#5OnMyTBR | Non-Fiction

This meme was created by E. @ Local Bee Hunter's Nook and you can find the announcement post here. Also, side note, these aren't necessarily books that I own physically but they're all on my Goodreads TBR and they'll mostly be the five most recently added.  

This Week's Prompt is...

Non-Fiction. I do actually really like reading non-fiction, I've always liked learning new things and researching about obscure topics. I also try and read at least one non-fiction book a month which so far is going pretty well! I tried to choose five books off my tbr that look at different subjects so without further ado...

Down The TBR Hole #11

 

Current TBR shelf: 3950

Last week's TBR shelf: 3953

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 you’re 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?

Book Review | Horrid by Katrina Leno

Title: Horrid 
Author: Katrina Leno • Author's Site 
Publication Date: 15th September 2020 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Format: Owned Physical Copy
Target Audience: Young Adult
Genre: Horror  

Goodreads • Waterstones • Blackwells

 

Trigger and Content Warnings: pica (mostly xylophagia/paper, but mention of hair and flowers, too), loss of a parent/sibling/child, scenes with blood, panic attacks

 

 

Following her father's death, Jane North-Robinson and her mom move from sunny California to the dreary, dilapidated old house in Maine where her mother grew up. All they want is a fresh start, but behind North Manor's doors lurks a history that leaves them feeling more alone...and more tormented.

As the cold New England autumn arrives, and Jane settles in to her new home, she finds solace in old books and memories of her dad. She steadily begins making new friends, but also faces bullying from the resident "bad seed," struggling to tamp down her own worst nature in response. Jane's mom also seems to be spiraling with the return of her childhood home, but she won't reveal why. Then Jane discovers that the "storage room" her mom has kept locked isn't for storage at all--it's a little girl's bedroom, left untouched for years and not quite as empty of inhabitants as it appears....

Is it grief? Mental illness? Or something more...horrid?

 

Rating

WWW Wednesday | 18/11/2020

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 The Surface Breaks by Louise O'Neill on Saturday and had some pretty mixed feelings about it. At the beginning and for most of the book, I was a little bit bored because I didn't particularly like the main character. Gaia was just very naive and obsessive and I struggled with her personality. I did like the changes that O'Neill made when steering away from the original story of the Little Mermaid, the ending really picked things up and I liked the feminist twist on a classic fairytale. 

 

What are you currently reading?

I've finally started Shadowsea (The Cogheart Adventures #4) by Peter Bunzl after I said I would at the beginning of the month. I managed to slot it in for my final prompt for the 1000 Doors Readathon; to read a book that remind you of American Horror Story. This doesn't remind me of it necessarily but it is set in a hotel and AHS has a series revolving around a hotel so we're going with my loose link! I'm about 80 pages and I'm really enjoying being reunited with these characters and I'm excited to see where this new mystery leads.   

I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai is my current physical read and my non-fiction book for the month. I haven't really felt in the mood to read for the past couple of days mainly because I've been feeling unwell and I've had a headache that keeps coming and going so I'm still only 21 pages into this one. I do like Malala's voice already though and it'll be interesting to hear about her life story. 

 

Briar's Book (Circle of Magic #4) by Tamora Pierce is what I'm currently listening to on audio although again I haven't made much progress and I've only listened to the first chapter. I'm excited to finish this series off though and Briar has been my favourite character from the previous stories so I'm sure I'll enjoy this one too.

 

What do you think you'll read next?

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden will be my next physical read and I can't wait to read it. I'm taking part in a readalong for this series hosted by megwithbooks and I've heard nothing but good things about this series. I'm ready to get to stuck into some Russian folklore and wintery fantasy vibes. 

 

At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn't mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse's fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After Vasilisa's mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa's new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse's most frightening tales. 

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 | Fictional Characters I'd Name A Pet After

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...

Characters I'd Name A Pet After. I've always liked the idea of naming a pet after a character from a book or film purely because I'd rather give them an unusual name rather then something very generic. I've never actually named a pet myself though as the majority of our family pets have been rescues who already had names. If I do eventually get some pets when I'm older, these are the names I'd keep in mind. 

#5OnMyTBR | Black Covers

This meme was created by E. @ Local Bee Hunter's Nook and you can find the announcement post here. Also, side note, these aren't necessarily books that I own physically but they're all on my Goodreads TBR and they'll mostly be the five most recently added.  

This Week's Prompt is...

Black Covers. I thought this prompt would be super easy but actually I struggled to find books that were predominantly black and most of the ones I ended up choosing still have a slight splash of colour. 

The Ravens by Kass Morgan and Danielle Page 

Kappa Rho Nu isn’t your average sorority. Their parties are notorious. Their fundraisers are known for being Westerly College’s most elaborate affairs. But beneath the veil of Greek life and prestige, the sisters of Kappu Rho Nu share a secret: they’re a coven of witches. For Vivi Deveraux, being one of Kappa Rho Nu’s Ravens means getting a chance to redefine herself. For Scarlett Winters, a bonafide Raven and daughter of a legacy Raven, pledge this year means living up to her mother’s impossible expectations of becoming Kappa Rho Nu’s next president. Scarlett knows she’d be the perfect candidate — that is, if she didn’t have one human-sized skeleton in her closet…. When Vivi and Scarlett are paired as big and little for initiation, they find themselves sinking into the sinister world of blood oaths and betrayals.

A sorority of witches? Yes, please.  

The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher

When Mouse’s dad asks her to clean out her dead grandmother's house, she says yes. After all, how bad could it be?

Answer: pretty bad. Grandma was a hoarder, and her house is stuffed with useless rubbish. That would be horrific enough, but there’s more—Mouse stumbles across her step-grandfather’s journal, which at first seems to be filled with nonsensical rants…until Mouse encounters some of the terrifying things he described for herself.

Alone in the woods with her dog, Mouse finds herself face to face with a series of impossible terrors—because sometimes the things that go bump in the night are real, and they’re looking for you. And if she doesn’t face them head on, she might not survive to tell the tale.

Getting lost in the woods is a specific fear of mine so I can see myself getting especially creeped out by this book!

Meme by Aaron Starmer

No one is going to miss Cole Weston. A loner without friends or family and an unhealthy obsession with the darker corners of the internet, Cole had become increasingly violent toward his ex-girlfriend, and threated to do so much worse. So it was only logical–only right, really–that his former friends took it upon themselves to rid the world of Cole Weston.

Now, Logan, Meeka, Holly, and Grayson are forever bound by Cole’s body, buried under the cold Vermont earth. The failsafe should any one of them consider betrayal: their old phones, buried with Cole, disconnected from service, and each wiped clean except for one file–their video confession.

As expected, no one misses Cole. Or even realizes he’s gone. But a few days later, the meme appears. It’s a stupid meme, old school and not even funny. But every terrible joke has one thing in common, the same photo–a screenshot from the confession video still entombed six feet under with Cole.

This is recommended for fans of One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus and whilst I didn't love that book, I do enjoy plots that follow that same vein. I have a feeling this is a book I'm either going to really like or really dislike!

 

Some Kind of Animal by Maria Romasco Moore    

Jo lives in the same Appalachian town where her mother disappeared fifteen years ago. Everyone knows what happened to Jo's mom. She was wild, and bad things happen to girls like that.

Now people are starting to talk about Jo. She's barely passing her classes and falls asleep at her desk every day. She's following in her mom's footsteps.

Jo does have a secret. It's not what people think, though. Not a boy or a drug habit. Jo has a twin sister.

Jo's sister is not like most people. She lives in the woods--catches rabbits with her bare hands and eats them raw. Night after night, Jo slips out of her bedroom window and meets her sister in the trees. And together they run, fearlessly.

The thing is, no one's ever seen Jo's sister. So when her twin attacks a boy from town, everyone assumes that it was Jo. Which means Jo has to decide--does she tell the world about her sister, or does she run?

It's gotten some mixed reviews but it sounds weird and creepy enough that I want to check it out for myself.

 

The Year of the Witching by Alexis Henderson

In the lands of Bethel, where the Prophet’s word is law, Immanuelle Moore’s very existence is blasphemy. Her mother’s union with an outsider of a different race cast her once-proud family into disgrace, so Immanuelle does her best to worship the Father, follow Holy Protocol, and lead a life of submission, devotion, and absolute conformity, like all the other women in the settlement.

But a mishap lures her into the forbidden Darkwood surrounding Bethel, where the first prophet once chased and killed four powerful witches. Their spirits are still lurking there, and they bestow a gift on Immanuelle: the journal of her dead mother, who Immanuelle is shocked to learn once sought sanctuary in the wood.

Fascinated by the secrets in the diary, Immanuelle finds herself struggling to understand how her mother could have consorted with the witches. But when she begins to learn grim truths about the Church and its history, she realizes the true threat to Bethel is its own darkness. And she starts to understand that if Bethel is to change, it must begin with her. 

 I love witchy books and this sounds dark and atmospheric and probably one I'm going to enjoy a lot.

 

Which books with black covers are on your TBR? If you've already read some of these, let me know what you thought! Leave a comment with your own #5OnMyTBR posts for me to check out! Happy Reading!

Down The TBR Hole #10

Current TBR shelf: 3953

Last week's TBR shelf: 3959

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 you’re 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?

Book Review | My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix

Title: My Best Friend's Exorcism 
Author: Grady Hendrix • Author's Site 
Publication Date: 17th May 2016 by Quirk Books
Format: Owned Physical Copy
Target Audience: Young  Adult
Genre: Horror  

Goodreads • Waterstones • Blackwells

 

Trigger Warnings: Attempted suicide, child abuse (physical, on page), references to sexual assault, drug use.  

 

 

The year is 1988. High school sophomores Abby and Gretchen have been best friends since fourth grade. But after an evening of skinny-dipping goes disastrously wrong, Gretchen begins to act...different. She's moody. She's irritable. And bizarre incidents keep happening whenever she's nearby. Abby's investigation leads her to some startling discoveries--and by the time their story reaches its terrifying conclusion, the fate of Abby and Gretchen will be determined by a single question: Is their friendship powerful enough to beat the devil?

 

 Rating

My Thoughts

 

“By the power of Phil Collins, I rebuke you!” 

This was my most anticipated read of October and boy, did it not disappoint. As soon as I saw people talking about this book in, I think it was late 2018/early 2019, I knew I had to get my hands on it purely because I am completely infatuated with everything 80's. Plus, look at that cover! Look how amazing it is, I love the design so much!

 

This is a YA horror/paranormal book that is set in the late 80's and follows two childhood best friends, Abby and Gretchen. After they try acid for the first time, that's when things start to get weird. Abby notices changes in Gretchen's behaviour that can only be explained by one thing; Gretchen has been possessed by the devil. Abby makes it her mission to drive this demon from her friend at any cost.

 

I'll admit it took me a while to get into the writing and the plot but after a couple of chapters I was completely sucked in. The events that happen in this book are so wacky and completely ridiculous so I can understand why it won't be to everyone's taste but it's exactly the kind of weird that I like. 

 

The friendship between Abby and Gretchen is the main focal point and it's truly a great friendship. I loved that we got to see their relationship develop from kids to teenagers. It was incredibly relatable, they bond over obscure interests (E.T., Phil Collins and shit parents!) and you truly felt the depth of their bond. I never once doubted their friendship or thought they wouldn't go to the ends of the earth for each other.

 

It's jam packed with 80's references as you'd expect and I was living for it! I wasn't even born until 1996 but something about the 80's is just so appealing to me. The colours and the music and the films, it's just everything that I love. The chapter titles were 80's songs, roller skating was still a massive deal and big, big hair was in! The dialogue and atmosphere, it all felt genuine to the decade. Hendrix also did a great job of portraying the teenage angst of high school, the obsession of wanting to fit in and the petty bitchiness that emerges in friendship groups.         

 

I don't want to talk too much about the horror side because, spoilers, but I will say it's executed and paced really well. It's mixed in with the other adolescent drama and neither side felt overpowering. The conclusion worked so well and it was a rare book that I loved the ending of.           

 

This is just such a fun book, it's humerous and relatable and kinda gross at times. I'm already itching to pick up another of Grady Hendrix's books so I'll just leave you with this little message...