Review: Aix Marks The Spot by Sarah Anderson

Thanks to Netgalley for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

Publications date: June 16th 2020

Publisher: Seabreeze Books

Pages: 380

Jamie has been dreaming of this summer forever: of road trips and intensive art camps, of meeting cute boys with her best friend Jazz. What she didn’t count on was the car accident.

Exiled away from her family as her mother slowly learns to walk again, Jamie is sent to Provence and trapped in an isolated home with the French grandmother she has never met, the guilt of having almost killed her parents, and no Wi-Fi. Enough to drive a girl mad. That is, until, she finds an old letter from her father, the starting point in a treasure hunt that spans across cities and time itself. Somehow, she knows that the treasure is the key to putting her shattered family back together and that whatever lies at the end has the power to fix everything.

Armed only with a high-school-level of French and a map of train lines, she must enlist the aid of Valentin, a handsome local who’s willing to translate. To save her family, she has castle ruins to find and sea cliffs to climb; falling for her translator wasn’t part of her plan… 

After living in France for several years, and experiencing the whole wildly out of water experience of moving to a country where you cannot for the life of you get the words you know to come out in a coherent fashion, I am always keen to find books that distil that experience out onto the page. And this one does, but also doesn’t. It’s a curious mix.

Good things first: I really loved exploring the south of France. There were places that I’ve been to before and I shrieked delightedly at my husband that they were visiting Cassis. And places that I’ve never experienced that I immediately added to the itinerary or our next trip. It made me feel homesick for excellent coffee and pastries and the food. It transported me straight into the middle of a hot French summer, where you can barely think beyond the sound of the cicadas. 

However (you knew it was coming, didn’t you) I just couldn’t connect with Jamie. Whilst I completely empathised with the fish out of water experience, and struggling to keep up in a country where you aren’t fluent, I found her to be incredibly unlikable and frustrating. She is convinced that she’s been exiled to France because her parents hate her, and yet the few interactions she has with them early on do nothing to provide a basis for that. She struggles with the language yet makes zero effort to learn. She finds other tourists with their loud, obnoxious English conversations to be mortifying, yet can’t seem to understand that she is exactly the same.

It’s a light and quick read, and one that I enjoyed up to a point. But it never really finds its feet because it is weighed down by how frustrating I found Jamie. She wasn’t someone I wanted to spend time with - half the time I just wanted to shake her. However, as a book that catapults you right back into the heat of a summer in France it was a good escape.

Review: The Gravity of Us by Phil Stamper

Spoilers below, proceed with caution.

Thanks to Netglley for providing me a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Publication date: 17th May 2020

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 313

As a successful social media journalist with half a million followers, seventeen-year-old Cal is used to sharing his life online. But when his pilot father is selected for a highly publicized NASA mission to Mars, Cal and his family relocate from Brooklyn to Houston and are thrust into a media circus.

Amidst the chaos, Cal meets sensitive and mysterious Leon, another “Astrokid,” and finds himself falling head over heels—fast. As the frenzy around the mission grows, so does their connection. But when secrets about the program are uncovered, Cal must find a way to reveal the truth without hurting the people who have become most important to him.

Expertly capturing the thrill of first love and the self-doubt all teens feel, debut author Phil Stamper is a new talent to watch.

This book had all the marks of a read that I was going to adore, but sadly ‘The Gravity of Us’ just didn’t pull me in. Part of this was due to not really connecting with Cal, as he often came across as completely selfish and didn’t give any consideration to what was going on with those around him. But the majority of this was due to slightly dubious  issues of consent running throughout.

There are two big instances of this, and they completely marred my enjoyment of the rest of the novel. Firstly, when Cal knows there are cameras on himself and Leon, and that Leon isn’t out, yet chooses to take Leon’s hand and have an intimate moment with him that he knows is being filmed and will eventually be broadcast. Leon is unaware of what’s happening, and only finds out when the footage is released. There’s a brief moment where Leon is horrified about what has happened and the knowledge  that Cal knew and acted with intent, but then it’s completely forgotten about and never discussed or resolved.

The second instance is the entire relationship between Cal’s parents. Cal’s father applies for the space programme without talking to his wife about it at any point. He then uproots the entire family and completely disregards his wife’s anxiety and wishes. Now maybe these are dealt with in conversations that Cal isn’t privy too, but it doesn’t seem like it, and the entire portrayal left me with a bad aftertaste.

The idea is intriguing, but it never really flies. I wanted to like it so much, but ultimately I just felt frustrated and disheartened by the issues I’ve outlined above, and they coloured my overall enjoyment of the book.

Review: China Rich Girlfriend by Kevin Kwan

Publication date: June 16th 2015
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday
Pages: 378

On the eve of her wedding to Nicholas Young, heir to one of the greatest fortunes in Asia, Rachel should be over the moon. She has a flawless Asscher-cut diamond from JAR, a wedding dress she loves more than anything found in the salons of Paris, and a fiance willing to sacrifice his entire inheritance in order to marry her. But Rachel still mourns the fact that her birthfather, a man she never knew, won't be able to walk her down the aisle. Until: a shocking revelation draws Rachel into a world of Shanghai splendor beyond anything she has ever imagined. Here we meet Carlton, a Ferrari-crashing bad boy known for Prince Harry-like antics; Colette, a celebrity girlfriend chased by fevered paparazzi; and the man Rachel has spent her entire life waiting to meet: her father. Meanwhile, Singapore's It Girl, Astrid Leong, is shocked to discover that there is a downside to having a newly minted tech billionaire husband. A romp through Asia's most exclusive clubs, auction houses, and estates, China Rich Girlfriend brings us into the elite circles of Mainland China, introducing a captivating cast of characters, and offering an inside glimpse at what it's like to be gloriously, crazily, China-rich.

Well that was a waste of time.

I felt mixed about the first book in the trilogy "Crazy Rich Asians", where I both guiltily enjoyed it and felt like it lost the plot towards the end of the book. However, I enjoyed the film a lot more than the book, and it was that that made me want to have a look at the second novel and see what happens next in this crazy world.

Ultimately? Nothing. It felt like a complete waste of time, where the majority of the plot is crammed into the first bit of the novel, and the final fifteen percent, whilst the middle is just one long protracted look at all these very rich people and the clothes they're wearing.

I really loved the sparkling wit and the relationships of the first book, but that was all entirely absent in this second trip out. I had to push myself to keep reading and finish the book, and by the end was just incredibly relieved it was over at last. I didn't like the characters, they were flat and stilted this time and without that emotional connection any desire to see what happens was crushed.

Will I go back for the final book? Probably. But I imagine it will take a long time for me to forget the sheer awfulness of this one before I gear myself up for the final instalment.

Film Review: Fantastic Beasts - The Crimes of Grindelwald

I loved Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - it was a fresh and fun filled romp, in a way that the Potter films hadn't been allowed to be in some time. We got a sense of playfulness! We got to see more of the wizarding world! We got fantastic beasts! But most importantly we got Newt, and my love for Newt deserves its own epic post. (later)

So armed with a fresh re-watch the night before, I went into the cinema excited to see the second instalment. Unfortunately that didn't last long. Even now, several days after watching, I'm still reeling, and not in a good way.

I have a lot of feelings, and a good portion of them are spoiler filled, so be warned, spoilers galore beneath the cut.

Review: The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West

Publication Date: May 5th 2015
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 346

When Gia Montgomery's boyfriend, Bradley, dumps her in the parking lot of her high school prom, she has to think fast. After all, she'd been telling her friends about him for months now. This was supposed to be the night she proved he existed. So when she sees a cute guy waiting to pick up his sister, she enlists his help. The task is simple: be her fill-in boyfriend—two hours, zero commitment, a few white lies. After that, she can win back the real Bradley.
The problem is that days after prom, it's not the real Bradley she's thinking about, but the stand-in. The one whose name she doesn't even know. But tracking him down doesn't mean they're done faking a relationship. Gia owes him a favor and his sister intends to see that he collects: his ex-girlfriend's graduation party—three hours, zero commitment, a few white lies.
Just when Gia begins to wonder if she could turn her fake boyfriend into a real one, Bradley comes waltzing back into her life, exposing her lie, and threatening to destroy her friendships and her new-found relationship.

Am I heartless? Did I read this on an off day? Possibly, but the fact remains that after a couple of years of wanting to read this book I finally did, and now I'd like a refund.

I love a good teen romance, there's nothing quite like the butterflies you get along with the protagonist whilst they discover their love. Yet this one never quite got off the ground for me, thanks to poor writing and a terrible cast of characters.

If there's one thing that is guaranteed to frustrate me to the point of mute rage with a book, it's finding grammatical errors like using the wrong your because by the time the book is with the reader, that stuff should have been picked up. So that didn't exactly pre-dispose me to liking it, but the flat writing, stilted dialogue, and unlikeable characters sealed its fate.

I just didn't care about Gia. I think we're meant to feel for her, but she's so shallow and vapid and unlikeable that it becomes incredibly hard to feel anything other than frustration and annoyance with her.

I wanted to put aside my frustrations and just enjoy it for what it's meant to be - a cute, light, romance. But I just couldn't. The dialogue was stilted, the writing really awkward, and I was left feeling like I'd just wasted my time when I finished.
As a first foray into West's writing, this has definitely put me off. So help a girl out - if you really like West's books, what would you recommend I try next to get me on board?

Review: Tempests and Slaughter by Tamora Pierce

Publication Date: February 6th 2018
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 465

Arram. Varice. Ozorne. In the first book in the Numair Chronicles, three student mages are bound by fate . . . fated for trouble.Arram Draper is a boy on the path to becoming one of the realm’s most powerful mages. The youngest student in his class at the Imperial University of Carthak, he has a Gift with unlimited potential for greatness–and for attracting danger. At his side are his two best friends: Varice, a clever girl with an often-overlooked talent, and Ozorne, the “leftover prince” with secret ambitions. Together, these three friends forge a bond that will one day shape kingdoms. And as Ozorne gets closer to the throne and Varice gets closer to Arram’s heart, Arram begins to realize that one day soon he will have to decide where his loyalties truly lie. 
In the Numair Chronicles, readers will be rewarded with the never-before-told story of how Numair Salmalín came to Tortall. Newcomers will discover an unforgettable fantasy adventure where a kingdom’s future rests on the shoulders of a talented young man with a knack for making vicious enemies.

This review actually breaks my heart a little to write. Because I grew up on Tamora Pierce books. The Song of the Lioness Quartet shaped and defined the reader I was growing up to be, and nothing will ever break my love for that. I've had mixed feelings to some of the books of hers I've read since, but nothing quite like what I felt reading "Tempests and Slaughter", because much as I hate to say it? This book was bad.

It felt as though Pierce was trying to recapture the magic she created with Alanna, and showing Alanna growing and learning and becoming the person she was meant to be. What we got was an endless dirge of absolutely nothing happening. Sure Arram learns some magic, he meets some people, but nothing actually happens until the last little bit, and even then it's not really explored or developed properly. This book took me weeks to read, because I was so insanely bored reading it that I had to keep putting it down and reading something else for a bit.

And that is heartbreaking to admit.

I wanted to love this book. I wanted to find out more about how Numair came to be Numair, but what I got was this endless list cycle of days upon days with no real point or drive or plot. That was the crux of it, that whilst Pierce may have wanted to show Arram/Numair's formative years, she didn't actually have a story, and so the book meanders along with nothing happening, and without anything truly happening there isn't a lot of room for you to see the characters as fully fleshed out people. Which leads to flat characters and the reader just not caring about them.

I don't know if I'm going to bother continuing with this series when the next book comes out. On the one hand, it's Tamora Pierce and my inner eleven year old wants to read everything she writes. On the other, I don't want to ruin my love of her earlier books by reading a series that is crushing in its blandness.

Review: Every Day by David Levithan

Warning, mild spoilers for the book

Publication Date: August 28th 2012
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Pages: 322 pages

Every day a different body. Every day a different life. Every day in love with the same girl.
There’s never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live: Never get too attached. Avoid being noticed. Do not interfere.
It’s all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone A wants to be with—day in, day out, day after day.

I've heard so many people who loved this book, that I went into this with really high expectations, and I was therefore quite shocked that I actually really disliked this book. So, unpopular opinion, I really didn't enjoy this frequently very hyped story.

It showcases love without boundaries though! But I didn't see any examples of that? It explored the idea that Rhiannon was attracted to some bodies that A inhabited, but then really struggled with and disliked the appearance of others. So if you just wanted an exploration of how one person likes boys of a certain type, but really wasn't attracted to other boys or any girls, then sure this book does that, but it certainly didn't offer me what I was expecting which was a love that transcended physical appearance. Some people appear to have found that within this book, but I just couldn't see it. What I could see was Rhiannon becoming increasingly uncomfortable with some of the bodies that A showed up in.

But it shows true love! Does it? Where? Again, I expected a love story that really built into something wonderful and fascinating, but all I got was A increasingly stalking and pressuring Rhiannon into loving him and her resisting. The longer the relationship went on the more uncomfortable I became. Rhiannon is given no autonomy, she tries at various points to make her own decisions and choices, and A just steam rollers over them with what he wants. He stalks, he manipulates, he coerces, and he's taking over other people's lives to do it. That is not true love.
A 'falls in love with her' because only he can see her secret sadness and what an interesting person she is. He decides that he is the only person who can possibly understand her and make her happy, so he stalks her, he plots breaking her and her (yes a not nice) boyfriend up, he is invading her privacy, and we are meant to sympathize with him. It was horrible, and I found it baffling that so many people have seen this and gone 'Yup! That's true love!' No, it isn't, and I want to destroy this idea that stalking, possessive, creepy behaviour is love.

It shows all sorts of different people and the struggles they're experiencing! True, we see a lot of different people through A's eyes, but honestly it just felt like it was episodic 'today we're going to look at!' issues, examining depression, sexuality, obesity, transsexuality etc. Only they feel horribly formulaic and driven only by the desire to be seen as inclusive, rather than it actually furthering the story and looking at these things properly.

Honestly I was just disappointed, and frankly quite angry when I finished this book. It was not what I was expecting given other reviews I've read, and honestly the portrayal of 'true love' was dangerous and problematic.

Review: Ink by Alice Broadway

Publication Date: February 2nd 2017
Publisher: Scholastic
Pages: 366 pages

Every action, every deed, every significant moment is tattooed on your skin for ever. When Leora's father dies, she is determined to see her father remembered forever. She knows he deserves to have all his tattoos removed and made into a Skin Book to stand as a record of his good life. But when she discovers that his ink has been edited and his book is incomplete, she wonders whether she ever knew him at all. 

Oh this book. It's a prime example of a beautiful cover and blurb not truly reflecting the pages within, which was gutting, because I had been so excited about this one only to feel horribly let down.

Instead of the unique and fascinating story I was expecting, I was left with a blandly flat main character who was not only 'the chosen one' (for no particularly good reason, just because, which only made her more unbearable) but Leora had absolutely no character to speak of. This was a problem with the writing style, because even though the ideas were there they just didn't translate well onto the page. The characters were all indistinguishable from each other because there was no variation in speech, everyone spoke the same, and as a result everything just felt flat and underdeveloped and honestly, incredibly boring.

It also suffered from poor editing, where it felt like key scenes or moments had been cut out and the story and character development suffered as a result. I was left feeling confused by thoughts and decisions that should have been clearer, and as though I'd been left in the dark for pivotal moments with Leora's realisations.

All in all this was a disappointment. I wanted to love it, I was all set to, with such a vibrantly fresh concept I didn't think I could not. Yet I was left feeling disappointed, frustrated, and like I'd wasted my time.

Review: Glitter by Aprilynne Pike

Publication date: October 25^th 2016
Publisher: Random House
Length: 384 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Aprilynne Pike comes a truly original new novel—Breaking Bad meets Marie Antoinette in a near-future world where the residents of Versailles live like it's the eighteenth century and an almost-queen turns to drug dealing to save her own life. 
Outside the palace of Versailles, it's modern day. Inside, the people dress, eat, and act like it's the eighteenth century—with the added bonus of technology to make court life lavish, privileged, and frivolous. The palace has every indulgence, but for one pretty young thing, it's about to become a very beautiful prison.
When Danica witnesses an act of murder by the young king, her mother makes a cruel power play… blackmailing the king into making Dani his queen. When she turns eighteen, Dani will marry the most ruthless and dangerous man of the court. She has six months to escape her terrifying destiny. Six months to raise enough money to disappear into the real world beyond the palace gates.
Her ticket out? Glitter. A drug so powerful that a tiny pinch mixed into a pot of rouge or lip gloss can make the wearer hopelessly addicted. Addicted to a drug Dani can sell for more money than she ever dreamed.
But in Versailles, secrets are impossible to keep. And the most dangerous secret—falling for a drug dealer outside the palace walls—is one risk she has to take.

One day I will probably learn to not get too excited about a book based on its cover and blurb – but today is not that day! Case in point, ‘Glitter’, that lured me with in with that gorgeous cover and intriguing blurb and then promptly smushed all of my hopes and dreams with its lacklustre plot and unlikeable heroine.

The premise was fascinating – slightly ahead of our own time, a corporation have taken up residence in the Palace of Versailles, dressing and living as though they were there in the Sun King’s time. Something that I can easily see happening in real life. All of the beautiful dresses and courtly manners and lifestyle of such a sumptuous time period, combined with mod cons and electronics (tastefully) interwoven? Yes please, sign me up now. Unfortunately that’s about where the excitement for this novel ends, as any hopes that it gave me were swiftly dashed upon the introduction of our ridiculously unlikeable heroine and her scheming plot to sell drugs to everyone around her without their knowledge. She barely has any qualms about doing it, and seems content to throw literally everyone she knows under the bus for her own personal gain.

If she had some moral dilemma that was halfway convincing I’d be more on board. If I really felt any sense of threat then maybe I’d be more on board. But as it was I was thoroughly unconvinced and just ended up disliking Danica intensely. Throw in a poorly constructed plot, a romance that made me want to throw things for the inconsistency, and a *gasp* plot twist at the end, and I ended up feeling thoroughly disgruntled when I finished this one.

I’m all for plot twists, but they have to still move the story forward and feel like they’re a suitable payoff for the rest of the story. Unfortunately this one just made me feel like I’d wasted my time reading the rest of this book.

Despite all of this it was surprisingly addictive (pun intended) and I found myself wanting to get back to Danica’s world, to see what (idiocies) she’d get herself into next, and to escape into this odd hybrid mix of historical and futuristic.
I can’t say I recommend it exactly, because it definitely didn’t offer me enough good things to warrant that, but it was interesting and has piqued my interest enough that (possibly despite myself) I will be keeping an eye out for a sequel next year.

Review: Undertaking Love by Kat French

Publication Date: May 22^nd 2014
Publisher: Avon
Length: 400 pages

When Marla Jacobs discovers that the shop next to her Little White Wedding Chapel is to become a funeral parlour, she declares all-out war.
Marla’s chapel in the sleepy Shropshire countryside has become a nation-wide sensation, but the arrival of Funeral Director Gabriel Ryan threatens everything Marla has worked for. She can picture the scene: wedding limos fighting for space in the street with hearses; brides bumping into widows; bouquets being swapped for wreaths.
Marla’s not going down without a fight. She enlists a motley crew of weird and wonderful local supporters, and battle lines are drawn. But, as soon as Marla meets her nemesis, she realises just how much trouble she’s really in. His rugged good looks and Irish lilt make her stomach fizz – how is she supposed to concentrate on destroying him, when half the time she’s struggling not to rip the shirt off his back?

So often debut novels set the standard so high that a second novel fails to reach the bar and ends up being a slight disappointment instead. I find it’s rare to for the debut to be a disappointment and the second novel to blow me away. With this in mind, given how much I loved Kat French’s second novel ‘The Piano Man Project’ when I read it last summer, I was expecting to love her debut novel ‘Undertaking Love’ just as much.

Not so.

Where ‘Piano Man’ was smart, funny, full of banter and brimming with emotion, I found French’s debut to be filled with over blown caricatures that I never connected with, crass humour and a whole host of plot threads that left me feeling anywhere from vaguely amused to downright horrified.

Where was the romance? The banter? The brilliantly conceived plot? All the things I loved so much from the second book were missing in this first. I didn’t care about the characters, their choices and motivations were a bizarre mixture, and so many of them were downright awful stereotypes and caricatures.

It was a slog to get through this one when I was expecting a fun and enjoyable read. Some people will connect with these characters and love this romance, and I could see glimmers of what I’d hoped for at odd moments throughout the book. However for me it just wasn’t enough. I wanted to be swept up in the romance, I wanted to fall in love and care for these characters. I didn’t want to be shaking my head at their terrible life choices and crass dialogue and humour.

Since I loved ‘The Piano Man Project’ so much though, I’m curious to see how French’s third novel (due out this summer) holds up in comparison. Will it echo the brilliance of her second novel? Or plunge back down to the disaster I found her debut to be? Fingers crossed it’s the former.

Review: This Song is (Not) For You by Laura Nowlin

Publication Date: January 5^th 2016
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Length: 224 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and Sourcebooks for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

Bandmate, best friend or boyfriend? For Ramona, one choice could mean losing them all. 
Ramona and Sam are best friends. She fell for him the moment they met, but their friendship is just too important for her to mess up. Sam loves April, but he would never expect her to feel the same way--she's too quirky and cool for someone like him. Together, they have a band, and put all of their feelings for each other into music.
Then Ramona and Sam meet Tom. He's their band's missing piece, and before Ramona knows it, she's falling for him. But she hasn't fallen out of love with Sam either.
How can she be true to her feelings without breaking up the band?

You know when a book has so much potential and just fails to deliver and you want to wrap it up in blankets and weep for the lost possibilities? Yeah, that.
It’s a nice enough idea that attempts to tackle a different romantic story to your usual YA fare. There’s Ramona – hyperactive, always cheerful, and in love with her two bandmates. Sam – quiet, shy, and definitely in love with Ramona. And Tom – asexual, kind of in love with both Sam and Ramona, and feels disconnected and depressed in regard to most other things. See?! Look at all this potential! But instead of actually living up to that, it glosses over it all and leaves you feeling grumpy and let down.

Having an asexual character made such a refreshing change, but unfortunately it really isn’t handled very well. The love triangle just ends up feeling like a bit of a mess. The entire thing is built so that you feel as though there will be some big revelation or confrontation, but it never comes. Everything builds and builds, and you keep waiting and then suddenly, it’s done. It leaves you feeling frustrated, and like the main point of the story was never really reached. I like fluff in my stories, but I also like a bit of substance, and sadly this story was really lacking that.

I want to see more diversity in the romances we see in YA fiction, I want to see more relationships that incorporate more than two people – that represent asexual people. But I want to see them done right, and sadly this book really doesn’t.

Review: See How They Run by Ally Carter

Publication Date: December 22^nd 2015
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Length: 336 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and Scholastic Press for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Inside every secret, there's a world of trouble. Get ready for the second book in this new series of global proportions--from master of intrigue, New York Times bestselling author Ally Carter. 
Grace's past has come back to hunt her . . . and if she doesn't stop it, Grace isn't the only one who will get hurt. Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world stand like dominoes, and one wrong move can make them all fall down. 
The twists get twistier and the turns get even more shocking in the second thrilling installment of Embassy Row. 

I’ve loved so many of Ally Carter’s books that I fully expected the ‘Embassy Row’ series to be another hit. Alas, the first book in the series really didn’t work for me, and I was desperately hoping that book two would get me back on track with this series. Sadly though, I don’t think it’s mean to be.

I struggled with Grace in the first book, and whilst I had less issues with her in this book, she and I still don’t seem to be getting along. She comes across as very immature, and her reasoning and motives seem to be on crack half the time. She doesn’t feel real, she feels like a wildly swinging pendulum caricature. Add in a whole host of other interesting but not fully realised characters and I found it difficult to muster up any sort of enthusiasm for anyone in this book.

The plot trots along at a decent enough pace, and I did find myself curious to find out what was going to happen. It felt like it had a little bit more substance and intrigue than the first book which definitely helped. However we’re then thrown one of the most obvious and ridiculous plot twists on the final page which made me want to throw my kindle across the room in frustration. It just felt so forced, so obvious, and so utterly ridiculous. I want to be surprised by my books, not want to scream with irritation.

I want to love this series, and I know plenty of people that do, but sadly this second outing proves that this one just isn’t the one for me. I think I’ll stick with old favourites like ‘Heist Society’ and give the third instalment a miss.

Review: Instructions for the End of the World by Jamie Kain

Publication Date: December 8^th 2015
Publisher: St Martin’s Press
Length: 224 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and St Martin’s Press for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

He prepared their family for every natural disaster known to man--except for the one that struck.

When Nicole Reed's father forces her family to move to a remote area of the Sierra Foothills, one without any modern conveniences, it's too much too handle for her mother, who abandons them in the middle of the night. Heading out to track her down, Nicole's father leaves her in charge of taking care of the house and her younger sister, Izzy. For a while, Nicole is doing just fine running things on her own. But then the food begins to run out, the pipes crack, and forest fires start slowly inching their way closer every day. Wolf, a handsome boy from the neighboring community, offers to help her when she needs it most, but when she starts to develop feelings for him, feelings she knows she will never be allowed to act on once her father returns, she must make a decision. With her family falling apart, will she choose to continue preparing for tomorrow's disasters, or will she take a chance and really start living for today?

Side note: It really frustrates me when covers are designed by people who have clearly never read the book. Why is she wearing a hat and a blanket? The entire book takes place in the middle of summer when it’s stupidly hot and there are forest fires coming for them.

It’s always a bad sign when you want to shake 90% of the characters in a book. Alas, ‘Instructions for the End of the World’ has that in spades, in fact I think there was only one character that didn’t frustrate me. It also might be my book of the year for truly terrible parenting. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book with such a bunch of awful, unfit to have children parents in some time. You have Wolf’s mother who is completely self-absorbed and tries to bring everyone into the drama of her life. Then Nicole and Isabel’s parents – one of whom it emerges never wanted children and willingly leaves her kids with their slightly unstable father in the middle of nowhere with no intentions to come back and rescue them.
Good job parents.

Then there are the kids, who are slightly screwed up but no less frustrating. There was so much potential here with both Nicole and Isabel and the situations they find themselves in, but it didn’t feel like the book was ever fully allowed to explore them, it just glossed over the top and as a result any emotional impact was lost. It also makes both of the girls decisions really hard to understand, particularly in the end of the novel where I just wanted to introduce my head to the desk for a while and weep for the idiocy.

There are several character viewpoints: Wolf, Nicole and her sister Isabel – all reasonable. But then we have one random other view point from Laurel who gets a grand total of two chapters out of the book and feels like a secondary character arc that was meant to be expanded into something, but instead was left as a beginning and an end.

Whilst the concept was fascinating, I never really connected with the characters or the story. I wanted to get drawn into the situation, to feel for these people, but I felt like nothing was really driving the events – there was no real plot to speak of. I ended up just feeling apathetic and mildly frustrated, and wishing for the story I thought I’d be diving into when I opened this book.

Review: How To Be Brave by E. Katherine Kottaras

Publication Date: November 3^rd 2015
Publisher: St Martin’s Press
Length: 288 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and St Martin’s Press for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

An emotional contemporary YA novel about love, loss, and having the courage to chase the life you truly want.
Reeling from her mother's death, Georgia has a choice: become lost in her own pain, or enjoy life right now, while she still can. She decides to start really living for the first time and makes a list of fifteen ways to be brave - all the things she's wanted to do but never had the courage to try. As she begins doing the things she's always been afraid to do - including pursuing her secret crush, she discovers that life doesn't always go according to plan. Sometimes friendships fall apart and love breaks your heart. But once in a while, the right person shows up just when you need them most - and you learn that you're stronger and braver than you ever imagined.

Something about this book just didn’t click with me, so whilst I saw a huge amount of love for it before I started and I was expecting to love it myself, we never really hit it off.

At the start of the novel I was engaged, interested in these characters and their problems and I loved the idea of the living with no fear list – all things combining to set up a truly great novel. But then it starts to drift. Georgia starts to smoke, do drugs, skip school, and all in the name of her mother’s memory and this list of living with no fear. She acts as though what she’s doing is living, when she’s actually just throwing it all away. Whilst she does realise how badly she’s screwed up later in the novel it felt like too little too late after the borderline glorification of taking drugs etc. that occurs throughout.

With the drugs everything seems to spiral and it turns into a very different novel to the one I started out reading. It loses focus, it drifts, Georgia spends a lot of time isolating and feeling sorry for herself and sabotaging her life and it’s frustrating to read. It also serves to make Georgia come across as extremely unlikeable as she blames her dead mother for the fact that she forced her to live without fear – to do this list in the first place. At no point does Georgia’s mother force her to create this list, or to do anything on it. It’s an interpretation of her wishes that Georgia devises and then spends a good portion of the novel being angry about. As a result my empathy for her decreased sharply and by the end I really didn’t care for her at all.

Throw in a love story with a caricature of the hot guy from school who we never really get to know, or get to see and understand the attraction between them for the three scenes they have together, and I was more than a little grumpy by the end of the novel.

It has its good moments, some truly emotional scenes that had me feeling more than a little bit teary, but they aren’t enough to balance out the problematic aspects. Ultimately it’s a quick read that sadly lacks anything to truly make it shine.

Review: Soundless by Richelle Mead

Publication Date: November 10^th 2015
Publisher: Razorbill
Length: 272 pages

From Richelle Mead, the #1 internationally bestselling author of Vampire Academy and Bloodlines, comes a breathtaking new fantasy steeped in Chinese folklore. 
For as long as Fei can remember, there has been no sound in her village, where rocky terrain and frequent avalanches prevent residents from self-sustaining. Fei and her people are at the mercy of a zipline that carries food up the treacherous cliffs from Beiguo, a mysterious faraway kingdom. 
When villagers begin to lose their sight, deliveries from the zipline shrink and many go hungry. Fei’s home, the people she loves, and her entire existence is plunged into crisis, under threat of darkness and starvation.
But soon Fei is awoken in the night by a searing noise, and sound becomes her weapon.
Richelle Mead takes readers on a triumphant journey from the peak of Fei’s jagged mountain village to the valley of Beiugo, where a startling truth and an unlikely romance will change her life forever...

That blurb has had me all kinds of excited since the start of the year, and this has been one of my most eagerly anticipated reads, so you can imagine my disappointment when the blurb turned out to be filled with over exagerations.
Steeped in Chinese folklore? I’m sorry, where is this? If you change the names of the characters there is literally nothing that makes this stand out as being particularly Chinese. I was so excited about having a diverse and interesting new read for the autumn, filled with folklore that I couldn’t wait to learn more about. What I got was a poorly constructed story that had very little drive to it and lacked any real links to China or its folklore except in the names.

It’s a short book to begin with so I really shouldn’t have found my interest lagging at any point, but that’s precisely what happens. The story meanders along at its own pace with a very basic plot that never really explores its full potential. There are a couple of interesting darker aspects but I never really felt  though they were given enough weight or depth of exploration, and as a result the parts that intrigued me the most were mostly swept under the rug. Then the final climax takes on a thoroughly different approach and feel to the rest of the book, suddenly throwing in bizarre fantasy elements that have been absent up to that point. It’s a really strange and surprisingly unsatisfying ending.

With a slow and basic story you really need an interesting and engaging central character to drive the story and keep the reader focussed, but again ‘Soundless’ came up short. Fei was nice enough and very brave, but I never connected with her. I think that may be in part due to the narrative style, but it meant that I never really fell in love with her, never rooted for her or feared for her. I felt merely mild interest in her plight and didn’t feel any emotional connection to her relationships. The relationship between her and her sister was particularly puzzling as it never felt fully formed, and Fei never comes across as the younger sibling, more like an older sibling desperately playing the care taker.

The narrative style keeps you emotionally distant and whilst on the whole it’s quite formal and stilted, presumably to try and keep the traditional storytelling/fable feel, there are quite a few instances where bizarrely modern language and phrases creep in which are quite jarring.

All in all this was not the book I was hoping to read, and it didn’t even remotely live up to my expectations. It was a decent enough story, competently told, but lacking any of the diversity and excitement that had been promised in the blurb. Thrown in the frustrating narrative style that keeps you at arms length from the characters and the slow moving plot and I was left feeling more than a little grumpy on finishing this one.

Review: Dangerous Lies by Becca Fitzpatrick

Publication Date: November 10^th 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK Children’s Books
Length: 385 pages

Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster UK Children’s Books for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review

Stella Gordon is not her real name. Thunder Basin, Nebraska, is not her real home. This is not her real life.
After witnessing a lethal crime, Stella Gordon is sent to the middle of nowhere for her own safety before she testifies against the man she saw kill her mother’s drug dealer.
But Stella was about to start her senior year with the boyfriend she loves. How can she be pulled away from the only life she knows and expected to start a new one in Nebraska? Stella chafes at her protection and is rude to everyone she meets. She’s not planning on staying long, so why be friendly? Then she meets Chet Falconer and it becomes harder to keep her guard up, even as her guilt about having to lie to him grows.
As Stella starts to feel safer, the real threat to her life increases—because her enemies are actually closer than she thinks… 

‘Dangerous Lies’ ended up being a bit of a mixed bag for me. On the one hand I was caught up by the story and found myself picking it up at odd moments, desperate to read just a few more pages whenever I had time. On the other hand, problems galore.

Let’s start with the biggie, Stella herself who is one of the most unlikeable heroines I’ve read this year. She’s whiney, she’s self-centred, she says some of the most awful things imaginable (I frequently did double takes, particularly when she’s thinking/talking about Innie’s pregnancy, because dear god girl put some kind of mouth filter thought process in place.) and she’s an all round not nice person. That makes it hard to root for her and to want to see her story through. Sure she does have some character development throughout the story but it’s not really enough and left me wanting to shake her at various points.

Side note: what on earth were they thinking when they put her into witness protection and changed her name from Estella to Stella?!... And Stella’s response to that name. Surely with a name like Estella, her name is going to have been shortened to Stella at some point in her life? Everything around the name change/her real name made my head hurt.

Some of it was really well done, other parts just seemed overblown and clichéd. I loved the slow ambling plot, just seeing Stella get used to Thunder Basin and its residents and watching her try to fit in. The day to day existence was great to see and I really enjoyed those parts of it. But then there was everything else, and those were the points that didn’t work quite so well.

We’ve got Stella’s boyfriend Reed who gets sent elsewhere for protection. The only way we really got to know Reed was through his letters that Stella had managed to smuggle out to Thunder Basin with her. Lovely idea, poorly executed. Reed comes across as an absolute arse, really truly unlikeable, Stella why are you bothering with this guy? It made her devotion to him seem completely unexplainable; add in that as soon as he’s declared missing she goes from pining and trying to get in touch with him to ‘oh well, make out time!’ and it’s even more bizarre. That his story is left so unfinished with no real ending or resolution is the icing on the grumpy cake. (Side note: Thanks so much Becca Fitzpatrick for doing a disservice to Fibromyalgia sufferers everywhere by including a little talked about illness and painting it atrociously. That really made me furious.)

The other characters are mixed, I enjoyed seeing Chet and Carmine and their interactions, but anything involving Trigger or Stella’s Mum seemed contrived and one dimensional. The rest of the characters are a hodge podge that make the town feel bigger but don’t really manage to be memorable.

Then there’s the plot. I’ve already said how much I loved the slow, hazy summer days – that was really well done. However a lot of the elements to do with the Witness Protection and the case were poorly handled. A lot of backstory was smushed in in one big info dump and the big climax happened in the last twenty pages or so with no real build up or pay off. It felt completely random. As a result I found it really hard to rate this one, but have ultimately gone for the lower rating simply because after a few days thinking about it the frustrations and gripes are winning out over the good points.

If you enjoy slow day to day existences and a gradual unfurling relationship then you’ll love the romance in this one. However if you’re picking it up purely for the crime/thriller aspects then it really doesn’t live up to expectations.