Review: The Captive by Deborah O'Connor

 

Wow - this was so good! Honestly could not put it down!

Restorative justice has become the major type of criminal reform, with cells being installed in victims' houses and victims being responsible for the prisoner's care. Hannah becomes the caretaker of Jem, the man who murdered her husband six months earlier. But Jem is insistent that he's innocent - and when Hannah begins to doubt the evidence presented to her, she realises that John's death was not as straight-forward as she thought...

The restorative justice conversation that happens in this book was so interesting, and definitely deserves a mention outside of the story. The story itself was so good too - it was pacey and kept moving forward, with plenty of twists and turns thrown in. I couldn't figure out who was responsible for John's murder until it was revealed, so I consider that to be a well-written plot. This was just so good, I can't say enough good things about it. Highly recommend!

Review: The Word Trove by Elias Vorpahl

This book was beautiful! Beautifully written and crafted.

We are following a word trying to find it's meaning after being spoken and forgetting who it is. 

This book was completely different from anything that I have ever read before but I really enjoyed it. The story was really original and beautifully written (or translated, since it was written in German). I loved the little details to make it seem more realistic - "The little letter on its right syllable had gone completely numb." This made the story just realistic enough to follow, but still abstract enough to make a really interesting story that you can't help but want to finish. I like that it's short and sweet too - you can easily read this in one sitting and enjoy all the little details that are hidden in there. Little references to Alice in Wonderland also helped to keep this story from going off track, and I would highly recommend this book.

Review: The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

 

Wow, what a book! This was so dark but so good!

Ambrosia is not looking forward to her 10-year college reunion. She was a different person in college, and someone knows what she did. And who died as a result. As Ambrosia desperately tries to keep her husband from finding out exactly who she was, she realises that someone is closer to the truth than she thinks... and they want closure once and for all.

This was amazing. So dark, but amazing. Female friendships are incredibly intense things, especially as teens/young adults, and this book explores the complexities of female friendship and exactly how it can go from wholesome to dangerous very quickly. Ambrosia is a genuinely awful person, and she has never really recovered from the choices she made as a young adult. She spends the entire novel not trying to make amends, but trying to save her own skin. So many interesting characters in this book, and it was very hard to put down. Highly, highly recommend!

Review: The Forgers by Bradford Morrow

I wasn't sure what to make of this book at the beginning, but I actually really enjoyed it.

Will is a forger - making his money by forging book inscriptions onto priceless volumes. He's good, and he knows it. But when his brother-in-law (whom he also suspects is a forger) is brutally murdered in his own home and his collection destroyed, Will worries that his past may be catching up with him. Will shows no remorse for his crimes but moves his fiancee to Ireland, hoping to escape it all. But even thousands of miles away, it becomes clear that someone is closing in on him...

This was interesting once it got going. It was interesting to hear about the rare book industry, and how much these books sell for.

The ending of the book was a bit... flat, if I'm honest. The murderer is revealed three pages before the end and then the story just kind of - finishes. It was okay, but it would have been nice to have that fleshed out a bit more.

The one thing I will say about this book - it is incredibly well-written. The writing is beautiful, and even though it's relatively short, it's a book that you'll want to read slowly and savour.

Review: Why Mummy's Sloshed by Gill Sims

This is my second 'Why Mummy...' novel and it was just as good as the first. As a 24 year old with no children, I shouldn't be able to relate to this, and yet somehow I totally love these books, and speed through them quickly.

Ellen is a single mother of two teenagers, who is just trying to make her way though life, making sure that the moppets eat their greens and pass their exams. Throw in an attractive new neighbour who may or may not be interested in her, her best friend's toddler who insists on destroying everything, and her two dogs who require attention, Ellen is constantly busy.

As I said, I love these books, and I think they will appeal to anyone, regardless of whether they have children or not. This is the perfect book for a rainy Saturday afternoon - you can just curl up with it and wile away the hours... I guarantee you won't be able to put it down!

Review: Poisoned by Jennifer Donnelly

I was really looking forward to this book, because I really enjoyed 'Stepsister' by Jennifer Donnelly, but this one fell a bit flat, to be honest.

Sophie is the princess of a great kingdom, but is ruled by her evil stepmother, who is beating all the kindness out of her, one day at a time. Fed up with her constant kindness one day, her stepmother sends her huntsman to cut out her heart, and Sophie ends up living with the seven men of the woods, who build her a new mechanical heart. With this and the friendship of the seven men, Sophie sets out to take back her kingdom and overcome her stepmother once and for all.

This beginning of this was great, and the ending saved it, but the middle was a bit... meh. It was just a bit slow, and there were several sections where not a whole lot happened. 

As I said, I had really high hopes for this as a modern retelling of the traditional 'Snow White' fairytale, but it didn't quite meet those expectations, unfortunately.

Review: How It All Blew Up by Arvin Ahmadi

This was fantastic. I finished it in one sitting, it was that good. It made for truly wonderful Saturday night reading indeed.

Amir is eighteen, Muslim and gay. He knows he should tell his parents, but doesn't know how to approach the subject. One of his classmates finds out and blackmails him for thousands of dollars, and so in order to escape, Amir escapes. Literally. 24 hours later, he finds himself in Rome, and so starts a summer of self-discovery...

This was wonderful. It was very different from anything that I have read before, but it was so good that I finished it in one sitting. It was really interesting having the main story be Amir's life in Rome and the colourful characters that he meets, but it was also really interesting hearing from Amir's parents and sister in the shorter interrogation chapters in between

Overall, this was a really good book, and I would highly recommend.

Review: The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard (Amazon)

I really don't know what to say about this book. And not necessarily in a good way. I'm just so conflicted about it.

Almost twenty years after the murder of her parents and younger sister, Eve is ready to face the truth and is writing a tell-all book about the event and her life as the only survivor, with her goal being to catch the killer: The Nothing Man. But little does she know that the killer is closer than she thinks, reading her book and plotting his final kill... the one that will bring an end to everything.

Okay. On the positive side, I couldn't put this book down. I couldn't stand to read it, but I also needed to know how it ended. On the other hand, however, it was genuinely chilling. Can we just stop writing about women being raped, for the love of God? I refuse to believe that there aren't other topics to write about instead. I'm just sick of reading about it.

So you see the problem... I couldn't put the book down, but similarly didn't particularly want to finish it.

Review: The Secrets of Strangers by Charity Norman

The Secrets of Strangers by Charity Norman (Google Images)

Wow, this was absolutely INCREDIBLE.

During the morning rush hour, the lives of three strangers are forever changed when they are taken hostage by a gunman in a small cafe. As the hours tick by and the atmosphere remains tense, the group begin to share stories, and Stockholm Syndrome begins to kick in...

Not many books could have you feel bad for the gunman at the end, but this one has managed to do it. It was written so well - straight into the action from the beginning and then drip-fed bits and pieces from the lives of the hostages and the gunman, and as I said, by the end you are left completely understanding his point of view, even if you disagree with his methods.

This was a fantastic book - I couldn't put it down. Highly recommend!

Review: One Split Second by Caroline Bond

I've read both of Caroline Bond's other novels, so I had relatively high hopes for this one, and I wasn't disappointed. 

After a party, a car carrying five teenagers home crashes, causing life-changing damage for all five families. This damage is only worsened when one of the teens dies, and everyone looks for someone to blame. 

Despite the heart-wrenching subject matter of this book, it was still enjoyable. Bond is fantastic at writing novels about emotional subjects, and the complexity of the story and five families really helps to give this story depth. Because of the sheer amount of characters and relationships to put together, it took me a while to get properly into this story, but once I did, I sped through it because I was desperate to know how it ended. I was satisfied with the ending - this was a tragic accident and I believe that Harry got the ending he deserved. 

The one thing I would say is I would have liked to know what happened with Harry's relationship with his dad - it was strained throughout this book, but it was left hanging, and I would have liked to have some closure there.

Other than that, another fantastic book from Bond - highly recommend!

Review: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Review: Confessions of a Forty-Something Fuck Up by Alexandra Potter

Nell is 40-something, just broken up from her husband-to-be, and her business is in financial ruin. She's on the edge, and, feeling sorry for herself, begins a podcast called 'The Confessions of a 40-Something Fuck Up'. She also meets Cricket, an 80-something widow who helps to her look at life differently, and Nell begins to realise that maybe 40-something isn't so bad after all.

I'm 24, and I loved this. It was light-hearted, it was funny, and it was just a really enjoyable read. I really like Nell's character - she was interesting and relatable, and I LOVED Cricket. Everyone could learn something from her and her laid-back attitude. I really liked the way this ended - it was satisfying and tied everything up nicely, leaving Nell with a new outlook on life.

Highly recommend!

Review: Thorn by Intisar Khanani

Alyrra is a princess due to be married off to a foreign prince for political advantage. But on the way, her maid steals her identity and Alyrra is given the rare opportunity to start over. But she finds that she can't walk away from the mysterious prince...

This book is not for me at all. So much so that I can't even bring myself to finish it, which I hate doing. I'm halfway through and I'm just not interested in the story at all - not much has happened and I can't see it getting any better, to be honest.

Looking at other reviews, it seems to be based on a fairytale of some kind? I don't know whether knowing this beforehand would have helped or not, but I was certainly confused at some of the elements of this book. Not knowing about the fairytale aspect makes them seem totally random - like the talking horse, for example.

Yeah, had high hopes for it, but not for me, unfortunately.

Review: The Foundling by Stacey Halls

Six years after leaving her infant daughter at the Foundling Hospital, Bess Bright finally feels like she is able to care for her, and goes to bring her daughter home. But when she gets there, she is stunned to find out that someone already collected her daughter, the day after she was dropped off... and she was collected by someone called Bess Bright.

Bess will do anything to find out what happened to her daughter, even if that means crossing the person who took her in the first place...

This was a fantastic book. I couldn't put it down! I do love a good Historical Fiction story, and this was a really good one. The story was fast-paced and interesting, and the characters were well-rounded and genuinely likeable. Highly recommend.