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Zoe Sugg – Girl Online
This book was hyped so much that when we were out shopping, I asked Cameron to buy me it for Christmas. And then two days later, it came out that maybe Zoella didn’t write the book herself and had help from a ghostwriter. I personally don’t really care about that, many people use ghostwriters to write their ideas, so it’s not really surprising that someone young and popular like this would do the same thing. Good for her as she gets her idea turned into a book, and good for the publisher to cash in on her internet fame for the Christmas sales rush.
Just like the last book I read, I think I would have enjoyed this book immensely about 10 years ago, but although I still enjoyed it very much now, it did feel very teenager-ish.
The book centres around a 15 year old blogger whose parents land a job planning a wedding in New York just before Christmas. Penny is the clumsiest most awkward teenager imaginable, so she’s grateful for a change of scenery. And when she meets the supposed boy of her dreams, it looks like Penny is in for the perfect Christmas. He whisks her off her feet showing her the sights of Brooklyn, and even writes a song about her.
But when Penny returns to Brighton and finds out the truth about who Noah really is, her perfect fantasy is turned upside down and for more reasons than you’d imagine.
Of course there’s a twist in the ending, which you can probably guess (I know I did), which leads to a happy ending for all involved.
The book was a very pleasant read and a nice happy story, but the characters seemed a bit cliched and the some aspects of the story felt a little under-developed. It was very predictable in what was going to happen; girl falls in love, boy does something wrong, boy turns up and makes it all okay. The cross-atlantic aspect was quite nice, and I did feel like the book was very well written to make you feel empathy with the characters, but I did find Penny annoying at times. Probably because I’m a bit older than the target audience for the book, so not the fault of the author.
I’d definitely recommend this book to younger authors, but if you’ve got past the stage of teenage crushes and infatuations, then this book probably isn’t for you.
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Marni Bates – Decked with Holly
This book was one of the top Christmas themed books within Kindle Unlimited, so although it seemed to be a book aimed at teenagers, I thought I might as well give it a try.
But it was most definitely aimed for teenagers, and I found the main character quite immature and annoying. The fact that we’re supposed to believe that someone who likes a band with only 3 members wouldn’t recognise one of the members when she stumbled into his hotel room is slightly far fetched, but it does make for an interesting story.
The book was amusing in places, although the main characters are incredibly stereotyped. You can tell right from the start where the book is going to go and how it is going to end, but I didn’t mind too much as I just wanted a light-hearted read for the last few days before Christmas. It was very easy to read and didn’t require much concentration. But apart from the fact that it was set in December, it didn’t seem to have much to do with Christmas, which was disappointing, especially since that was the only reason I decided to read this in the first place!
I probably would have absolutely loved this book 10 years ago, but I’ve read a lot of young adult fiction recently which has kept me much more entertained than this, so I felt a little let down.
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Chrissie Manby – The Christmas List
To get myself in the festive spirit, I decided to download a few Christmas themed books with my Kindle Unlimited membership. To me, fantasy and crime books aren’t really the kind of books that evoke festive feelings, so I downloaded a few ‘Chick-Lit’ books to satisfy my Christmas cravings.
This was only a very short book really (about 100 pages), but the audio version got me through 2 days of commuting to and from work, so it didn’t go by too quickly.
The main premise of the book is a young woman who absolutely adores Christmas, and gets dumped just before the start of advent. Milly is distraught, as even though she’d only been going out with Duncan for 11 months, she’s been planning their wedding on pinterest for the past 7 of them. A little bit bunny-boiler-ish, but never mind.
To cheer herself up, she writes a Christmas letter with her two young nephews and then sends them up the chimney to Santa. She’s rather surprised when the things she’s asked for start to come into her life. Maybe not as she would have planned it, but it’s all quite coincidental. Until she writes another list to Santa asking for something altogether bigger, and guess what? She gets that too!
It’s quite a light hearted book with just the right amount of Christmas spirit to get me worked up for Christmas Day tomorrow. I would have liked it if Milly was a little more go-getter-ish and a little less mopey, but you can’t always have everything you want.
I wouldn’t say it was the best book I’ve read, but it definitely wasn’t the worst, just a nice easy-going read. The ending felt a little rushed, as if the author had been given a word/page limit and had to wrap things up to stop from writing too much. I would have rather taken some of the fluff out of the middle and made the ending a little more full, but that’s just me.
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Cassandra Clare – City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5)
Well this series took a turn for the weird again. No sooner have we got away from the fact that Clary was in love with her supposed brother, but her real brother has now arrived on the scene big style, and their relationship (or should I say how he sees their relationship) is just downright creepy. I do realise that it’s part of his character, but it just feels wrong.
The book was still action packed, but there weren’t really many surprises to keep me on my toes and wanting to turn page after page to find out what was going to happen next. I did like the character development and the changes in relationships that happened throughout the book, people seem to be pairing off quite nicely. That is, until the end when one relationship comes to a rather abrupt (and unwanted) end and one character makes a rather drastic decision.
We leave the book at the end set up for what I presume will be an interesting finale. My only wish would be that Clary stops being an idiot and starts learning to take care of herself and those around her, rather than rushing headlong into every situation and waiting for everyone to come and rescue her. I don’t mind the whole ‘damsel in distress’ thing when I’m reading a soppy book, but with a book like this, I’d much rather have a strong female lead who can kick ass as well as the boys around her.
I have to say, I’ll be quite glad to finish this series and move onto something different. Which is usually a sign that the series hasn’t been great, as I usually finish a series clamoring for more.
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Cassandra Clare – City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments #4)
Finally this series is getting a bit more dark. There’s a hell of a lot going on in this book, and thankfully we seem to not be solely focusing on Clary and her endless teenage moping.
In fact, we spend much of the first part of the book focused on Simon. He’d just about got to grips with the fact that he was a vampire, when Clary gave him the Mark of Cain to save his life during the big battle in the last book. But this Mark has consequences that neither Clary or Simon considered. And although Simon is now pretty much invincible since anyone who tries to harm him has the punishment inflicted sevenfold, it has drawn interest from some unwanted parties.
Now it wouldn’t seem like the same series if we didn’t have some Clary/Jace shenanigans going on, and in this book, Jace seems to be pushing Clary away for reasons that she can’t fathom. And every time she thinks she’s getting closer to him, he withdraws further into himself. We are shown Jace having nightmares, and they take a sinister turn when it turns out that he’s being posessed by a greater demon, determined to use Clary to get at Jace in any way that she can. Way darker and more twisted than the previous three books, and much more exciting!
The book makes you think quite deeply about death and mortality and relationships, and did seem a lot more thoughtfully written than the start of the series. It ends on a massive cliffhanger, leaving me yearning for more. In fact, as soon as I finish writing this, I’ll be picking up the next book and digging straight in, I just can’t wait to see what happens!
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Craig Lancaster – Edward Adrift
It’s been a few years since we last checked in with Edward, and so far, he’s having a shitburger of a year. He was fired (or should I say involuntarily separated) from his job at the Billings Herald Gleaner, his new best friend Donna moved away with her son Kyle, Dr Buckley has retired, and possibly worst of all, Edward’s dragnet tapes have broken, stopping his usual nightly 10pm tradition. Everything is turned upside down for Edward, the routines that we were introduced to in the first book have been smashed to pieces and Edward is feeling adrift. He’s still ‘fucking loaded’, but he has no idea what to do with his life.
But Kyle is in trouble at school, and Donna phones up to ask that Edward drive down and see if he can find out what is wrong. Edward would do anything for Donna and Kyle, so he willingly obeys, but Kyle is rude and disruptive and Edward ends up leaving early. But when he’s well on his way home, he notices a little stowaway in the back seat of his car – Kyle has hidden to come along for the ride. And so starts a road trip like no other. And when Edward finally finds out what has been bothering Kyle so much, he’s shocked to the core and insists on driving Kyle straight home.
Which leads Edward into trouble in a big snowstorm. The ‘landing him in hospital with serious injuries’ kind of trouble. With Kyle gone home with his parents, the story then shifts to the burgeoning relationship with Sheila, the owner of the motel where Edward was staying. They are more alike than he thinks, and you can see straight away that they are perfect for each other. But for Edward, nothing ever runs smoothly, and this time it’s Edward’s own mother putting a spanner in the works, insisting on dragging him straight home and wrenching him away from Sheila when it looks like life may finally work out perfectly for him.
And so my heart was breaking once again for poor Edward, just praying that something could happen to let Edward run down the course of true love.
There were many things I loved in this book. First of all, Edwards choice of words. Shitburger, shitballs, tallywhacker, his bitchin’ iPhone. I was listening to this book in my car and I found myself constantly laughing out loud (when I wasn’t close to crying, that is). Most of his unusual choice of language is influenced by his ex-colleague Scott Shamwell. He was always good to Edward, but his language was crude at best. But he did help Edward make some very important decisions towards the end of the book. Advice like this:
“Love is something else, man. Love is bullshit and weird and stupid, but shit, man, if you have love, everybody should leave you alone and let you keep it for as long as you can.”
He’s such an extraordinary character than you can’t help rooting for him to win. There’s simply not a bad bone in his body and all the way through the book, you’re just constantly wishing for him to be happy. I think it’s possible that I’m a little bit in love with Edward. He’s most definitely my favourite character from any of my recent books. He’s kind and loveable with an extremely good heart, and when I started reading this book, I was devastated that he was having such a bad time. All I wanted was to reach out into the pages and give him a big hug.
I won’t spoil the ending, but I really can’t give enough praise to this masterpiece of a book. I would absolutely love a third book in the series so that we can see what happens to Edward next, I’m just so reluctant to let him go so soon.
I would also really recommend listening to the audio version of this book instead of simply reading it. The way that the narrator brought Edward to life was masterful and just gave the book that extra something which I think made it perfect. Highly recommended, I simply can’t find anything bad to say!
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Cassandra Clare – City of Glass (Mortal Instruments #3)
While I’m still not finding this series anywhere near as well written as other fantasy series that I have read, it’s slowly improving book by book. The depth of the plot is still pretty shallow to me, although the character development is improving over time.
The story was action packed and filled with drama. There didn’t seem to be many points in the book where one character or the other wasn’t in some sort of mortal peril. I did like the way that the book kept switching between characters, leaving us on cliffhangers to take us away to what’s happening elsewhere in the world. It definitely kept the pace going and kept me turning pages.
*SPOILER ALERT*
The last three books have felt progressively more creepy as Clary continues her pining for Jace, supposedly her brother. Not step-brother, not half-brother, her full brother. It was getting a bit weird reading about how much she longed to kiss him, but I could tell from the tone of the writing that the author thought she had a surprise up her sleeve when she finally revealed that they weren’t actually brother and sister after all. However, I’d been expecting it for the last book and a half, it’s not like a teenage fantasy romance book is going to come with a hefty side dose of incest.
While the book ended with Valentine being killed once and for all, and the supposed death of his true son Sebastian, I think the author may have a twist up her sleeve. I imagine that Sebastian is going to come back to wreak havoc in the next book. With three more books in the series, it’s not like Clary and Jace can live happily ever after just yet.
Likewise with the shadow hunters and the downworlders in a never-seen-before peace deal. I guess something is going to happen which will threaten this fragile situation, needing Clary to step in and save the day yet again. Hopefully before this happens, Clary will actually get some proper shadow hunter training rather than just wading in at the deep end and putting her friend’s lives in danger.
I can guess that we’re also going to hear more from the rune that Clary drew on Simon’s head to save his life in this book. It’s supposed to come with side effects that we haven’t seen yet, but all signs point to this rearing it’s ugly head sometime soon.
I had decided that I was going to make this book the make-or-break book of the series, but it looks like it might have done just enough to save itself, so I’ll be plowing through to the end now. With less creepy Clary involved, it’s bound to be at least a bit better!
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Cassandra Clare – City of Ashes (Mortal Instruments #2)
Well it looks like this series may just have earned itself a second chance.
Unfortunately, Clary was still stuck in a very teenage love triangle with her supposed brother and her best friend. Slightly creepy, but at least she wasn’t quite as mopey as the first book.
The book contained much more action than City of Bones, but still lacked some depth for me, it was a bit one dimensional. I think this probably contributed to me reading the book so quickly, it was just so easy to read because there weren’t any hidden meanings and nothing really required pondering or reading twice to figure out what’s going on.
I don’t want to seem like I’m just insulting the book, because I did thoroughly enjoy it. We learn a bit more about the downworlders in this book, especially after Simon learns a bit more about them than he would like I have to say though, it didn’t come as the surprise that it was meant, I’d kinda figured it out way earlier.
I loved the way we got to see more of Clary’s relationship with Luke, and Jace’s twisted relationship with Valentine. The author has created a perfect villain in Valentine. He’s dark and twisted and doesn’t seem to care about anyone else. But I think underneath, he really might care about what happens to his children. We’ll see I guess.
The book ended on quite a cliffhanger, I’m now incredibly intrigued to see what happens to Clary and her mum. I’m not particularly interested in the Jace/Clary situation. It’s a little creepy to be honest, but I feel that we might not have the whole story just yet, so my opinions may change. Let’s just hope the decrease in teenage girl whining continues through the next book.
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Cassandra Clare – City of Bones (Mortal Instruments #1)
I was prepared to fall in love with this book in a ‘this is going to be an awesome series’ kind of way. But unfortunately, the book was less Hunger Games and more Twilight.
The female lead was a bit of a wet sponge, moping over her new crush Jace, while being totally oblivious to the fact that her best friend is completely and utterly in love with her.
The book wasn’t completely devoid of action, and I did find it quite exciting in places. There was obviously a lot of setting up of the world and the story, it being the first book in the series and all, so I didn’t expect it to be quite as action packed as it was. It seems like Clary basically ran from one danger to the next, dragging her new ‘friends’ along with her.
I’m hoping that later books in the series give more of a detailed look at how the ‘runes’ work. All we seem to know so far is that they have some sort of powers, but I want more details! In books like Mistborn, this kind of thing is all explained pretty early on, and it’s not quite so mysterious. I know that young people like action packed blockbuster-y kind of books, but I wouldn’t mind occasionally slowing down the pace for a bit more information.
I’m not giving up on the series just yet, I’ll give it another chance to see if Clary can become a bit more self assured and less reliant on the boys around her. She did have a bit of a shock at the end of the last book concerning the boy she was moping over (I’ll give you no spoilers, but I did expect it way before it was revealed in the book). Hopefully this won’t make her even more mopey than she already was, and instead give her the kick up the backside that she so desperately needs!
I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the book, and it most definitely wasn’t terrible, I’ve just read some really great books recently and I think this may have suffered as a result. Let’s see where it goes…
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Craig Lancaster – 600 Hours of Edward
There are a lot of books in this genre, and I’ve definitely read a fair few, but I never get tired of them.
The book revolves around a man called Edward Stanton. He has aspergers and lives his life around a very strict routine. Waking at the same time almost every day, eating the same meals every week, and of course, his daily 10pm episode of Dragnet (only the colour episodes).
A few reviews said that this book was repetitive and that it made it boring, but I think quite the opposite. The repetitiveness in it made it compelling. Even though you thought you knew what was going to happen next, you had to continue reading just in case something unusual happened.
And lately, unusual things are happening for Edward. Things that are completely shaking up his usual routine and blowing his life upside down. Written from Edward’s perspective, we see how what we may think are relatively minor things affect his life in a big way, and the emotions that he feels, which although not expressed in what we might consider the usual way, are still very very real.
In Edward, I think we can all see a bit of ourselves. These idiosyncrasies that he has are not isolated to aspergers sufferers, we all do things that may seem a little odd. Okay, we might not record the time that we wake up every single day, but in general, people do things that other people may find unusual, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I found the story funny in places, heart-breaking in a lot more, and the whole range of emotions in between. I don’t want to give away too much of the storyline, but it’s fair to say that Edward makes some startling breakthroughs over the 300 pages (600 hours) of the story. The book is superbly written and you can feel every bit of Edward’s pain, anger and joy. Although I don’t think Edward would say he loves the word ‘Joy’.
I mostly listened to the audio version of this book on my commute to and from work, and I loved the narrator (Luke Daniels). The inflections in his voice perfectly captured how I would have read the book in my head, and it made the story so much more enjoyable than suffering through 8 hours of terrible accents as I have done previously.
On finishing this book, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there’s a second Edward book, and it’s already out and available with narration on Kindle Unlimited. I’m downloading it as we speak, I just hope that Luke Daniels is also the narrator.
Perfect book for fans of books like The Rosie Project, definitely recommended.
Louise Douglas
(I've got no) Shelf Control…
Louise Douglas 