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Hello everyone! My name is MacKenzie, and welcome to The Life of a Reader. Together, we will look through the eyes of a reader and escape our reality like they do. We all have a reader inside of us, but it only comes out when you find the right story to get you started. Once you find the right story, you never seem to stop finding new ones. Here is a very brief look into my reading preferences:

For me, the right story to get me started was Percy Jackson & The Olympians. While this series began my journey as a reader, Little Women is my favorite book. My favorite author is Jennifer L. Armentrout. I like romance and supernatural stories the best. I read other genres including historical fiction and romance, but my favorites consist of worlds unlike ours. This allows me to be a dreamer and imagine what it would be like to live in a world where I can fly, fight aliens, or be a demigod. When I read, I AM in those worlds.

In this blog, I will specifically review books as well as give book suggestions. Images of readers and book will be consistent, and I will provide a tutorial on how to set up and use my favorite book tracking app, Goodreads.

Let the journey begin!

Grace and Glory by Jennifer L. Armentrout

As I mentioned in the beginning post entitled “ABOUT ME,” Jennifer L. Armentrout is my favorite author. She writes amazing stories in all subgenres of fiction and romance. The first series I ever read by her was the Lux Series. It involved aliens and alien-like creatures, but it was not the stereotypical book about aliens. In fact, they looked like humans.

Enough about that series though because I just finished the last book in the Harbinger Series. This series was a spinoff of the Dark Elements Series, but it focused more on two other characters: Trinity and Zayne. Zayne was one of the main characters in the first series, but Trinity was completely new for this series. Throughout the first two books, we learn about Trinity’s past and discover the love connection between her and Zayne. We learn about her father being the archangel Micheal, and we still see the same characters from the first series. They overcome a lot of obstacles except defeating the Harbinger.

This last book was a rollercoaster of emotions. I do not want to give any spoilers for those interested in the series, but the second book ended on a very emotional scene that picked up at the beginning of the last book. Trinity is battling a traumatic and heartbreaking experience involving Zayne. After a few days, she realizes that her beloved can still be saved, but she needed help. The first half of the book was a struggle for me to read because I like romance, and it was not there for a bit.

The second half of the book is where it picked back up. Everything is back to normal; except, they still have not defeated the Harbinger. Trinity and her friends recruit an unusual pick for saving the world, but was it enough? You will just have to read to find out. Armentrout does an amazing job with bringing her characters to life. Her character, Roth, is my favorite of all the book boyfriends that exist. He was the love interest in the first series. She has a way with words that make the reader want more. I can never seem to but one of her books down. This particular book took me a while to finish because of my transition to college life, but it was an incredible read nonetheless. This book was full of plot twists I never would have predicted, and they went all the way to the last chapter. She never fails at making me laugh. She always has that one snarky character that will make the reader laugh until they cry. This is one of the many reasons that I love her books. In this particular series, there were two characters like this: a demon named Cayman and a ghost named Peanut.

To finish off this book review, I will be suggesting many books written by Jennifer L. Armentrout. A few of the series I would highly recommend are among the following: The Lux Series, The Origin Series, The Covenant Series, The Dark Elements Series, and The Harbinger Series. She writes individual books too including The Problem with Forever and If There’s No Tomorrow. I love all of these books and highly recommend them to anyone who likes to escape our world. The standalone books I have mentioned are more realistic than the series, but I love them all. I hope everyone will read any of these books and come to love them as much as I do.

On November 10th, I went back home to Atlantic Beach, North Carolina to see my family and go to a community lead version of The Addams Family play. The play was on Saturday the 11th. Nothing interesting happened on Friday. I went to my classes, and afterword, I drove four and a half hours home. As soon as I got to my house, I ran straight in, passed all of my family, and gave my dog the biggest hug. They were not too happy about it. We ate dinner and went to bed eager for the play on Saturday. The play was an hour from my house, and my sister and mom were with me.

The actors in the play were from the community, and they did an amazing job. We went to the theatre and got some popcorn and soda. We sat in the second row, and there was fog around us and on the stage. My sister and I got a picture with Lurch; he was ushering people to their seats.

I am a big Wednesday Addams fan, and the actress did an amazing job with keeping her facial expressions even when there were funny parts of the play. I highly recommend to everyone reading this to go see this play anywhere. The songs were amazing, and the local talent embodied their characters perfectly. Morticia and Lurch looked like they came right from the original show. The day after the play, my family and I went to church

After church, I left to come back to school. It is a four-and-a-half-hour drive. Sometimes it takes me five hours. When I finally got off the interstate, I heard a screeching sound like metal scraping together. I pulled over into a Family Dollar and Dollar Tree parking lot and called my dad. After listening to instructions on how to look around for anything broken, I was still confused. I sent a bunch of pictures to him, and he told me that if I drove anymore, I most likely would not have brakes. I had to leave my car in that parking lot for my uncle to pick up the next day. It took me a while to hide my key under my car because the bumper was so big.

I had to call my roommate to see if she could pick me up. I waited for an hour and a half to get picked up. It took us an hour and a half to get to our dorm room. Once we got to our room, I called my parents to let them know we were back.

On Monday, my uncle looked at my car and said there was nothing wrong with it. It no longer made the screeching noise that it had before. We have assumed that a rock had lodged itself somewhere in the parts of my car. I have gotten my car back, and if anything, it drove better than before.