Borrowed Books

Borrowed Books is a feature I started when I first began visiting the library again. I wanted to try and make sure I spoke about the books I borrowed and figured this was the feature to do it in. I normally review and say my thoughts on them. What makes it different from when I write my mini reviews in Bite Sized Books? Absolutely nothing, I just like to confuse folk. Anyway, these are the latest couple of books I’ve borrowed and loved because libraries are brilliant, you should go visit yours and see what you can find.
Published: 1st August 2013
Source: Library
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Mystery
My Rating:
The body you are wearing used to be mine.
So begins the letter Myfanwy Thomas is holding when she awakes in a London park surrounded by bodies all wearing latex gloves. With no recollection of who she is, Myfanwy must follow the instructions her former self left behind to discover her identity and track down the agents who want to destroy her.
She soon learns that she is a Rook, a high-ranking member of a secret organization called the Chequy that battles the many supernatural forces at work in Britain. She also discovers that she possesses a rare, potentially deadly supernatural ability of her own.
In her quest to uncover which member of the Chequy betrayed her and why, Myfanwy encounters a person with four bodies, an aristocratic woman who can enter her dreams, a secret training facility where children are transformed into deadly fighters, and a conspiracy more vast than she ever could have imagined.
Filled with characters both fascinating and fantastical, THE ROOK is a richly inventive, suspenseful, and often wry thriller that marks an ambitious debut from a promising young writer.
This was such a surprising read and I don't know what to say exactly to explain why. I’d had it on my radar for a little while and expected to enjoy it, but I wasn’t sure what to expect from it. I knew it was meant to be a Harry Potter spy top book but I was completely unprepared for what I got.
I couldn’t out this book down once I started. I was fully absorbed in the book and Myfanwy’s story as she tries to figure out who she was, who she is, and who on earth has it out for her. I loved the fact that there was a whole cast of characters and it was a complex world set in the modern day. I was continually trying to figure out who had wiped Myfanwy’s memory and who put her in her predicament. The fact I hadn’t a clue whodunnit until the end just demonstrates how well it was written. I suspected everyone!
I did have some gripes, I felt like the whole book was extra confusing and could have been made a touch clearer. But that may have been because I didn't figure things out until the end and once it got explained to me I felt like smacking my head and going 'duh'. The other thing is that Myfanwy should have figured out how to pronounce her name far sooner. Anyone that knows even a bit of Welsh names, as in able to correctly pronounce Welsh towns, would know how to say her name right. I wish that had been corrected immediately because I was saying it right in my mind but I knew that wasn’t how she was saying it. What a nightmare!
Apart from minor gripes I adored this book. I loved how intricate the world was and how it was written to be slightly hilarious and everything was a little weird and it totally worked for me. I loved the fact it kind of addressed the concept of nature vs nurture with the whole memory thing with the way Myfanwy’s personality changed completely with all her former memories removed she was a totally different person which leads you to question does that mean personality is formed by experience as much as being part of who you are? I just really liked what was done with this book. Now I need to try and get my library to get the second one.
Published: 3rd September 2013
Source: Library
Genre: Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Young Adult
My Rating:
Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave.
One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown is a wholly original story of rage and revenge, of guilt and horror, and of love and loathing from bestselling and acclaimed author Holly Black.
This book has been on my radar for a very long time, essentially since I first began blogging. I was even more interested after reading The Darkest Part of the Forest because that book showed me she is a fantastic author yet still I didn’t pick this up. When I saw it at my local library I knew I had to commit and enjoy it. I realised it had been a good long while since I’d read any kind of vampire book so I knew this would feed my craving for the paranormal. I just wish I knew why I always wait to read books I know I’ll enjoy.
This book did an excellent job of being a love letter to the vampire genre without romanticising vampires too much. It was a sharp dose of reality about vampires a lot of the time and didn't fall into the Twilight trap. There were no sparkling vampires and gentle creatures feeding only on animals. All vampires were deadly, they were monsters and whilst folks romanticised them when they came face to face with them it was all very different. This is the book I'd want to give to teenage girls thinking of reading Twilight.
Tana has grown up in a world where vampires have become public knowledge. They accidentally revealed themselves and now the world must put up with them whilst trying to prevent the spread of the vampire infection. Coldtowns have emerged where vampires and those infected with vampirism are expected to seclude themselves and anyone is allowed to enter, but no one is allowed to leave. Tana ends up at a party where everyone is slaughtered by vampires and her, her ex boyfriend and a boy she has never met are forced to flee. She ends up going to a coldtown believing herself to be infected so it’s the only way to go
It is an excellent YA book but I'd expect no less from Holly Black. More importantly it's a good book outside of the YA genre. It hooked practically from the start and I was constantly thinking about reading. It reminded me that I don't read anywhere near enough vampire or paranormal books and that it's not hard to make me fall in love with secondary characters.
Have you read either of these? What did you think? I read two fantasy books from the library. What was the last book you borrowed?
17 August 2016
Borrowed Books // The One With Lots Of Books From All Walks Of Life (Or Genres To The Layman)

Borrowed Books is a feature where I review and recommend those books I’ve borrowed from the library. I have not been a frequent visitor of the library in a while so it’s exciting to visit again. I have found, much like with food, my eyes are too big for my stomach, or in the case of books I want to read everything and then don’t get around to it. This feature holds me accountable slightly for trying to read as many of my library books as possible. Let’s look at my last haul then, shall we?
I got quite a few books out this time and I didn’t find a new favourite as I did last time. I did read a lot of enjoyable books I may never have read otherwise, though.
Armada – Ernest Cline
Published: 11th February 2016
Source: Library
Genre: Sci-fi, Young Adult
My Rating:
THE NEW NOVEL FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF READY PLAYER ONE
It’s just another day of high school for Zack Lightman. He's daydreaming through another boring math class, with just one more month to go until graduation and freedom—if he can make it that long without getting suspended again.
Then he glances out his classroom window and spots the flying saucer.
At first, Zack thinks he’s going crazy.
A minute later, he’s sure of it. Because the UFO he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders.
But what Zack’s seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it.
Yet even as he and his new comrades scramble to prepare for the alien onslaught, Zack can’t help thinking of all the science-fiction books, TV shows, and movies he grew up reading and watching, and wonder: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little too… familiar?
Armada is at once a rollicking, surprising thriller, a classic coming of age adventure, and an alien-invasion tale like nothing you’ve ever read before—one whose every page is infused with author Ernest Cline’s trademark pop-culture savvy.
This was a book I picked up simply because I want to read Cline’s other book, Ready Player One. They didn’t have that at the library but I picked this up on impulse and then dithered around about reading it.
Sci-fi is not really my genre anyway, but this was made even stranger by the fact it was set a few years ahead of us and is about a kid who plays video games a tad obsessively and discovers he’s been secretly trained to defend the Earth. It’s a bit of a strange premise. A very cool premise, and the conspiracy theory in it was quite cool as well. Unfortunately, a lot of the references were beyond me. Now, I thought I was a bit of a geek but this book just proved that I’m really not in comparison to many. It’s okay, though, I think a lot of it was meant for more serious sci-fi fans as fun references they will fully get.
I found myself laughing and enjoying this book from the very start. I love the mix of contradictions of our main character. He’s a geek and a massive gamer but then he has a reputation at school as ‘Zack Attack’ and has a temper and a need to defend others? Not exactly your typical geek gamer. He was an interesting character who obviously had some daddy issues and knew it and who was determined to do the right thing.
Zach was definitely the most well-developed character. There were others there who were fun, but everyone else came across a bit flat in comparison as they simply didn’t get enough page time. A lot of things happened to various characters which I felt like I just didn’t care about because they didn’t feel like real people to me that was the most frustrating part of the book.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. A lot of the references went over my head because of my lack of knowledge about sci-fi but that was OK. I got about 50% of the references and that was enough. I liked the characters, Zach was an interesting one and I loved his interaction with his family and friends. I just wish we could have seen more of other characters. It may have been Zach’s story, but those around him came across a bit flat in comparison to him and that was annoying. It was an enjoyable read, though, and I’m glad I checked it out.
Published: 3rd September 2015
Source: Library
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Feminism
My Rating:
FROM THE WINNER OF THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR AWARD.It's the beginning of the summer in a small town in Ireland. Emma O'Donovan is eighteen years old, beautiful, happy, confident. One night, there's a party. Everyone is there. All eyes are on Emma. The next morning, she wakes on the front porch of her house. She can't remember what happened, she doesn't know how she got there. She doesn't know why she's in pain. But everyone else does. Photographs taken at the party show, in explicit detail, what happened to Emma that night. But sometimes people don't want to believe what is right in front of them, especially when the truth concerns the town's heroes...
This is not an easy book to review. Everyone has heard about Louise O’Neill’s latest book by now, haven't you? It deals with a big issue which isn’t exactly easy to discuss. I mean, any book about rape is going to be an uncomfortable read and this one definitely is. It’s powerful, though. What it says about society today and current attitudes to rape is shocking.
I don’t want to spoil the book and there is no way to do that so instead I am going to say I fully support the message it sends.
The entire concept of this book is that a girl, a popular girl who likes the attention of boys, is raped by boys she knows and who are well known in her small town. It very much highlights the problem of victim blaming. She led them on with what she was wearing, she got drunk and out of control, she flirted with them which implies consent, she didn’t say no. All of it demonstrates the big issue in society. She is blamed when she is the victim. She is the pariah and she is expected to act in a certain way to demonstrate that she is the victim. Her small town turns against her because she doesn’t act as they think she should but the boys she accuses can live their lives as normal. It’s ridiculous.
I hated so many things about the book (in a good way) because it was such an uncomfortable reflection of reality. Some people will have experienced rape, others will know someone who has, it’s something that women are continually told to be concerned about. We are told to act a certain way, to be aware, to not be alone, and to not lead people on. It’s ridiculous because society should be teaching men that rape is wrong, not what women should do to avoid it. It just made me so angry.
Source: Library
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Fantasy
My Rating:
Disguised as a boy, Jin Ling searches for her missing sister, Mei Yee, who was sold into the brothels of the Walled City. It's a cut-throat world of gangs, drug-dealers and warlords and every day is a struggle to survive. Jin Ling relies on her speed and cunning but how long will her luck hold? When a mysterious boy, Dai, requests her help with a dangerous mission Jin Ling's inclined to say no - this is a world where no one can be trusted - but the mission offers her a vital chance to see inside the brothel where her sister may be being held.Jin Ling and Dai join forces, but will either of them survive the mission? Is Mei Yee still alive? And how will any of them ever escape the stifling city walls?
With a fantasy setting inspired by Kowloon Walled City, Hong Kong, Ryan's novel has a rich authenticity and an intense atmosphere, and its pace will enthral the reader from the very first page.
This was a fascinating read made all the more interesting by the fact that it was based an actual real place. Kowloon City was a real place in Hong Kong and was the inspiration behind Graudin’s book. That alone made me want to read this book. It also led me down a blackhole of reading about Kowloon City and it was some very interesting reading. I love things which are inspired by real life things. I liked that although it was inspired by a real place Graudin chose to create her own fictional equivalent. I prefer authors doing things like this rather than trying to write accurately about a real place they may not have fully been able to research. For some reason I like the places I read about to either be fake or to be reasonably accurately portrayed and given the real life counterpart no longer exists it makes it difficult.
On to the story, though. This is about three separate characters whose stories are surprisingly intertwined. I really liked that each story was linked and as the reader you were aware of the connection and you were just waiting for the characters to realise it too. It made the story better as even though you don’t connect with all the characters you will like at least one and their loose connection with the other characters will lead you to be interested in all of the stories. At least, that’s how it worked for me.
This was a really nice read and I would recommend it. Not as much as I would recommend Graudin’s book Wolf By Wolf, but it was still an interesting debut.
Published: 26th September 2013
Source: Library
Genre: Fantasy, Steampunk, Historical, Young Adult
My Rating:
One girl's nightmare is this girl's faery tale
She's a stunner.
Edinburgh, 1844. Eighteen-year-old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, has everything a girl could dream of: brains, charm, wealth, a title—and drop-dead beauty.
She's a liar.
But Aileana only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. she's leading a double life: She has a rare ability to sense thesìthÃchean—the faery race obsessed with slaughtering humans—and, with the aid of a mysterious mentor, has spent the year since her mother died learning how to kill them.
She's a murderer.
Now Aileana is dedicated to slaying the fae before they take innocent lives. With her knack for inventing ingenious tools and weapons—from flying machines to detonators to lightning pistols—ruthless Aileana has one goal: Destroy the faery who destroyed her mother.
She's a Falconer.
The last in a line of female warriors born with a gift for hunting and killing the fae, Aileana is the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity. Suddenly, her quest is a lot more complicated. She still longs to avenge her mother's murder—but she'll have to save the world first.
The first volume of a trilogy from an exciting new voice in young adult fantasy, this electrifying thriller combines romance and action, steampunk technology and Scottish lore in a deliciously addictive read.
This is a book which I never fully fell in love with. I wasn’t in the right mood for reading it when I began and I think that really affected me opinion of the book, which is annoying. It’s an original story and I enjoyed it but there was something missing for me. That being said, I did really want to read the next book in the series upon finishing so it isn’t as if I hated it.
I think my biggest issue beginning this book is I wasn’t fully sure what it was about in the first place and I wasn’t excited to start reading it. I’d grabbed from the shelf at the library on impulse as I’d seen decent reviews for it in the past. I think I would have been more excited about it if I’d been aware of the steampunk elements when beginning. It’s a genre I’ve not read much of and so would have been excited to explore some more.
This was a very much a book where it was ruined by false expectations on my part because I never bothered to read the blurb properly. I was expecting a different kind of fantasy novel and I was misled by the title of The Falconer because there were no birds. I expected my main character to be way more badass and knowledgeable about the fairies she was hunting as well. That isn’t to say she wasn’t bad ass, I loved the fact she invented things and had her own mechanical creations, but she wasn’t what I expected.
I had a certain disconnect with the book and the characters which meant i just didn’t care enough what happened to them. I was interested and cared to a degree, but not as much as I have about many other characters in books I enjoyed far less. I hope it’s something that will change when it comes to reading the second book but I will not hold my breath.
It was a good read but it was missing something which meant I didn’t love it.
Source: Library
Genre: Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Fairy Tale, Retelling
My Rating:
A thrillingly reimagined fairy tale from the truly magical combination of author Neil Gaiman and illustrator Chris Riddell – weaving together a sort-of Snow White and an almost Sleeping Beauty with a thread of dark magic, which will hold readers spellbound from start to finish.
On the eve of her wedding, a young queen sets out to rescue a princess from an enchantment. She casts aside her fine wedding clothes, takes her chain mail and her sword and follows her brave dwarf retainers into the tunnels under the mountain towards the sleeping kingdom. This queen will decide her own future – and the princess who needs rescuing is not quite what she seems. Twisting together the familiar and the new, this perfectly delicious, captivating and darkly funny tale shows its creators at the peak of their talents.
Lavishly produced, packed with glorious Chris Riddell illustrations enhanced with metallic ink, this is a spectacular and magical gift.
This was a book which I enjoyed and would never have bought for myself. I loved the artwork and the story and I just loved the message in this book. It was the fairytale I wish I’d read when I was younger because it had a far better message to it than any fairytale I read as a child.
This is a story with a strong feminist message. There is no handsome prince to the rescue, it is a queen who is set to get married and delays it to go investigate a kingdom where the princess has fallen into a cursed sleep and whose sleeping sickness is spreading across the kingdoms. Our main character goes where others failed to go and goes to the rescue. It’s all about women fighting for themselves and finding their own adventures. I especially loved the ending.
There is little I can say without revealing everything but you should seriously read it. Read it to your children. Read it to your cats. Read it to everyone. Just please read it.
***
Sorry, there was an awful lot of reviews here but I want to keep reviewing my library books and there was a certain amount of pressure here.
Have you read any of these books? Did you enjoy them or do you plan on reading them? Tell me all below.

Any of my followers on Instagram, and those of you who stop by on Sunday’s (what few there are, Love you guys) will know I’ve begun going to the library. I never use my local library for many reasons. I am lazy (books are heavy) there are some strange people who regularly hang out in the library (some may so I am included in that number). And mostly because when I used to go their selection wasn’t the best. It’s still not fantastic, but it has gotten better. I have also been educated (by my mother, a former frequent library user until she realised she was running out of books she wanted to read there) that you can request books for order and reserve books from any of the library branches (and there are a lot of them). I have been thoroughly educated on the merits of library borrowing and now I just have to try and not borrow too many and return them on time so I get no library fees.
Anyway, I am now becoming a library user. I plan to visit once or twice a month. Now, I think each book I borrow deserves a bit of attention here on the blog so I will be doing reviews of each little library haul… or telling you why I didn’t read them. So, without further ado, let’s get reviewing
Published: 28th July 2015
Source: Library
Genre: Romance, Contemporary
My Rating: DNF
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Black Dagger Brotherhood delivers the first novel in an enthralling new series set amid the shifting dynamics of a Southern family defined by wealth and privilege - and compromised by secrets, deceit, and scandal...
For generations, the Bradford family has worn the mantle of kings of the bourbon capital of the world. Their sustained wealth has afforded them prestige and privilege - as well as a hard-won division of class on their sprawling estate, Easterly. Upstairs, a dynasty that by all appearances plays by the rules of good fortune and good taste. Downstairs, the staff who work tirelessly to maintain the impeccable Bradford facade. And never the twain shall meet.
For Lizzie King, Easterly's head gardener, crossing that divide nearly ruined her life. Falling in love with Tulane, the prodigal son of the bourbon dynasty, was nothing that she intended or wanted - and their bitter breakup only served to prove her instincts were right. Now, after two years of staying away, Tulane is finally coming home again, and he is bringing the past with him. No one will be left unmarked: not Tulane's beautiful and ruthless wife; not his older brother, whose bitterness and bad blood know no bounds; and especially not the iron-fisted Bradford patriarch, a man with few morals, fewer scruples, and many, many terrible secrets. As family tensions - professional and intimately private - ignite, Easterly and all its inhabitants are thrown into the grips of an irrevocable transformation, and only the cunning will survive.
This was an impulse borrow that did not pan out for me. I am the worst for not being in the mood for books when I borrow them and this poor book suffered such a fate. I could have kept it for 2 weeks longer and waited to see if I inspiration struck with it, but I knew it wouldn’t.
I picked this up a couple of times to try reading it and got through the first few chapters, but I just couldn’t get myself into the right frame of mind. Is it a good book? Maybe, but I didn’t spend enough time to discover.
Published: 21st May 2015
Source: Library
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
My Rating:
Ani FaNelli is the woman you love to hate. The woman who has it all. But behind the meticulously crafted façade lies the darkest and most violent of pasts . . .
When a documentary producer invites Ani to tell her side of the chilling and violent incident that took place when she was a teenager, she hopes it will be an opportunity to prove how far she's come since then. She'll even let the production company film her wedding to the wealthy Luke Harrison, the final step in her transformation.
But as the wedding and filming converge, Ani's immaculate façade begins to crack, and she soon realises that there's always a price to pay for perfection.
This book was an uncomfortable read, but also really gripping. There were veiled mentions to an event which changed Ani’s life and how everyone hated her for it, but no mention of what it was. I assumed it was going to be a book similar to Asking For It with a rape and the town favourites being to blame. It was not that books.
The character of Ani is an abrasive one, she is not going to be everyone’s best friend as she is very much a person who wishes to be somebody. Someone who everyone will notice. She is acting in a role and her real character is quite different from who she pretends to be. Ani is basically an onion of a characters. She is a hell of a lot of layers and some of them you will like and others you will hate, but she most certainly felt real.
I’m glad this book didn’t fall into the bracket I’d set for it. Instead it was gripping and mysterious and the twists this plot took was amazing. I didn’t feel wholly satisfied with the ending, but I was so glad Ani had made the decisions she had. This is a book you won’t be expecting. It’s not for everyone, but if you’re in the mood for a contemporary thriller then give it a go.
Published: 14th January 2016
Source: Library
Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Contemporary
My Rating:
New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling author Kelley Armstrong delivers us to Rockton, a secret little town in the far north where the hunted go to hide. And where a hunter has now come to play.
Casey Duncan once killed a man and got away with it. Since then she’s become a talented police detective, tethered only to her job, her best friend, Diana, and the occasional evening with her sexy, no-strings-attached ex-con lover, Kurt. But then Diana's abusive ex finds her again, despite all Casey has done to help her disappear. And Casey’s own dark past begins to catch up with her. The two women need to run—and Diana’s heard of a place where they won’t be found, a town especially for people like them…
I loved everything about this book and attribute it all to Danya’s excellent recommendation skills. Her review convinced me to read and it was the book which motivated to go to the library because I was so thrilled mine had a copy! I’m glad for this book, and I’m so glad it was good to make the trip worth it!
What made this book so good then? Well it was gripping. I mean, I literally did not want to put it down. I stayed up way too late reading it and I was exhausted when I got to work the next day, but it was worth it. I had to know what happened next because I suspected about five different people of murder whilst reading because nobody was what they seemed.
The entire concept of an off the grid town is a bit weird, to say the least, but it works. Everything about this book just works. The fact that Casey is such an interesting character in herself definitely helps this fact. I liked her from the first few pages and nothing in the book changed it. Then, you throw in every resident in this off the gird town where everyone has a new identity, a past they don’t wish to talk about, and the fact that some are not even who they are saying they are, well… you’ve got a thriller which will draw you in hook line and sinker.
I can’t properly review this book without spoiling things for you (and trust me, you do not want this spoiled for you) but I can say it was fantastic. It’s a book I didn’t have to even question giving a 5 star rating to. I keep thinking back on this book and love it that bit more. I now need to hunt out more of Armstrong’s book whilst I wait for the next in the series to be published. I’m hoping to get a new favourite author from this, but I’ll let you know how it goes.
***
And there are my library reviews. Sure, one was a flop, but 2 out of 3 isn’t bad. I’ve already got my next haul in so hopefully there’ll be just of many hits to have there too.
Have you read any of these books? Tell me your thoughts. What were the last books you got from the library?
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