Wow. Just Wow. This book was totally chilling. Set in the not too distant future, women’s rights have been completely stripped away. No bank accounts, no jobs, they are forced to stay at home like a good wife should. But worst of all, they are limited to 100 words a day. Go over that limit and they receive an electric shock. Or should I say shocks. Of increasing violence for every word they say too much. And this isn’t just women...
Category - Fiction
Oh how I wish I had time for a Mistborn re-read. After reading this short novella, it really made me want to read again the stories of Vin and Kelsier. I think the second set of Mistborn books would also have made a bit more sense having read this novella too. In this book, we mainly follow Kelsier as he seeks to prevent Ruin from taking control. Kelsier is trapped in the in-between, not alive, but not quite yet dead either. I can’t...
I picked this book up on our church book stall a little while ago – the cover caught my eye – I’ve always liked diary style books. At first, I thought it was a biography style book, but some of the characters in the book were such caricatures of characters you see in a church that I thought either it can’t be real, or the author is brave to be naming them in her book! Having no children, I can’t really...
Every once in a while, you read a book that completely breaks you. And this was it for me. I read this book in one train journey from London to Leeds, and I was full out crying on the train from the horrors that were written inside. I cried because these horrors were real. Things that actually happened less than 2 generations ago. Things that should not be forgotten, lest we repeat them. The book follows a young girl called Hanna, who...
Ah, Louisa Clark. I’ve missed you. I absolutely loved Me Before You and kinda enjoyed the follow up, After You. Did we need a trilogy? No. Would I have been happy if Moyes had stopped after the first book? Yes. But am I happy to finish reading about Louisa and that she finally got her happy ending? Very much so. And I was also glad that the happy ending wasn’t exactly what I imagined it would be – Louisa still had plenty...
I got this book a month before it’s scheduled release date through the Amazon First Reads programme (if you have Amazon Prime, and you don’t know what this is, check it out – free books!). It jumped out at me from the list of six books because the blurb looked quite intriguing: A shocking tragedy reveals that Jenny’s life is far from perfect. Reeling, Penelope vows to stop keeping the peace and finally deal with the...
It’s been a while since I read anything at all, and I’m stuck halfway through a couple of epic books, so I needed something light to kick-start my reading habit again. I borrowed this book for free from the Amazon Prime Reading section, and I was quite looking forward to something a bit cosy and heart warming. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really find any kind of empathy for either of the main characters which really spoilt my...
Holmberg has been one of my favourite authors since I read The Paper Magician, and when this book was released a month early as part of the Amazon Prime First Reads programme, I was really excited! I immediately fell in love with Sandis, the main character. She’s a young woman who was kidnapped at a young age and is now kept as a vessel for a fiery power called Ireth, at the bidding of her master. She only sees daylight when she’s...
I’ve been looking forward to reading this book ever since I bought it last year and added it to my growing TBR list. It’s taken a while to get to the top of that list, and I do have mixed feelings about it. There’s no doubt that this is a feel-good book. Cherry is a baker who can see other people’s bad feelings. And she uses her special talents as a baker to make them cakes with an added ingredient to cure their...
When I picked up this book in Waterstones, it was with a caption card that compared it to the likes of The Rosie Project, which is a book I completely fell in love with. And while I can kind of see why you would compare them because of their protagonists, this book fell way short of the mark for me. “In Susan we find a character as exasperating and delightful as The Rosie Project’s Don Tillman.”. Exasperating, yes...
Not for a long time have I been so unsure about how a book would end. I don’t read too many thrillers as it’s not my usual genre, but Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick are two of my favourite actresses and I wanted to read this before I watched the film that’s coming out on DVD in a few weeks. Warning: there will be spoilers below. If you’re planning on picking up this book, don’t read any further. Just know that...
As an avid reader, it’s probably no surprise that I mainly picked this book due to the title and the front cover – I know, I know, judging a book by it’s cover and all that. But a book which is probably going to be mainly about books, how could I resist? Having finished the book, I have mixed feelings. Once I sat down to properly read it, I finished most of it in one sitting. I found the setting and the characters enticing...
I’ve had this book on my shelf for quite a long time, but since I’m so close to the end of the year and not quite at my reading target for the year, it was time to finally read it – at only 55 pages I thought it would be perfect for catching up. Unfortunately, even though it was Jane Austen who is by far my favourite author, I didn’t really find it that brilliant, I’m sorry to say. It’s a set of short...
This book has been sitting on my shelf for 2 years, never quite making it to the top of my to-read list. But since I found myself with 6 days to read 6 books if I want to achieve my reading target of 60 books for this year, I picked this one up as it looked like a fairly easy and comparatively short read. Unfortunately, I kind of feel like I wasted a whole day of reading on this book. While it kept me turning the pages and wanting to read...
My love for Milly Johnson grows with every book I read. After queuing up for over an hour and a half in a Tesco in South Yorkshire to meet her and get this book signed, I made myself wait until closer to Christmas to read it, so I could feel properly festive! The Yorkshire Pudding Club was the first book of Milly’s that I read (10 years ago now!), and this book is very closely related. In fact, the book’s working title was The...
I first read this book when I was 14 and I had a little crush on the local librarian, and when he recommended it I binged it in one weekend. But I was only 14 and completely clueless about politics and such, so although I thought it was a great book, I don’t think I completely got it. So when one of my colleagues told me he was reading it, I had to pick it up and read it again so we could talk about it after. And...
I really had no idea what this book was about when I picked it up, my friend bought me a Blind Date with a Book voucher for my birthday and this was one of the choices I was sent. The clues were: Heartfelt Profound Fantasy Courage Healing Truth Young Adult I woke up early yesterday because of the clocks going back, and I had two hours sat reading quietly by myself before anyone else woke up, and it turns out that was just long enough to devour...
I have really mixed feelings about this book which I am finding quite hard to process. Now that I’ve got to the end, if you asked me what I thought, I’d tell you that I absolutely loved it, that it was fast paced and exciting and had so many twists that I just couldn’t guess what was going to happen next. But if you’d asked me a few days ago while I was still less than half way through the book, I’d tell you that I...
I think at this point, you’re probably fed up of me giving glowing reviews to Brandon Sanderson books, and I’m not sorry to say that this will be another. Quite a departure from the last Sanderson book I read, this one was only 130 pages long, and far from being a fantasy epic, was a mini sci-fi detective story. It makes me sad that Sanderson can seemingly turn his hand to any genre he likes and write an amazing book, when I...
I consumed this book in one sitting as I found the characters so well described and relatable that I had to know what was going to happen. I actually was on a train that was delayed for over half an hour, but I didn’t mind as I just wanted to finish the book before I had to get off! The book starts with Esther and her family moving to a place called Truth or Consequences in New Mexico. It’s hinted quite heavily that Esther is the...
I thought the premise of this book was so promising. A future America where the world’s resources have been abused to such a point that each family is only allowed one child to try and safeguard the future of the planet (or what’s left of it). Humankind is everything’s and everyone’s most dangerous predator. Blindly killing its own planet, slowly wounding it over the centuries. Forcing my generation to mop up the blood. So there...