Tag: bookreview

Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow Review

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  • Author: Jessica Townsend
  • Series: Nevermoor #1
  • Genre: Fantasy and Middle Grade
  • No. of page: 384
  • Date Read: 25.01.19 – 31.01.19
  • Rating: 5 stars (Favourite)

Words cannot express how amazing and magical this book was! Part of me wishes I didn’t devour this book as quickly as I did and just read it slowly, taking in every single detail. But if I love a book I end up reading them so quickly! I will definitely be re-reading this in the future.

Plot:Morrigan Crow is cursed. Having been born on Eventide, the unluckiest day for any child to be born, she’s blamed for all local misfortunes, from hailstorms to heart attacks–and, worst of all, the curse means that Morrigan is doomed to die at midnight on her eleventh birthday. But as Morrigan awaits her fate, a strange and remarkable man named Jupiter North appears. Chased by black-smoke hounds and shadowy hunters on horseback, he whisks her away into the safety of a secret, magical city called Nevermoor. It’s then that Morrigan discovers Jupiter has chosen her to contend for a place in the city’s most prestigious organization: the Wundrous Society. In order to join, she must compete in four difficult and dangerous trials against hundreds of other children, each boasting an extraordinary talent that sets them apart–an extraordinary talent that Morrigan insists she does not have. To stay in the safety of Nevermoor for good, Morrigan will need to find a way to pass the tests–or she’ll have to leave the city to confront her deadly fate.

I genuinely have no bad things to say about this book so it will be purely positive things. I feel I might have peaked early this year.

The imagination in this book was amazing, it surprises me, with every book I read, in the vast creativity of authors where they can come up with such fun and imaginative ideas. This book is no exception! This book exuded magic and imagination, I felt like magic was spilling out of the pages! While I don’t like to compare books to other books, I definitely felt the same kind of magical feeling that I got when I read Harry Potter for the first time. I love the Hotel Deucalion with its varying rooms. I loved especially how the hotel changes the resident’s room to match their personality. It was fun to see Morrigan’s room develop as the story went on. I loved the brolly rail I thought that was super fun and I was impressed in the variety of trials! My favourite would have to be the Book Trial!

This was overall just a really fun book. I enjoyed reading it so much and it was so funny. The dialogue in this book was well balanced in being incredibly funny but not in a cringey way and I found myself laughing out loud at times.

The plot was really incredible. Whether it was just a chapter at the Deucalion or a chapter which involved an important trial each chapter introduces something new, whether it’s an unknown fact about a character or an insight further into the book’s on-going mystery. The mystery especially was one of the biggest highlights, Townsend was really good at keeping you intrigued right until the end, never really solving things but also maintaining the excitement throughout. You can’t possibly put the book down as you need more of this world, these characters, this story!

All the characters were exceptional. They worked really well as an ensemble cast and were all really likeable. They were also all incredibly different which made for a better reading experience. Morrigan was also a solid main character and I enjoyed viewing Nevermoor from her eyes. I found her POV to be fun to read about. My favourite character though would probably have to be Hawthorne Swift, he was such a ray of sunshine, hilarious and so much fun to read about.

The next book I will be reading is my first sci-fi novel of 2019. I will be reading Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff, the third and final book in the Illuminae Files Trilogy.

The Fellowship of the Ring Review

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  • Author: J.R.R Tolkien
  • Series: The Lord of the Ring Series #2 (I am counting The Hobbit as the first book)
  • Genre: High Fantasy
  • No. of pages: 535
  • Date read: 06/01/19 – 24/01/19
  • Rating: 3 stars
  • Challenge: 2019 Sequels and ONTD Reading Challenge: Jan (Read a book which was adapted into a movie or TV show)

First thing I would say is if you are questioning whether to read The Hobbit first. Do it! There are a lot of references and spoilers in this book about The Hobbit so definitely read that one first!

Plot: In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts a Ring of immense power to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.

POSITIVES:

I loved all the characters. They are all very layered and very different from one another which helped make the group interesting and keep you on your toes. Notable characters included

  • Aragorn. This is probably the only character in the book where I can’t explain why I liked them. I just thought he was really brave and there is clearly something hidden about him that we will find out in later books.
  • Gandalf. I loved Gandalf in The Hobbit and he was just as great in this book. I loved how wise, kind and funny he was.
  • Sam. Sam was the absolute cutest. I loved his loyalty and innocence, he was a refreshing character as most of the companies are rough and serious.
  • Galadriel. The only female character of importance and she was incredibly powerful and wise. I was happy to see a powerful woman in the book who was respected as more than just the King’s wife which is what I had expected.

The plot is incredibly detailed which made for a rich and fulfilled reading experience. Each character has a long history and origin which makes them who they are, they have all suffered in some way which has affected them in quite deep ways. I loved that we got to see an intricate and long backstory for the Ring, which spanned further back than when Gollum obtained it, I also how it linked certain characters together. The backstory makes the quest more dangerous and intense knowing that the Ring has left a path of blood and devastation in its wake. We also see a long history between the elves and dwarves which is interesting to read about, it is not explored in depth unlike the Ring’s origin but it’s mentioned enough, it gives Legolas and Gimli an interesting dynamic and friendship.

It’s highly imaginative. I loved all the fantasy elements. Sauron’s minions (Black Rider) were incredibly exciting to read about, I loved all the scenes they were in, they bought a real sense of danger and they were incredbly evil and mysterious beings which made me feel I was really reading a high fantasty. The Elven kingdom of Lorien was so beautiful, Tolkien’s description of the kingdom was incredible I could truly visuale it and all it’s beauty. I loved everything to do with the Elves and their magic and I loved the exploration into the mighty power behind the ring.

The scenes of action were incredibly fun and exciting to read, Tolkien knows how to write a really good action scene which exudes danger and get’s your heart racing! Notable scenes include – The Pony, where we first meet Aragorn and we get the first major warning from Gandalf. Any scene with the Dark Lord’s minions and the journey through Moria.

NEGATIVES:

The writing was very intricate and detailed which worked well for the action scenes but… it was too much all the time. Most of the novel consists of the characters from travelling from point A to point B and Tolkien spent pages upon pages just describing the mountains and the rivers. They were so longwinded and dull. I found myself at times wanting to DNF the book as I couldn’t take how much description their was for the landscape. This is one of the main reasons why I couldn’t give this book 5 stars. Too much of the novel was focused on describing the area they were walking through.

The pace is also very slow for most of the book, which didn’t bode well with the longwinded descriptions. The book did have small spikes of fast-paced action which were amazing but it didn’t make up for the fact that the rest of the book plodded along slowly. It was a very stop, start kind of pace, where we would pick pace during action sequences but then stop with chapters of endless walking.

There were only 3 female characters in this book. Goldberry, she was so irrelevant in my eyes she might as well not have been in it, Arwen, who is only there to give Aragorn a sad back story and Galadriel, who is an incredible character I loved her! It was a shame that out of the whole cast only 3 women were included and only one of them was actually important to the novel’s progression. I am sure Arwen becomes important in later books especially with Aragorn. But it was just disappointing that two of the three female characters were boring or said nothing.

The next book I will be reading is Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend.

My 2018 Wrap Up

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So this is it! The end of another year. 2018, as I have said before, has been my best reading year to date! I read 32 books this year and I can’t wait to see what 2019 has in store. I try not to plan things to extensively but check out my “Plan for 2019” blogpost which I posted about a week ago to have an idea of how I am going to attack 2019 head one!

I won’t try to overload you with loads of information but I took the stats from my Goodreads Wrap Up and have applied it here. These stats have been compiled by Goodreads.

Basic Stats

  • I read 11,486 pages over 32 books this year.
  • My average book length was 358 pages.
  • My average rating for 2018 was 4 stars exactly!

The shortest book I read in 2018 – 156 pages

The longest book I read in 2018 – 659 pages

My most popular book.

This book was read by 5,611,021 people on Goodreads.

My least popular book.

This book was read by only 297 other people on Goodreads.

The highest rated book on Goodreads that I read in 2018

This book was been rated on Goodreads an average of 4.55 stars.

Rating Breakdown

Now we are going to break it down into what books I gave a certain number of stars to. Since I started this blog at the end of the year, it will also help you see what books I have been reading. One good thing this year is I gave no books 1 star.

Books that I gave 2 stars – 2

  • The Princess Saves Herself in This One – Amanda Lovelace
  • The Magician’s Nephew – C.S. Lewis

Books that I gave 3 stars – 8

  • Murder on Christmas Eve – Edited by Cecily Gayford, written by Various Authors
  • One of Us is Lying – Karen McManus
  • The Sacrafice Box – Martin Stewart
  • Fight Club – Chuck Palahiniuck
  • The Song of Achilles – Madeline Miller
  • Everless – Sara Holland
  • The Colour of Magic – Terry Pratchett
  • The Mermaid – Christina Henry

Books that I gave 4 stars – 9

  • It Devours! – Jeffrey Cranor and Joeseph Fink
  • Mythos – Stephen Fry
  • Battle Royale – Koushun Takami
  • The Riviera Express – T.P. Fielden
  • Uprooted – Naomi Novik
  • The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One – Amanda Lovelace
  • The Bear in the Nightingale – Katherine Arden
  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J.K. Rowling
  • Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – Gail Honeyman

Books that I gave 5 stars – 13

  • Red Queen – Christina Henry
  • Lost Boy – Christina Henry
  • Caraval – Stephanie Garber
  • Senlin Ascends – Josiah Bancroft
  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone – J.K. Rowling
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – J.K Rowling
  • Gemina – Amie Kaufman
  • Scythe – Neal Shusterman
  • The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Stuart Turton
  • Children of Blood and Bone – Tomi Adeyemi
  • Circe – Madeline Miller
  • The Murder on the Links – Agatha Christie
  • The Hobbit – J.R.R Tolkien

I added 11 of these books into my all-time favourites list proving how successful my 2018 has been.

Genre Breakdown

Lastly, for my 2018 wrap up I will break down the different genres I read this year and how many books of that genre I read. There will be overlapping as some books fit within multiple genres.

  • Contemporary – 4
  • Classics – 2
  • Fantasy – 15
  • Historical Fiction – 4
  • LGBT Fiction – 4
  • Murder Mystery – 4
  • Mythology/Folklore – 5
  • Plays/Poetry – 2 (Both poetry)
  • Re-tellings – 3
  • Romance – 6
  • Sci-Fi – 4
  • Steampunk – 1
  • Paranormal – 1

The Hobbit Review

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  • Author: J.R.R Tolkien
  • Series: Prequel to The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
  • Genre: Fantasy/Classics
  • No. of Pages: 280
  • Date Read: 17.12.18 – 26.12.18
  • Rating: 5 stars (Favourite)

Wow! Ummm… where to start with this book?

I heard so much about this series but to me, it was so well-loved and highly praised, I was quite scared to even attempt to read it as I was worried I wouldn’t like it. I hadn’t read much high fantasy before this book so I wasn’t sure if it was my thing. But I thought I would just go ahead and see what happens. I mean, I got the whole set for £4 at a charity event so that gave me the push I needed to give the series a go.

Minor spoilers.

The Plot: Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who loves the safety of his hobbit hole and doesn’t have an adventurous bone in his body. One day he is approached by a mysterious wizard and a band of burly Dwarves and is whisked away on an epic adventure to steal the mounds of riches from the evil dragon, Smaug!

Positives:

Tolkien’s world building is unmatched! I have never read a book with such intricate world building, I hear that the Lord of the Ring series is a lot more detailed so I am looking forward to that. What made Tolkien’s world building so great is that it allowed you to visualise and place yourself within the scene. You feel as if you’re there with the characters experiencing all the events alongside them. The world building was also important for the battle scenes. I tend to find battles scenes long, boring and most of the time I don’t understand what is going on half the time but with the use of the world building it gives you a clearer image of where they are and where people are positioned, making it easier to understand.

The description of the battle scenes was incredibly intricate. I was never bored reading the scenes as he always managed to keep it light and fast-paced but without losing any detail as he goes. The detail in which he described the fighting styles and the positioning of all the characters was really interesting and as I said before, worked really well with the image of the battlefield he conjured up beforehand. The battle scenes were intense and at moments I couldn’t tear my eyes from the page as I had to know what happened next.

All characters were varied and unique and I don’t think I came across any characters who were similar to each other. Characters of notability include;

Bilbo. Bilbo was by far my favourite character from this book, he grew so much and I loved seeing him change from a man who didn’t like any form of change to a quick-thinking, brave individual who stands up to leaders and dragons! I felt very connected to him as I saw parts of myself in him. (Mainly when he was complaining of being hungry and tired.)

Bombur. Bombur was by far my favourite dwarf. He was endearing and funny and he was a constant throughout the story adding moments of comedy during the dark and morbid moments. He stood out to me the most in this novel as he was so unlike the other dwarves.

Smaug. I was quite shocked by how little Smaug featured within the novel. He was only in about 4 chapters but he made his presence known. I loved his dialogue, you could quote Smaug so easily. All his interactions with Bilbo were really interesting to read and it was fun to watch them bounce off and try to outwit one another

Tolkien’s narrative voice was another element of the story that I really liked. The story is spoken in 3rd person and Tolkien acts as an omnipotent voice following Bilbo and his journey. I loved how he sometimes mentioned things to show he knew more about the story than we did and how he would give extra information about characters or events that the characters didn’t know yet. This just added to the intricacy of the whole novel.

I haven’t read a book about a quest in over two years so I was really excited to go on this epic journey and experience the ups and downs and the problems that the characters were going to face. I loved visiting all the new places and it was just so refreshing to read a story about getting from A to B and the bumps along they way as it’s the kind of story I haven’t read in so long.

The last thing I loved was the realism of the novel. Important characters die, people lose things that are incredibly important to them and after the events of this adventure nothing is ever really the same and I loved that about this book. While I love a happy ending where everyone is ok, it made the novel fell more believable and realistic that the stakes were high and not everyone made it.

Negatives:

My only problem with the book was that initially I found it quite hard to get into it. Tolkien’s writing style for me was a bit hard to get used to so I struggled with the first couple of chapters. Once I had sat down and focused more on the words in front of me I finally got immersed into the story.

This is the last book I will read in 2018 and I look forward to see what books 2019 will bring!

The Magician’s Nephew Re-read Review

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  • Author: C.S. Lewis
  • Series: The Chronicles of Narnia (Book 1 of 7)
  • Genre: Fantasy
  • No. of Pages: 221
  • Date Read: 04.12.18 – 10.12.18 (Did not finish, stopped on page 148)
  • Rating: 2 stars 

“Make your choice, adventurous stranger; Strike the bell and bide the danger, or wonder, till it drives you mad, what would have followed if you had.”


This book was disappointing, to say the least. I remember reading it a couple of years ago and liking it. When I thought about reading the Chronicles of Narnia series I was quite excited to re-read this book. I wish I didn’t.

POSITIVES:

The magic in this book is really lovely. I loved the idea of the rings that took you to a magical wood that could take to a variety of worlds and I loved the idea of Charn being this post-apocalyptic world caused by a jealous Witch. I really enjoyed the scene where Narnia forms and we see Aslan for the first time. They were all great ideas and were written really well. I just loved the imagniation.

Lewis’ writing when describing magic and scenes where magic is abundant was really beautiful, he had a way with words that I have always tried to replicate but never mastered. I really enjoyed his description of the “Wood between Worlds” and the beginning of Narnia, he places you within the scene as if you are seeing the events unfold alongside the characters.

NEGATIVES:

The characters were incredibly two-dimensional and black and white. You were either evil or good there is no in-between. This made for very bland characters that I didn’t care that much about. The children were incredibly boring which was frustrating to read, as it was their story and their journey. Queen Jadis was my favourite character but again she was very bulk-standard. She was just really evil, which I don’t normally mind but it just seemed that,  like with all the characters, she lacked personality.

The first half of the plot was incredibly rushed. Within one paragraph we are meant to believe that Digory and Polly become the best of friends who open up about the tough times in their life. It was quite hard to believe and another reason why I couldn’t warm up to them as it all felt slightly fake and forced. I loved Charn and really liked the chapters when they were there but again it was rushed, not much was explored which was really disappointing as it was a really interesting, probably the most interesting, part of the story. And then suddenly, Queen Jadis is living it up in London causing havoc and it just felt like the plot was all over the place which was also disappointing.

Overall the story was lacklustre, great ideas but bad execution.