In April I read five books, of which one was an Italian children's book with very pretty pictures, from the movie Big Hero 6. I don't want to deprive you of those, so I'll post some of my favourite pictures of that book. All Wrapped Up (Geek Girl 1.5) - Holly SmaleSYNOPSIS: Harriet goes on a winter-y date with Nick. Rating: 4/5 I love the Geek Girl series with all my heart. I really do. Another thing I love is Christmas. So combining Geek Girl with Christmas is just a master move, in my book. This was a lovely and sweet read, and put me in a Christmas mood even though it's April. Another Day -David LevithanSYNOPSIS: Rhiannon suddenly has a very good day with her cranky boyfriend Justin, and goes to figure out where this came from. Rating: 3/5 This book disappointed me a bit, because I expected more from one of my favourite authors. I liked it, but I didn't love it. Click here to see my whole review. I Was Here - Gayle FormanSYNOPSIS: Cody tries to find out why her best friend Meg committed suicide. Rating: 4/5 I liked the mystery in this book a lot! This book deals with very serious issues and confronts them head on. Click here for a slightly more elaborate review in the form of a Read Alike. On the Spectrum - Jennifer GoldSYNOPSIS: Clara, a 16 year old girl who struggles with orthorexia, is sent to Paris to live with her father over the Summer, where she befriends her autistic brother Alastair and finds love. Rating 4/5 I loved most of this book and thought it was very well-written! This also might be my favourite book cover ever. Click here for the full review. Thanks for reading my April Wrap-Up! If you've read any of these books yourself, let me know what you thought!
0 Comments
SYNOPSIS: Growing up in the shadow of a famous mother, Clara has never felt good about her body. Now, at sixteen, she has an unhealthy obsession with healthy eating. After a social media disaster, she decides to escape for the summer to Paris to stay with her estranged dad and her six-year-old brother, Alastair, who is on the autism spectrum. Charged with his care, Clara and Alastair set out to explore the city. Paris teaches Clara about first love and gives her a new love of food. And Alastair teaches Clara about patience, trust and the beauty of loving without judgement. Rating: 4/5
I received a copy of this book via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review. First of all, I LOVE this cover. I was ready to request this book based on just the cover alone when I saw it! The pastel colours and the little pictures are just perfect. When I read the description, however, I was even more intrigued. I struggle with eating problems myself and I find autism very fascinating, so I was interested to see what this book would do with these two topics. Also Paris, which is always a good place to set a story. Clara's eating disorder is portrayed so well. Not only the way she handles it, but also the way people around her handle it. They stumble around the subject and aren't sure how to act, and Michel thinks he can just fix her quite easily. This actually happens a lot, as people don't understand how you can just not want to eat, so showing this so honestly was a real plus for me. I do not have any firsthand experience with the sort of autism that Alastair has, so I can't say if it's realistic. It felt realistic for me though, and I appreciate how Clara handled it. The bullying is also something that I know autistic people can struggle with, and I just love how Clara explained to Mag how to deal with Alastair's bullying. It's very honest but not cruel. She says: ""You don’t want to be a sheep but you don’t want to get beat up, either", which I think is a good way of describing it. Clara's relationship with Alastair was super sweet and I loved the two of them a lot. Now onto another important part of the story: Michel. Overall, I thought he was alright. I got very frustrated with him for the way in which he handled Clara's eating disorder, but I understand why he acted this way. He meant well. It is also explicitly mentioned that he is mixed race and that he has struggled with this in school, which is a nice touch to the story, especially because Young Adult romances are too often about two white kids. I do have to say, I am quite disappointed in the fact that Michel is 20 and Clara is 16. He is just too old for her, and I'm sad that this happens in many romance novels. As if teenage girls cannot fall in love with a guy their own age. I feel like there will always be a power imbalance in a relationship between two young people with a big age gap. If Michel had been a bit younger or Clara a bit older, I would've approved of their relationship much more, because Michel was really trying to help Clara, he loved Alastair too, and he was just a big sweetheart. This book was not lacking in character development, despite the fact that it moved very fast. Clara, her mother, Mag, Alastair, Michel.. everyone showed character development in some form. This is one of the reasons why I would love to see a sequel for this book! I am dying to see what will happen with all the characters, and also with the plotlines that were started but never really got closure, like what Bree is up to, and the fact that Alastair is good at photography. To close this off: I want to praise Jennifer Gold for making me cry! On the Spectrum and the final Harry Potter book are the only two books to have ever made me cry so far! All in all, a lovely read which I would recommend to anyone when it comes out on September 12th this year! Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/34415919-on-the-spectrum Amazon: (Pre-order!) www.amazon.co.uk/Spectrum-Jennifer-Gold/dp/1772600423/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493468373&sr=8-1&keywords=on+the+spectrum+jennifer+gold SYNOPSIS: Every day is the same for Rhiannon. She has accepted her life, convinced herself that she deserves her distant, temperamental boyfriend, Justin, even established guidelines by which to live: Don’t be too needy. Avoid upsetting him. Never get your hopes up. Until the morning everything changes. Justin seems to see her, to want to be with her for the first time, and they share a perfect day—a perfect day Justin doesn’t remember the next morning. Confused, depressed, and desperate for another day as great as that one, Rhiannon starts questioning everything. Then, one day, a stranger tells her that the Justin she spent that day with, the one who made her feel like a real person…wasn’t Justin at all. Rating: 3/5
To be honest with you, this book disappointed me. Don't get me wrong, I still liked it, but I was just expecting more from David Levithan as he is one of my favourite authors. I enjoyed reading this book, but I felt like it was a bit dull at times. The story itself was good, the execution could've been better. I liked how A didn't conform to a gender, as it would've been easy for the author to just make him a guy who jumps from body to body. I appreciate that David Levithan didn't take the easy way out here. Rhiannon's character is very well-written. Although her actions objectively are pretty bad, the insight into her head had me convinced that she was a good person and that her actions were totally justifiable. Then, again, I couldn't stand Justin so anything to piss him off is a good thing for me. I think reading Every Day, the book I should've read before this one (oops), may help me understand him better. After all, I wouldn't like Rhiannon's actions without context either, so maybe I can learn to appreciate Justin's actions as well if given context. Despite the fact that it is very clearly fictional, this story still made me seriously think about things multiple times. David Levithan manages to sneakily make you consider real problems by giving you fictional situations. The background characters are likable. A bit stereotypical and mostly there to further Rhiannon's story, but still likable. That is how I feel about this whole book too: it is likable. Not great, but likable. If someone wanted to read about gender, I would recommend this book to them because it is a refreshing look on how gender works and how it can be fluid. For the rest, it's a pretty decent read but this wouldn't be the first book I'd recommend to someone when asked for book recommendations. Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/18459855-another-day?ac=1&from_search=true Amazon: www.amazon.com/Another-Day-David-Levithan/dp/0385756208 Netflix' newest hit is, as you all know, the series 'Thirteen Reasons Why', about the friends of a girl who committed suicide watching the tapes she left behind. It is based on a novel by Jay Asher, and whether you liked the book, the series or both, here's a book you will probably like too! SYNOPSIS: When her best friend Meg drinks a bottle of industrial-strength cleaner alone in a motel room, Cody is understandably shocked and devastated. She and Meg shared everything—so how was there no warning? But when Cody travels to Meg’s college town to pack up the belongings left behind, she discovers that there’s a lot that Meg never told her. About her old roommates, the sort of people Cody never would have met in her dead-end small town in Washington. About Ben McAllister, the boy with a guitar and a sneer, who broke Meg’s heart. And about an encrypted computer file that Cody can’t open—until she does, and suddenly everything Cody thought she knew about her best friend’s death gets thrown into question. I Was Here is honest, real and a bit harsh at times. It shows you the truth without sugarcoating it. You get a look into a creepy and very real world that exists and that you should never want to venture into. The main character, Cody, goes on a hunt to figure out what really happened to Meg, and you slowly unravel more and more details about her story as you read on, the way you get a little more information with every episode of Thirteen Reasons Why. It's mystery combined with a lot of emotions, and even some kittens thrown in to put your feelings into overdrive!
Have you read I Was Here? Let me know what you thought! Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/18879761-i-was-here?ac=1&from_search=true Amazon: www.amazon.com/I-Was-Here-Gayle-Forman/dp/0451471474/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= SYNOPSIS: I had no idea GirlOnline would take off the way it has - I can't believe I now have 5432 followers, thanks so much! - and the thought of opening up to you all about this is terrifying, but here goes... Penny has a secret. Under the alias GirlOnline, she blogs about school dramas, boys, her mad, whirlwind family - and the panic attacks she's suffered from lately. When things go from bad to worse, her family whisks her away to New York, where she meets the gorgeous, guitar-strumming Noah. Suddenly Penny is falling in love - and capturing every moment of it on her blog. But Noah has a secret too. One that threatens to ruin Penny's cover - and her closest friendship - forever. Rating: 4/5
Girl Online is near the top of two of my lists: "Books that should be made into movies asap" and "Books I wish I could read for the first time again". Penny from Girl Online is everything we all dream of being: she has a succesful blog, a great family, amazing best friend, lives in a beautiful city, gets to travel to New York for her mum's work, and dates a famous singer! While reading the Girl Online books, I pretty much spent the whole time being super jealous of Penny and wishing I could be her to be honest. Penny is the sweetest person and I love her character. She also has anxiety, and it's described so well and realistically because the author, Zoe Sugg, has anxiety herself so she knows exactly what it's like. While Penny is dealing with her issues, her best friend Elliot has his own. Elliot as well is a lovable character whom I was rooting for right from the start. He's not blessed when it comes to his parents, but luckily he receives a blessing later on in the story (no spoilers!). These books also have nice girl friendships, instead of pitting girls against each other to compete for a boy's love, which is a trope that I absolutely hate. The plot itself is a quick read with loads of aspects that will make you jealous and a few that will make you think as there's some mystery in each of the books. If you haven't read the Girl Online series yet, do yourself a favour and try them! Also, Zoe Sugg, as you probably know, has a succesful YouTube channel which I also love, so link to that here. Let me know if you've read the Girl Online series and what you thought of it! Did you love it as much as I did? Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/22510983-girl-online?ac=1&from_search=true Amazon: www.amazon.com/Girl-Online-First-Novel-Zoella/dp/1476799768 Hello guys! I thought I'd do something a little different today: a tag! As I've also not really spoken about myself much on this blog, I figured I'd combine the two by doing the Fifty Bookish Questions Tag so you can learn a bit more about me. I found this list on My Little Book Blog, who also did this, so link to her post here. Anyway, it's gonna be a long one so let's get to it! 1. What was the last book you read? I just finished Another Day by David Levithan! 2. Was it a good one? Reasonably good, but not as good as some other things I've read from this author. 3. What made it good? I'm a sucker for a bit of mystery! ------------------------------------click the ' read more ' button for the rest of the questions!------------------------------ SYNOPSIS: Harriet Manners knows a lot of things. She knows that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear, a "jiffy" lasts 1/100th of a second, and the average person laughs 15 times per day. What she isn't quite so sure about is why nobody at school seems to like her very much. So when she's spotted by a top model agent, Harriet grabs the chance to reinvent herself. Even if it means stealing her Best Friend's dream, incurring the wrath of her arch enemy Alexa, and repeatedly humiliating herself in front of the impossibly handsome supermodel Nick. Even if it means lying to the people she loves. As Harriet veers from one couture disaster to the next with the help of her overly enthusiastic father and her uber-geeky stalker, Toby, she begins to realise that the world of fashion doesn't seem to like her any more than the real world did. And as her old life starts to fall apart, the question is: will Harriet be able to transform herself before she ruins everything? Rating: 4/5
The reason I'm writing this review now, is because I have not yet read the final book in the series and I want to dedicate a blog post to Forever Geek by itself when I have. That's how excited I am to read it. Honestly, I would secretly love to be a model but unfortunately I am too short and love cookies too much, so it will never happen. The fact that Harriet, the main character of the Geek Girl series, is such a nerd and an outcast makes it so that she is unlikely to become a model too, so when it does happen it fills me with joy! Because it makes me feel like even though you may not seem the perfect fit for something at first, you never know what can happen! Most of the time I related to Harriet a lot, as I am a bit of a nerd myself and I'm also not very good at making friends. Other times I found myself getting very annoyed with her because she just didn't know when to stop. I have to admit though, I'm not good at reading other people's emotions either so maybe her inability to do this just feels like too much of a personal attack on me and that's why I don't like that part of her. Harriet's friends and love interest(s) are all lovely and multi dimensional characters and although Toby is a little creepy, I do secretly love him a lot. And Wilbur. I love Wilbur so much he is an actual fairy angel. Harriet's story is very relatable to me, because although she becomes a model, she still treats it the way you and I would. She's still her clumsy and nerdy self and attempts to balance everything together, which doesn't always work out. I feel like this is what any normal person who suddenly got thrown into the world of modeling would do. We would all feel a bit out of place and like we're an elephant stomping around in a room full of antique porcelain. Holly Smale, the author of Geek Girl, was a model as a teenager herself, so that makes the story even more believable. She knows a few things about modeling that others would not know as she has lived through it! Overall, the Geek Girl series is funny, relatable, a bit sad at times, but 100% worth a read! Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13621089-geek-girl Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Geek-Girl-Book-x/dp/0007489447 SYNOPSIS: Greg Gaines is the last master of high school espionage, able to disappear at will into any social environment. He has only one friend, Earl, and together they spend their time making movies, their own incomprehensible versions of Coppola and Herzog cult classics. Until Greg’s mother forces him to rekindle his childhood friendship with Rachel. Rachel has been diagnosed with leukemia—-cue extreme adolescent awkwardness—-but a parental mandate has been issued and must be obeyed. When Rachel stops treatment, Greg and Earl decide the thing to do is to make a film for her, which turns into the Worst Film Ever Made and becomes a turning point in each of their lives. And all at once Greg must abandon invisibility and stand in the spotlight. Rating: 4/5
One afternoon last Summer I figured I should enjoy the nice weather and go read outside for a bit. I ended up starting and finishing this book in just that day. I loved this book quite a bit. It discusses illness and dying without making it into a cliché or a pity party. At first the main character, Greg, and his best friend Earl do treat Rachel's illness the way you'd expect them to: they feel very sorry for her and try to make it into something dramatic. But along the way they learn that it isn't like that and their character growth is described so well and believably. Greg and Earl aren't just those trope characters of teenage boys trying to make movies and failing miserably; they were so much more than that. This story left me breathless at many occassions and had me reading for hours on end. It`s very honest and realistic and the ending is just lovely. That`s all I`m going to give away about it though, because I`ve already revealed too much! Me & Earl & the Dying Girl isn`t actionpacked. If you`re into action/scifi/mysteries, this probably won`t appeal to you much. However, if you don`t mind slowing down for a bit and learning more about these characters and their lives, then I would definitely recommend this book! Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/book/show/12700353-me-earl-the-dying-girl?ac=1&from_search=true Amazon: www.amazon.com/Earl-Dying-Girl-Movie-Tie/dp/1419719467 |
AuthorHi! I'm Marcella. As you might have guessed, I quite like YA books.. Archives
February 2018
Categories
All
|