I gotta be honest with you. In my job, I REALLY should have read at least one of the books recently nominated for an award. And I hadn’t, not one. Which I felt slightly guilty about, but then I remembered I was meant to be kind to myself, and figured better late than never. And then I wondered how I had let this one slip past me! Sherryl Jordan is one of my all time favourite authors, and I honestly can’t believe I haven’t picked this up before now. I will note that yesterday, I found it was on my TBR list, I just haven’t read anything from it! - Note: the PopSugar Advanced Section on the 2021 Reading Challenge is all about TBR, so at least I ticked off something there!
All of Sherryl Jordan’s books are wonderful. If you haven’t read them, I 100% recommend Winter of Fire, Rocco, The Juniper Game, Secret Sacrament, Tanith, and the Raging Quiet teens and adults, and The Wednesday Wizard Series for children (or adults who want some fun, lighthearted fantasy). Oh, and this one! I’m used to Jordan’s fantasy books, and in my head, this was fantasy as well. I was wrong! This is a historical fiction - set in a fictional world, but based on the white slave trade. The author’s note tells me that while the Black people were being shipped to America to become slaves, the Muslim people were raiding white Christian settlements for slaves as well. While the places and people in this book are fiction, the author has based them upon real life events and people. This is a beautiful book. If you’re not a fan of descriptive writing, it might not be something you’d pick up, but I urge you to do so. I love when I get so into a book that the real world seems somehow less; less colourful, less enchanting, less real. This book does that from the very start. We follow Elowen from her home, to the bowels of a slave ship, and over a large desert. She has been purchased as a slave for a king, and her life is no longer her own. The language is gorgeous; the places genuinely come alive. I was half in love with Heath by the time the sun rose on the second day in Penhallow, and the characters kept coming. There were numerous characters, and despite some not being deeply explored, they were there enough to add life to the story, without overpowering the main characters. It was well done - the extras were like people who we see during the day, but don’t really know; the regulars at the coffee shop you stop at for breakfast, the patrons who sit in the library each day. Jordan used the 3rd person omniscient amazingly in this book. Our main character was the focus, but we did get insight into the thoughts of other characters such as the King. I won’t tell you more of the story, but believe there are moments where you won’t see a way forward for Elowen. The book is busy and full and has some exciting moments as well as calm, deep ones. Content warnings: war, gore, pirates, slaves, blood, whippings, death. Overall Rating: 10 (out of 5) stars.
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If you’re looking for a book full of action and adventure, or fantasy fun, this isn’t the book for you. This fits squarely into the category of slice-of-life. Sometimes, that’s a nice thing to read. It’s not usually my jam, but as you may know, I will try anything once (with the exception of a certain illegal drug). I think this book was as enjoyable as it was because of the characters.
Once again, this book is set at a boarding school - this one all girls. While our main character is a day student, we do get to see the inside of a couple of boarding rooms, and experience the rules and regulations that the girls are subjected to. Having been a day student at a boarding school, it did feel like being back there! Our MC has been sent to this new school because she got caught drinking at her last school, and her parents wanted to get her back on track. She has been sent to live with her grandmother, who is a teacher at the school. For the beginning of the book, June is very upset, as she has been taken away from her best friend, Jess. June doesn’t want to move on, or interact with her new classmates, or her grandmother; she just wants to message Jess, and speed through the time in order to get back to her. Obviously, things change, and her mindset adjusts slowly over the book. Sarah Van Name has done a fantastic job of character development here; it felt so incredibly genuine. Most of us don’t wake up one day and see all of the things wrong with ourselves and our lives, we tend to come to this realisation slowly, as things outside of ourselves change. In this book, the photography class that June takes acts as a parallel metaphor of how her view changes, and it’s done so very well. It’s not heavy handed, doesn’t force itself down your throat. The relationships of June with the people around her also change, and it too feels natural. LGBT+ rep in this book was good too! Two of our main characters are in a same sex relationship - one is a lesbian, the other bisexual, and it’s really great to see characters like this where the coming out isn’t the main focus of the story - it’s just how they are, and that’s that! There’s not a lot left to say about this book, it honestly speaks for itself. I found myself highlighting multiple passages and sending them to my flatmate, it was that well written that I needed to share it. There’s not a lot of content warnings needed, other than underage alcohol consumption and discussions of PDA. Overall Rating: 5 stars Well, I requested this book on NetGalley, and then had to go find the first book! Didn’t realise this was a sequel.
Pro tip: if you, like me, didn’t realise that Chaos on CatNet was the SECOND book, stop reading this and go read Catfishing on CatNet first. Don’t worry, I’ll still be here, and I will be reviewing them both below :-). Catfishing on CatNet was a pretty good book. Our MC is on the run from her father, a convicted arsonist. She lives with her mother, and they move. A. Lot. Like, multiple times in a year. Basically, if Steph’s Mum gets a feeling that they have been noticed - like when Steph used to cause trouble in school - or if she just felt they had been in one place too long, they would up and move. Steph has no social media, no fancy touch screen phone. Her best friends are digital - people she found online (using her basic laptop) in a chatroom, called CatNet. Here she can talk to people without fear of her father finding her, and make connections with people that aren’t uprooted within a few months. Things begin to get intense when Steph discovers something unusual about one of her chatroom friends, and it begins to seem as though someone is tracking her in real life. Catfishing on CatNet has great LGBT+ rep, including use of neo-pronouns, and it’s done in a way where it’s just normal. (I have a friend, who is gay, and the other day for the first time, they were talking to someone they were not yet out to and said “oh, my (same gender)friend is into that!”, and shocked themselves a little, as they referred to their same-gender partner in the same casual way hetero people do.) The point of that wee story was that we need to get to a place where it doesn’t matter if it’s a homo or hetero relationship, it should just be a RELATIONSHIP. And this book was really good at that. They didn’t erase the very real struggles that people who don’t conform to the hetero-norm face, but instead gave a safe space where it was normal to be gay, straight, ace, enby. The world these books are set is ours - but a few years into the future, so things are mostly recogniseable, but there are also robots. Like, robot robots. Like robots that “teach” “sex ed” (yes, BOTH sets of inverted commas were necessary here, the teaching is awful and the sex ed is worse!). Our savvy online friend group hack the sex ed robot and provide some genuine sex ed that is actually helpful! Catfishing on CatNet becomes somewhat of a thriller as our MC and her friends try to uncover the identity and true account of who is after her and why. It’s pretty good, I enjoyed the overall storyline . The main thing I found a little jarring was that the MC is meant to be 16ish years old, and she reads a lot younger. Chaos on CatNet picks up not long after the previous book ends. Steph and her mother have moved, but she is still in contact with her physical friends from their last location, for the first time ever. We fall into a plot quickly with Nell, a physical friend Steph makes within the first few pages. There’s a lot of action after that, including a clu, a rogue AI, a supervillain base in a robot-filled theme park… it’s engaging and enjoyable, if a little rushed. The ending felt to me a little like too much happened off page - that is, our MC was doing something and someone behind the scenes was saving the world and we didn’t actually see it happen? Not a huge issue, just a little disappointing for me personally. I will make a note here about the polyamory in Chaos. Nell has an extended family situation: she is living with her father; her step-mother (father’s wife); her father’s girlfriend, and her step-mother’s girlfriend (I think!). It’s nice to see it portrayed from the POV of the adults as just a thing they do and it’s normal. Nell refers to the women as Thing One, Two and Three, a la Cat in the Hat, and I can see how people could be offended by this. Personally, as there is character growth (and a cult mindset to break) I’m okay with it, as it’s simply someone's reaction to something they are uncomfortable with, and that someone is a child. That’s not to say children get a pass, but simply that they DO change as they learn more. Content warnings: LGBT+, LGBT+ phobia, violence, domestic violence, language (?), conservative views. Overall Rating: 4 stars Aaaaaahhhhh! I found this the night before I was meant to go back to work after two weeks off from injury…. First few pages and I'm like "library themed escape room"... F*ck me, who needs sleep! And now it's got neurodiverse people, and gays, and dyslexics… OmfOmg!
So good so far! I don’t want to put this book down, which is nice, as I loved book 1, and book 2 was a little less gripping. The cast is great, I tried to write this plot for NaNo and it was WAY HARD, so I’m all in on this one! I LOVE escape rooms. Okay, so I’ve never done one, but I have written and run three, as well as a murder mystery night. As I said above (which was my literally word vomit as I started reading #noescape at 10pm), I tried to write an escape room/locked room mystery for NaNo in 2020. I think I made it about 30,000 words before I bailed, and honestly, it was HARD! So seeing this title, and having read #murdertrending and loving it, I was excited. And I am so so happy that this book was as good as I hoped. Set in the same world* (maybe?) as #murdertrending and #murderfunding, this book starts with our protagonist completing an “impossible” escape room. We learn pretty swiftly that she is not traditional ‘school smart’ - this is done really well through flashbacks - and that she is there only for the money. After this first (her) escape room, she is invited to join a ‘ultimate escape room’, with a prize of $10mil. Things get really fun after that. I loved the details the author had here; each section was so well thought out. I want to climb inside the authors brain (if you’re reading this, can I? In a totally, not creepy, I just wanna see how you work kind of way… no? oh.) and see what it looks like. Having tried to write my own escape room, I know now that I didn’t go nearly big enough! If you loved the first books, if you loved the movie Death Race, read this. I can’t say any more because spoilers, but it’s so well written. It grabbed me and I didn’t want to put it down (who needs to work?), and I inhaled it. It has been added to the list of Top Books I Read in 2021 - I’m that impressed. Content warnings: gore, language, emotional abuse, toxic family relationships Overall Rating: 5+ stars! *I try not to Goodreads before I write my reviews, but I just jumped on and found out that actually this is set 20 years before #murdertrending and OMG I now have so many more questions and theories and I went back and read #murdertrending and #murderfunding** the SECOND I finished #noescape, and now I’m back to #noescape and I’m just like…. I need to read them again with this new knowledge!!!! **and I was wrong, maybe I never finished it the first time, it was good! THIS BOOK CONTAINS MAJOR TRIGGERS
I will list these triggers at the end of the review, as I try to do, but be aware that I will be discussing mental illnesses, eating disorders, addictions, and other potentially triggering topics. I will avoid details where possible, but the book is set in a school for “troubled girls”, so it may not be possible to avoid completely. I have read one other book by this author (that I am aware of) - A Danger To Herself and Others - and boy, was that a ride. While attempting not to give away spoilers, I picked up on something relatively early on in that book, which was later confirmed, but it in NO WAY detracted from the overall beautiful, heart-wrenching majesty of the story. So once I knew that The Castle School was by the same author (which, admittedly, was AFTER I started reading it), I knew I was in for a time. As I start writing this, I’m only about halfway through. I was past the point of no return on my way to work this morning when I realised I had forgotten my Kindle… but it’s ok. I have the Kindle app on my phone (and the NetGalley one as well come to think of it), so I will be able to read on my lunch break. Yay! The first note I wrote while reading (this is still something that is new to me; taking notes as I read. Maybe if I had done that when I was studying…. NO! No what ifs). It wasn’t something I thought I would like - as a kid (and adult) I tend(ed) to inhale books, not putting them down for dinner let alone to write notes! (The skills I have developed of holding the book and being able to turn pages all with my non-dominant hand serve me well both eating and note-taking!) That said, I have started to enjoy it. It’s nice to have a scribble of thoughts of things I can look back on and solidify; a list I can use as a springboard when it comes to talking about the book to others. No-one else needs to see my scribble, 90% of the time it makes a little sense to me, but not always! Okay, we’ll try that again! The first note I wrote while reading this book was “this book has so much trivia, I love it!” Our main character has a habit of filling silences with trivia. ***** insert trivia***** The premise is (so far), simple. Our main character, Moria, has been sent away to the Castle School. Following the death of her best friend, her parents are at their wits end, and decide she needs more help than they can give. Moira is escorted to The Castle School by two bulky men - bodyguards, tasked with making sure she doesn’t run away - and lands in a place which is far different than she imagined. The Castle - a literal castle - somewhere (maybe) in Maine, is cold, damp, and dark. Her driver - son of the headmaster/doctor/owner of the school - tells her that it is after lights out, and that she needs to go to bed. Moira soon discovers that the school has an odd timetable - they don’t have a TIMEtable. The girls (there are 12) are woken, fed, ‘taught’, therapied, exercised and returned to bed without knowing what the time is, what the day is, or even where they are. The other 12 girls have a mix of conditions. We get to know each girl briefly, and we get a little more information about them in between chapters, with a section of each girl and how/why she ended up at the school. I won’t say much more, it’s too hard to rave without giving away important parts. Just know it is beautiful, and potentially triggering at the same time. I will note here that if you don’t like books which are ‘slice of life’ or you only read books which are filled with adventure, this is not that. I won’t say you won’t enjoy it, or should avoid it, because it IS SO GOOD. Content Warnings: discussions of addiction, drugs, self hard (cutting mostly), OCD, assault, trichotillomania, death, dying, mental health, therapy, family issues, selective mutism, eating disorders, scars, inpatient. There are probably more, but just be aware going in that the author doesn’t hold back. Overall Rating: FIVE STARS This is the second time (at least) that I’ve read this book. Was I procrastinating? Maybe. Thank you rivitedlit.com for giving us free ebooks to read on the regular… You can read them too! For real though, check them out. They have a new selection of books each month - some excerpts, some full books. Anyway. This month (Sept 2020) Crank was one of the free reads. So I read it. Again.
Written in verse, books by Ellen Hopkins were my first foray into the art that is books in verse. She has a serious skill. The short (1-3 page) poems run the full scope, managing to both stand on their own and make for a compelling read together. The author utilises the page itself as an element of the storytelling; making sentences within poems, showing multiple thoughts within a poem. It’s the kind of poetry that I like, and each and every time I read her work I want to write a novel in verse myself. Being in verse the overall word count is likely lower than a standard novel. This, combined with the rise and fall of the storytelling makes for a quick read that takes your hand, tugging you onward ever faster. The Crank series is semi-(auto)biographical - she started to write the first book when her daughter (named Kristina in the books) was in jail, after years of drug abuse - primarily but not exclusively, methamphetamine. While the author notes that the story is only loosely based on her family, it is evident that she has an understanding of the pain and difficulties faced by those who have to watch a family member struggle with addiction, and the toll that their struggles take on those close to them. I won’t go into too much detail plot wise, but basically we start with a teenage girl, not knowing it but looking to find herself. Her journey goes up and down, the author following the highs and the lows without holding back. It is a hard read in places; I won’t lie. But despite that, or possibly because of that, it’s a beautiful read. Content Warnings: drugs, sex, rape, language, talk of abortion, attempted suicide by falling Overall Rating: 5 stars. When I finished this book I threw it across the desk dismissively, and blew a raspberry. OK, that was kinda harsh - Kiera, if you’re reading this (ha, sure…), I didn’t hate it! I promise. It was a disappointed reaction, not an angry one!
I picked up this book because I loved the author's previous works - The Selection was highly enjoyable and something I do recommend to people! I don’t want to turn this into a review of THAT series, so that’s all I will say about it, and I will try to refrain from comparing them too much! The writing in this book is beautiful. We start in a room at a royal court; a scene with two clearly well-off young ladies getting ready to go on a boat trip with King Jameson. The castle, the river, the boats, the clothing, - they are all well described, and it wasn’t hard to slip into the world that Kiera Cass has created. I would honestly like to go to this place; probably more so than the world of The Selection, despite that world being based on ours. We are swept up into the courtly intrigue quickly, and it’s not hard to follow. Problem was, for me at least, that was about it. The writing was lovely, and I did find myself completely oblivious of the passing of time, and almost overstayed my lunch break! But the plot just wasn’t there. I find it difficult sometimes, to be engrossed in a story when it begins with big drama - I need a few pages at least to figure out where I am and what is happening! This book felt like the novella you get after a big series; that smaller, less dramatic book in which we find out how the side character romance happens. I spent the first 250 pages of the 300 page book saying (out loud!) “This book is too boring. Nothing has happened yet! Girl likes boy, boy likes girl, everything is rosy.” I will admit: that is just my opinion. I am sure there are people who want nothing more than to cozy up to a nice story where things go 100% swimmingly for most of the book, but for me, it just wasn’t there. Will I read the next one? Yes, because I liked the writing and I would be keen to dive further into the politics and secrets which are hinted at in this book. Content warning: not a lot, some barely hinted at violence, discussions about deaths. Pretty tame really, in comparison to a lot of YA. Overall Rating: 3 stars. The writing was good, but characters and plot were not really there. This book. Wow. I mean, I was onboard the moment I read the blurb - it’s a YA mystery set in a camp. A camp where the country's most dangerous teens are sent as an (off the record) alternative to life in prison or a death sentence.
A camp where they LEARN TO KILL BETTER! I wouldn’t recommend this book if you are squeamish… It doesn’t take long at all before we are learning about how to dismember then “dispose of” a body - in reasonably graphic detail. It’s not the sort of thing I was expecting with an author called Lily Sparks - guess that means I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover… didn’t I say this in another review? *sigh* We go into the story with the belief that our main character is innocent of the murder (graphic) of her best friend. Once we meet the other “campers”, it’s hard not to start to wonder if perhaps she’s not entirely truthful. Maybe she does belong there? The other campers are a varied bunch - total 3 girls and 5 boys - all of which have killed at least one person. I really enjoyed that as we learned about certain characters, we learned not only how they kill - come on, death by hacked pacemaker? Brilliant! I need to meet this author and give her a high five! - but also WHY some of them did it. As far as society is concerned, they all set out to do it on purpose, and are non-rehabilitatable. But even though I left the book unsure as to whether Javier was actually a decent human, I actually liked that. It was nice to not have everything wrapped up in a nice little bow. Not going to lie, the twists just keep on coming! I didn’t see all of them, and that was neat! At one point, the character doesn’t even mentally state the theory she has, but the book was so well written that you knew what she was thinking, and accepted it, and then forgot that it hadn’t been confirmed! The writing is beautiful - “Life is a fuse, and I am the red spark shooting towards its end, each moment burning away as soon as I exist within it, bright, sparkling, then gone.” It’s a spectacular juxtaposition to some of the more… murdery writing in the book. Content warnings: gore, more gore, sexual assault (brief and not more than a kiss), language, discussions of drug use, discussions of murder. Overall Rating: 5 stars. (yes, I really need to read something I don’t LOVE, but they just end up being so damn good! This year has been a bit of a year. (That might just be the understatement of the century!) At the beginning of the year, and even during Lockdown here, I was looking forward to going to the Brasswitch’s Ball - the afterparty of the book launch for this book. We don’t get a lot of book tours or anything like that here; we’re a small country and a smaller town. But then life happened, and I wasn’t able to go, which was sad! Last year, we went to the Clockill’s Ball, and that was so. much. fun! So when I was walking past a bookstore and saw this sitting in the window, I went: “Oh! Must have!” And then I sat down and started to read.
If you’ve read my review of The Traitor and the Thief I just checked, and I haven’t posted a review about The Traitor and The Thief here yet! Terrible! Well, in that case, I will note here that I personally found it a bit hard to get into. I actually put off reading it for a while, because to get fully into it, I needed to sit down and be alone and not distracted. I’m not sure why that was, my best guess is that I need to read all of the world building that I am 100% sure the author did (Gareth, if you’re reading this, I’m serious! As an aspiring author I think it’d be fascinating!). HOWEVER, once I got into TatT, I was hooked and didn’t want to put it down. In fact, I sat down, read it, finished it, and then turned back the beginning and started again! This book, on the other hand, I sat down, and INHALED. I was sucked in from the dedication, I loved the plot, I loved the characters, and I LOVED Bot. If you love sarcasm, he’ll be your favourite character. A humanoid (ish) mech, his sense of humor is right where I like it. I’ve started annotating my books. (I hear you sucking in a gasp, I was the same to start with. If it helps, I use pencil, and only in my OWN copies. PLEASE DON’T WRITE IN LIBRARY BOOKS! Not even to not in the front if you have read it. Get a notebook. Please.) This book I underlined a lot of things that I really enjoyed, but I also made notes for my flatmate (who was reading after me) about words I didn’t know. For example: Snickelway - ‘Snickelway’ is a portmanteau of the words snicket, a passageway between fences; ginnel, a narrow passageway between buildings; and alleyway, a narrow street.* That’s not a word I have come across before! The plot was swift moving and well written; the characters were ‘fleshed out’ (yes, even the mech); the world was believable and desirable; and the mix of steampunk with fantasy/sci-fi was amazing. I won’t go into too much detail, because there’s so much going on that no matter what I say I am afraid of creating a spoiler, so basically, go read it! Content warnings: threat of electrocution, violence, some gore, magic, deaths Rating: 5 stars *https://kwurki.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/what-is-a-snickelway/ I’ll start out by being honest, because what is the point in reviewing books if you aren’t?
This book kept coming up in my “based on your reading preferences, you’ll enjoy...” lists. And honestly, I kept screwing up my nose at it. Why? The premise is basically family outcast meets rich family, trouble ensues. So, Gossip Girl, or Pretty Little Liars territory - aka, my TV preferences when I’m not watching prison shows. But… the cover. There are (at least) two versions of the cover of this book, both of which I have included (see below). As a librarian and a writer myself, I REALLY should stop judging books by their cover. I know, you see, that the author does not always have any/final say in what a book cover looks like. I also know that people prefer different things in a book cover, so I just read the blurb and start the book! So I did. By page 113 “...downright indecent little flesh kitten that you are..” I was 100% regretting not starting this sooner. The main character is sarcastic and weird and completely out of place in the land of Debutantes and white dresses. There are not one but at least two mysteries running side by side here - although, as I reach page 239, I wonder if we now have three - with side characters who despite semi limited page time have decent backstories and quirks of their own (FYI, I wanna be friends with Sadie-Grace please!). In terms of the book itself, I’m enjoying the snippets from the present (let’s be real, the ‘present’ is set inside a local jail, so why wouldn’t I be!), and how despite learning more and more each chapter, I’m still no closer to the answers I so desperately need. The secretsonmyskin pages, eh, less up my alley. They are described in the book in a specific way, and I don’t like that what actually got printed is so far removed from this description (disclaimer: I am only ⅔ of the way through the book so far, so they may be redeemed). Finished! Wow, this book was everything I hoped it would be. It was nice to read a contemporary YA about a teenage girl that didn’t have a large part of the (main) plot focus around a romance or relationship. I mean, it did, in that family is a relationship, but not an external, boy/girl, girl/girl boy/boy or any other coupling. For those who want romance however, there is still some coming from the side plots. I knew going into this that there was going to be at least one sequel (secretly hoping for more), and right up until the last few pages I had zero idea of how the author was going to achieve this, without making it feel weird and disconnected. I did wonder at the start of the book, if the main character was on the Autism spectrum, due to some traits and fixations, but this was never confirmed. Personally, I am ok with this - we want to normalise neurodiversity, so to have a character whose plot is not “all about the neurodiversity/disability/illness/learning difficulty/coming out” is great. Whether or not this was intentional, or if the character simply read that way to me, I don’t know. If you liked PLL (the show, or the books), but thought it got too weird and convoluted; or if you simply like books with a good mystery; a possible enemies to friends situation; the Cotillion episodes of Gossip Girl - pick this one up! Content warnings: nothing in particular! Huh. Interesting! Overall Rating: 4.5 stars |