Weekly Wrap Up #43

Another week, another failure to get any closer to catching up on these freaking wrap ups. WHY AM I SO BAD AT LIFE???

Anyway. Here’s what I read between August 5th and 11th.

Books read: 9
Pages read: 2,865 pages

#1: A Long Walk To Water by Linda Sue Park

Audience: Middle Grade
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: The story of a young Sudanese girl forced to spend her days walking back and forth to obtain water juxtaposed with the true story of one of the lost boys of Sudan.

Thoughts: I had no idea what to expect from this because it’s ridiculously tiny. Like, it’s less than 150 pages. And yet both sides of the story felt fully developed. It was engaging and compelling and the ending was fantastic. And the knowledge that it’s mostly based on a true story just added to my enjoyment of it. Definitely one I’ll be revisiting in the future.

Rating: 4 stars

#2: The Shock by Marc Raabe

Audience: Adult
Genre: Thriller

Plot summary: When Jan’s childhood friend Laura disappears while they’re on holidays and then his neighbour is found dead, Jan finds himself on the run and trying to investigate Laura’s disappearance at the same time.

Thoughts: I borrowed this book accidentally, thinking that it was by Melanie Raabe, who I thoroughly enjoy. Alas. Still, the plot sounded interesting, so I figured I’d read it anyway and see how I felt. Uuuuuunfortunately, this was a big ol’ mess. The writing was pretty mediocre. The story dragged a lot. And there was a metric fuckton of violence towards women in this story, which meant that I reeeeeally didn’t want to pick it up because I knew there was always going to be more violence coming. So…yeah. I kind of regret picking this up, to be honest.

Rating: 2 stars

#3: Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett

Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: A teenage girl goes hiking with friends, only to discover that her estranged (male) best friend is on the trip too. When the rest of the group abandons them in the middle of nowhere, the two decide to make their way through the wilderness on their own.

Thoughts: This was so fucking cute. Like, SO FUCKING CUTE. I think it’s probably my favourite of Jenn Bennett’s three books to date. The characters are fantastic. It made me want to go camping. There’s plenty of drama, plenty of swoon, plenty of stargazing. Sure, it was hella predictable. But it was also just really fucking enjoyable and very sex positive and just an absolute delight from start to finish. And I kind of want to reread it already…

Rating: 4 stars

#4: The Missing Girl by Jenny Quintana

Audience: Adult
Genre: Thriller?

Plot summary: Following her mother’s death, a woman is forced to return to the village where she grew up, the village where her sister disappeared thirty years earlier.

Thoughts: I was really excited to read this, because it sounded so incredibly compelling and creepy. Unfortunately, this was just sort of…flat? The story dragged at times, and I definitely thought it was going to be a creepy thriller rather than a story about a woman dealing with having to go home after years away that happened to have a side of crime to it. So…I think my problem here was more to do with what I thought the book was going to be rather than there being a genuine problem with the book.

Rating: 3 stars

#5: Octavio’s Journey by Miguel Bonnefoy

Audience: Adult
Genre: Magical Realism

Plot summary: The story of a giant named Octavio, who goes on a journey that unlocks his life’s purpose.

Thoughts: I picked this up on a whim at my local library because a) it was tiny and b) it was translated. And it was just kind of…aggressively peculiar. I mean, it’s magical realism, so that shouldn’t surprise me. But this started really strongly for me and then sort of became a struggle. The ending in particular was legitimately bonkers and I still don’t know what to make of it.

Rating: 3 stars

#6: Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews (reread)

Audience: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy

Plot summary: The fourth book in the Kate Daniels series features Kate being forced into contact with a family member who’s determined to take her down…

Thoughts: I love this book. Kate is a sassy little shit with a sword and I love her. When you add in a romance that I will ship to the ends of the earth, an attack poodle, and a healthy dose of hilarity, you’ve got yourself one hell of a good time. Seriously, this series is one of my favourite things of all time and you should all read it immediately okay bye.

Rating: 4.5 stars

#7: Brightly Burning by Alexa Donne

Audience: YA
Genre: Sci-Fi

Plot summary: A young adult retelling of Jane Eyre set in space? I’m sold.

Thoughts: I’ve been excited about reading this book ever since I read the synopsis. And this did NOT disappoint. The fact that it’s YA removes the creepy age gap between the characters. I was slightly sceptical about how the space thing would work, but it was surprisingly great. Essentially, there’s been another ice age and humanity has been orbiting Earth in a fleet of spaceships waiting for the ice to clear. Some of the ships are pleasure crafts for the rich, some are ships that produce food and are full of the Dickensianly downtrodden. Etcetera.

Basically? This was a lot of fun, the romance was pretty great, and the way that the Jane Eyre plot twist was handled was pretty damned fabulous.

Rating: 4 stars

#8: Blood Safari by Deon Meyer

Audience: Adult
Genre: Thriller

Plot summary: When a woman sees her long lost (and thought dead) brother on the news and is then attacked in her home, she hires a bodyguard to protect her while she tracks her brother down.

Thoughts: Back in January, I read and adored Deon Meyer’s Fever, so when I saw that my local library had more of his books, I figured I’d give another one a try. This wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as Fever, but it was just as engaging. This was fast paced and action packed and travelled all over South Africa.

That said, this was far too long – it’s nearly 600 pages – and the ending was…kind of an anticlimax. So it settled solidly into middle of the road territory for me.

Rating: 3 stars

#9: Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse

Audience: Adult
Genre: Dystopian/Urban Fantasy

Plot summary: In a world full of monsters, a young woman teams up with a medicine man to take down tricksters and magicians.

Thoughts: I’ve been looking forward to this book all year. It’s been billed as a cross between Mad Max and Buffy – a post-apocalyptic world full of monsters that need hunting. Also, the entire cast are Native American and it’s Own Voices. So basically? YES PLEASE.

The opening chapters of this were absolutely phenomenal. I was hooked, and it gave me a lot of Kate Daniels vibes, which you guys know is going to sell me on pretty much anything. That said, the second half dragged far more than I would have liked, and while the ending means I’ll definitely pick up the second one, I was definitely wavering there for a little while. (Also, do not believe people who say this is YA. It’s RIDICULOUSLY gory and all the characters are adults. It’s new adult at best.)

Rating: 3.5 stars

What have you been reading recently?

Weekly Wrap Up #36

Hahahahahahahaha ohgod guess who just realised that she’s now SIX WEEKS BEHIND on weekly wrap ups? *cries quietly to self in corner*

This is fine. I’ll catch up sometime around the middle of 2019, if past performance is anything to go by! (Apologies in advance if some of these are a little vague. I swear some of these books have gone completely out of my brain already…)

Without further ado, let’s talk about June 17th to 23rd.

Books read: 7
Pages read: 2,194 pages

#1: How to Break a Boy by Laurie Devore

Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: Olivia is a Mean Girl, living in a small town in South Carolina. After her brother dies in a car accident and she catches her boyfriend in bed with her best friend, her life goes off the rails.

Thoughts: I honestly would have never picked this book up if it hadn’t been my Book Club’s pick for June. And I’m really really sad that I actually bothered to read this because I hated literally everything about this book. I hated the characters. I hated the writing. I hated the cover, which everyone else seems to love. I hated the way that the most manipulative and bitchy and rude and AWFUL person in the book is also the most popular girl in school. I hated the protagonist more than I think I’ve ever hated any protagonist EVER.

Basically, no one at Book Club had an experience even remotely like this in high school, and so none of us could relate to it. Maybe it’s an Australian thing???

Rating: 1 star

#2: A Land of Permanent Goodbyes by Atia Abawi

Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: After the death of several family members in a bombing, a teenage boy flees Syria for Europe.

Thoughts: OW, MY FEELINGS is probably the best way to sum up this book. It’s definitely written for white teenage audiences, and it definitely oversimplifies the plight of Syrian refugees. It’s very black and white throughout – people are either good or evil, there’s no grey zone at all.

But at the same time, white teenagers need books like this. They need to see the motivations and the struggles behind the news articles, they need to follow the story of a kid who’s just like them.

So yes, this was overly simplistic at times. But it also kicked me in the gut a bunch of times.

Rating: 4 stars

#3: The Hanging Girl by Eileen Cook

Audience: YA
Genre: Crime

Plot summary: A girl known for her (faked) tarot readings claims to have had a vision when a girl in her class at school is kidnapped. Obviously, there’s a lot more going on than first appears.

Thoughts: This was…….just sort of aggressively average for me. I was meh about the characters, I was meh about the concept, I was thoroughly confused about why the cops would be all “Oh, a teenage psychic has all the answers in our kidnapping case? COOL, LET’S TRUST HER IMPLICITLY!”.

There were plenty of twists and turns, and I did appreciate how much the protagonist operates in a moral grey zone. But the big reveal here was just…bizarre. And on the whole, it’s proven to be pretty forgettable.

Rating: 3 stars

#4: As Red As Blood by Salla Simukka 

Audience: YA
Genre: Thriller

Plot summary: A teenage girl in Finland finds herself caught up in the crime-filled underbelly of the town she lives in after she walks into the dark room at school to find it filled with recently washed Euro notes.

Thoughts: This story was gripping from start to finish. Also? It’s a young adult book that’s been translated from Finnish, which is pretty exciting because young adult books rarely seem to get translated into English. So obviously I read it, especially when the opening scene is creepy and disturbing and great.

The story gave me a lot more unanswered questions about the characters and their backstories than I would have liked – it almost felt like it was a YA spin off of an existing adult series?? – but on the whole, it was fast paced and action packed and I sped through it way faster than I anticipated.

Rating: 3.5 stars

#5: The Escape Room by Megan Goldin

Audience: Adult
Genre: Thriller

Plot summary: A group of high powered Wall Street executives are called to an office building on a Friday night for a team building activity. None of them are happy about it. When the elevator stops half way up, they realise that the elevator is an escape room challenge. But slowly, they come to realise that this particular escape room hits a little closer to home than most…

Thoughts: Well then. This was pretty damned fabulous. It was compelling from start to finish, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The characters and their relationships are complex, and it’s told partially from the perspective of those in the elevator and partially from the perspective of one of their colleagues, several years earlier.

I had no idea how the two halves of the story were going to marry up, and when the big plot twist finally happened, it was one that I hadn’t anticipated at ALL. I honestly wasn’t expecting this to be as tense and psychological as it was, and I really, really enjoyed it.

Rating: 4 stars

#6: The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume (reread)

Audience: Adult
Genre: Classic/Crime

Plot summary: When a man is found dead in a hansom cab in 1880s Melbourne, the hunt for the killer takes investigators to both the highs and lows of Melbourne society…

Thoughts: I absolutely love this book. It’s often referred to as the first murder mystery, and it was certainly a revolutionary book – it was the first Australian book to achieve huge success overseas, and it’s never been out of print since it was first published in 1886.

The character descriptions are amazing, it still captures Melbourne perfectly 130+ years later, and I thoroughly enjoyed the way the mystery plays out. I love the way that Hume includes not only the glittering riches of nineteenth-century Melbourne society, but the city’s seedy underbelly, taking a trip through the slums and opium dens of Little Lon. I would absolutely love to see the stage version of this, but for the moment I’ll settle for rewatching the ABC miniseries version.

Rating: 4 stars

#7: The Brightsiders by Jen Wilde

Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: A 17 year old rock star has shitty parents and a shitty girlfriend, and her life falls apart when the paparazzi find out. Luckily, she has her bandmates to help her pick up the pieces.

Thoughts: I adored Jen Wilde’s book Queens of Geek last year, and I was hoping to love this one just as much. Unfortunately, I…didn’t. I mean, I still enjoyed it a lot! But there was something lacking for me here.

While the diversity was A+ from start to finish (including genderfluid characters, and characters who use they/them pronouns), the story itself wasn’t my favourite. A lot of the plot progression depends heavily on the paparazzi finding out things about Emmy’s life to push the plot forwards, without a huge amount of character development on Emmy’s part, and up until the second half of the book, it was looking like it would be a 3 star book.

Thankfully the romance that develops was adorable enough to push it over the line to a 4 star read, but I don’t know that I’ll reread it the way I constantly feel the need to reread Queens of Geek.

Rating: 4 stars

What have you been reading recently?

April Book Haul

Okay, seriously. How the hell is another month over already?? It’s kind of terrifying, to be honest.

Anyway. In April, I acquired a total of 22 books. Which…is ridiculous.

THE STUFF I’VE ALREADY READ

The Ruin by Dervla McTiernan
This was such a compelling and fast paced crime novel set in Galway. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and I really loved the characters. There was plenty to keep me guessing, and I’m definitely looking forward to reading more stories from McTiernan.

One Way by S.J. Morden
I won a free copy of this and was super excited about it, because it totally sounded like a cross between And Then There Were None and The Martian. And while there were definitely elements of this that I liked, I…wasn’t a huge fan of the writing and the way the second half of the story in particular played out. I mean, the idea of using criminals to build a Martian base because they’re expendable so WHO CARES WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM WHEEEEEE? Genius. Unfortunately, I didn’t love the execution. Or the fact that it’s got a sequel and therefore has a cliffhanger ending…

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyami
This was absolutely phenomenal, and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t love fantasy as a genre. The world is so beautifully described, the characters are an absolute delight, the magic system was phenomenal, and I loved how deeply the whole thing was embedded in Nigerian culture. I’m dying to get my hands on book 2. I loved it to the point where I read it on my Kindle and then immediately went out and bought a physical copy.

Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo
A novel written in verse about a Dominican girl struggling with family dramas and a loss of faith in New York City. I really loved the writing in this story and how powerful the voice is. But I felt like there was a lot I was missing, solely because Australia’s Dominican community is basically nonexistent…

Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
I’ve been seeing some criticism of the Native American representation in this one, which…yeah. Fair. But despite its problematic elements, I thoroughly enjoyed this YA zombie hunting novel with an African-American protagonist in the 1880s. And I can’t wait to see where the story goes from here!

Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi
I talked about this already in my weekly wrap up. It was cute and I enjoyed it, but at the same time? It reminded me of a cross between Fangirl and Attachments, aaaaaaaand I didn’t love this nearly as much as I love both of those. So.

Off Base, Homecoming, At Attention and I Do, all by Annabeth Albert
This is a M/M romance series about a bunch of Navy SEALs and the men they fall for. Each book follows a different couple, and they’re all super adorable and utterly ridiculous. Are they terrible? Kind of. Are they also thoroughly enjoyable? Uh, yes.

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli
I started and finished this on Monday night, but I’m going to hold off on my thoughts and put them in my weekly wrap up next week instead. Sorry, y’all. You’ll just have to wait.

THE STUFF I’M CURRENTLY READING

Circe by Madeline Miller
After loving and flying through The Song of Achilles last year, I was really excited to read this one. But so far – I’m about 30% through – I’m finding it MUCH slower going. It’s not that it’s not interesting. I’m definitely fascinated by Circe’s story. But at the same time, it’s one of those books where I read page after page after page and have somehow only read like 2% of the book…

THE STUFF I HAVE YET TO READ

Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman
This is an Own Voices Indigenous dystopian/sci-fi story about colonisation and it was also a Kindle deal of the day, so obviously I snapped it up. It’s been nominated for a bunch of awards and I’ve heard really good things about it, so I’m excited to read this!

Genome by A.G. Riddle
I…………was not planning on buying this book. It’s the sequel to Pandemic, which I read and mostly enjoyed earlier in the year. But towards the end, Pandemic turned from a medical thriller to a secret society book and I wasn’t really a fan. But when I discovered that this was only $1.49, it seemed foolish not to finish the duology…

Confessions by Kanae Minato
I can’t remember who it was, but I saw someone raving about this on Booktube recently. It’s translated from Japanese and the blurb sounds AMAZING. It’s about a school teacher whose daughter has just died, and her students are responsible. But her students are only, like, 10 years old. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUN.

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James
I absolutely LOVE Lauren James’ The Next Together, and I thoroughly enjoyed the sequel, The Last Beginning. I’ve also heard nothing but good things about this book. It’s a sci-fi story about a girl who’s the sole survivor on a spaceship that’s heading to set up a colony somewhere, so she’s literally the title. Except then she finds out another ship has been launched and she starts talking to the guy on board. But all is not as it seems……..

On Point and Wheels Up by Annabeth Albert
Yes, I acquired basically this entire series at once. These are books 3 and 4, and I can pretty much guarantee that I will be trash for these as well. What’s not to like about Navy SEALs falling in love?? (Will I misread the title of book 3 as “En Pointe”? Yes. About a thousand times.)

The Girl in Kellers Way by Megan Goldin
I’ve been intrigued by this one for a while, so when it was a deal of the day, it made sense to grab a copy! I know absolutely nothing about it, except that the cover is creepy and it’s a thriller. And I’m quite happy to keep it that way and go in completely blind!

A Land of Permanent Goodbyes by Atia Abawi
This one is going to stab me in the feelings, I can already tell. It’s set in Syria, and the author is a journalist of Syrian descent. It’s a young adult story about a boy growing up in Syria and then his family’s decision to leave Syria for Europe as refugees. It’s definitely one I need to read at home and not on public transport because I foresee tears.

Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
As the name would suggest, this is a retelling of Frankenstein that’s set in Baghdad during the US occupation. It sounds FASCINATING and it’s translated from Arabic, so look at me buying books that help me accomplish goals wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I’m both excited and apprehensive (because literary fiction) to read this one.

Aftermath by Kelley Armstrong
You guys probably know by now that Kelley Armstrong is an auto-buy author for me. So when I saw a copy of her latest YA thriller sitting on the shelves at Dymocks, I grabbed it immediately. I don’t even think I read the blurb in any detail. No regrets whatsoever, tbh. I’ll probably get to this one sooner rather than later, just because I enjoy her writing so much!

What books did you acquire in April?

Weekly Wrap Up #18

You guys, I swear I start every week telling myself that this will be the week where I write all my late weekly wrap up posts. And then suddenly it’s Sunday and I’m another week behind. SIGH.

Lest I fall even further behind, let’s wrap up February 11th-17th.

Books read: 10
Pages read: 3,696 pages

#1: Return to You by Julie Cross

Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: The next novella in the Letters to Nowhere series, a YA gymnastics series about a teenage girl whose parents die in a car accident.

Thoughts: Look, this was…not great. And the problem is mostly that Cross decided to basically split the sequel into a series of novellas so that they could come out more often. But that means that this is basically the middle of a novel. There’s no beginning to the story, and no ending to the story. It just…trailed off in the middle of the story. Which, no.

Also, if someone has strep throat and it’s been strongly advised that they have their tonsils removed? Don’t shove a sexy makeout scene in the middle of all that because EW NO.

Rating: 2 stars

#2: American Panda by Gloria Chao

Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: A 17 year old Taiwanese-American girl starts at MIT. Her parents are pushing her towards medicine but her secret is that she’s a massive germophobe…

Thoughts: This was super freaking adorable. I related to Mei’s struggles being a 17 year old at university, because that was me. The romantic relationship that crops up in the course of the story is WONDERFUL. The writing is great, the characters are a delight, and it gave me a lot of feelings about the dynamic between Mei and her parents.

Basically? It was fantastic and I loved everything about it.

Rating: 4.5 stars

#3: Pandemic by A.G. Riddle

Audience: Adult
Genre: Medical thriller?

Plot summary: A plague breaks out in Kenya. An epidemiologist and a venture capitalist try to get to the bottom of things.

Thoughts: I’ve been a big fan of medical thrillers in the past, and the idea of a plague breaking out in Kenya and then spreading across the globe in the blink of an eye sounded super intriguing.

And the initial stages of this were definitely gripping. I was hooked to the way the story jumped between Germany, the US, and Kenya. Buuuuuuut this was nearly 700 pages long, and that was just way too much. Way, WAY too much. The longer it went on, the more I lost interest. There was a whole weird subplot with an evil secret society and I just…I didn’t give a shit. To the point where I know that there’s a second book and I have no interest in picking it up. Womp.

Rating: 3.5 stars

#4: Autoboyography by Christina Lauren

Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: A gay teenage boy living in Utah falls for the kid who’s helping with his writing class. Downside? The kid’s Mormon.

Thoughts: There was a TON of hype around this book when it came out last year. And I’m always slightly hesitant about books that have a ton of hype around them. But after reading and loving Roomies by Christina Lauren, I figured the time had finally come to delve into this one.

And it was SUPER FREAKING ADORABLE. The characters were wonderful. The story was sweet and feelsy and heartbreaking all at the same time. And I loved it. Like, a LOT. But as someone who works in a school, the fact that Sebastian is a school employee when he and Tanner meet? Nooooooo. No no no no no. I would honestly have preferred it way more if he’d been, like, a guest speaker as a one-off thing and then agreed to help Tanner outside of school. But no. Sigh.

Despite that, it was an absolute delight and I’d highly recommend picking it up.

Rating: 4.25 stars

#5: Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge

Audience: YA
Genre: Graphic novel

Plot summary: A teenage girl moves to New York City and deals with her feelings through art.

Thoughts: Honestly? The only reason why I even read this was because of the Contemporaryathon. One of the challenges was to read a graphic novel, and this was one of the few that was easily accessible to me (i.e. we had it at work) and that I hadn’t read before.

Unfortunately, this was…mostly just boring? I didn’t love the art style. Everything felt like it was very surface-level without providing any actual depth to the characters or the story. And when you add in the fact that none of the characters actually talked like teenagers, I was just kind of meh about the whole thing.

Rating: 2.5 stars

#6: A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray (Reread)

Audience: YA
Genre: Sci-Fi

Plot summary: Marguerite’s parents have invented a device that allows travel to parallel dimensions. When her father is killed and one of his students is responsible, Marguerite sets off through the dimensions to chase him down.

Thoughts: I reread this for book club, and I enjoyed it just as much the whatever-th time around. A lot of people at book club got really hung up on how melodramatic and over the top a lot of the elements of the plot were. But I always really enjoy seeing the differences between the worlds and the impact that certain events happening or not happening has had on the fate of the world.

Is it ridiculous? Yup. Do I care? Not even a lil bit, because it’s delightful. Also because I was trash for Sliders back in the day, and this is a LOT like Sliders. So.

Rating: 4 stars

#7: Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: After his brother is killed in a shooting, Will takes his brother’s gun and leaves to go get revenge. But on the way out of his apartment building, the elevator stops on every floor and someone impossible gets in.

Thoughts: Wow. This book was PHENOMENAL. It’s written in verse, and Will’s story is so incredibly compelling and heartbreaking. Everything that happens in the elevator takes place over the course of a single minute, which is such an amazing concept.

It does such a phenomenal job of depicting what toxic masculinity and gun violence have done to generations of young black men in the US, and it was basically amazing from start to finish. My only real gripe with it is that because it takes place over such a short period of time, there’s no real opportunity for character development.

Rating: 4.5 stars

#8: The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

Audience: Adult
Genre: Thriller

Plot summary: Basically Rear Window, but with a woman who has agoraphobia living in New York City.

Thoughts: I’m always hesitant about hyped thrillers, because… Honestly? I don’t even know why. I just am. So I was slightly hesitant about this one. Especially given that it sounded SO much like Rear Window.

But this was surprisingly solid, particularly for a debut. Anna’s story is trickled out, and she’s SUCH an unreliable narrator, given her alcohol and prescription drug abuse.

I did guess a number of the twists in the story, but the big final twist? Did not see that coming AT ALL and it was great.

Rating: 4.25 stars

#9: Laws of Attraction by Sarah Title

Audience: Adult
Genre: Romance

Plot summary: A law librarian has a one night stand…with a guy who turns out to be the new lawyer at her firm.

Thoughts: I’ve loved this series about librarians falling in love. This was the first one that I stumbled across and given that it has a dog on the cover, it’s probably the one I was most excited to read. And it did not disappoint.

I honestly raced through this and loved every second of it. Also, there are tons of dogs. So…YES.

Rating: 4 stars

#10: The Cause of Death by Cynric Temple-Camp

Audience: Adult
Genre: Non-Fiction

Plot summary: The biography of a New Zealand forensic pathologist and the cases he’s dealt with during his career.

Thoughts: I was suuuuuuuuper intrigued to read this one. And for the most part, it was incredibly interesting. There were some moments that were horrifyingly graphic (anything featuring extracting eyeball fluid was a big fat nope from me), but on the whole it was an intriguing insight into the life of a forensic pathologist.

But. There wasn’t really a natural flow to the story. It jumped around between cases, between time periods, between murders and natural deaths. And there was very little to link the cases a lot of the time.

So while I enjoyed it, I was left wanting a little more cohesion than I ultimately got.

Rating: 3.5 stars

What have you been reading recently?

Weekly Wrap Up #8

I think I’m officially back on track with my reading now, thankfully! I polished off two nonfiction books, one graphic novel, and five novels this week. Let’s wrap up December 3-9th, shall we?

Books read: 8
Pages read: 2,899 pages

#1: Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Audience: Adult
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: Rachel Chu’s boyfriend invites her to travel to Singapore with him to attend a wedding and then travel around Asia. But upon arrival, she discovers that Nick, the man she thought she knew everything about, is part of one of Singapore’s richest families.

Thoughts: I’ve been wanting to read this book for AGES after hearing Joce rave about this series at least seven thousand times this year. So when I saw it in person at a book shop recently, I figured the time was finally right to pick it up.

And this was a BLAST. It’s fun and funny and utterly ridiculous. Every time you think the behaviour of the ultra-rich can’t get more over the top, it does. Every time you think the story can’t get more bonkers, it does. Every time you think Rachel can’t possibly get more out of her depth, she does.

Basically? I loved this, and I’m really excited to read the other two books in the trilogy.

Rating: 4 stars

#2: About That Night by Norah McClintock

Audience: YA
Genre: Crime

Plot summary: A teenage boy disappears from his girlfriend’s house the same night that a woman with Alzheimer’s goes missing and is later found dead. Are the two connected?

Thoughts: Based on the blurb, this sounds really intriguing. It’s set in Saskatchewan during winter, so it’s very atmospheric and evocative of place blah blah whatever. But here’s the problem: it was really fucking boring.

The protagonist was a) a massive bitch and b) as interesting as watching paint dry. She cared more about her bad boy ex-boyfriend than she did about her missing current boyfriend.

It was only like 280 pages and yet it felt like it was padded out by a good 50 pages or so. Look, it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever read, but it was definitely hella average.

Rating: 3 stars

#3: March, Book 1 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell 

Audience: YA
Genre: Graphic novel

Plot summary: The first of three volumes telling the story of John Lewis’ youth and involvement in the civil rights movement.

Thoughts: I’ve been wanting to read this graphic novel trilogy for ages now, but given how expensive graphic novels are and the fact that they take me about 20 minutes to read, I’ve been putting it off. Then I discovered that my local library had all three, so obviously I put a hold on them straight away.

I teared up on the very first page when I discovered that this starts out on Obama’s inauguration day in 2009, and it was an emotional ride through until the end. This volume covers Lewis’ childhood and university years, as well as his very early involvement in the civil rights movement. It’s an amazing first hand account told in an easy-to-consume fashion.

My one gripe here is that I didn’t love the art sometimes, particularly the lettering for some of the dialogue. But on the whole, it was compelling and fascinating, even when it was horrifying. Definitely worth the read.

Rating: 4 stars

#4: Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

Audience: Adult
Genre: NonFiction

Plot summary: Following the discovery of oil under the Osage Indian Nation, members of the Osage were the richest people per capita in the world. Then they started dying in unnatural numbers. And, in some cases, murder was clearly involved.

Thoughts: This is easily the best nonfiction book I’ve read all year. Possibly the best nonfiction book I’ve read EVER. It’s well written and well researched and compelling as hell. The way that the Osage population was treated in the 1920s was completely horrifying – they were the richest people on earth (per capita, that is), but they were largely deemed unable to manage their own money, and therefore couldn’t access their money without permission from their (usually white) guardians.

Some had their children die because their guardians wouldn’t give them access to money to buy medicine. Others ended up murdered so that their guardians could take the money for themselves. The extent of murders that Grann uncovered is staggering, and he does a great job of balancing the story of the victims and the Osage community with the story of the FBI agents investigating the crimes.

In short? It. Was. Phenomenal.

Rating: 5 stars

#5: First and Then by Emma Mills (reread)

Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: A teenage girl in her final year of high school deals with her younger cousin moving in with her family, and the friends that he makes.

Thoughts: This is often billed as Pride and Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights, and that’s a pretty apt description. It’s a (very loose) P&P retelling, and there’s American football aplenty in the story.

I really loved this the first time I read it, but at some point in the past two years, I’ve become very very picky with my YA contemporaries, and this just doesn’t quite cut the mustard any more. I still love the P&P/Friday Night Lights mash up quality of it. But it drives me bonkers that Devon has no female friends. No friends at all except for the Wickham-esque character.

I also wasn’t okay with the fact that she repeatedly refers to freshmen girls as “prosti-tots” because of the way they dress. Like, she literally doesn’t even know their names and she’s making all kinds of assumptions about them. And while she DOES eventually realise that, you know, they’re human and deserve some level of respect, it’s all a bit too-little-too-late.

So I did still enjoy this. But at the same time, there was a lot that bugged me. Also? I wish it had been a split narration between Devon and Ezra, because that would have been GREAT.

Rating: 3.5 stars

#6: Running on the Roof of the World by Jess Butterworth

Audience: Middle Grade
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: A young Tibetan girl and her best friend trek into India in search of the Dalai Lama after her parents are captured by Chinese soldiers.

Thoughts: A middle grade book set in Tibet? Uh, YES. Obviously I was going to read this. And for the most part, it was a pretty solid middle grade story. It’s two twelve year olds and their yaks trying to find the Dalai Lama and discovering that there’s far more to the world than they knew.

And all of that was FABULOUS. But I had two issues with this:

1. The protagonist is Tash and her best friend is Sam. Their full names (which are Tibetan) are used a grand total of once. For the rest of the story, their names have been abbreviated to names that white kids will be comfortable with. And…WTF?? It honestly took me a good 50 pages of this to realise that Tash and Sam weren’t white kids randomly living in Tibet.
2. At the beginning of the story, a man sets himself on fire in protest. This is mentioned multiple times during the story, and yet it’s not until the end that it’s addressed as an unacceptable and harmful form of protest and something that shouldn’t be encouraged or applauded. And I just felt like in a middle grade book? It would have been really nice to have that happen earlier.

Rating: 3.5 stars

#7: Frozen Charlotte by Alex Bell

Audience: YA
Genre: Horror

Plot summary: A teenage girl goes to visit her cousins in Scotland after her best friend dies. Seriously creepy shit happens.

Thoughts: I read this because it says “not for younger readers” on the back, and I wanted to make sure it was actually okay for us to have it in the collection we have it in at work. And the outcome was that this book is CREEPY AS FUCK.

Basically, this girl goes to stay with her uncle and three cousins (except they’re not REALLY her cousins – they’re step-cousins, which apparently makes it totally okay when she and her slightly older male cousin develop feelings for each other?????) in Skye.

The youngest of her cousins is terrified of bones and has to be kept away from knives lest she try and cut out her skeleton. The middle cousin, Piper, is clearly a sociopath. She manipulates everyone and everything around her. And the eldest of the three, Cameron, is a piano virtuoso except that he now can’t play the way he used to because his right hand was seriously burnt in a fire. Add in some creepy dolls and you’ve got yourself a party.

The characters were a little two dimensional and the writing a little simple for my liking, but the story was so overwhelmingly creepy that there wasn’t a huge amount of time for character development. So. There’s that.

Rating: 3.5 stars

#8: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Audience: Adult
Genre: NonFiction

Plot summary: Trevor Noah’s autobiography, discussing his childhood in apartheid and newly post-apartheid South Africa.

Thoughts: This book was pretty much exactly what you’d expect from Trevor Noah. It was laugh-out-loud funny but also full of confronting truths. He starts each chapter with an overview of a particular issue or set of circumstances about life in South Africa, and then tells stories relating to that in the body of the chapter.

It was eye opening and wonderfully written and occasionally heartbreaking and frequently hilarious. Basically? I loved this, and I kind of wish I’d listened to the audiobook, which he reads himself.

(Trigger warnings for domestic violence and abuse)

Rating: 4 stars

What did you read this week?

Weekly Wrap Up #3

Late post is late, but in my defence? I was away for a four day weekend and my laptop won’t start so now I’m having to try and write this on my tablet hahahahaha this is fine…

Books read: 8
Pages read: 2,579 pages

#1:The Lost World by Michael Crichton (reread)

Audience: Adult
Genre: Sci-Fi

Plot summary: The (this is how far I made it on my tablet before borrowing my mum’s laptop…) sequel to Jurassic Park, in which Ian Malcolm is forced to travel to Site B in search of a colleague. Unlike the terrible movie that was loosely based on it, no dinosaurs rampage around San Diego.

Thoughts: I love this book a lot. It adds a hell of a lot of depth to the story of Jurassic Park without a lot of the heavy science stuff that we get in the first book. The characters of the two kids are particularly great, there are new and exciting dinosaurs, and though it takes a while to get going, once it hits its stride, there’s action aplenty.

Rating: 4.25 stars

#2: Ausländer by Paul Dowswell

Audience: YA
Genre: Historical fiction

Plot summary: After the death of his parents, a Polish boy of German descent is deemed to be prime Aryan stock and is sent to live with a high ranking Nazi family in Berlin. Things get complicated when his attitudes and theirs don’t match up.

Thoughts: I was a little hesitant about this one, mostly because things set in Nazi Germany can be slightly hit or miss. Especially when they’re intended for a young adult audience.

And unfortunately, this one proved to be pretty average for me. It was definitely a unique concept, and it explored resistance within Nazi Germany nicely. But the characters weren’t as well developed as I would have liked, and the writing was quite choppy.

I also felt like the pacing was a liiiiittle off. It took quite a long time to reach the point where Peter started rebelling against the Nazi system, and then it finished all too quickly.

Rating: 3 stars

#3: Untidy Towns by Kate O’Donnell

Audience: YA
Genre: Contemporary

Plot summary: A seventeen year old girl drops out of her posh boarding school in Melbourne and returns to her small country town to muddle through the rest of year 12.

Thoughts: I’d heard good things about this LoveOzYA book, but frankly? It was incredibly dull. I really liked the concept of it, and the cover is gorgeous. But the problem with this one for me was that the plot literally never turns up.

Like, the protagonist drops out of school in the first 10 pages. And then the remaining 300-odd pages is her avoiding school work, texting her best friend, volunteering at the historical society with her grandfather, and riding her bike around town with a boy she went to primary school with who’s also dropped out of school.

That’s literally all that happens. There’s no crisis. There’s no tension. There’s no build up to ANYTHING. So while I enjoyed the writing and there were elements of the characters that I enjoyed, I just kept waiting for something happen and then it never did.

Rating: 2.5 stars

#4: Invictus by Ryan Graudin

Audience: YA
Genre: Sci-Fi

Plot summary: A ragtag crew of misfits travel through time, stealing stuff that can’t possibly be tracked down. It’s going great until time starts to unravel around them.

Thoughts: I’ve been excited about this one from the second I heard about it, because it’s basically Firefly with time travel. And when I first started reading, I was hooked because a) time travel and b) A PET RED PANDA OMG THAT IS MY DREAM.

I liked the characters, I LOVED the idea of this kid without a date of birth because he was born while travelling through time, and I loved the whole concept.

What I didn’t get, unfortunately, was the level of worldbuilding that I wanted. The whole time travel concept was very…”because, that’s why”, with very little explanation around how anything worked.

That said, there’s a pet red panda. So it gets a bonus quarter star for that alone.

Rating: 3.75 stars

#5: The Name on Your Wrist by Helen Hiorns

Audience: YA
Genre: Dystopian

Plot summary: In a world where everyone has the name of their soulmate tattooed on their wrist, Corin is a non-believer.

Thoughts: To be perfectly honest, the only reason I read this one is because the plot is straight out of fan fiction. This book is only around 250 pages, and it takes a really long time for the story to actually get under way. There’s an awful lot of time wasted on the protagonist going against the rules and being flippant about her sister’s mental health issues and generally flaunting the system as a whole.

Frankly, I found it decidedly average and way too romance-heavy right up until the last 25-ish pages, which featured a plot twist that kind of blew my mind. But the 225 pages before that? SNOOZE CENTRAL.

Rating: 3 stars

(Trigger warnings for self harm and suicide)

#6: The Ashes of London by Andrew Taylor

Audience: Adult
Genre: Historical fiction/crime

Plot summary: Following the Great Fire of London, a dead body is found in the ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral with its hands tied behind its back. A young man investigates.

Thoughts: I stumbled across a copy of this months ago when I was in London, and finally decided to buy it on my Kindle. The opening couple of scenes were super intriguing and did a great job of depicting Stuart London in a compelling way.

I struggled a little at times with the way the story jumped between perspectives – one is told in first person and the other in third – and I found one of the two perspectives far more interesting than the other.

It proved to be a surprisingly violent book a lot of the time, and the final big plot twist was definitely not what I expected. That said, I did end up feeling like it could have been SLIGHTLY shorter than it was, and there were definitely moments that felt unnecessarily dragged out.

Rating: 3.5 stars

(Trigger warning for rape)

#7: The Interesting Narrative and Other Writings by Olaudah Equiano

Audience: Adult
Genre: Non-Fiction

Plot summary: Originally published in the late 1700s, this is the autobiography of an African man who was sold into slavery and eventually bought his freedom. The book proved to be a significant part of slavery eventually being banned in England.

Thoughts: I was SUPER excited to read this one. And the sections that deal with his childhood, his experiences of the brutality of slavery, and the way that he was treated in various parts of the world once he was a freeman were wonderful and frequently heartbreaking.

That said, there were big chunks of this that were…basically a travel narrative? Equiano spent a lot of his life in the British Navy, sailing all over the world. And probably half the book is devoted to sailing all over the place and his experiences in various places around the world.

And while it was great to see the experiences of a person of colour travelling all over the world in the 1700s (suck it, Doctor Who fans who say that the Doctor could never be a person of colour because he could never go back in time), it almost had this feeling that he was counteracting the horror of slavery with happy travel stories for his well-to-do white readers…

Rating: 3.5 stars

#8: The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa

Audience: Adult
Genre: Literature

Plot summary: I honestly don’t even really know how to describe this book. It’s about an albino guy who trades in memories, a murder mystery, and it’s narrated by a gecko. Seriously.

Thoughts: I stumbled across this one thanks to Sophie from Portal in the Pages. It’s set in Angola and was translated from Portuguese, so obviously I was so interested to pick it up that I didn’t even bother reading the blurb.

To be honest, this probably wasn’t the best thing to read when a) I was hella sick and b) I was exhausted and c) I was on a plane to Canberra and d) hiding in a hotel bathroom because my niece was asleep in the main room.

It’s only been a couple of days, but I genuinely don’t remember very much about this except that it was super weird and I really liked the ending. It was…a bizarre reading experience, to be honest. And I liked it. There’s plenty of great writing and magical realism elements. But I feel like if I knew ANYTHING at all about Angolan history, it would have been a more enjoyable reading experience than it was.

Rating: 3 stars.

What did you read this week?