Books & Babble | UK Book Blog

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!

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!

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.

Book Review | 100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons

Title: 100 Days of Sunlight
Author: Abbie Emmons
Publication Date: 7th August 2019
Format: Ebook via Netgalley
Target Audience: Young Adult
Genre: Contemporary

Goo dreads | Amazon.co.uk | Waterstones

Synopsis

When 16-year-old poetry blogger Tessa Dickinson is involved in a car accident and loses her eyesight for 100 days, she feels like her whole world has been turned upside-down.

Terrified that her vision might never return, Tessa feels like she has nothing left to be happy about. But when her grandparents place an ad in the local newspaper looking for a typist to help Tessa continue writing and blogging, an unlikely answer knocks at their door: Weston Ludovico, a boy her age with bright eyes, an optimistic smile…and no legs.

Knowing how angry and afraid Tessa is feeling, Weston thinks he can help her. But he has one condition — no one can tell Tessa about his disability. And because she can’t see him, she treats him with contempt: screaming at him to get out of her house and never come back. But for Weston, it’s the most amazing feeling: to be treated like a normal person, not just a sob story. So he comes back. Again and again and again.

Tessa spurns Weston’s “obnoxious optimism”, convinced that he has no idea what she’s going through. But Weston knows exactly how she feels and reaches into her darkness to show her that there is more than one way to experience the world. As Tessa grows closer to Weston, she finds it harder and harder to imagine life without him — and Weston can’t imagine life without her. But he still hasn’t told her the truth, and when Tessa’s sight returns he’ll have to make the hardest decision of his life: vanish from Tessa’s world…or overcome his fear of being seen.

Rating

Down the TBR Hole #1

Welcome to a new weekly meme! I've been reading plenty of these type of posts on blogs for a while now and it struck me the other day when I was looking on Goodreads that I have a ridiculous amount of books on my TBR shelf. Ever since I joined Goodreads in 2009 I've just been constantly adding any books that sound even mildly interesting to me and now I have 3915 books on there *hides*. Nobody needs that amount of books on their TBR shelf so i'm gonna do a little bit of spring cleaning (or fall cleaning...) and get rid of the books that, let's face it, i'm not gonna get around to reading anytime soon.

The rules

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

Book Review | No Exit by Taylor Adams

Title: No Exit
Author: Taylor Adams
Publication Date: 17th June 2017 by Joffe Books
Format: Ebook via Kindle Unlimited
Target Audience: Adult
Genre: Thriller
Goodreads | Amazon.co.uk | Barnes & Noble (US)

Synopsis

On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.

Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.

Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?

There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?

Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.

But who can she trust?

Trigger and content warnings: Child abuse, graphic violence, torture, on page death, references to sex trafficking and pedophilia.

Rating

My Thoughts

"The difference between a hero and a victim? Timing."

Taylor Adams has created a really intense, action packed thriller. I'm actually quite picky when it comes to my thrillers, I nearly always find something that lessens my rating. And whilst this book wasn't perfect it's still one of my favourite thrillers that i've read in recent years because of how intrigued I was by how the plot played out.

This book follows Darby, a college student on her way home for christmas and racing back to see her dying mother. The story kicks off as she's stranded at a rest stop in the middle of a snowstorm with four complete strangers and whilst in the parking lot she discovers a kidnapped child in the back of a van. She has to survive for the next nine hours with no outside help, not only is she trying to help the child escape but she has to ensure she stays one step ahead of the kidnapper at all times.

The synopsis of this book is what drew me in. I love books that take place in isolated settings and books that take place over the course of 24 hours or less and these two factors really helped to create that tense atmosphere and raise the stakes to a 100. The intensity builds and builds the further on you read and I could feel myself getting more and more anxious which is probably why I raced through the last third of this book. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep unless I knew how these events would culminate. The story unfolded perfectly for me, Adams gets the pacing just right. Every reveal is carefully planned out but the building suspense keeps you flicking the page until you've practically read the entire book.

The twists and turns are executed really well, some I was able to predict but then there were others that I didn't see coming at all. There were times where I had to stop reading just to pause and say Holy Shit! There was a reveal towards the end (I won't spoil!) that whilst it made sense in terms of plot and everything I couldn't help feel that it was too conveniant and I just wanted a little more explanation behind it.

The characters are all really well written. I connected with Darby almost immediately, she's a reluctant leader of the ragtag group but she has so much fight and grit within her that I was rooting for her every step of the way. 'A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?'. Personally I have no idea how I would approach this situation but Darby doesn't even hesitate to do what she knows is right and fights to the bitter end to protect that child. The secondary characters are all well thought out and all play a significant role in this game of cat and mouse although some did become a little cliche occasionally.

"Don't fear the pros. The pros know what they're doing, and do it cleanly. Fear the amateurs."

I think what bumped this down to a four stars is probably the logic behind some of the actions the characters take. Without revealing any major spoilers, there were times when Darby left important objects in places she definitely shoudn't have when in the middle of a kidnap plot. It's easy to say that she got distracted by everything going on but I just felt that she would have been on high alert and wouldn't have made such silly mistakes especially when a kid's life is on the line. There's also a small subplot involving the kidnapped girl that I just felt didn't make sense at all and was merely there to add extra drama to the whole thing and increase the stakes. They're only minor things but it did mean I took off a star from my rating as it did lessen my enjoyment ever so slightly.

Overall, this is an author I definitely want to read more from in the future. This was such a quick read and I did really enjoy my time reading it. It's a clever premise with great execution and plot twists that you won't see coming. I will say that if you're not a fan of really gory scenes then maybe take some caution going into this one as some parts did tend to get a bit gruesome!