thewritelife wrote a review...
“Yes, thought Daisy. The Grayside, with its mountains and rainforests, tigers and turnips, pumpkins and pangolins, was the opposite of gray. It was utterly full of magic. People had just forgotten how to see it. The whole world was brimming with wonder, if only you looked closely enough.“ 🪻
Greenwild by Pari Thomson is a story full of twists and turns! Mallowmarsh is a bountiful world of green magic and wonder—but it’s not all moonlight and rose gardens. A dangerous threat looms over the horizon, and it’ll take all the courage Daisy can muster to put a stop to it.
I just know I would have been OBSESSED with this book when I was younger! A world of fantastical plants and people called Botanists who have nature powers? Yeah, 12-year-old me would unapologetically make this her WHOLE personality (bc I pretty much already had). As for present day me? I’ll be honest, there was a lot of purple prose, which made it a little too wordy for me. Nevertheless, I admire the work that went into crafting this story. I love the way science and magic were intertwined—and the message about protecting the environment was just beautiful.
Overall, I really liked Greenwild! And it makes me smile to think of all the kids who’ll become obsessed with this story. 💚
thewritelife is interested in reading...

The Mossheart's Promise
Rebecca Mix
thewritelife created a list
Verdant Books 🌱
Fiction books with or about plants, both real and magical, healing or dangerous (will continue to add to this—feel free to make suggestions/recommendations!)
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thewritelife commented on a post
This has now become my second read-before-bed book. I remember trying this a few times before, and I just couldn’t finish it. Not because it was bad, but during both my attempts, I wasn’t in the right reading head space (I had a very long reading slump last year, that MIGHT have almost lasted all of last year) but I feel like this is the correct time! I remember it being very different from the movie, and it already is! I think both have their own unique charm 😌 calcifer is my favorite of course 🙂↕️
thewritelife wrote a review...
“Where was her sense of adventure? Her yearning for new lands? Her wanderlust? Well, this isn't the part of the story where you ask questions. So kindly keep them to yourself. That said, you must understand that this is a tale about people who are both what they seem and not what they seem. Simultaneously. A story of contradictions. In other words, it is a story about human beings.”
I absolutely ADORED this book!! The whimsy, the humor, the adventure, the world-building, the genuine found family, and the beautiful way Tress grows over the course of her journey were all such a joy to read. 💚 I LOVE when the narrator has a personality of their own! It makes the story feel like a tale that’s been passed down from generation to generation. I went into this expecting a modern fairytale—but it felt a lot more like Pirates of the Caribbean than The Little Mermaid (this is a good thing) and comparable to books like Howl’s Moving Castle and The Girl Who Drank the Moon (a very good thing for me, as I love those books). 🏴☠️
Tress is by far one of my favorite protagonists I’ve ever seen. She begins as such a painfully relatable character and becomes truly inspiring and empowering, while never losing that which makes Tress a true heroine—her wit and her kindness. There are few characters that I truly connect to on a personal level and Tress is now one of them. 🥹🫶🏻
As for the rest of the crew—Fort, Salay, Ann, Huck, Ulaam, and more—they were each so unique, so full of life and personality, that I quickly fell in love with each of them! I would go into the depths of my love for each of them if it wouldn’t make this review a million miles long, so trust me when I say that there’s not a forgettable character in this book. Oh, and the antagonists are terrible…in all the right ways.
This is my first introduction to Brandon Sanderson, and while I know this particular book has a voice of its own, I am so impressed with the way Sanderson weaves characters, plot, and world-building together that I cannot wait to dive into more of his work!
If you’re looking for a whimsical story, slowly-paced but full of twists, humor, and nuggets of wisdom, with memorable characters who grow and change and bond with one another… than you MUST read Tress of the Emerald Sea! 🐀💚🍵🦠🏴☠️
⚠️Content Warnings: •language throughout (h/ll, d/mn, /ss) •moderate violence and blood •slight body horror •mild crude humor •overall a PG-13 rating; nothing too intense
thewritelife finished a book

Tress of the Emerald Sea
Brandon Sanderson
thewritelife commented on a post
thewritelife commented on a post
Tress's journey as a character is just amazing! She's grown from a quiet, cup-loving girl into someone so brave and clever, tackling all those wild twists with such heart. Her arc is so inspiring, showing how one person can truly change everything around them. Such a fun ride so far! 📖✨
thewritelife is interested in reading...

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
Brandon Sanderson
thewritelife is interested in reading...

Warbreaker
Brandon Sanderson
thewritelife is interested in reading...

The Alloy of Law
Brandon Sanderson
thewritelife is interested in reading...

Skyward
Brandon Sanderson
thewritelife joined a quest
Universe Quest: The Cosmere + Cytoverse 🗡️⚡️🌌
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Step into the Cosmere... Listed in the order that Brandon Sanderson recommends to new readers of his work in 2024.
thewritelife is interested in reading...

The Final Empire
Brandon Sanderson
Post from the Tress of the Emerald Sea forum
Post from the Tress of the Emerald Sea forum
thewritelife commented on a post from the Founder Announcements forum
The next major app release (1.2.0) is now available on iOS and Android - this one comes with a ton of updates, so make sure your apps are updated to see the latest! Web users, the majority of these updates are already on web (with a few exceptions, addressed below):
Midnight Theme (aka dark mode): very excited to share our version of dark mode! You can choose your theme in Account & Settings -> Preferences. The Midnight theme incorporates accessibility principals (high contrast, sparse use of bright color, no pure blacks/pure whites) while maintaining Pagebound's unique visual identity. We know this is highly anticipated on web as well - we're working on it! Midnight will be available on web hopefully this fall, latest this winter.
Notifications Upgrade: Notifications are split into categories so you can reference what is most important to you. You can also sort/filter your notifications, and mark them read/unread one by one by clicking the blue dot (if the dot is gray, click it to mark the notification as unread).
Browse your library when adding books: When adding a book to a list, your plan, or a shelf, you now have the option to search from "All Books" or "My Books". Tapping "My Books" lets you browse your own library, and filter by status/shelf. This is helpful if you want to browse your tbr while adding books to your plan, for example.
Library Improvements: You can now search, sort, and filter your library with additional sort/filter options (such as average rating and owned/not owned) and view your library books in list view or book cover grid view
Improved Book Status Modal: The book status modal (ie the popup where you change a book's status and add to shelves) got a major quality of life update: you can edit read dates, format, and page length in the modal when a book is in "reading" or when you move a book to "finished", you can create a new shelf in the modal, and you can search your shelves
New Preferences & Account Management options: A new feed preference was added (toggle on/off seeing posts from people you follow when the book is not in your library) as well as library management tools (library export & mass editing/deleting library options)
Discover Quests & Discover Lists upgrade: Discover Quests got new categories and will show new quests in each category on every site/app visit. The Quest card and List card shown on discover got upgrades to show more relevant info & make them more browsable
Additional tiny upgrades: Pull down to refresh your profile, browsing past plans shows in descending month order, plan performance enhancements so loading and editing is snappier, UI cleanup, and various bug fixes.
Community Updates We announced the Fall Readalong book picks last week - if you missed the announcement, head to the Seasonal Readalong page to see the picks! The Fall Readalong starts September 1st.
We also have partnered with Simon Maverick to bring a Dark Romance limited time quest - we've gotten so many requests for a Dark Romance quest, so we're very excited to have this out!
This was a long one, thank you if you made it this far 🙏 Happy reading! Jennifer + Lucy