Book Review- I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

Title:   I’ll Give You the Sun by

Author:  Jandy Nelson

Series:   N/A

Published:   2 April 2015 by Walker

Length:  416 pages

Source: library

Other info:  Nelson has also written The Sky is Everywhere

Summary : Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

Review: Jude and Noah are close twins, both aiming to get into art school, both falling in love. Then their mum dies, and the bond breaks.

From everyone else's reviews, I was hoping I'd liked this. The first chapter starts well, introducing us to a thirteen year old artist who frequently envisions paintings in his head. We learn of his aim to get into art school, an aim shared by his twin sister. The second chapter is narrated by said twin, age 16, frustrated with her art projects, and frequently referring to the advice her grandmother gave her. From then, I don't really know.

It's hard to get in to. Literary-wise, I appreciate the character consistency of painting titles and advice. Reader-wise, I found it annoying. It also took me time to work out  the  thing with Grandma and ghosts. Was it supernatural? Was it Jude's personal beliefs? I knew nothing about this book before I started beyond the near universal love from bloggers. It was quite confusing.

I didn't connect properly to the characters. This  then had a knock on effect on my overall experience of the book.

I didn't mind reading about all the interactions between Jude, Guillermo, and Oscar, and Noah and Brian. But I just didn't really care. Also, if you asked me to describe chronologically what happened, I would be totally unable to do so.

To be honest, I only had three reasons to keep reading this. One: because so many people enjoyed it, and I felt I needed to persevere. Two: I really wanted to know why Noah hadn't made it into the art school, when from the (admittedly biased because it's narrated by him) first chapter. Three (when we found out why): It was so far in to the book I may as well finish it.

Overall:  Strength two tea to a book I was hoping to enjoy, but sadly couldn't.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website |

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Book Review- We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

Title: We Were Liars

 Author: E. Lockhart

Series: N/A  

Published:   13 May 2014 by Hot Key Books

Length: 240 pages

Source: library

Summary : A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

Review: Cady is one of the Liars, the younger end of a family that meets every summer to spend the holiday at the summer home. At some point, she loses her memories.  Two years later, she wants to find out what happened.

I was really looking forwards to this and everyone really enjoyed it and watching somep ople's reactions during the liveread made me think it was going to be amazing. Sadly for me it wasn't.

I think I missed something at the start but I really don't get why everyone loves this. It's slow. The writing, while stripped back in places, seems boring too. The story doesn't seem to go very fast, and the forbidden love aspect is not my favourite as a trope anyway and this book didn't change my mind on it.

I didn't connect or like any of the characters. They seemed too detached from me and I didn't really care what happened to them. Cady is a bit whiny and the rich WASP background comes through and she comes off as pretentious in places, something I'd had enough of with Leo from The Go Between which I read at the same time.

I really enjoyed Gat's comments on race and racism, being Indian and surrounded by white people. The repeated retellings of fairy tales were also really good.

I also think that the style, full of metaphors and winding around, is the kind of thing that could be praised in a literary sense. It just wasn't my kind of thing.

The ending is good, I suppose. It didn't seem like a huge thing to me though, and when it was revealed, I just shrugged and read on. I think it's because I disconnected with the whole story so I didn't really care.

Overall:   Strength 2 tea to a book I didn’t get into at the start which meant I didn’t enjoy the whole thing.

Links: Amazon| Goodreads| Author website | 

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Book Review- Run by Gregg Olsen

Title: Run

 Author: Gregg Olsen

Series:  Vengeance #1

Published: May 2014

Length: 256 pages

Warnings: off-stage past rape and killings

Source: publishers

Summary : What if you discovered that everything you thought you knew about yourself was a lie?

Rylee is fifteen. She comes home from school one afternoon to find the most shocking thing possible - her father dead, with a knife through his heart, and a key clutched in his hand. Her mother's purse is on the counter, but she appears to be long gone. A message in blood is written on the floor... RUN.

With her brother in tow, Rylee begins a dark journey, one that will uncover horrific and chilling crimes and lead her to an unexpected and gruesome discovery about her real father and what - or who - is behind his insatiable desire to kill. By the journey's end Rylee's childhood is a long way behind her...

RUN is the first title in the new Vengeance series, following Rylee as she begins to piece together the story of her life and to avenge unpunished crimes - starting with her own. This is DEXTER with a feisty female protagonist unlike any other in contemporary young adult fiction.

Review: Rylee, having come home from school to find her father dead, her mother missing, and message that just says “RUN”, gets her brother and runs.

I was excited to read this because I’ve read bits of Olsen's Envy, and liked it, and the trailer that HKB made was quite good (music win).

It starts off very quickly, the set up from the summary happening in the first chapter, and the running happening in the second. This pace is kept up throughout, which was good, and I read this in one sitting.

The mystery as to what happened is quickly partially  revealed in favour of a thriller story, which I didn't mind. I liked the fact that we get to meet lots of characters as Rylee tries to discover how things happened to others that fits into her current situation (not very well worded in comparison to the book, but I can't explain it better without spoilers), who each brought clues to the table. The way it developed was good, but the twist at the end was predictable.

The  main reason I didn't enjoy this was Rylee. I don't know why I disliked her so much, but I just didn't care for her or her story or the way it turned out. Maybe it was her narration; there's some interjections and thoughts which are kind of obvious. Maybe it was her, she seems a little too conveniently prepared to know what to do, and I didn't think she developed. It was probably the romance; there's a short flashback and a facebook conversation with a guy in the middle of the book (and why are you even worrying about facebook when all this is happening?) and the ending just comes out of nowhere and the book could have easily done without it because it just seems like an afterthought that wasn’t properly explored.

Overall:  Strength 2 tea to a turny fast thriller, that I didn’t get into as much as I’d hoped.

Links: Amazon| Goodreads | Author website |

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Book Review- Love Letters to the Dead

Title: Love Letters to the Dead

 Author: Ava Dellaira

Series:  N/A

Published:  1 May 2014 by Hot Key Books

Length: 327 pages

Source: publisher

Other info: This is Ava’s debut

Summary : It begins as an assignment for English class: write a letter to a dead person - any dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain - he died young, and so did Laurel's sister May - so maybe he'll understand a bit of what Laurel is going through. Soon Laurel is writing letters to lots of dead people - Janis Joplin, Heath Ledger, River Phoenix, Amelia Earhart... it's like she can't stop. And she'd certainly never dream of handing them in to her teacher. She writes about what it's like going to a new high school, meeting new friends, falling in love for the first time - and how her family has shattered since May died.

But much as Laurel might find writing the letters cathartic, she can't keep real life out forever. The ghosts of her past won't be contained between the lines of a page, and she will have to come to terms with growing up, the agony of losing a beloved sister, and the realisation that only you can shape your destiny. 

Review: Laurel's sister died. Laurel is told to write letters to someone dead as an assignment. Laurel writes to Kurt Cobain. And then  to Elisabeth Bishop. And then to Amelia Earhart. And then to lots of other dead people as she tells the stories of ger life and those of others around her.

I was expecting this to be good because I'd heard lots of people say how brilliant it was.

This is very similar to Perks of Being a Wallflower, which kind of make sense considering Chbosky is "a dear friend and mentor" of Dellaira. And considering Perks broke me with its beauty and feelings, I should have enjoyed this.

sadly,  I didn't. It's repetitive. Laurel goes on a lot about what X dead person is doing or what their family is doing or what a situation would be like if that person was involved. it's ok to start, boring by the end.

The writing style goes from really simple like the part where she describes getting dressed and eating lunch at high school, and random words and metaphors and things to describe something that is being made to seem much more important than it actually is.

The Perks similarities. Oh my gosh they were endless. Coming of age angst? Check.  Epistolary form? Check. Queer friends in hiding? Check. Even the thing with Billy, which  while I understand it's important to not gloss over these things, didn't work for me because I just wanted to scream "this is a female led attempted copy of Perks and it isn't working at all."

Why didn't it work? For one, it's hard to imagine it happening in these modern times, at least since Amy Winehouse died, and there's something about the tone that puts it in a weird time setting. Then there's the fact that the plot didn't hold my interest.

The romance was of the "he's cool and doesn't talk but he will to me" variety, and ugh no. I didn't feel like anyone really developed. I just didn't care for the characters and felt no emotions for any events at all.

Overall:  Strength 2 tea to a book that had everything I should have loved, but just didn’t work for me.

Links: Amazon| Goodreads| Author website |

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Mini-reviews- Tainted by A E Rought and Blood Magic by Tessa Gratton

Title: Tainted

Author:  A E Rought

Series:  Broken #2

Published:  October 2013 by Strange Chemistry

Source: Netgalley

Review: Post events of Broken, Alex and Emma should be able to get back to their normal lives. These plans gets scrapped when Hailey Westmore turns up—Alex’s ex-girlfriend who we are quickly introduced to as a “manipulative, spoiled witch”. People start dying and it’s clear there’s more secrets that may come out.

This book is told from Alex’s POV as opposed to Emma’s which was a nice change because it helps  you understand the Alex from Broken a little more too. It also means the narrator knows things that everyone else doesn’t, a feature I like sometimes in mysteries.

The beginning was good. Something big happens in a car which really changes the dynamics, which I liked, and the way that scene was written kept me gripped. Later, it wasn’t quite as good-it’s quite predictable and the villain, while being beautifully crazy, isn’t very deep at all.

It’s very over the top with use of tropes and lots of romantic lines that you’ve heard before. There’s a lot of focus on the romance, which I found less interesting than all the action going on. Alex also goes a bit broody and annoying at times.  I liked Emma just as much as in Broken.

There’s still bits of Frankenstein in here, but there’s bits of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde in here too.

I liked the fact that the deers were still a thing. 

Overall:  Strength 3 tea to a book where we saw different parts of other characters.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website | 

Title: Blood Magic

 Author: Tessa Gratton

Series:  Blood Journals #1

Published:  26 April 2012 by Corgi

Warnings: cutting (for magic, but still cutting), lots of gore

Source: borrowed from friend

Review:  Ever since her parents were murdered, Silla’s been mentally scarred. Nick’s the new boy in town with past experiences of magic. When he finds Silla experimenting with magic, they form a bond, and romance happens. And then there’s a journal kept by Josephine, a girl from years past whose experience with blood magic will highly shape theirs.

From the start, you’re pulled in. The magic and intrigue starts pretty quickly, and promises to build.

The story is narrated by Nick and Silla in alternating turns. They’re two very contrasting characters that work together well. The writing is intricate, gothic and a bit longwinded in places.

I must admit, I didn’t read all of this. The copy of  Blood Magic that I got had journal entries in copperplate, which I looked at and thought “Eyes broken enough anyway. Not even going to try decoding that.” *bases view of plot on characters’ reactions to this*

The magic system is good. Due to it all requiring blood, this book isn’t for the faint hearted!

I didn’t really get into this for reasons unknown. I got characters mixed up a bit every now and again, it took a while for Josephine’s relevance to become clear, but the main thing is that it didn’t have that spark of awesome for me.

Overall:  Strength 2 tea to an atmospheric magic story that I didn’t get into.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads | Author website | 

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Book review-Ink by Amanda Sun

Title: Ink

 Author:  Amanda Sun

Series:  The Paper Gods #1

Published:  21 June 2013 by Mira

Length: 356 pages

Warnings: one scene which could be read as attempted rape

Source: ARC from publisher

Other info: There is an ebook novella prequel, called Shadow. Rain is the sequel coming in June.

Summary : Ink is in their blood. On the heels of a family tragedy, Katie Greene must move halfway across the world. Stuck with her aunt in Shizuoka, Japan, Katie feels lost. Alone. She doesn't know the language, she can barely hold a pair of chopsticks and she can't seem to get the hang of taking her shoes off whenever she enters a building. When Katie meets aloof but gorgeous Tomohiro, the star of the school's kendo team, she is intrigued by him…and a little scared. His tough attitude seems meant to keep her at a distance, and when they're near each other, strange things happen. Pens explode. Ink drips from nowhere. And unless Katie is seeing things, drawings come to life.
Somehow Tomo is connected to the kami, powerful ancient beings who once ruled Japan—and as feelings develop between Katie and Tomo, things begin to spiral out of control. The wrong people are starting to ask questions, and if they discover the truth, no one will be safe.

Review:  Katie Greene is forced to move to Japan to live with her aunt. There, she meets Tomohiro, a boy whose drawings come to life. with runins with the Yazuka and working around attraction to Tomohiro, Katie learns about his connections to the Kami, Japanese gods of old.

I had a period of really really loving Japan. I’m not totally obsessed any more, but I still like it. When I heard about this series, I was just “aww hell yes. Must read. Excited.”

Katie is still finding her feet in Japan. You get bits of Japanese and snippets of random culture, some of which I recognise from things written by Japanese people, so I’m assuming that the other things were all correct to. It was certainly fully built and different to the Western school settings.

The random Japanese phrases are nice to start with, but they get annoying quickly, because even though it comes with Katie’s translations (mainly), they interrupt the flow with their frequency and make you feel like you need to have a working knowledge of Japanese to understand this book in the way it flows. Oh, and the constant “ne”s got on my nerves. Because they indicate a question. And then are followed by a question mark. And at one point there was an explanation of this when you could infer what they meant. Unnecessary in written stories.

Characters, I liked Katie to start with because I relate to her difficulty at fitting in. However, once we met her and she got a few friends, she got a a bit boring and didn’t move on. Tomohiro, I didn’t care for at all. He moodswings a lot and is mysterious in a boring way. And then he’s really really creepy.   There’s a sweet guy whose name I forgot. I liked him. Minor characters were mainly forgotten when Tomohiro shows up.

 I loved the inclusion of the Kami, using mythology other than Classical Greek/Roman. Don’t get me wrong, I love Classical Greek and Roman, but it’s used so much, and the use of Japanese mythology was wonderful. The originalness and the description of the creatures added awesomeness to the book.

It’s very stereotypical YA paranormal romance, if you ignore the fact that it’s set in Japan and has Japanese gods. Badboy who wants you to stay away? Check. Instalove? Check. See him once, can’t get him out of your head? Check. I could go on, but I won’t.

Unrelated to the writing, the illustrations are gorgeous. 

  Overall:  Strength 2 tea to a book with a wonderful different mythology, but lots of drawbacks.

Links: Amazon| Goodreads| Author website |

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Book Review-Last God Standing by Michael Boatman

Title: Last God Standing

 Author: Michael Boatman

Series: First in series.  

Published:  April 3 2014 by Angry Robot

Length: 400 pages

Source Publishers:

Other info: Book 2, Who Wants to be the Prince of Darkness comes Spring 2015

Summary : When God decides to quit and join the human race to see what all the fuss is about, all Hell breaks loose.Sensing his abdication, the other defunct gods of Earth’s vanquished pantheons want a piece of the action He abandoned.Meanwhile, the newly-humanised deity must discover the whereabouts and intentions of the similarly reincarnated Lucifer, and block the ascension of a murderous new God.How is he ever going to make it as a stand-up comedian with all of this going on…?

Review:  Yahweh, aka the Abrahamic god, has decided he's had enough of being God.  Therefore, he quits, joins the Human Race and tries to live life as a stand-up comic. However, with gods of old pantheons trying to take his place, and a now-human Lucifer to deal with, this isn't going to be easy.

I was really looking forwards to this. Multiple pantheons, all the myths, all wrapped up with a big dose of comedy? Right up my street.

It starts off well. The dramatis personae sets up an interesting c premise, featuring my favourite gods from various mythologies, plus a few more I was less familiar with.

Lando has a good voice. I liked him and his comedy could be good if it wasn't wrapped up in a whole load of other stuff. I also liked Yuri, Lando's family, and Suhrabi. I love the way the gods are presented-Zeus and the Morrigan especially.

The thing that let it down most was the plot, and the way it just went ways I don't really get. The bit with Hannibal got good at the start, then relaxed a bit earlier than I  was expecting. The whole thing with Lucifer, Gabriel and the angels was very predictable, but turned out well. But then there's this whole bit in the middle where I think Lando swaps bodies or something with another guy. I say I think. I honestly don't know what happened there, but it changed Lando for the last quarter of the book. Also, the god battles, while fun, were also a bit confusing in that they went everywhere in time and space and were hard to follow.

Also, I didn't get the comedy that I was promised, apart from in small bits ie  introduction of the gods. Or maybe it just wasn't my kind of humour. Either way, sadness from that. 

Despite this, I will read book two. Just because  Hell. And game shows.

Overall:  Strength 2 tea to a book with a really good premise that just wasn't put together as well as I was hoping.

Links: Amazon| Goodreads| Author website |

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Book Review-Red by Alison Cherry

Title:Red

 Author: Alison Cherry

Series:  N/A

Published: 2 January 2014 by Quercus

Length: 320 pages

Source:  publishers 

Summary :

Top student. Beauty queen. Girlfriend of the hottest football jock: Felicity's got everything. And it's all down to her red, red hair.
Felicity lives in Scarletville, the world's only redhead sanctuary, where red hair is celebrated, protected - and the key to sucess.
But Felicity has a secret. A red hot secret. And if anyone finds out, she's finished.
Because Felicity's actually a natural blonde.
And in Scarletville, blondes need not apply.

Review: In Scarlettville, red hair is  prized. If you have redhair, you'll win beauty pagents, be wildly successful and have a good life. Felicity has been enjoyting this, and is going for the title of Miss Scarlet. But she can only do this if she can keep her secret: she's naturally strawberry blonde and gets her red from a secret  salon. 

When I read the summary for Red, I was hoping  for a critique on the way that society judges people on appearance, race, general unfounded discriminaton, viewed through the lens of a reversed society. I didn't get this as much as it could have been, which was a  little sad, because there could have been a really good message going through this, instead of just at the end.

Felicity is really shallow, and i'm not sure whehter that's more to her mother's influence or herself. She's not that bright, and she doens't really do much.  I really liked Gabby, brunette, main “antagonist”, who is trying to change the views of those in Scarletville and is essentially campaigning for equality. She didnt go about it in the best way-full of bitchiness and backstabbing, but her intentions I liked. Ivy, who doesn't really care, is an ok character.  Haylie may have been interesting. Jonathan was interesting, but he dind't get that much development.

The plot, I didn't really get with that much at all. The ending, i'm not entirel sure what just happened.

Overall:  Stregnth 2 tea to a book that should have been satire, but wasn't.

Links: Amazon |  Goodreads | Author website | 

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Book Review-Shadows by Ilsa J Bick

 

Title: Shadows

 Author: Ilsa J Bick

Series:   Ashes #2

Published: 27  September 2012 by Quercus

Length: 518 pages

Source: publisher

Other info: Review of Ashes here

Summary : Alex has escaped from Rule - but what new horrors face her in the ravaged world outside?
Tom is safe - but what will he risk to find Alex?
Chris - how much does he really know about the terrible darkness of Rule? And what are his true feelings for Alex?
Ellie - where is she? 

Review: I remember Ashes. The electromagnetic pulse, Alex with the enhanced sense of smell, the zombies/Changed and the cliffhanger of 2012. Now out on her own, and surrounded by a pack of Changed. Also, the elders in Rule may be hiding secrets and Tom is looking for Alex. Fun times!

Yeah, when I started this, I knew I had a basic rememberance of the features of Ashes. So I went into Shadows ready for action. After a bit of Tom, and then the conclusion to the cliffhanger, we follow each of the others in turn, which would be ok..but I’d forgotten most things . lots of characters turn up that I don’t remember meeting in Ashes.

In terms of plot for this, it all seemed very scattered. Normally. I like multiple perspectives, but for this one, I was lost from about page 100 onwards. We flick between groups of characters a lot, with quite a lot of smaller cliffhangers, quite quickly, and I just didn’t keep up with it all. `                       

The zombies, changed, chuckies in this got a bit more development in this one, as did the characters in Rule.

In terms of action, it was amazing. The action scenes are written  so well, you feel like you’re there with all the gory details that mean you can see it all happening in your mind.

I like the fact that humans are evil comes up in this book. It’s a good contrast to the OTT zombies tearing people apart, but just as creepy.

The writing is once again third person, but following a character at each point. the focus changes along with the switches of plot also stopped me really following this throughout. As the action scenes are  so frequent, being randomly thrown from one  to another scene, it’s confusing and slows it down for me.

Overall:  Strength 2 tea to a book with a lot of action but is one of the hardest things to follow I’ve read for a long time.

Links: Amazon| Goodreads | Author website | 

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