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#ItTakesAllKinds Day 3: It was a pleasure slipping into the #mythical fantasy-world that Babalola created, filled with bold Black women who are decisive, vulnerable yet strong, and unafraid to take risks in love and in life. My review: https://wp.me/pDlzr-n2T

I have two lists for February's #BookSpin. This one recognizes Black History Month. (My Outlander #SeriesLove is an outlier here. My #FoodandLit pick is by a Maori woman.) 💛💚🖤❤️

4/5 ⭐️ I normally don't like short stories but I really enjoyed this collection! I loved that every story had strong female characters! My favorites were Nefertiti, Attem, Naleli, and Orin.
#FoodandLit Ghana 🇬🇭

1. It's a quiet week so just my regular routine.
2. Tagged for #FoodandLit 🇬🇭 Enjoying it!
3. Creative and organized

#motivationalmonday

Very cool collection of short stories, loosely built on myths and legends from around the world, making the women into modern heroines in the best possible way. I enjoyed a story every now and then since January and will certainly come back to them at a later time.

Soft so-so, arguably a pan. The stories were short enough that I kept reading but I was waiting for something new, for love to be expressed in a new way. The drama all felt very ya to me (which would be fine if it was marketed as ya) and the stories felt the same just packaged differently. Highly disappointed as I was looking forward to this book when I got it.

Help, I‘m trapped sitting outside on this gorgeous day reading because a cat thought my legs were the perfect place to take a nap 😂

Working through this short story collection as my #blindbookdate submarine book. Mot sure how I‘m feeling about it so far, most of the short stories have been predictable and not given me anything different on the idea of love to be wowed by 🤷‍♀️

An icky day to be outside in Chicago, but perfect for books, tea, and cat cuddles. #lennox #huey #catsoflitsy

Seems like a very appropriate day to start this book. What a beautiful introduction. Happy love day, Littens! 💕

My latest library books, I will start with the tagged book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Babalola, a British-Nigerian author, took mythical love stories and retold them (generally) through a modern lens.I am not a good reader of short story collections, but I loved this book! Some romances we saw the happy endings, others the new beginnings, and some the reconnections. There were a couple stories I knew the myth it was based on, but most were brand new to me.
I will absolutely be looking for more from this author.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was my September #doublespin No. 20 pick. I mostly liked these short stories using different myths and folktales containing love stories. I do recommend reading one story in a sitting instead of binging more at one time. Some of the stories sounded very similar if you read too many in a row.

I think this book of romance short stories would be perfect for a hardcore romance fan. I like romance, but not any more or less than any other genre, and by the halfway point of this book, I was feeling some romance fatigue. But the stories are retellings of myths, many of which I had never heard of, so that was pretty cool. The author is skilled and her banter is great. And most of the stories have happy endings.

Finally finished this one! I‘ve been listening to these short love stories off and on for months. Filled with strong female warriors, assassins, queens, political strategists, musicians and more, I appreciated that these women were successful and capable in their own rights, and just so happened to fall in love with men and women who respected and understood them. Most were 4 or 5⭐️s for me except the last 2 stories that I didn‘t care for as much.

I set this one down for too long! I really love the story telling in this collection, it just seems a bit long at over 10 short stories, and I‘m not usually a romance fan. But this has definitely won me over! I just have to be in the mood for it. Hoping to finish tonight! #Botm

More than anything I love how this book reminded me of the parts of me I had hidden away. Of feelings I realized I hadn‘t allowed myself to feel in a long long time.

Babalolas retellings breathes an energy I‘m grateful to be reminded of and to lean back into.🧡

Ohhh I‘m loving this! The #audio is sublime, but this is one that I want to physically read as well. I‘ll have to get this as a #BOTM add-on. Mythical retellings of love stories with strong, feminist leads and gorgeous writing. 😍

Sun shower 🌧+☀️

I really enjoyed this collection.

An amazing short story collection of love stories. An occasional hard to get into story, but overall I found the stories engaging and enjoyable. An easy fun read.

"To say that I love "love" would probably be akin to me saying that I am quite fond of inhaling oxygen"

I absolutely love this modern, feminist retelling of mythology from around the world. Bolu Babalola did a beautiful job giving the women in these stories a voice of their own. I actually suggested it to a friend who is teaching a mythology course this year. 4 🌟 #botm

This book is beautifully written with mythical characters transformed into tales of love. I absolutely adored it. One of my top books for the year

I am in LOVE with my this book. I have it on my Kindle, but I need the hardcopy! Bolu Babalola‘s writing is enthralling! This book has 13 short stories and I may not have loved all of them, but I ENJOYED all of them because of the author‘s writing. Short stories are my jam. Fantasy is my genre of choice.

Ten reimagined tales and myths and woman-centered, justice sides with women. Some closely tied to original others inspired by its original. It must have been so interesting to research these stories and imagine them anew. I always have favorites in short stories - Nefertiti, Yaa, Naleli, Thisbe.

Time for something different and I have it on good authority that this collection of short stories is really good.

I adored this short story collection. Each story is a modern, feminist, romance retelling of a traditional tale. The #audiobook is 💯

This is one of those books where I was really excited to read it because I love all things mythology. What I found was that the stories that resonated with me the most were the ones where I had some concept of the original source. Now I need to read the original myths that I am not familiar with to see if that helps with the other stories. This was my #DoubleSpin read for May‘s #BookspinBingo

I wanted to finish this before bed. It‘s not my kind of book - I‘m not a big fan of fairytale retellings or romance, but I wanted to support #botm branching out into short stories again. The highlights for me were the ones set in modern times, especially Thisbe and Psyche. Most of the ones that were more fantastical, like Osun, I didn‘t enjoy as much. Check this one off the backlog!

This is my actual #bookspin @TheAromaofBooks 💜😊👍🏻

A lovely little anthology of retellings of myths through the lense of love. Some were better than others but as a whole a poignant collection that made me smile 😊

I‘m not big on romance, but the premise of this collection intrigued me. There were a few stories at the beginning that I enjoyed, but there were also a couple I actively disliked. I think it would‘ve been interesting if the author had explored other types of love besides just romantic love, as the stories felt too repetitive and similar by the end.

#ARC pub date 4/13

Wow that shipping was fast!

I need to start making way through all these books!

Meh, another month of subpar books from #botm imo. These are the only two that really caught my eye. I went back and forth on the Paula McLain because I love her, but the synopsis just isn‘t doing it for me so I decided not to chance it.

Anyone else not excited about the April choices?

Last month of #botm on this account! I had to redeem my birthday gift. Their choices have been terrible lately! (I have one other account to close out next month.) I‘m more excited about this add on than the main pick. 😂

I can‘t believe the Sweeney wasn‘t a pick, Ashley, but I‘m really glad to have the audio coming!

My first 5 ⭐️ read of 2021!!

I could not put this book down. I managed to pace myself b/c I didn't want it to come to an end. I love that Bolu includes information on the modifications she made to the stories that were reimagined and what inspired each retelling. Although I loved every story, the ones that I wanted to read again and again were:

~Osun
~Nefertiti
~Attem
~Yaa
~Naleli
~Orin
~Alagomeji

#LovePrevails Day 25: This is the epitome of #ModernLove. It was a pleasure slipping into the mythical fantasy-world that Babalola created, filled with bold Black women who are decisive, vulnerable yet strong, and unafraid to take risks in love and in life. While some of the narratives are hit or miss for me, there were a few that resonated. My full review: https://wp.me/pDlzr-n2T