Tag: Book review

I’m a couple of days early with this post, so I’ve only got three books down this month! I am however in the middle of two, both of which may make an appearance in next month’s post. But for now take a gander at the books I blitzed through in April.

This one admittedly caught my eye after I spied the trailer on YouTube, thought it was a really interesting concept and then had people left, right and centre recommending the movie and the book! So this really had to live up to the hype. 

Warm Bodies takes the zombie genre and flips it on it’s head. It’s the story of ‘R’, a zombie boy living out the remainder of his existence. ‘R’ is a weird one though. Yes, he has no pulse but he’s a dreamer and thinks a little differently to rest of his kind – not that they care, they’re dead lol. In the ruins of the nearby city ‘R’ meets Julie, a human, and for some strange reason decides to save her instead of eating her. The two develop an odd friendship and she starts to rewire his undead brain. 

The book started off ok, it was interesting enough to hear about this strange normalcy the zombie had adopted. The story only really picked up once Julie appeared in his life though, their relationship felt oddly realistic – well as realistic as you can get with a zombie and a human. Now have to watch the film to see if it’s as good!

I read some of Westerfeld’s in my teen years and vaguely remember enjoying his stuff. So Yesterday is the story of Hunter Braque, he’s a ‘cool-hunter’ working for a big agency in New York that seeks out the trends and makes some money out of the products of cool…which is how he meets Jen. She’s an ‘innovator’, someone who doesn’t follow trends but makes them. Before too long a mystery crops up. Hunter’s boss, Mandy, goes missing he and Jen are suddenly thrown in the dark marketing underground full of weird products, fake clients and unexpected danger. 

I’m set to review this pretty soon for Blogger’s Bookshelf, but in short this was a really surprisingly enjoyable read, really fast paced, and the concepts were interesting to me, especially as a someone who wants to work in  the ad industry in the future.

Why We Broke Up? | Daniel Handler
The clue of what this book is about is in the title, told through the eyes of Min Green, this is story of how and why she broke up with Ed Slaterton. Min details their relationship from start to messy finish in letters to Ed that she’s putting in a box along with trinkets and ‘souveniers’ from their time together. Such items include a movie ticket, a box of matches, books, and a pair of ‘ugly’ earrings, and each item has a story to go with it.
The story itself is slow, Min – writing in the present tense throughout the novel – is emotional and sometimes those emotions come out as her words spilling out all over the page. Ed is also a hardly likeable character to me. He’s co-captain of the football team, a notorious ‘player’ and actually quite rude. It’s hard to see what Min even saw in him and by the end of the book she’s left thinking that too. On one hand I understand that this is a story of young love and how fast it can escalate and drop in a heartbeat, but I just couldn’t feel a thing for these characters in the end.
The one thing I did love about the book were the illustrations by Maira Kalman. You are shown each item before you’re told the story, so you’re left wondering what it’s significance is in the plot. The illustrations themselves are beautifully done, and made me wish I bought the actual book instead of the Kindle copy!

If you’ve read any of these let me know what you think! And don’t forget to follow Blogger’s Bookshelf to see mine and the team’s reviews!

R.xoxo

One ticked off my Blogger’s Bookshelf challenge! The Bell Jar was my first step into the world of Plath and I was certainly impressed. Much easier to read than ‘Catcher…’ and definitely much more captivating, the story follows Esther Greenwood in 1950’s America as she slowly descends into depression and emotional breakdown. Plath is a poet and it definitely shows in her writing (The Bell Jar is her only novel), that being said it’s not flower-y and it’s never forced. It’s helps to know that the book itself is semi-autobiographical and that Plath is painting a realistic of mental health. She makes Esther feel human not this other-worldly character which was refreshing to read compared to my usual moany-female-YA-protagonists. Her situation towards the end of the book improves, but the ending is definitely bittersweet and is a great reflection on the true nature of mental illness and life in general. Recommended read!

Pandemonium | Lauren Oliver
The sequel to Delirium, it took me a while to actually get on to read this and I have to admit the first few pages was mostly spent trying to remember what actually happened and who the characters are (I clearly read too much Dystopian lol). I have full review on Blogger’s Bookshelf here, but I did enjoy it a lot more than Delirium. I was great, fast-paced and the cliffhanger? Oh lordy. Very excited to get Requiem very soon!

The Named | Marianne Curley
This was a random one I picked up in the Kindle store. It wasn’t a bad read and I’m starting to think I should be wary of reviewing YA novels as technically the target audience is much younger than myself. The story follows that of Ethan, who is a Guardian of Time, and his brand new apprentice Isabelle. Ethan is a part of the Guard that protects the world from the Order of Chaos, who like to mess up points in time to cause widespread…well chaos. Isabelle is brand new to the guard and Ethan has to train her up for her first mission in two weeks, which won’t be easy. Not to mention the fact that the two have known each other since childhood when Isabelle harboured a crush for Ethan since then. Despite the obvious YA tone, world they live in is rich and detailed with much more that I expect will be revealed in good time. I’m just left wishing I could hear more about it rather than their, rather obvious, romantic dilemma but all in good time I suppose.

Struck By Lightning | Chris Colfer
I’ve been dying to read this one for a while. I’m a huge Chris Colfer fan and so insanely impressed by all of his achievements (from Glee to writing and starring in the SBL movie to writing other books etc etc all before the age of 23). Again this is another one for the Blogger’s Bookshelf review pile so go check it out once it’s up on Monday! My overall feelings on the book were good. You see Chris’ natural sarcastic humour through the writing, but as a stand-alone novel without the film to back it up? It won’t shake the literary world. This however has got me more motivated to read The Land of Stories – Colfer’s first full children’s book – and to gear up to see the movie (once it actually freaking comes out in the UK ¬_¬)

Smart Mouth Waitress | Dayla Moon
I didn’t realise this book was part of a series until I put it in to GoodReads. This was a cheap-y Kindle buy, but I gotta say I really liked it. It turns out this series (‘Life In Saltwater City’) is actually a series of stand-alone books. This particular book (which is the second in the set) is all about a seventeen year old girl called Peridot (or Perry) stumbling through her romantic life, whilst balancing a job as a waitress, her famous musician mother, bipolar dad and typical teenage brother, in Vancouver. The relationships in this one are great, they feel believable, even though some of the situations Perry gets into may not be, and there’s plenty of character development for the majority of people in the book. It’s a quick chic-lit read, the writing is humorous and there are dozens of extremely recent pop culture references in there. If I’m honest it was nice to take a break from the crazy genre that is Dystopia/Utopia to read about a girl with pretty normal, albeit rather amusing problems.