So my first week back at work has been exhausting. I forgot hard work was tiring. What’s worse is that it’s only mentally exhausting, physically I am sat behind a desk doing nothing so I’m brain-dead at home, but not actually tired. It’s a dilemma, right? I’m mentally exhausted but physically I could be doing stuff, but I like the motivation. It’s at times like that I think I should join a gym, running on a treadmill requires no brain power.

Anyway, enough about boring things like work, onto more exciting things like Black Friday and shopping! Obviously, unless you’ve lived under a rock, you will have noticed the crazy Black Friday deals happening for the past week (or they have here, we Brits always want to get in a good sale, even if it is for something imported from America). Things went a bit cray-cray in the UK last year on Black Friday, turns out people tend to get a bit violent when it comes to getting more for their money. This year there have been tons of crazy good deals online, and I have been feeding my bookish addiction. I have vowed to have a buying ban in December, I should really keep my money for Christmas and keep books available for Christmas gifts. I have also seen an excellent plan for cutting down your TBR pile proposed by Amy as a part of her book buying ban where you can buy one new book once you’ve read 5 of your own, I plan to implement something similar after Christmas.

Sadly, I’ve done nothing else interesting this week, just bought copious amounts of books (mostly for my Kindle) and started playing Pokémon again (I go through phases with it, but I’ve 8 badges so it’s time to train for the Pokémon league… in case you’re interested). The only other thing I’ve done is I’ve been planning for the numerous Christmas meals I’ll be attending this year… why is Christmas made more expensive with social occasions?

What I’ve Been Reading

So, I’m slowly working my way through my books. I have to say I didn’t know what to expect reading Him, I love both the authors but it was my first M/M romance outside of fanfiction so I didn’t know how it was going to go. I enjoyed it. It’s not my usual romance, but it was still fun. I then moved on to a fantast romance because that’s what kind of mood I’ve been in. It was good, but with a frustrating ending which I could totally understand, but it still made me annoyed, so I moved on to a contemporary YA because they are always light and fluffy. It was a good final book to the Superlatives series, even if I did prefer the story of the other two books, it still included my favourite character of the series, Sawyer. My final book of the week is Angel of Storms, it’s a book I’m still reading and I’m enjoying it, although book amnesia has struck again without me realising. I fully thought I remembered more of the first book than I obviously do, luckily Canavan is excellent with recapping without telling the story again.

New To Me

Okay, my bookish shopping is not that ridiculous, not when I think there are only two more books I’m waiting to be delivered. Maybe I didn’t go as crazy as I thought, although I did get spammed with about a billion bookish discounts this week. I restrained myself more than I expected. I am now not allowed to buy anymore books, this was like my last bookish hurrah before the long buying drought. I will attempt to stave off any book buying urges with the occasional treat to myself, we’ll see how it goes.

And that is my week. I am now going to do boring stuff like change my bed and vacuum the house before I curl into a nest of blankets because cold weather struck this weekend and I’m in shock because it was so sudden. Tell me about your weeks below and tell me about any new purchases you’ve made during the crazy sales.

Georgie McCool knows her marriage is in trouble. That it’s been in trouble for a long time. She still loves her husband, Neal, and Neal still loves her, deeply — but that almost seems besides the point now.

Maybe that was always besides the point.

Two days before they’re supposed to visit Neal’s family in Omaha for Christmas, Georgie tells Neal that she can’t go. She’s a TV writer, and something’s come up on her show; she has to stay in Los Angeles. She knows that Neal will be upset with her — Neal is always a little upset with Georgie — but she doesn’t expect to him to pack up the kids and go home without her.

When her husband and the kids leave for the airport, Georgie wonders if she’s finally done it. If she’s ruined everything.

That night, Georgie discovers a way to communicate with Neal in the past. It’s not time travel, not exactly, but she feels like she’s been given an opportunity to fix her marriage before it starts . . .

Is that what she’s supposed to do?

Or would Georgie and Neal be better off if their marriage never happened?

It’s Beautifully Written, Which Should Come As No Surprise To Anyone

So It Was Fantastic And Nothing Like I Expected

Overall, This Was A Masterpiece

Isn’t it strange, a week at work can feel like it’s taking a month to finish but my week off has gone by in a flash. It’s sad to see it end, but I am looking forward to having some structure to my week again. You know my grand plan to do a bunch of Christmas shopping this week? Yeah, not so much. I think I’m still in some kind of denial about it getting closer. I do have a few gift ideas, I’m just not committed to buying them yet, I am reluctant to spend money it seems.

So what have I done with my week, then? Well I had lunch at the coolest little hipster cafe on Monday with my friend back from Australia before she returned for my volunteering and missionary work (she is off to a country with cannibals, who does that voluntarily?) and that was fun. It’s crazy to think I hadn’t seen her for six months because it feels like just the other day I was saying goodbye to her, it was nice. I love friendships where you can meet up as if no time has passed. She is probably actually my oldest friend so I’ve got to keep her around.

Tuesday I was a ‘responsible adult’ for my mother whilst she had a local anaesthetic to have the roots of a broken tooth removed. Let me tell you, it is no fun having a parent acting like their drunk, it’s funny for 5 minutes by the craziness lasts a bit longer than that. It was nice to hear the dental nurse asked my mom if I was over 18, though, and she was surprised to hear I was 24, I love compliments like that and will be sad when the day arrives when I don’t get ID’d to buy alcohol, that’s when you know age has set in for you.

Anyone who follows me on Twitter may have witnessed by spam tweets where I was occupying my time when the nice boiler man came to fix out hot water. It was traumatic as he had been the day before and turned it off because it turns out the weird growly noise was a split pipe in the gas line… very concerning, I know. I have to say, though, what do you do when people come around to do these basic things? I offered him a cup of tea and then was at a loss as to what the standard etiquette for entertaining boiler repairman in your home is. I normally hide away somewhere and leave someone else to do the awkward small talk, my stepdad is excellent about chatting away to strangers about boring things, I just want them out of my house as quickly as possible… in the nicest and politest possible way of course.

And then the rest of my week has been taken up with me watching copious amounts of TV and very little reading… or very little reading of books, there has been tons of fanfic reading. I have watched a season and a half of Elementary (my love for Jonny Lee Miller knows no bounds… there is just something about him) in the space of a week and I also binge watched Jessica Jones because I love these Marvel Netflix shows. Do I feel bad that I basically haven’t left the house for two days? No, it got cold here in the UK, why would I want to go outside when it wasn’t absolutely necessary?

What I’ve Been Reading

As you can see, I’ve been reading some, but towards the end of the week books just got forgotten and TV took over. Sometimes you need the break for you to remember why you love reading. That, and my commute tends to be the main time I read and I’ve just not had that this week.

New To Me

Not too many purchases this week. I do also have another book due to arrive next week, but let’s not count that until it arrives. I’m attempting to restrain my shopping as it turns out I have way more unread books than I ever thought. I reorganised my shelves this week and unearthed an entire hidden layer of unread books. I shouldn’t even be allowed to look at another book until I’ve tackled the piles. I’ll show you on Instagram, then you will understand.

How have your weeks gone? Does anyone else make plans and then completely fail to follow through, like me and my grand Christmas shopping plans? And am I the only one who seems to hide their unread books away only to unearth them again a year later?

Carry On – Rainbow Rowell

Release Date: 8th October 2015

Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Romance, Fanfiction

My Rating:

Simon Snow just wants to relax and savour his last year at the Watford School of Magicks, but no one will let him. His girlfriend broke up with him, his best friend is a pest and his mentor keeps trying to hide him away in the mountains where maybe he'll be safe. Simon can't even enjoy the fact that his room-mate and longtime nemesis is missing, because he can't stop worrying about the evil git. Plus there are ghosts. And vampires. And actual evil things trying to shut Simon down. When you're the most powerful magician the world has ever known, you never get to relax and savour anything.

Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, a mystery and a melodrama. It has just as much kissing and talking as you'd expect from a Rainbow Rowell story - but far, far more monsters.

I’ve already said the Rainbow Rowell can do no wrong in my eyes, even when she does, but now I’ve read Carry On and I want to regale you all with my love for her. I loved her after reading Fangirl… and then I didn’t like one of her books as much as everyone else did, then I doubted her (before she brought it back with the last third of the book) when I was reading another of her books

You Don’t Have to Have Read Fangirl… But It Might Help

One thing I have to say about this book is I don’t think I would have been as eager to keep reading if I hadn’t already read Fangirl and developed some kind of investment in the Simon/Baz ship already because it’s a bit of a slow start. It takes a while for Baz to even show up in the book, and he was always going to be one of my favourite parts of this book. I think, if you hadn’t read Fangirl you might have given up on reading because not all that much happens to begin with. You’re introduced to the characters and the basic premise of the Simon Snow story, and whilst the background is important, it drags when your other main character is missing (quite literally).

It’s not even like I felt the story dragged to begin with, it’s more it takes a while for the main storyline to being clear, and I loved the initial intro and character introduction and general world building, because Rainbow Rowell writes so masterfully that it’s hard to get bored with her, but I could see how people may have gotten a bit impatient. As such, I do think it would have helped if you’d read Fangirl and the small snippets of the characters you get because then you’re already invested.

Simon+Baz 5eva <3<3<3

Okay, so we’ve established I loved Simon and Baz in Fangirl, in their little scenes scattered throughout that book, and found myself becoming inexplicably invested in this relationship. I was thrilled with the announcement of Carry On and adored all their interactions throughout this entire book. I ship Simon Snow and Tyrranus Basilton Grimm Pitch so hard it’s not even funny. They are the perfect love hate couple and this entire book was about them and I wish it had never ended.

I admit, I wanted to punch Simon Snow in the face a little bit from time to time, he is one of those characters which you like and are continually annoyed with at the same time, a bit like you are with Harry Potter (or at least I was) and I liked that, but the stand out character for me in this relationship was Baz. I am completely in loved with Tyrranus Basilton Grimm Pitch and all he was. He was a poor misunderstood character to begin with, but as soon as we got to see things from his perspective I fell hard because he was completely fantastic. I will mention this more in another section, but all those wanting to draw parallels between him and Draco Malfoy, you shut your dirty mouths right now, they are nothing alike personality wise.

Carry On Isn’t Harry Potter Fanfic, Stop Saying It Is

Look, we all know that Simon Snow in Fangirl was very loosely based upon Harry potter and the immense fandom that those books had. Probably for various reasons we couldn’t actually have Cath being a Potterhead, but that’s where the roots of Simon Snow are. That being said, that does not make Carry On Harry Potter fanfiction. I am annoyed that people are mentioning that. Carry On is a book all of it’s own, despite where it’s roots may lie.

Look, I can draw up all the similarities between the two worlds right along with you. I get it, they are crazy similar, but you can’t think about it like that, because they are also completely different. The characters share similarities but they are different, Baz has way more backbone and personality than Draco was ever given in Harry Potter, Simon Snow isn’t quite as funny as Harry was in his self-righteous indignation and deadpan delivery of lines. Snow also lets his self doubts rule him in a lot of ways, but he is also willing to see those he previously distrusted in a new light, unlike Harry. And Penelope was not Hermione, and I am fed up of seeing fanart of Penelope as a Weasley coloured white girl when she is very blatantly of Indian heritage, as shown by the name thing when Simon and Penelope first met.

But enough with complaining about that.

I Loved This Book And You Might Too

Look, this was never going to be my most coherent of reviews because I loved this book too much to put into words how much I adored it. This book was everything I wanted, but nothing like I expected. I’d been excited about it for a year. A year! That’s an awful long time to be anticipating a bookish release and too often that leads to you building it up to impossible heights in your mind. I may have done that with this book, but it doesn’t even matter because Rainbow Rowell smashed it out of the park with this book.

The writing is beautiful, the characters are fantastic and the story is solid and enjoyable. This book was absolutely perfect and I wish there were more books written as beautifully as this one. It demonstrates why Rainbow Rowell is one of my favourite authors and she needs to publish more books.

Now don’t mind me, I want to dive head first into the world of fanfiction… or start rereading this immediately. Have you read Carry On, what did you think? Was it a Harry Potter rip-off or is it a fantastic book all of it’s own?

What I’ve Been Reading

New To Me

Don't miss out on the best-selling Emperor's Edge series (2013 Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee).

The adventure starts here...

Imperial law enforcer Amaranthe Lokdon is good at her job: she can deter thieves and pacify thugs, if not with a blade, then by toppling an eight-foot pile of coffee canisters onto their heads. But when ravaged bodies show up on the waterfront, an arson covers up human sacrifices, and a powerful business coalition plots to kill the emperor, she feels a tad overwhelmed.

Worse, Sicarius, the empire's most notorious assassin, is in town. He's tied in with the chaos somehow, but Amaranthe would be a fool to cross his path. Unfortunately, her superiors order her to hunt him down. Either they have an unprecedented belief in her skills... or someone wants her dead.

#1 Don’t Judge a Book By It’s Cover

#2 Humour In A Book Is Important

#3 Your Characters Aren’t Always Likable Individually, But As A Group It’s Love

#4 A Gripping Story is Important When You Go Into A Book Blind

#5 But Being Aware It’s Part Of A Long Series Is Also Important

Final Thoughts

Autumn Thorns – Yasmine Galenorn

Release Date: 27th October 2015

Genre: Paranormal Romance, Urban Fantasy, Mystery

My Rating:

Enter Whisper Hollow at your own risk, for in this town spirits walk among the living, and the lake never gives up her dead.

Whisper Hollow is no ordinary place. In this haunted town, people don't stay buried.

Kerris Fellwater isn't your usual human. She's a spirit shaman who drives the dead back to their graves.

Fifteen years ago, Kerris ran away from her hometown. But now she's back, and there are deadly magical forces at work, wreaking havoc.

Whisper Hollow holds painful memories for Kerris, but a lot has changed. There's a mysterious new guy in town, Bryan, who Kerris feels powerfully drawn to. Together they unearth a horrifying family secret, and unravelling the mystery means working with - rather than against - the dead. Can they defeat Whisper Hollow's enemy, before it destroys them?

 

I received a free copy of this for review from Headline Eternal.

I was intrigued by the book summary on this one. I had heard nothing about the book but a town where there are supernatural creatures and someone forced to go back to fulfil some kind of destiny? That sounded exactly like the kind of book I wanted to buy.

The Mystery Is The Hook Which Keeps You Reading

I think the main reason I got through the entirety of this book (yes, I did contemplate putting it down) is the fact that I needed to know about the mystery in this book. I won’t reveal the ‘horrifying family secret’ but Galenorn successfully teases you with just enough detail to interest you without giving everything away in the book.

Is the big reveal all that surprising? In some ways it isn’t, clues are dropped throughout the book both about Kerris’s parents and her grandparents (I'm not spoiling anything by telling you there are mysteries related to both of these couples) and so you are not stumped by the revelations, but it is the way in which they are done in this book which are intriguing. I wanted to know what happened to both parents and grandparents, but also the whys. It’s the motivation behind everything which happened that really kept me reading I think. It’s probably the reason I will pick up the next book in the series as well. It’s not often you get a decent mystery in a book which includes romance, so that was nice.

It’s Just Too Bad I Didn’t Connect With The Characters

Sadly, the characters weren’t as interesting as the mystery, they instead fell a bit flat. They all felt a bit too two dimensional and I often left questioning why I should care about the characters. I think it was partially the fact this is a first book in a series, they are always a bit hit or miss, which led to this distance I felt with the characters. By the end of the book I had found myself caring, the characters felt less flat and had grown into people who may potentially possess personalities which I had previously missed, I just wish I’d cared about them more at the beginning.

One fault of Galenorn’s is that she does a lot of telling about the various characters without writing anything which backs up what she’s said. Take Kerris’s best friend, for example, Peggin is said to be a flirtatious larger than life character with curves and a charming personality which entices any man in… but I didn’t get to see that in the book. I am fully convinced she is that kind of character, there were hints that she is a retro bombshell with her fashion choices and the fact she was watching an old Hollywood film with Cary Grant in, I can believe she is intended to be that retro pinup girl which you just don’t see too often, but I wasn’t shown it in the book. That is true of all the characters, I was told facts about them but didn’t see a lot to support it in the book.

And poor Kerris, she goes on about her fantastic photographic memory when it comes to reading, yet as she wondered around town she seemed to forgotten half the people who lived there. I get people can have a better memory for certain things (such as reading) but this woman seemed to have forgotten half her life with no explanation as to why. I understood some of her memories being fuzzy from her formative years, who can claim to remember their entire life at 5 years old? But I didn’t understand why she forgot things from when she was older, it made no sense.

Maybe I’m being too critical, I did occasionally find myself caring about these characters, but it did feel a bit ‘too little, too late’ as it didn’t happen until the last portion of the book when the action began. As I said, it wasn't enough to drive me away, I know the first book in any series gets waylaid in having to set everything up for the rest of the series, but it’s not often you find the set up leading the characters to fall flat.

But I Did Like The Character Interaction

I know, I’ve said I felt the characters fell flat, but when I did start caring about them I did find myself enjoying their interaction. Kerris and Peggin were great frineds, I actually liked their friendship. They managed a long distance friendship and I totally believed their reunion as friends. Peggin was left as a bit of a secondary character who didn’t get enough time to be fleshed out into a person, but it was nice to see a good female friendship.

We get a whole lot of insta-love (mating anyone?) but it fits to the genre and there is set up for the instant romance that made me forgive it. I admit the romance is not the best I’ve read, though, poor Bryan never truly gets to develop beyond romance interest, sadly, but I hold out hope for him.

Basically, there is potential in all the relationships in this book, I will reserve further judgement for the future.

Let’s Summarise

I know, I’ve been so negative in my review and I really didn’t want to, but there were things which bugged me in this first book. I hated the fact that the characterisation wasn’t stronger and there wasn’t enough demonstration of the characters personalities, instead I was left to be told about it. I also wasn’t a massive fan of the romance, but that didn’t stop me from liking other aspects of the book. I maintain that the mystery was solid and really drove the story along and there are plenty of questions left to be answered to help keep readers wanting to continuing on (like me). And as much as I hate on the characters personalities (or lack thereof) I did like the friendships in the book and that helped to bring out some personality in these characters. I am optimistic that a second book will help overcome some of my reservations as I feel like with all the introduction and explanation in this book meant it didn’t have enough chance to flow properly, a second book where there is less to explain may mean a fun and easier read for all.

I know it sounds like I hated everything about this book, but I honestly didn’t. Once I was halfway through I no longer wanted to put the book down, the mystery and story of this town had interested me enough that I couldn’t possibly stop reading. That is the sign of a good read, I just wish that feeling has happened sooner and I am fully convinced my grumbles about this book are what stopped it from happening. Here’s hoping book 2, Shadow Silence, has better luck.

Have you read any books where you feel like the story didn’t chance to get on it’s feet as it was bogged down with explanations and world building? And do you think it’s possible to dislike things about a book but still enjoy it at the same time?

What I’ve Been Reading

New To Me

Ever since The Night in Question left her with a hideous scar and no memory of what happened, Theo Lane has been hiding. An aspiring filmmaker, she uses a hidden button cam to keep the world at bay. She spends the entire summer in a Manhattan café, secretly documenting random “subjects.”

Once school starts, Theo finds her best friend has morphed into a flirtatious, short-skirt-clad stranger. Everyone ignores the scar. As if that will make it go away. The café remains her lunchtime refuge.

Her most interesting subject is the Lost Boy, a stranger who comes in every day at the same time. When she finally gets up the courage to talk to him she discovers why: the Lost Boy, Andy, is waiting for someone who said she’d meet him there . . . four days ago. Intoxicated by Andy’s love for this mystery girl, Theo agrees to help him find her, and her unhealthy obsession pulls her into a perilous, mind-bending journey. But is it really Andy’s world she’s investigating? Or is it her own?

Vada Bergen is broke, the black sheep of her family, and moving a thousand miles away from home for grad school, but she’s got the two things she loves most: her art and her best friend—and sometimes more—Ellis Carraway. Ellis and Vada have a friendship so consuming it’s hard to tell where one girl ends and the other begins. It’s intense. It’s a little codependent. And nothing can tear them apart.

Until an accident on an icy winter road changes everything.

Vada is left deeply scarred, both emotionally and physically. Her once-promising art career is cut short. And Ellis pulls away, unwilling to talk about that night. Everything Vada loved is gone.
She’s got nothing left to lose.

So when she meets some smooth-talking entrepreneurs who offer to set her up as a cam girl, she can’t say no. All Vada has to do is spend a couple hours each night stripping on webcam, and the “tips” come pouring in.

It’s just a kinky escape from reality until a client gets serious. “Blue” is mysterious, alluring, and more interested in Vada’s life than her body. Online, they chat intimately. Blue helps her heal. And he pays well, but he wants her all to himself. No more cam shows. It’s an easy decision: she’s starting to fall for him. But the steamier it gets, the more she craves the real man behind the keyboard. So Vada pops the question:

Can we meet IRL?

Blue agrees, on one condition. A condition that brings back a ghost from her past. Now Vada must confront the devastating secrets she's been running from—those of others, and those she's been keeping from herself...

The poignant new bestseller from Cecelia Ahern.

The Marble Collector tells the story of a woman who discovers a collection of marbles in her father's belongings. On learning that part of the collection is missing, she embarks on a quest to relocate the missing marbles to complete the collection and also to understand and complete the picture of a man she realises she never fully knew. As she uncovers the story of a damaged childhood, she also comes to understand what is missing in herself.

Moving, thought-provoking and uplifting, The Marble Collector is a love story between a daughter and her father, and a man and his memories.

Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend–the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?

Beloved #1 New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover returns with an unforgettable love story between a writer and his unexpected muse.

Fallon meets Ben, an aspiring novelist, the day before her scheduled cross-country move. Their untimely attraction leads them to spend Fallon’s last day in L.A. together, and her eventful life becomes the creative inspiration Ben has always sought for his novel. Over time and amidst the various relationships and tribulations of their own separate lives, they continue to meet on the same date every year. Until one day Fallon becomes unsure if Ben has been telling her the truth or fabricating a perfect reality for the sake of the ultimate plot twist.

Angel of Storms – Trudi Canavan

International No.1 bestselling author Trudi Canavan returns with the second novel in the Millennium's Rule series - her most powerful and thrilling adventure yet.

Tyen is teaching mechanical magic at a school respected throughout the worlds. News arrives that the formidable ruler of all worlds, long believed to be dead, is back and enforcing his old laws - including the one forbidding schools of magic. As teachers and students flee, Tyen is left with no home and no purpose... except the promise he made to Vella, the sorcerer imprisoned in a book. Tyen must decide what he is willing to do to free her.

After five years among the tapestry weavers of Schpeta, Rielle's peaceful new life has been shattered by a local war. As defeat looms, the powerful Angel of Storms appears and invites Rielle to join the artisans of his celestial realm. But what will he require in return for this extraordinary offer?