Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Surprised Me

13 Mar 2018 Leave a comment

by Amy in Top Ten Tags: ,

Top Ten Tuesday is an original and weekly meme created by The Broke And The Bookish in 2010 but has since moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in 2018.

Topic:  Books That Surprised Me
(in a good or bad way)

Since it can be books that surprised me in a good or a bad way I’ve split the list down the middle. Naturally, the good surprises are the best, but some of the bad ones were bad. Granted, they weren’t all horrible, evil DNF disasters, they just weren’t what I was expecting when I started reading. They just weren’t what I thought they were going to be like when I started reading them.

Books that Were A Good Surprise

Bro by Helen Chebette

The Wrong Girl by Zoe Foster

The Weight of a Human Heart by Ryan O’Neill

The Once and Future King by T. H. White

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

 

Books that Were A Bad Surprise

Second Life by S. J. Watson

Beside Myself by Ann Morgan

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

The Farmer’s Wife by Rachael Treasure

Faking It Gabrielle Tozer

P is for Pearl by Eliza Henry-Jones

12 Mar 2018 Leave a comment

by Amy in 3 Stars, Australian Women Writers, Young Adult Tags: , , , , , ,

Published: 19th February 2018Goodreads badge
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pages: 304
Format: ebook
Genre: Young Adult
★   ★   ★  – 3 Stars

Note: I received a copy from NetGalley

Seventeen-year-old Gwendolyn P. Pearson has become very good at not thinking about the awful things that have happened to her family. She has also become used to people talking about her dead mum. Or not talking about her and just looking at Gwen sympathetically. And it’s easy not to think about awful things when there are wild beaches to run along, best friends Loretta and Gordon to hang out with – and a stepbrother to take revenge on. 

But following a strange disturbance at the cafe where she works, Gwen is forced to confront what happened to her family all those years ago. And she slowly comes to realise that people aren’t as they first appear and that like her, everyone has a story to tell.

I loved the comfortable feeling of this book. I connected with the feeling of the small town and the familiarity with all the residents there. It was a different kind of story that had a lot of focus on the characters and who they were rather than any big events. I liked that what looked like key plot points came to nothing and you realise Jones has a different direction in mind for the story.

What I also liked were the slow reveals and the shifting focus, it is also a great exploration of mental health and how that is dealt with at all ages and stages of life. Jones doesn’t delve too deeply into this, it is very much shown from the outside, but that in itself is an interesting point of view.

I enjoyed the surprises and their reveals that were impactful but didn’t feel like Plot Twists. They weren’t suddenly thrown in your face but they developed gradually which I liked. It felt natural and it felt like a realistic moment of discovery rather than a sudden change in the story.

The characters are pretty wonderful as well. I liked the relationship Gwen has with her friends and the people in town. It has a great small town feeling and the friendships and the support the community provide to one another is heart-warming but doesn’t come across as cheesy.

There isn’t a great exploration of other characters, but at the same time it’s not their story and you forget to notice it sometimes. You know who they are, and Jones gives you enough that you understand their lives and who they are, but Jones doesn’t go into huge depths. This is Gwen’s story after all and Jones keeps it revolving around her.

There is a natural feeling to the way Jones writes. Conversations are natural, more information isn’t provided between characters just so a reader understands, and the events and actions of the characters are intriguing and fascinating without being unnatural or fanciful.

It says in Jones’ acknowledgements that she first wrote this book when she was 16, whether that accounts for the tone this book sets or just that she can tell a young adult story well I’m not sure. I was drawn into Gwen’s story and came out the other side satisfied and content which is never a bad way to feel at the end of a book.

You can purchase P is for Pearl via the following

Booktopia | QBD

Amazon | Amazon Aust

Boomerang Books | BookWorld

Publisher

Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite Book Quotes

06 Mar 2018 1 Comment

by Amy in Top Ten Tags: ,

Top Ten Tuesday is an original and weekly meme created by The Broke And The Bookish in 2010 but has since moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in 2018.

Topic:  Favourite Book Quotes

“Maybe our favourite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we’re quoting” – John Green

The thing about book quotes is that you can find great ones that offer life advice, are funny, quirky, profound. So many have been written about books, reading, libraries and librarians. I could include so many but I suppose that’s why Goodreads has the quotes page where you can add as many as you please. Choosing ten was tricky but also easy. I had the quotes I immediately reached for and others I had to think about whether they were my favourite or merely just wonderful. A list of wonderful book quotes is a whole separate thing altogether not to mention quotes by authors but aren’t actually in a book.

In no particular order, these are the ten I decided to add to the list.

  • “Every swear word in the Devil’s dictionary curled around my tongue.” – Scott Monk, Boys ‘R’ Us

This line has always stayed with me from this book. It’s very clever and I really want to use it one day.

  •  “Take no heed of her…she reads a lot of books.” – Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots

All ten of these quotes could be from Fforde’s books. They are witty, true, and fabulous. All the things and I had a very hard time limiting my selection of them. but this is a great quote that I have adopted. It’s flippant and meant to be a dismissal but I like it all the same.

  • “Thomas Edison’s last words were “It’s very beautiful over there”. I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful.”  – John Green, Looking for Alaska.

This quote has such a profound meaning for me. Alaska is a stunningly beautiful and underappreciated book and Hank Green’s song about it only enhances this. It’s not so much what the quote is saying, but what it represents.

  • “Even the dead need caring for.” Gareth P. Jones, The Thornwaite Inheritance

For a strange children’s book, I was struck by this quote. It stood out to me and even inspired some of my writing.

  • “We lie to protect our children, and in lying we expose them to the greatest of harms.” – John Connolly, Nocturnes

From a book of creepy short stories about monsters and unknown things, this was an interesting quote to find. It certainly made me think about the truth to it.

  • “Loved with obsessive devotion, hated with barely controlled fury” – Heather McCollum, Siren’s Song

I also have to include “The bravest warriors scream inside while fighting for what’s right” as a second from that book because that is an amazing quote as well.

  • “I’m sorry, but I don’t get it. If we’re supposed to ignore everything that’s wrong in our lives, then I can’t see how we’ll ever make things right.” – A. S. King, Please Ignore Vera Dietz.

I have so many emotions about vera Dietz. Every paragraph there is another wonderful quote or life lesson to take hold of. It’s a beautiful book.

  • “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Such a wonderfully absurd book. I am also a fan of the poem, The Walrus and the Carpenter which has resulted in me adding “the walrus said” in my head whenever anybody says the phrase “the time has come.”

  • “Do I have to talk to insane people?” “You’re a librarian now. I’m afraid it’s mandatory.” – Jasper Fforde, The Woman Who Died A Lot

I always love finding fun quotes about librarians. There’s always the Important ones and the ones about how treasured they are, but I like the ones that make us sound dangerous, or powerful, or just a reality of our day that yes, sometimes people are just a tad bit trying.

  • “We should be angry. Because if we aren’t, we aren’t paying enough attention.” – Clementine Ford, Fight Like A Girl

I have a dozen or more Post-Its sticking out from this book with excellent quotes but I love this one because it sums up a lot of things and makes an excellent point about the state of the world.

 

So there’s my ten. Now I need to go reread some books that I have been reminded of their excellence whilst formulating this list!

 

 

 

Bloom (The Order #1) by Nikki Rae

28 Feb 2018 Leave a comment

by Amy in 5 Stars, Romance, The Order Tags: , , , , ,

Published: 28th February 2018Goodreads badge
Publisher: Self Published
Pages: 290
Format: ebook
Genre: Dark contemporary romance
★   ★   ★   ★   ★  – 5 Stars

Given to The Grimm Order as an infant, Fawn was raised in a world shaped by the rich and powerful. When she was sold at the age of nine to a Suitor, Fawn believed he would protect her from the “Mainworld”, where those who know nothing about the Order live. Living with the cruel man who bought her freedom, she finds just what the Order is about: money, control, and status for the Owner and humiliation and abuse for those they own. 

Unwilling to accept the expectations of being Owned, Fawn goes from golden girl to maid, content to live in the shadows of the Order as long as she isn’t Owned again.

It’s been ten years since she disgraced her former Owner’s name, and now the brooding Frenchman Elliot Lyon wants her. Master Lyon is kind, smart, and unlike any man she’s met. She doesn’t want to admit it to herself, but Fawn is drawn to him despite constantly planning her next escape. 

Even the prettiest flowers have thorns, and Master Lyon is hiding secrets that will uproot everything she thinks she knows about him.

Note: I was provided with a copy of this book by the author for review.

Once again, Nikki Rae has delivered. I will admit I was wary when I first began reading. It’s different, it’s certainly uncomfortable and dark at times, but nevertheless, it is everything that makes Rae’s books wonderful.

There were some scenes that made my stomach turn, which is interesting because this is not Rae’s first dark, sinister book. Nor the first with such a dark subject. It wasn’t the concept though, nor the overall situation, just a few scenes that made me feel uneasy as I read. Which I guess was the point. It made my stomach turn but I couldn’t stop reading. My own heart was pounding alongside Fawn’s. My own heart was thudding in my chest because I wanted to know what was going to happen because clearly anything could. I was engrossed, I stayed up late to read, I had to drag myself away at the end of lunch hours, trying to read another sentence, another paragraph.

Rae gets us inside Fawn’s head as we plan, assess, and discover all there is to her new world and her new situation. We discover things about her past life and her experiences with seamless transitions and carefully placed words. I felt the touch of fairytale in there and I loved the society and its secrets hidden in the modern world. Rae brings us into this dark world and the grand forbidden estate. We’re drawn into Fawn’s new life and feel her uncertainty and her defiance, her trepidation but admire the inner fire that keeps her going. An important thing to note is that while it is of a darker sexual nature, it isn’t too terrible, but there are also a few scenes of descriptive violence. In context and in the world in which Rae has created it makes sense, but certain scenes were hard to read.

I finished the final chapter very late at night and immediately wanted to leap into the next book. Rae takes you on an emotional journey with secrets you may or may not guess, and moments wrought with suspense and suppression. Everything you think you know or guess will get turned on its head on a whim. By the end you wish you knew what to expect but are delighted and scared when the story changes direction and you cannot fathom just where this story will take you.

You can purchase Bloom via the following

Amazon | Amazon Aust

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Could Reread Forever

27 Feb 2018 4 Comments

by Amy in Top Ten Tags: ,

Top Ten Tuesday is an original and weekly meme created by The Broke And The Bookish in 2010 but has since moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in 2018.

Topic:  Books/Series I Could Re-read Forever

Looking at my list I realise 4, technically 5, of them are actually series, but I am including them anyway because you can’t just read one of them. I have also included for nine and ten two books I actually haven’t reread since I read them originally, but I adore them and feel I would reread them again and again. But also they both gave me such profound experiences I don’t know if I want to tarnish that by rereading. But I added them anyway. I love each of the books on this list and just putting them on here reminds me of the wonderful things about them and why I want to experience them over and over again.

1. His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

2. Harry Potter by JK Rowling

3. Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

4. The Tenth Hero by Barry Klem

5. Tomorrow When the War Began by John Marsden

6. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

7. The Martian by Andy Weir

8. Boyz R Us by Scott Monk

9. The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

10. Looking for Alaska by John Green

 

 

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