powerful queen to be queen and that's how it basically works so we follow a girl as she goes to this chaining and then there's a queen that isn't really the greatest queen ever there's a lot of intrigue conspiracy and I really love the overall concept of what's going on with this book and I could see what the author was going for however I wasn't overly happy with like the execution I felt that there was a lot of stuff she skipped over that she could have you know sat on and explained a bit more I felt that this book really was an outline for three books probably or at least two because we go from when the protagonist is 10 to when she's like 20 20 something I don't know it's not exactly sure because a composite stuff right there but like you see her training you go through school and then you see a lot of stuff so yeah I still have mixed feelings about this book I the writing was good not you know overly exciting but the concept is really good and really interested to see what happened so I will read the second one that it's not exactly how am i party but I really wish that she had taken this book and turned it and flushed it out a bit more and it could have been really awesome so I don't know but I do know this is our first adult novel so I'm definitely willing to give her you know another chance with the second one like I definitely think she's good enough for that but yeah mixed feelings still see if you like fantasy and you're issued in reading like this then I would different check this out but if you're you know you only read one or two fantasy books a year I wouldn't probably pick this one so I know until time so the next book that I read is the 12 lives of Samuel Holly by Hanna tin T and this is a book that I preordered primarily because of the design because we know I'm obsessed and look at this this is actually printed on the hardcover look at that isn't that amazing oh it's so gorgeous and you wonder what stars and things have to do with the story and it makes sense once you read it but this book is about Samuel Holly and his twelve bullet wounds and so we alternate between stories of how he got each one of those and they goes chronologically and then you have the present which is at the end like they kind of meet how shall I explain this we move chronologically through both Samuel Holly's life and how he got his bullet wounds in chronological order but we also start in his daughter's life which is actually after he got all of them sort of anyway so we hear and thought we were in his daughter's presence and Samuel Holly's past there we go something like that and we're both are moving forward so it can get a little confusing as I described it but really I promise in the novel it does not it's not confusing it's wonderful and it really makes sense so the thing is that Samuel Holly is kind of like an outlaw he's a modern-day outlaw he goes and like retrieves things and it's kind of violent and he has guns and where we get familiar with the different pieces that he has in his kind of gun collection of how he meets Lou's mom loses his daughter and it's just really interesting I love Samuel Holly's side of the story and I did like lose sight of the story but I honestly didn't get her personally and I know I think that's more of a meeting so I definitely think this isn't a great book and the writing is great yeah I I thought this was very interesting it's a different take on stories that we that aren't read before and I did love how it's kind of like local New England setting I really love books set in New England I I don't know I've always wanted to go up there in the fall and see trees and stuff and so yeah I would definitely recommend this book it is a lot of fun and it's kind of one that once I was done with it I wanted to go reread it and immediately and see how she did it and it wasn't necessarily because it was a wild ride for me it was more like oh man that was well-crafted that kind of thing so she really does a great job with this I kind of very intriguing and I do want to reread it and huh see how she did everything it's so interesting but yeah I read this book to get out of a reading slump so I so part of me is like anything I didn't like about it I kind of take with a grain of salt but if I didn't like anything okay you know what I'm saying it's sort of like when you have an experience when you're in a bad mood and you're like well that probably was just a bad mood talking so I'm going to go with that and if I ever reread it then we'll talk about this again but it's yeah I'm very glad i pre-ordered about this copy because obviously it's gorgeous and the good story is gorgeous ooh so one of the books that I received my quarreling box was magpie murders by Anthony Horowitz and this actually came out I think last year in the UK but it's now finally out in the US it's beautiful deckled edge copy and then you have this lovely magpie on the cover this book is actually a mystery within a mystery we start out with the editor and she starts telling her story and then she's like and then I got this manuscript for my author and then we switched the manuscript and the numbering is different for the different of the manuscript and for the editors story and so we go through the entire like mystery manuscript which is kind of like a gothic risk Agatha Christie asked why don't you try to say these things why do I fry to use words I don't know anyway so we read through that manuscript and I loved that was actually my favorite part of the book was that manuscript it makes me want to go and read I get to Christie which for some reason I've never read her and I feel like that's sacrilege as we do that but then the few chapters are missing and so here we go back to her story and we read and her story which is another 200 pages and then at the end it finally ties up and I really love how playful the structure was and I loved out the present-day story and the manuscript were kind of intertwined and if you read a lot of mysteries I feel like you left a lot of Easter eggs in this book but I don't read a lot of mysteries I feel like I missed a lot I feel like this book was mainly written for people who really obsess over old timey British detective books so if that's something that you like I would definitely recommend this I felt like I was reading kind of like listening in on someone else's conversation that's kind of how this book felt for me so while I really enjoyed it I don't think that my personal reading case like I don't think I've read enough mysteries to get all the allusions in the book and plus also there are a lot of Easter eggs for general publishing nerds and they talk about different podcasts and different like publishing problems because she's an editor and she works a publishing house and I thought that was really cool Miami publishing nerd definitely geek down so that it are the books that I have read in the first half of July I saw her going on right now so you can go over and check out my Goodreads if you want to be you know nosy through what I'm reading yeah so that's all for me and I again remember that tomorrow this is Friday when this goes up tomorrow is the 24 and 48 read-a-thon you'll definitely want to check that out there are all sorts of prizes not just a reading woman but from a bunch of different bookish places like publishing houses so you can get free books or book of the month and you can select your own free books I got a book at the month subscription through one of the refun wrathfully things one time so anyway definitely check that out and I guess I'll see you in the next one bye guys\n"