Gemma
I apparently read this book over the course of seven days, but in reality I read it in two long sittings and a final 30 minute stint. And right up until that last 15%, the last 30 minutes, this book was a five star read for me.
To begin with, The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle is a mystery novel like none before it. Aiden Bishop lives the same day in eight different perspectives on repeat; challenged to solve the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle so he may earn his freedom from the loop. I think the mystery was well crafted as it was difficult to figure clues out as you went and prevented me from “solving” the book before the end. In fact, I didn't come close to it. I'm not sure anyone would. The reveal of different perspectives, their limitations and strengths, and their unique relationship to the cast of characters was an incredible strong point for me in this novel and has me ready to add this book to my favourites of the year.
However, I found the last 15% to be a significant decrease in quality. The twist was unexpected and could have been good, but as it was relegated to such a small portion of the book it came across as a rushed decision. I thought it read like the author decided he wanted a twist and wrote it into the book in the forty minutes before submission. I personally feel if the twist had been introduced more gradually, the book would have been a strong five star read. I recommend this book to anyone who is bored with the thrillers and mysteries they've read recently, because this was a shock to the system and deeply addicting.
A fantastic reread of one of my favourite books from when I was younger. The world and concept of Prentisstown kept me captivated and turning the pages as quickly as I could.
Todd is the youngest boy in a town filled with only men. His world is overwhelmed with the noise of men???s thoughts which are projected into the air around them. When Todd is a month from his thirteenth birthday, on which he becomes a man, he discovers a patch of quiet in the swamp near his town. No thought can penetrate the quiet, and this discovery changes his perception of the world he knew.
The book was an excellent piece of teen fiction I can???t wait read the rest of the series as I never read past the first book in the series before.
I found this book quite a mix of good and bad. When I reach around 2/3 of the way through any book I start thinking about how I'm going to rate it. In the case of Foundryside, I found it much harder than other books to determine how I would rate it.
The plot concerns Sancia and her unique ability to hear scrivings. Scrivings are the language that is engraved onto objects which can alter reality and change how these objects work. Sancia uses this skill to steal objects because she is desperate to change her life. It is definitely changed when she steals a talking key called Clef and discovers the job she was doing is so much more than it seemed.
I found the plot fairly fast paced and for the majority of the book it was really easy to read. I got fatigued with the plot in a way I've never experienced before and would end up skim reading every 40 pages or so. The world was fleshed out, but I found the set up quite info-dumpy. While this initially didn't bother me it did become repetitive throughout the book. I lowered the rating a star also in part due to fact that the book read partially like a young adult novel and partially adult.
My biggest issue concerns the rules of the city the story takes in. The city has four merchant houses with large compounds and the poor slum areas fill the gaps between the compounds. Early on in the book, Sancia mentions that there are no rules that govern the city and the individual merchant houses enforce their own rules within their compounds. It is mentioned at least twice later on, however, that certain things are illegal or prohibited in the city. I found this contradiction distracting, so I lowered the rating a star partially for this reason. It could have been my fault for misinterpreting or misreading the initial comment in the book, but I can't check now as my library comment has been returned now.
I would recommend Foundryside to readers of YA fantasy or any readers of fantasy in general. It was a quick, fun read and the characters were enjoyable. A few twists towards the end kept me engaged and interested and I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for the sequel.
Circe has given me the taste for retellings of ancient myths, because this was a beautiful story. It follows the life of a young daughter of Helios and all of the men who enter and leave her life.
The writing is simple yet powerful and I really appreciated how it let the story stand on it's own. I felt deeply connected to Circe throughout the plot, which particularly impressed me as I read this book with almost a months gap between the first two thirds and reading the last third. When I picked the story back up only a small reminder of the plot was required and I quickly fell back into the world and sensation of reading this book.
I definitely recommend this book if you are interested, and will investigate Miller's other novels to tide me by until her next release.
At the very least, every British person knows of the Hitchhiker???s Guide. Adapted from a radio play, this book is one of the best representations of British humour I???ve ever read. Douglas Adams has created an expansive world with only a few hundred pages and managed to set up an engaging cast of characters to boot.
Arthur Dent wants peace and quiet, a cuppa and to enjoy an unremarkable Thursday by himself. That whole plan goes out the window when he discovers the local council plans to bulldoze his house to make way for a city bypass ??? and his whole week is ruined when he discovers that an alien species plans to destroy Earth to create a hyperspace bypass.
If you have only watched the film of the book, I would urge you to pick this up. The film changes a few plot points and I personally feel like the book is a much better experience. If you enjoyed Monty Python, Fawlty Towers or other classic comedies; I really recommend this book!
How did 600 pages break and remake me 20 times? This book was a fantastic read.
The Way of Shadows is a re-read for me, although it does not show on goodreads. I originally read the entire trilogy when I was around 15 years old and I think I read it too fast as I didn't remember what happened right after finishing the books. This time around I consumed the book a lot slower and took the time to try and adsorb the plot as best as I could.
The book follows Azoth, a young boy from the slums who is given the opportunity to remake himself when he apprentices himself under the greatest wetboy in the city, Durzo Blint. The process is no gift and proves to change Azoth in more ways than one. The book follows his journey from a boy of 12 to a man over the age of 20 and his quest to become a wetboy worthy of the respect of his master.
This time around I enjoyed every aspect of the book and managed to understand the plot much better than I had before. I felt the characters and the plot were the strongest aspects of the book and both were done incredibly. I had no complaints there., and in fact found myself experiencing the full spectrum of human emotion by the time I had finished the book. In the effort to keep this review spoiler free, I won't go into any further detail. Suffice it to say, I wish all books had plots this fast paced and complex.
Additionally, the characters really compelled me. Azoth and Blint broke and remade my heart multiple times each, and at the heart of this book was their progress from master and apprentice relationship to one closer to a father/son. By no means was this a clean or healthy relationship but it felt all the more real for it.
I do wish the various countries and their rivalries had been established better before later aspects of the plot came into play as it was difficult but not impossible to understand the different rulers and their motivations. I adored the writing in this as it toed the line between poetic and the type of fast paced action writing I enjoy.
All in all, I would recommend this book and I can't wait to crack on with the second book in the series. I'm fairly certain I won't finish it without crying.
The Raven Boys is a low fantasy young adult novel about four private schoolboys in Virginia and Blue, the psychic's daughter. I have heard about this series from probably everyone I know who reads and from half of the booktube community I follow. I decided to pick it up after being recommended it so many times over the years because I felt I needed to know finally if it was exactly as good as everyone said it was or if I'd find another over hyped YA novel.
And as with the trend this year, I immensely enjoyed the book. We begin focusing on Blue, the daughter of the local psychic in Henrietta, as she goes on the annual trip to the local churchyard to record the names of everyone in the town who will die in the next twelve months. The novel goes on to follow her as she meets the Aglionby boys and discovers their search for the Welsh king.
I found the plot of the book to be intriguing, however slow to start. For the first half of the book I didn't know when things would begin to happen. While this wasn't a negative experience as vital the backstory and characterisation was done in this half it did feel slow. In fact, at one point in my status updates I lamented that one of the male characters felt surplus to requirement as he had rarely been involved in the plot so far. This was quickly corrected as the second half of the novel ramped up the pace. The characters are actually where I think the book excels. The book is in the third person perspective, which I prefer, and it spends time in all of the main character's heads but focuses mainly on three. Of these three, Adam and Gansey were my favourite characters. The setting felt equally real, and I have no faults with the book there. My only complaint was that the author regularly used flowery writing to describe various things or feelings throughout the book that made absolutely no sense.
All in all, a pleasant surprise of a book.
I decided to re-read the Skulduggery series recently, and discovered that I've only read about half of the series. The first book is a fast paced introduction to the magical world of Skulduggery Pleasant, a skeleton detective, and his assistant.
The book was a great, quick read and I enjoyed it just as much as I did when I originally read it. A little more explanation of the world would be great, but I'm excited to get immediately into the next in the series.
A Game of Thrones ???????????????A Clash of Kings ???????????????
This is the furthest I have made it through the series so far, and I enjoyed this book so much. I genuinely don't have any complaints. We got deeper into the plot, and explored deeper into the world and it was all great to read. I flew through the book.
One small note, I finished the book using my library because I could login and read from work (it's dead in the evenings). I have been putting off finishing the book because I was at 93% which would have left around 60 pages to go and I wanted to read it all in one sitting. Turns out the appendix and acknowledgements start at 94% and I could have finished it in work a week ago....
A fantastic finale to the series. This book took the characters I loved and pushed them further than we had seen them go before. A genuinely enjoyable conclusion to the series.
I have a few points to make below that could be considered spoilery. Firstly, a lot of reviews have commented on the inequality between the LGBT relationships and heterosexual ones. I agree that Dannyl and Tayend where short-changed a lot during this novel, and it would have been beneficial to the world to develop their relationship more. As it was currently it didn't really add much to the plot aside from added intrigue. I do think comments on getting more physical intimacy between the heterosexual of the two main relationships unfairly represents them. I feel a lot of the added intimacy of the main relationship is due to their verbal banter which isn't given any real attention with Dannyl and Tayend.
And my final point is simple. Why are so many people stopping for food and wine during a battle for the city? I feel like that happened over 3 times! Just fight your fight and eat later lads.
Looking more to reading more of Trudi Canavan's series.
I've had my eye on this book for a while, and actually almost picked it up in the bookshops near me a couple times. I'm so glad now I waited for my library hold to come through as it turns out I did not enjoy this book.
Firstly, I DNF'd at 30% and therefore I didn't finish the book. But I couldn't get into it at all and even skim reading it felt like a chore. The plot follows Fletcher an orphan in a small remote village. He is generally downtrodden and looked down on by others in the village. He has been raised by the blacksmith, and it's clearly expected that we sense or interpret a father-son bond between these two characters. However, they barely speak and don't exchange any meaningful conversations that explore the depth of their relationship so it felt very flat and uninteresting.
And that is really the main gripe I have with this book, all of it falls flat and feels really boring. The concept of the demons is interesting in itself but it ended up being ridiculously boring. At one point the character must leave his village on the run, and the entire run and escape was covered in a short period (I think over 2 or 3 chapters). Everything is told instead of shown and just in general did not engage me with the story. I think this is the reason I didn't care about the main character or anyone he meets, he reads like Harry Potter to me as a character and I didn't like him at all.
All in all, I do not recommend this book and can't understand that high ratings and gushes this book gets. Later in this book or the series it may get more interesting and better written, who knows.
I picked up The Essex Serpent in an effort to start reading more literary works. That effort paid off, and the habit persisted even if the original book did not. I began this novel in early January and am finally calling it quits in July at 70%.
There is nothing to fault with the novel itself. The characters, setting and relationships are all interesting and I genuinely enjoyed reading the book every time I picked it up. The brush of the unknown, magical elements within the story really improved the concept. I'm giving the book a solid four stars due to how much I enjoyed the book when I originally started it. However, after having left it for so long the plot was hard to remember and my interest in the book have faded, so it remains an unfinished four stars. I have every belief that a reread will be a successful four or five stars.
I didn't even know what this book was about when I picked it up, I didn't care. Honestly I picked it up because Hannah at aclockworkreader loves this series and the new American covers are MY JAM. I had no expectations from the book, but I knew that I'd previously been disappointed by YA books before. However, I picked up [b:Windwitch 29939390 Windwitch (The Witchlands, #2) Susan Dennard https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1462296317s/29939390.jpg 41438285] by Susan Dennard a month or two ago and flew through the first two books. I absolutely loved them and decided I'd give another YA fantasy series a go. And I'm glad I did. The plot follows two main/point of view characters, Lais and Elias. One is getting ready to graduate a military academy and isn't sure he believes in the Empire any more, which he had been raised to fight for. The other, Laia, has entered into a desperate bargain with the resistance fighters from her country to spy on the Empire. Elias is a firm favourite character for me, he has conflicts within himself that you can really feel him trying to fight. I genuinely am really interested and invested in his character arc throughout this series. I would love to know more about him and his relationships with the people he grew up with. However, Laia wasn't as interesting for me. She had an intriguing background, but I didn't feel it was well developed. Information about her was dropped into the story when it felt convenient to the plot. I liked her section of the plot though, and I really think the second book was set up to give us a lot more of what I was missing from her story. For the world, the author managed a lot of world building without it feeling dense or like an “information dump”. I appreciate knowing enough about the world to make connections by myself but also getting to discover new things along the way. I'm a fan of the world and can't wait to see more. My only issue with the series at this point occurs when we're in Elias' point of view. That boy is horny, and needs to nip off for a wank between chapters. Honestly, it felt like he only viewed his best friend Helene and Laia as sex objects at points during the book. It was made especially weird because the book would then shake off the fact that he found Helene attractive (“she's my best friend”) and suddenly remember they have a connection outside of how much he'd like to bone her. it just felt jarring and childish, especially since the book tries to push Elias' respectful attitude towards woman as outside of the norm of the other male students he knows. I'd recommend this book for anyone who fancies some YA fantasy and enjoys a plot with multiple layers and moving parts. I also enjoyed it because it veered off the typical fantasy path of magic is evil/let's eradicate magic and the whole chosen one/only person with magical powers trope. I feel like I've seen that done to death.
Truthwith ???????????????Windwitch ???????????????
I loved this book! Having read the first in the series and enjoying it, I quickly picked up the second. I'll admit I initially picked the series up thinking it would be a YA palate cleanser, but I'd already assumed I wouldn't enjoy it much.
My expectations were blown out of the water with this sequel. Having read the first 125 pages in early May and getting distracted, I had my boyfriend read me a short plot summary (so I couldn't spoil myself) and dove back in. I devoured the book in 2 evenings and I genuinely think the second book is better.
I still have the issue that not enough of the world is explained to the reader. However as it's becoming more and more evident that the characters don't know anything either, I don't mind as much.
A Gentleman in Moscow is possibly the greatest book I've picked up on a whim. I'm incredibly interested in the period of time immediately after the Russian revolution, so the setting of this particular book jumped out at me when I discovered it on goodreads.
I adored Towles' writing style. It felt easygoing and I flew through the pages when I picked it up. It was the first book that prompted me to use the highlight function on my kindle. The style really felt as though the Count was telling this tale to me with all his eccentricities. He is the best character this year to date for me. I loved him from the first page and keep thinking of him when I'm not reading the book.
Pick this book up!
Update: I re-read this book over the past two days, and I really really enjoyed it. I think this series is a top YA series for me. And I still stand by my reasoning behind not giving a full five stars in my original review. Onto the next few books so I can pick up Bloodwitch!!
If I was the type to give half stars, this would be 4.5 stars.
Truthwitch is a fantastic tale of friendship between two young women as they face to save their own lives. And I adored it. I don't really read YA because it doesn't keep me guessing enough, but this book had enough going on that I loved every second.
I have only two complaints. Firstly, there wasn't enough world building for the world to feel clear. I had absolutely no clue what a thread witch was for the longest time or why they needed to keep emotionless. I think the story would be vastly improved if the different aspects of the world and it's history had been introduced more carefully.
Another complaint would be regarding the dramatic use of language. It was not a common occurrence, and I'm quite sensitive to melodrama in my media, so it was a forgivable sin in my case. However, what on earth does “stasis in my fingers and toes” mean? Because stasis means inactivity and unless the character is hoping for paralysis I have no clue what she means.
Not a super memorable book, but the plot was confusing enough that I never remember the ending. That bumped up the star rating for me because I'm always guaranteed to enjoy the unknown element.
Also I love the movie, so that helped. I know it shouldn't really count towards the book but my Goodreads, my rules.
Wow. I adored The Martian and read it within one day, raved about it to anyone who would listen and devoured that movie. I even considered listening to the audiobook after all that because I loved the book that much and I really don't enjoy audiobooks.
I wish I'd never picked Artemis up. Jazz wasn't written as a human being so much as the author's idea of a wisecracking protagonist. I could go on for a long rant about how your female characters should be noticeably female in a way that isn't the character or other characters talking about shagging her. Or how MCs who can do everything they need to do with ease isn't interesting or fun to read, especially if they over explain what they're doing while narrating. Or any other of the aspects to this book.
Basically I don't think there were any redeeming features to this book. 300 pages of absolute guff.
I picked up The Husband's Secret because I'd been recommended it by a friend at work. I quite like domestic thrillers (or simply thrillers in general) when I'm in a reading slump. And this book did just the trick!
I enjoyed the story, although the big reveal came altogether too early in the plot I think. The characters were enjoyable and felt real. The ending felt a bit like a cop-out with all the endings neatly tied away. And we're not going to talk about the epilogue, because as far as I'm concerned that ruined the book.
3.5 stars
When I picked up The Roanoke Girls, I was in a rut with many aspects of like. Particularly reading, as I was completely failing my reading challenge and couldn't seem to finish any book I picked up.
The Roanoke Girls is a compelling, creepy read that is different to the thrillers I've read before. In a refreshingly new take on a mystery novel, I both knew the creepy twists that were coming and simultaneously was desperate to find out more.
If that doesn't intrigue you, I finished the book in under 2 hours.
