Red Queen – Victoria Aveyard Review

TITLE: RED QUEEn
AUTHOR: VICTORIA AVEYARD
PUBLISHED: FEB 2015

So earlier this year my gorgeous fiancé bought the Red Queen for my 23rd birthday back in August. I had been wanting to read this book desperately, but I just couldn’t find it anywhere nor could I afford to buy a copy. That’s where my fiancé decided he would get it for me, because he’s such a sweetheart. Anyway, this book is amazing. It’s probably one of the best books I’ve read this year so far.

You know when you want a book so badly and you can’t wait to read it but at the same time you’re scared that where you have hyped it so much in your head that you’re scared to read it in case you’re disappointed? Well that’s why I put off reading it for a few months (that and my anxiety has been all over the place). I was so scared of being disappointed by it that I just spent most of the days daydreaming of what it might be like to read it.

So then I read it.

AND I WASN’T DISAPPOINTED! I honestly can’t wait for Glass Sword. But going back to RQ! It seriously wasn’t disappointing and I’m so, so, so glad I finally got to read it. There are many unexpected twists. And I love how easy it was to read. Sometimes when I read fantasy my head starts throbbing from all the fancy words they throw at the reader and then most of the time, I’m spent looking at Oxford dictionary trying to find a definition. I’m not dumb but it was nice to read a book where you didn’t have to decode every other word in the genre (at least in my experience).

So yay! 5* to RQ and Victoria Aveyard for writing an awesome book! *throws confetti*

Originally posted from my booklr 

Those Above (The Empty Throne #1) – Daniel Polansky Thoughts / Review

TITLE: THOSE ABOVE (THE EMPTY THRONE #1)

AUTHOR: DANIEL POLANSKY

PUBLISHED: 2015

I’m going to try something different with my book reviews as I feel they’re going a bit stale and I’ve not had fun writing them in a while as I feel every review lately is in the same format and it feels too formal. I don’t feel as though my personality and my actual thoughts of the book are being stilted by the format. Sure, I’m honest with every single book I read (if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t say I didn’t like a book huh? ;) ) but regardless, the format is restricting me in regards to creativity – as most book review templates do on book blogs especially when they feel so formal and stiff.

Anyway, I started reading Those Above somewhere in May (I think somewhere in the beginning of it) as it was at the top of my TBR ARC pile – I still have quite a few to read from Book Bridgr which I eventually – and I thought I needed to get it read, but as I had been in a long and tiresome reading slump I had hoped that this book would drag me out of it but if anything it actually made it worse.

I had gone into Those Above with a huge amount of optimism as I had heard so many great things about it, but it really disappointed me. I haven’t even been able to finish it because I just simply couldn’t get into the constant character and world building. I managed to read 100 pages before I decided I was completely bored. Perhaps it was just the fact that I had picked up a book that I wasn’t at all ready to get into yet or the fact that I was bored by the constant need to explain every little thing behind each action.

The Winner’s Crime (The Winner’s Trilogy #2) – Marie Rutkoski Review

TITLE: THE WINNER’S CRIME (THE WINNER’S TRILOGY #2)

AUTHOR: MARIE RUTKOSKI

PUBLISHED: 12 MARCH 2015

Kestrel is due to be married to the Emperor’s son, Prince Verex. Herran’s minister of agriculture, Tensen has a spy inside the palace. Arin is desperate for the truth and will go further and beyond to find it. But just how far will the Emperor go to keep the ball in his court?

Homecoming (The Hundred #3) – Kass Morgan Review

TITLE: HOMECOMING (THE HUNDRED #3)

AUTHOR: KASS MORGAN

PUBLISHED: 26 FEBRUARY 2015

The humans from the Colony have finally made their homecoming journey back to Earth. But how much will they disrupt the peaceful camp the Hundred have started to call home? We join Clarke, Wells, Bellamy and Glass as they continue to discover just how hard being a human on Earth really is.

I adore this series, I really do. It’s just a series of books I find so easy to pick up and get stuck into and Homecoming does the same for me. I remember when this arrived through my letterbox a few weeks ago, I was so excited to read it! The following review will contain spoilers, so if you really wish to read on – just be warned, okay?

If I Fall, If I Die – Michael Christie Review

TITLE: IF I FALL, IF I DIE

AUTHOR: MICHAEL CHRISTIE

PUBLISHED: 12 FEBRUARY 2015

If I Fall, If I Die follows a boy’s first steps into the outside world. But the outside isn’t as innocent as Will thinks. There are bad, complex and dangerous people but Will is determined to find Marcus – a boy who falls into the wrong crowd. With Will’s mother’s anxiety and agoraphobia at its highest, Will is determined to prove to her that the outside is just as safe as being inside.

I have to say from the offset I just didn’t like this book. The writing from beginning to end just irritated me if I’m honest. Everything was overly described and I felt like the writer was trying too hard to hook the reader but it just didn’t do it for me. It felt like a drag to read. I felt really bad for not liking this book, to be honest, because the premise of it sounded promising especially as I was really looking forward to reading a book that would understand just how it feels to be anxious and a recluse and the writing style just ruined it for me. I can imagine many people enjoying this book, but the over-use of explaining one minuscule detail in a dozen different ways or words just to describe something so simple was just tedious page after page. It felt too draining to read and I couldn’t wait to finish reading it because it just simply frustrated me to read.

Something a little bit different… about my own writing endeavours

I’m not sure how many of my readers/followers know this, but I also love to write. Well, that’s quite obvious Jane as you like to blog regularly, I hear you say. I know that you sillies, but I mean one day I would love to publish my own novel.

I recently completed my first ever NaNoWriMo, and managed to hit the 50k words – something I thought I would never be able to achieve as I always have little random plot ideas buzzing around in my head but I never used to know how to get them out – coherently – onto paper (okay, onto Word..) until I managed to beat my fear of never being able to write a story from beginning to end until I won NaNo.

Friday Wishlists

This is going be a feature series on the blog, where every Friday I will name five books that I would really love to read one day. Whether they’re new books or older ones that I have always felt the urge to read but haven’t been able to get my hands on a copy. This will not be, by any means, a way for me to hint at people to get me these books – I would like to make this clear, I don’t want to gain anything out of this. I just want to share books I would like to read, and maybe give my blog readers a taste of my genre tastes.

And every Friday Wishlists post will be accompanied with asking readers, to post in the comments, of what is on their Friday Wishlists. You can have as many or as few as you would like on your wishlist.

The list, every week, will not be in particular order. Instead of ordering them in terms of how much I desire (not sure if I want to really use that word) to read them, they’re just going to be ordered randomly. I hope you all enjoy this series of posts I’m going to start, and hopefully in time it will give you, the readers, some inspiration for what books you’d like to read too!

The Captive Queen – Alison Weir

PUBLISHED: 2011

It is the year 1152, and a beautiful woman rides through France, fleeing her crown, her two young daughters and a shattered marriage.
Her husband, Louis of France has been more monk than monarch, and certainly not a lover. Now Eleanor of Aquitaine has one sole purpose: to return to her duchy and marry the man she loves, Henry Plantagenet, destined for greatness as King of England. It will be a union founded on lust, renowned as one of the most vicious marriages in history, and it will go on to forge a great empire and a devilish brood.
This is a story of the making of nations, and of passionate conflicts: between Henry II and Thomas Becket; between Eleanor and Henry’s formidable mother Matilda; between father and sons, as Henry’s children take up arms against him – and finally between Henry and Eleanor herself.

WHY:

Since the last few years, when I started reading historical fiction, I have been fascinated by the Plantagenet blood-line and all things related to the English monarchy. Regardless of the fictional twists, I would just love a glimpse into these periods of history. Reading historical fiction helps to quench my historical-knowledge thirst and it makes reading about monarchies and wars all that bit more interesting. Also, I find Eleanor of Aquitaine to be a fascinating character and woman – so a book based on her would really be intriguing to read.