Books told me so: November 2015

28 Nov 2015

Review: I Was Here

It's been two weeks since I finished I Was Here. I know, shame on me.

★★★★☆

Four stars out of five. It was really good but its tempo was a bit too slow.

We follow Cody, Meg's best friend and other half through the book. The book starts after Meg has killed herself and Cody tries to find who she is without Meg.

To Cody, Meg has always been the daring, cheerful and perfect friend, but the reality is another one. So much different that Cody needs to take an emotional road to get through the grief that Meg's death has caused. The truth reveals itself after few wrong turns and a pair of kittens.

If you wait for a huge, mind blowing, soul destroying plot-twist, there ain't one coming. The story keeps on steady pace from the beginning to the end. Only the packed emotion behind every sentence keeps the reader so hooked that it's a one-night-read.

What bothered me though, was the ending. Having read If I Stay and Where She Went I was expecting some emotional wrecking and ocean full of crying, but it didn't happen. And I am the easiest crier in the world. When something is pretty or happy or someone dies or anything even slightly sad, I'll cry. Just imagine me reading The Fault in Our Stars...

Back to business. In my opinion the plot might have been a bit more quick going than it was, but after reading it the steady pace felt right. Since the book is so full of packed emotions and rough subjects it was really nice the digest the things read, while still reading.

Recommending it!

9 Nov 2015

Review: Queen of the Deep

★☆☆☆☆

Got to say I don't remember when was the last time I've given just one star to a book.

If I start from the beginning I got every good thing covered very fast.
The only thing I liked was the beginning. I really liked the picture Kay Kenyon had written of Jane's childhood. Her childhood was not picture perfect but still she found comfort from her plays in the basement. She felt safe with Starling and trusted him.

Then I'd say everything went south.

Many things sounded too childish to come from twenty some year old's mouth. Also I didn't have almost any backgrounf information about anything besides Jane's childhood at the beginning of the book and some scraps here and there. Really annoying.

Also to me it seemed that when this book was written it had not been entirely planned or something because sometimes it felt just too impossible to fit in the story line. For example at some parts something happens and it results a dead end. How do we get out of this dead end? Well, let's do something more impossible which leads up to snother dead end. And there we go again.

Most of the characters were shallow and were not entirely full charcters. Some parts of every character was missing. I would love to read the book again if the characters were changed to be better suitable for the story.

I could summarize the whole book in one sentence: A book with adult themes and content written in alanguage suitable for little kids.
Honestly sometimes I couldn't say if the book was for little kids or to adults.

4 Nov 2015

Nanowrimo15

I finally decided to do it.

I've been writing a little this and that for a few years and now it's time to finish what I started. I'm writing the full draft of a novel I've been working on this Autumn. I actually got a block after I showed the first 500 words to my friend and she said she didn't like it. Now I'm not making the same mistake! I hope my sis is ready to read the full draft when it's ready. :p

3667 words now and more coming out as fast as I can write.

If you don't know what Nanowrimo is, here it is in a nutshell:
The month of November is the National Novel Writing Month, which means if you participate you're going to write a draft or the full book in just a month. Target word count is 50,000. You update your word count and, if you want, your author profile to nanowrimo.org. Through the site you can read pep talks, get writing-tips and have writing buddies. Some regions organise writing or plotting events which you can participate. Basically it's about inspiring people to write their novel and not to think too much, so it gets done before another decade has passed because of procrastination.

Are any of you participating?

2 Nov 2015

Review: A Court of Thorns And Roses

I love retellings. I love Beauty and the Beast. So I was bound to love A Court of Thorns And Roses.

★★★★★

I've loved every Sarah J. Maas' book I've read this far and this one did not disappoint me.

We follow a human girl named Feyre. Her mother died, her father is depressed and her two sisters are demanding and not suited for rough living. And since they lost their fortune and moved to a little cottage Feyre has had to look after her family. She does it to honour her vow to her mother on her deathbed. But harder times come, they have no food and no money to spare. Feyre hunts farther away in the woods to find any game in the dead of winter. She faces a huge wolf which she kills. But the wolf was Fae, or rather High Fae. She has to pay for the kill with her own life or by living her life in Prythian, the Fae lands.

Feyre is such an amazing character that truly feels alive. She knows what it is to be hungry and what it is to wealthy. She knows neither of them come without costs. She knows what it is to be desperate and to act out of desperation, still feeling the fear it inflicts. During the book she grows more courage and independency and a lot more stubborn she was at the beginning. And maybe she has been very stubborn and courageous originally but the turns in her lifer have made her subside those qualities and put fear and desperation into their places.
The thing that really caught my attention was Feyre's feeling toward her family. To me it seemed that she cared about her family, that she wanted to take care of them but she didn't love them. It's unusual because usually all heroines are so in love with their families and they don't want to leave them at any cost. But Feyre merely argued against the idea of leaving just save her life. Not her family's. I admire Ms. Maas for that.

There's Tamlin, you fall in love with. He is adorable. A bit awkward and doesn't know how to act around Feyre. Some might think that is he truly is awkward, wouldn't he then be badly written character? No. Not at all. It's really adorable to follow his clumsiness and it suits perfectly in contrast with other characters. Tamlin is a High Lord, but we find this out later. It doesn't come out as a huge surprise given it's a retelling from Beauty and the Beast. He suffers along with his court of a curse that is a huge spoiler, but it binds them to wear masks that don't come off. The curse is broken by a mortal, but how is too a huge spoiler.
Then there's the Tamlin behind the awkward outer shell. The Tamlin who has teeth and attitude. A will and desire to protect his Kingdom and those he cares about.

The other two main Fae are Lucien, who's part of Tamlin's court and then there is Rhysand. Rhysand the Mysterious I would call him. I don't know what he wants of Feyre and what his intentions and motives are. I hope these we will find out in the next book, A Court of Mist and Fury.

My thoughts went from basic emotionless reading to 'holy what's going on?' to 'Oh my God I'm dying' to 'Just stop you killing me'. And that went over and over again. I know that Maas' books are intense and full of emotions that really make you feel something but this. Really. Hurt. And. Made. Me. Happy. The whole experience made me crave for the next book. I had two sentences scribbled to my notebook of reviews:
''Am I supposed to live through this?'' and ''Really, you expect me to breathe?''
You can make your own conclusions of how awesome those feelings are during the book.

It really is a page-turner and actually quite fast to read. I would recommend to pick it up now, so it's over and you can mope until the next book comes out!

And if you haven't read the book yet, check the pronunciation guide in the end.

November TBR

Usually when I'm doing TBR's for the month I fail miserably. It's like when I list something I definitely won't read it, but then I read ten other books outside the list.

The solution to my problem: I am going to list only few books and then all the others I choose during the month depending how I feel.

Those few lucky (or unlucky) books on my list are:

Rest of November's reads will be seen throughout the month.

Happy November Eeverybody!

1 Nov 2015

October Wrap-Up!

I'm kind of disappointed to this month's score. Only six books! I don't know what I have done during this month to earn a score this low. Usually I read at least eight books a month.

But nontheless, here they are: