Book Review: Kawaii Doodle Class
Katie 
This book is super adorable and shares how to sketch super cute objects in categories like food and drinks, nature, monsters, everyday cute and holiday decorations. There are step by step instructions included on how to make over 75 characters. You can start with a pencil to sketch them and then ink them. Rounded corners add to the cuteness (a great tip!) and faces are only recommended but not needed. I added faces on the drawings I tried out because I thought that it made them look cuter! Most of the instructions are only a handful of steps but there are some that are more like 2 pages and the instructions get more and more difficult as you go through the book so you might want to start with the earlier, smaller designs and work your way up to the more complicated ones! At the end there are pages at the end to doodle on. I had a lot of fun looking through the cute characters and ended up drawing a popsicle, lightning cloud and christmas tree on my notes for this book! Super adorable! I wouldn’t consider myself an artist at all and I think they came out really well!
I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated.
About the Book
The Japanese word kawaii translates to “cute,” and this how-to book is chock-full of super-adorable images of tacos, sushi, smoothies, clouds, rainbows, cacti, doodle monsters, Christmas trees, lipsticks, teacups, and more for your adoration.
Popular kawaii artist Zainab Khan shows you how to draw 75 super-cute characters with simple step-by-step illustrations and instructions. She has also included fun search-and-find images and inspiration boards that show you how to give your characters different facial expressions and zany accessories.
Thanks to this crash course in Kawaii Doodle Class, soon you will be enhancing your notebooks, stationery, artwork, and more with your own unique kawaii world!
This book is an illustrated history of Bob Marley. There are 6 chapters broken down by years – beginnings, Ska, Reggae, International Breakthrough, 3rd world superstar and final years as well as a chapter on his legacy and discography. The book says that Pop Stars usually fade after 2 generations have passed since the end of their career – but it has been 35 years since Bob Marley has died and he is still as big as ever. There are lot of cool photos throughout the book and photos of his records and notes all all of the lps. A really cool read. I enjoyed it!
This book tool me a very, very long time to get through. I enjoyed it, but I think that it could have been scaled back a little bit and still been just as good, just shorter and quicker to read. There is a serial killer on the lose and he has killed at an Aerosmith concert in Boston. The kill count starts ticking up almost immediately and before you know it there were 30, 40 deaths reported and no sign of the “unsub” (I felt like I was reading an episode of Criminal Minds) It seemed that the killer has been triggered by losing a scholarship and the kills just keep getting bigger and bigger. Police find out that he had killed his parents but did their jobs from home as them for a while to get their money and not have anyone notice that they had disappeared! Kind of genius, I have to admit. He wants to be known as the Concert Killer and all of the victims are “in concert with death”. I won’t go into too much more detail but like I said the kills get bigger and bigger. And are just unbelievable (or at least they were at the time I read this a few months ago, now with there being a mass shooting at a concert maybe I feel a bit different.) The other thing about the book I didn’t really like was how short the chapters were. Like a page or two. It just seemed to chop the book up a lot and I could never get a flow going which may be why it took me so long to finish! If that is a detail you can ignore and you don’t mind longer books and enjoy a good concert murder mystery I think you will enjoy this one.
I have to say that this is one of the worst books I have ever had the pleasure of reading. It is supposed to be an erotica romance novel based on Beauty and the Beast – which I have been all about lately since the live action movie has been released. Most of the book was filler and I am pretty sure that the only actual sex in the book was actually rape. It was a quick read but it is really not even worth your time. The book is very very loosely based on Beauty and the Beast – the main girl is named Isabel and she is the servant at a castle where they are whipped if they don’t follow the rules and then when the prince has a party they all have to be naked servants for the party. Just… trust me and don’t bother with this one.
Sting Like a Bee is Muhammad Ali vs The USA. Ali retired at 39 years old and was sick for 35 years. From 1966-1971 he was discussed by pretty much everyone on the planet. Once the miltary draft came around, Ali’s refusal to serve led to a legal battle. Since Ali was now Muslim, that means that there was no war unless it was declared by Allah. Ali was a conscientious objector and there was FBI involvement after his refusal. The majority of the book talks about this aspect of Ali’s life, but there is some other stories about his life as well – like how he knocked out 2 of his mom’s teeth at 6 months old! There are also a lot of excerpts throughout from interviews and other legal documents. I thought this was an interesting read because it was a different story that what you usually hear about Muhammad Ali and one that I did not know much about.
This book is the companion to Rad America Women and while they usually write books about rad women this book is all about YOU! It is a journal and you can write in it front to back or pick random pages to complete as the mood strikes. If someone is RAD they are strong, independent and bold. There are various prompts throughout the journal – making a list of your favorite books, drawing covers for them, what you dreams are and how you want to make them come true, among many others. There are also quotes throughout the book from other rad women.
Women In Sports features 50 fearless athletes. The book talks about them chronologically, starting in 1893. I only recognized about 15 names, the more modern names like Biles and Ledecky. Women are often touted as the “Weaker sex” but these athletes show just what woman can do and they have become legends! There are really cool illustrations throughout the book and there are pages for each of the women which includes a small bio on that athlete. Pretty much every sport there is, is represented throughout this book and it was a really fun and interesting read!
Dinner with DiMaggio includes candid stories from those who knew him. The book revolves around his relationship with Dr. Rock Positano, a NYC foot specialist. The book goes into some of Joe’s rituals and quirks. I was surprised to find out that he grew up in New Haven! He was a very private person and had a life in New York, California and Florida and those lives never intersected. Everyone from each piece of his life only had some pieces of the puzzle, but Rock seemed to know about all of the aspects of his life. There are stories in the book about his relationship with Marilyn Monroe and other great stories from Rock who ended up becoming like an additional son to DiMaggio and spent a lot of time with him and has a lot of really great stories to tell. If you are a baseball fan you won’t want to miss the change to read this book.
Geek Girl Rising is all about females working in tech. It features Debbie Sterling who started GoldieBlox which is a product that I haven’t tried but absolutely LOVE the idea of – an engineering toy for girls – that I absolutely wish was around for me when I was younger! Also featured is Ipsy, the lead software developer of Pinterest, and a bunch of other kick ass women in tech. It talks a bit about sexism and overcoming to work in the field (this is a HUGE thing that unfortunately most women in this field have to put up with and overcome) and I love what they are doing! There definitely is room for females in the tech industry and a lot of really smart ones out there who are moving up the ranks as well as creating their own companies. There are a lot of great role models out there and this book focuses on a few of them.