Wednesday 30 September 2020

WWW Wednesday | 30/09/2020

 

 WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words that highlights three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

 

 What did you recently finish reading?

I finished Dispel Illusion by Mark Lawrence yesterday which is the third and final book in the Impossible Times series. I'm very torn with this book as I just didn't enjoy it as much as the first two but that may be my own fault. It's been over a year since I read the first two and I had forgotten a lot of what had happened and I just found so much of it confusing. I still love Mark Lawrence's writing but I just think I would have enjoyed this more if I'd read it closer to the other two books.
 

What are you currently reading?



I'm still reading Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier but I do only have around 70 pages left so it will definitely be finished today. I adore Daphne De Maurier's writing, she's such an incredible storyteller. I can understand why so many people love this book, it's so atmospheric and a little unnerving. The ending might change this but I have a feeling I'm going to be giving this five stars!
 
 
I've also just started Milkshakes for the Almost Dead by Lulu Wood which I wasn't actually planning on reading but my Kindle Unlimited runs outs on October 2nd so I thought I'd try and squeeze this one in before it does. I don't know too much about this as I'm only like 5 pages in, but I think it involves zombies and it's set by the seaside? One of my favourite booktubers mentioned it and I just thought it sounded interesting!
   

What do you think you'll read next?



I'm going to properly kick off my October TBR with The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. I'm very excited to read this and then finally watch the Netflix adaptation although I'm now realising that the two are quite different!
 
It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, the lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers—and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

Have you read any of these? What were your thoughts? What are you currently reading and hoping to pick up next? Leave a comment or link your own WWW Wednesdays below for me to check out!

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Tuesday 29 September 2020

Top Ten Tuesday | Favourite Bookish Quotes

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature that highlights ten books that all relate to a certain topic and is  hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. 

This Weeks Topic Is...

Favourite Book Quotes and whilst I bookmark a lot of quotes, I don't tend to save a lot of them so I had to do some more googling for this topic. So here are a selection of quotes that I feel speak to the bookworm in all of us.
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Monday 28 September 2020

October 2020 TBR + Readathons!


I don't know if I'm being a little too ambitious this month due to the fact that I'm participating in FOUR readathons! This is mostly due to the fact that October is my favourite month of the year, I adore Halloween and I may have got a bit overexcited about it all! Luckily a lot of the books I'm planning on reading this month fit the majority of the prompts across the readathons so I'm going to be doubling up on a lot of them but that will all get explained down below.

My main physical TBR which you can see in the image above is my main priority along with a few Ebooks and an audiobook. Nearly all of these books are for the Spooktober Readathon and that readathon is going to be the main one I'm participating in where as the rest I'll be doing a bit more casually.

I'm so excited to read all of these books this month and I'm hopeful that a few might be five star reads! I've been dying to read My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix all year but I've been good and held off until we reached the spooky season as this book as the exact vibes I want for this time of year. I'm also excited to be reading another Stephen King book and Joyland sounds super creepy with a carnival setting, I'm interested to see what this one has in store.

My classic for the month is going to be The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, another one I've wanted to get to for a while. Once I've finished it I'm also going to be watching the Netflix adaptation too which so many people have hyped up. Finally, my non-fiction this month is Trick or Treat by Lisa Morton which is a book that essentially chronicles the history of Halloween and I just thought it would be perfect for this time of year.

Physical Books


Ebooks

 

 Spooktober Readathon

This is the main readathon I'll be participating in and I'm going to be competing on Team Horror! A lot of my books on my initial October TBR fit most of the prompts although I did have to squeeze in one or two more. I'm also going to try and read the two group books as well to get some extra points for my team. If you want to take part you can click the link in the header above which will take you to the twitter page where you can sign up.
 

Prompts   

Group Books

 

 
Read a slasher book: Relic by Gretchen Mcneil 
Read a Stephen King Novel: Joyland by Stephen King
Read a book with paranormal elements: Shiver by Maggie Steifvater
Read a book with a black cover: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Read a spooky book that's been on your TBR: My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix  

 
I'm not going to list all of the books again cause you'll probably get sick of it but the majority of the books from Spooktober will fit nearly all of these prompts. The only one that I couldn't fit in was for reread a spooky old fave and I couldn't really think of a book for this as I don't really have a favourite horror themed book that I want to reread. Eventually I settled on reading a Nancy Drew book so I'm going to squeeze in The Message in the Haunted Mansion by Carolyn Keene for this prompt.   

Hocus Pocus Readathon

I couldn't not take part in a Hocus Pocus themed readathon could I?! I'm joining Team Sanderson Sisters for this one and this only has a handful of prompts so again I can fit books from my TBR into them. I do have to add extra books for the group book and for a book that features sisters though!

Prompts

Sarah - Read a book that features sisters: A Pinch of Magic by Michelle Harrison
Winifred - Read a book about powerful witches: These Witches Don't Burn by Isobel Sterling
Mary - Read a book about an evil character: My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix     

Sbooktober


And lastly, we have probably the most casual of the readathons as with this one you can double up on prompts and pick and choose how many you want to do. This readathon also has movie nights so you should definitely check it out!
 
Some examples of my books for the prompts would be My Best Friends's Exorcism fitting for Eyeball Soup, Time Warp and Carve Jack O Lanterns. These Witches Don't Burn could fit for I Put A Spell On You and Punch Bowl. Shiver could fit for Couples Costume and Monster Mash. I definitely have plenty to choose from and I like that the prompts are fairly vague so it's easy to mix and match.
 
 
So, those are all the books I'm aiming to read in October along with all the readathons I'm participating in. Congratulations if you made it to the end cause that was a long one! Counting them all up I have a total of 16 books on my TBR this month and I'm now a little nervous! I'm excited for all of these books though so it should be a good month! What are you planning on reading in October? Are you participating in any readathons? Let me know in the comments and Happy Reading! 
 
 

 
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Sunday 27 September 2020

Down The TBR Hole #3

 

Round 3!

The rules   

  1. Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
  2. Order on ascending date added.
  3. Take the first 5 (or 10 (or even more!) if youre feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
  4. Read the synopses of the books
  5. Decide: keep it or should it go?
 

 By The Time You Read This by Lola Jaye

This sounds like a fairly typical adult contemporary but the synopsis isn't really drawing me in and some of the reviews are extremely mixed so I don't I'll ever actually read this book.
 
Verdict: Remove
 

Mistwood by Leah Cypess  

It's a paranormal fantasy but it might have potential? I like the idea of a shapeshifter and it sounds kinda fairytale-esque as well. I might give this a chance in the future.
 
Verdict: Keep
 
 

Loser/Queen by Jodi Lynn Anderson

I have enjoyed Jodi Lynn Anderson's writing in the past and this has the potential to be a good commentary on popularity.
 
Verdict: Keep 

Patch by Mucheru Njaga

I mentioned this about a book last week but this one only has 7 ratings on Goodreads which means I'm probably going to have to track this one down and at the end of the day I'm not bothered enough to go to that much effort.
 
Verdict: Remove
 

Mercy by Rebecca Lim

Angels and demons and the like just aren't to my tastes anymore...
 
Verdict: Remove
 

 Cloaked by Alex Flynn

I've mentioned before that I like fairytales and fairytale retellings so although I haven't read Beastly (his more famous book) this one sounds more intriguing to me. 

Verdict: Keep


The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting

I know I said I'm not keen on paranormal fantasy but this one has a serial killer and a girl who finds bodies so I feel like I have to read it now! 

Verdict: Keep
 

 The Glass Demon by Helen Grant

This one could be interesting but I'm not completely drawn to it. I own another of this authors books so maybe I'll read that first and see how much I enjoy her writing.
 
Verdict: Remove
 

Where The Truth Lies by Jessica Warman

I remember being very interested in this book when I first heard about it but reading the synopsis now I don't really have any strong feelings and to be honest it doesn't like anything particularly original.
 
Verdict: Remove
 

Room by Emma Donoghue

This is a no brainer, I own this book and I'm actually planning on reading it in November so it can definitely stay.
 
Verdict: Keep 

 

This Week:

Kept: 5
Removed: 5 

Overall: 
 
Kept: 15
Removed: 15
 
I'm keeping things pretty equal at the minute which I'm not mad about. We'll see how we get on next week though! Is there any books I removed that you think I should give a second chance? See you next week!  
 
(I apologise if some links for books aren't showing up, my blog editor is acting up for some reason. Trust me, it's frustrating me so much but I don't how to fix it so I've included links in the images as well and hopefully these work.)

 



 

 

 

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Friday 25 September 2020

Mini Book Reviews | The Five, The Art of Taxidermy & Kids Like Us


Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of
these five women.

For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that ‘the Ripper’ preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told. Now, in this devastating narrative of five lives, Rubenhold finally sets the record straight, revealing a world not just of Dickens and Queen Victoria, but of poverty, homelessness and rampant misogyny. They died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time – but their greatest misfortune was to be born a woman.


                                                                       Rating


The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold is a really engrossing non-fiction read. I have a big interest in true crime and of course the case of Jack the Ripper is infamous but I confess I hardly knew anything about the victims. This tends to be the case with widely known murder cases, the media often focuses on the murderer instead of the victims. Serial killers such as Jack the Ripper get all the attention and it's easy to forget that the women he killed were human beings with stories of their own which is why I'm so glad that this author decided to bring attention to them.

The writing style of this book is superb, it's so detailed but also manages to remain readable. It's also well researched with a lot of history of the era weaved into these womens lives in order for the reader to really grasp what life was like back then. I really enjoyed getting to know each of the five canonical victims and learning about their lives. It's also an incredibly sad read at times as you read about how these women came to be out on the streets of Whitechapel at the wrong moment in time. 


 

Lottie collects dead creatures and lovingly cares for them, hoping to preserve them, to save them from disintegration. Her father understands—Lottie has a scientific mind, he thinks. Her aunt wants it to stop, and she goes to cruel lengths to make sure it does.

And her mother? Lottie’s mother died long ago. And Lottie is searching for a way to be close to her.




                   Rating            



I'll admit when I requested The Art of Taxidermy by Sharon Kernet on Netgalley I didn't realise it was a book written in verse. I did fall quite easily into the flow of the writing though and it was an exceptionally quick read. This novel follows Lottie, who at 12 years old is still struggling with her mothers death and develops a scientific interest in taxidermy and the preservation of dead animals.
 
It's a beautifully written book which closely examines how children handle grief and how they often interpret death as a whole. I think it does something that a lot of books about grief aimed towards children don't often do, which is to not sugarcoat anything but also to portray grieving in many different ways at different stages in life. It's quite a morbid topic and it does contain some scenes that describe dead animals quite descriptively, but it does handle it very well and would still be suitable for a middle grade audience.

My only drawbacks were the fact that I couldn't quite work out when this book was supposed to be set. There's a lot of mentions of wars and family member being imprisoned but I still couldn't quite figure out which era they were in. This book was also set in Australia and I was disappointed by the lack of descriptions of the country but maybe that's because it's written in verse rather than a traditional narrative. It also tended to become a tad repetitive and this meant that I was bored at times when reading. 

Martin is an American teen on the autism spectrum living in France with his mom and sister for the summer. He falls for a French girl who he thinks is a real-life incarnation of a character in his favorite book. Over time Martin comes to realize she is a real person and not a character in a novel while at the same time learning that love is not out of his reach just because he is autistic.            





Rating


I think Kids Like Us by Hilary Reyl was one of the first books I ever requested on Netgalley back in 2017 but I obviously never got round to reading it. I've mentioned before how I'm trying to get my ratio back up before I start requesting again and I knew this needed to be read. I'm still in two minds about how I feel about this book as there was nothing particularly wrong with it but I still wasn't invested or wowed by it. 

This book follows Martin, an austistic teenager, as he spends the summer in France with his family. He translates the world around him through his favourite book, Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and consequently believes a girl at his new school is the love interest from the book. I obviously can't speak personally about how well the autism rep in this book is done. However, my younger brother is on the autism spectrum and I could recognise certain behaviour and language in Martin's character so I would say I was able to make connections between his character and my brother. 
 
Whilst the writing was good, the events that occur in this book are pretty slow moving. It is essentially a story about Martin's outlook on life and how he handles his austism, making new friends and other situations. I will say it had a unique approach and I quite enjoyed Martin's perspective on everything. I'll also mention that the mother in this story can be quite anti-autism at times as well, it's not a problem that's addressed very well either, it's just sort of there.    
 
  
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Wednesday 23 September 2020

WWW Wednesday | 23/09/2020

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words that highlights three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?



Wh
at did you recently finish reading?

The most recent book I finished was Man is Wolf to Man by Janusz Bardach which was lent to me by my dad. This book is definitely not for the faint of heart as there's some horrific scenes described as Janusz details his time imprisoned in a labour camp in Siberia. I found this book incredibly heartbreaking and emotional but of course it was a testament to the strength and courage it took to live through something as appalling as that.


What are you currently reading?



I'm currently reading An Abundance of Katherines by John Green and honestly I'm not completely hating it. I'm about halfway through and although there are some references and things that are a bit questionable, I'm still liking the way the story is told. It may be because I'm a sucker for footnotes but who knows?  



I'm also just over halfway through Kids Like Us by Hilary Reyl and this one I'm a bit more unsure about. It's still not really captivated me and it's starting to feel a little boring but I'm going to finish because I requested this on netgalley back in 2017 and I'm only just now reading it...

What do you think you'll read next?



I've almost completed my September TBR, I only have one book left and that's Rebecca by Daphne De Maurier. I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy this and I'm just really in the mood for something gothic at the moment.
 
The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.

Have you read any of these? What were your thoughts? What are you currently reading and hoping to pick up next? Leave a comment or link your own WWW Wednesdays below for me to check out!
 
  

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Tuesday 22 September 2020

Top Ten Tuesday | Books On My Fall 2020 TBR

  

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature that highlights ten books that all relate to a certain topic and is  hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. 

This Weeks Topic Is...

Books On My Fall TBR. When I think of books I want to read during the autumn season I always gravitate towards atmospheric, darker books because I feel that it's the perfect time to read them as the days get colder and darker. I do like to match my books to the season so these are a couple of books that I hope to get to in the next few months.
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Sunday 20 September 2020

Down The TBR Hole #2


Back for round two! Fingers crossed I can cross a few more book off my TBR this week...

The rules   

  1. Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
  2. Order on ascending date added.
  3. Take the first 5 (or 10 (or even more!) if youre feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
  4. Read the synopses of the books
  5. Decide: keep it or should it go?
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Friday 18 September 2020

Book Tag | How I Choose My Books

  

I didn't have a book review to post for later in the week so I did what I usually do and went in search of a book tag as a substitute! I'm not quite sure who created this tag so comment if you know who it was so I can link them!


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Wednesday 16 September 2020

WWW Wednesday | 16/09/2020


WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words that highlights three questions:

What are you currently reading?
What did you recently finish reading?
What do you think you’ll read next?

What did you recently finish reading?

My most recently finished book was The Art of Taxidermy by Sharon Kernot. This was a novel written in verse that looks at grief and death through the eyes of 13 year old Lottie as she comes to terms with the death of her mother. Verse novels aren't usually what I reach for but I thought this was beautifully written and a great portrayal of handling the death of a loved one. I didn't really connect with the main character though and I found it quite repetitive as well.

What are you currently reading?

I've had a couple of slow days recently so I've only just picked up Man is Wolf to Man by Janusz Bardach which is my main non-fiction read for the month. This book is a memoir about Janusz and his experiences of being imprisoned in the harshest labour camp during the Nazi occupation of Poland. I'm only 26 pages in but this book is already breaking my heart but it's also incredibly enthralling so far.

 
Yes, I'm still listening to Tris's Book by Tamora Pierce! I only have four chapters left to listen to though so I will finish it within the next day or two!

What do you think you'll read next?

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green is next on my TBR.  I don't really have any strong feelings about this one to be honest, I've heard it's one of John Green's weaker books. I've owned it for a while now though and it is super short so I'm hoping I'll be able to speed through it.

Katherine V thought boys were gross
Katherine X just wanted to be friends
Katherine XVIII dumped him in an e-mail
K-19 broke his heart

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact.

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun--but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.

Have you read any of these? What were your thoughts? What are you currently reading and hoping to pick up next? Leave a comment or link your own WWW Wednesdays below for me to check out!
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Tuesday 15 September 2020

Top Ten Tuesday | Favourite Middle Grade Covers of 2020

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature that highlights ten books that all relate to a certain topic and is  hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

This Weeks Topic Is... 

A Cover Freebie! There are so many beautiful book covers out there and I know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover and all that but I'd be lying if I didn't say that covers are sometimes a massive part of why I'm drawn to a book. Now, I haven't read a whole lot of middle grade but they always have such amazing illustrated covers and I love how they perfectly reflect the contents of the book. So today i'm going to highlight some of my favourite middle grade covers of the year.
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