Tuesday 27 February 2018

Books I Could Re-read Forever and Ever

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish, and now lives at That Artsy Reader Girl.


In no particular order, here is a list of ten books or series that I could quite happily re-read and never get bored. In fact, most of them I have read a few times already!
Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress, #1)
1 - Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost - this is one I always reach for in times of turmoil or upset. It always makes me happy and laugh and I especially enjoy remembering how Cat and Bones' relationship started.

2 - Harry Potter by JK Rowling - this might be an easy one and maybe a cop-out but I've recently re-read the entire series, this time on audio-book with the amazing Stephen Fry, and not only did I forget a lot of little details, I fell completely in love with the series again.

3 - Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell - read twice since publication, I still hold the belief that it is a perfect story of growing up and leaving home.

4 - Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins - another one I've read twice since publication, this story just makes me gooey and happy.
The Diamond of Drury Lane (Cat Royal, #1)
5 - The Diamond of Drury Lane by Julia Golding - the Cat Royal series was my favourite thing ever when I was younger and Cat is just the best young heroine I could have hoped for when I was an unsure pre-teen.

6 - The Host by Stephanie Meyer - goodness, another one I've read twice since publication! At least! Whenever I pick it up, I skip the first few chapters and start from when Wanderer finds the caves; the slow burn of the growing relationship with Ian makes me happy and the surprisingly clever critique of what makes us human makes me think.

7 - The End of the World as We Know It by Iva-Marie Palmer - read all the way back in 2014, I can remember loving this for its originality and its humour, and would love to re-read it with my developed critical hat on.

8 - Unsticky by Sarra Manning - one of my favourite of Sarra's adult contemporaries, I re-read this for the romance and the sex scene, to be honest. Grace and Vaughn is one of my favourite couples to read because of the banter (same with Cat and Bones, come to think of it!).
The Screaming Staircase (Lockwood & Co., #1)
9 - The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud - along with the rest of the series, I would love to read them back to back, as I read them too far apart as the later books were being published. Lockwood is my hero and I would quite happily just read about him and his crew of ghost-hunters forever.

10 - The Mediator series by Meg Cabot - another of my favourite series from pre-teen and teenage years, I have read the whole series through twice and could easily do it again and again because Suze is incredible and witty, and Jesse is another hero worthy of the page-time.

Friday 9 February 2018

Love, Hate and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed

Love, Hate & Other FiltersFirst love, first heartbreak, first brush with prejudice . . .
A romantic, searing and relevant debut about Islamophobia and how it affects the normal life of a teenage girl.

"I don't want something . . . expected. I want to go to film school and be the first Indian American to win an Oscar, and then I can meet the One and fall in big, heart-bursting love, and we'll travel the world, my camera ready to capture our adventures." My cheeks flush; I know I'm blushing, but I can't bring myself to shut up. "Oh, my God. I want my future life to be a cheesy romantic comedy."
He shakes his head. "No," he says. "You want it to be an epic."

Maya Aziz dreams of being a film maker in New York. Her family have other ideas. They want her to be a dutiful daughter who wears gold jewellery and high heels and trains to be a doctor. But jewellery and heels are so uncomfortable...

She's also caught between the guy she SHOULD like and the guy she DOES like. But she doesn't want to let Kareem down and things with Phil would never work out anyway. Would they?

Then a suicide bomber who shares her last name strikes in a city hundreds of miles away and everything changes . . .
  


I have mixed feelings about this book. I really wanted to like it, just based on its completely original premise and diverse representation of Muslim teens living in this permanently fearful environment in their own homes. Yet, the whole premise the impact a suicide bomber has on her life wasn't as big a plot-point as I expected. It was done really well, I think, just in the way it explored how these big global political actions can affect individual families, but I kind of wanted more.


Maya was interesting - I adored her ambition to be a film maker, it's completely original and adorable, and her independent attitude was spot-on for most teenagers. But she was super rude to her parents. I get that they came from different places, not only the generational gap but also the literal place of America versus India in terms of teenage rebellion, independence and dating expectations, but Maya was pretty flippant with them, didn't even really attempt to understand where they were coming from or try to converse and compromise. She mostly came across as very superficial, in her taste in boys and her apparent disregard for her religion and disrespect for her parents. I wanted to like her, and I definitely felt for her when the bullying got bad, but she was mostly kinda annoying.


There wasn't as much on the Muslim part of her life as I'd expected - there was one joke about eating pork, and maybe a couple of mentions of praying with her parents but apart from that - diddly squat! There was a lot on the Indian part of her upbringing, which I adored learning about.


I also didn't entirely believe in the romance - Maya was obviously infatuated but based on nothing other than his pretty face and we learn very little about Phil, well some stuff about his family and it was all so typically Mid-west/small town that... meh. Phil also made a pretty big whoopsie just after the bomber attack, not really sure whether he was supposed to support or ignore Maya - I mean, really?


Wow, turns out I had way more to say than I thought! All in all, definitely a book to try for yourself - there was parts I loved and felt so happy they were included, especially in a YA novel, but there were parts I didn't understand the point of, or even wanted more from. An author to watch and definitely a topic more books could do with tackling.


Published 16th January 2018 by Hot Key Books. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

Tuesday 6 February 2018

Books I've Had on my TBR for the Longest Time

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and The Bookish, and now lives at That Artsy Reader Girl.

This is a fairly easy topic for me - I weed my TBR every now and then, and I've worked really hard to get my TBR down to 18 physical books and 11 ebooks. So here are just my top five books that have been on my TBR for a ridiculous time!

1 - The Summer Book by Tove Jansson - added December 2016
This was a Christmas present, something that my grandparents thought I'd enjoy but honestly, I'm probably not gonna read it.

2 - Graceling by Kristin Cashore - added July 2016
Bough in the library sale, basically I haven't had a chance to pick this up - either because I've favoured other books ahead of this or because I went off fantasy for a while.

3 - A Darker Shade of Magic by VE Schwab - added March 2016
Bought in kindle sale, really should read it but am honestly slightly daunted because its VE Schwab! What if I don't like it?

4 - The Novice by Taran Matharu - added March 2016
Again, haven't picked it up because I kind of went off reading fantasy so still it sits.

5 - The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman - added July 2015
Um... I don't think I have a reason for leaving this for so long! Awkward. I remember I bought it in the kindle sale because a colleague said it was good. But then I've seen mixed reviews and just haven't braved it.

What are some of yours? Are any of your TBR pile gathering dust or do you do better than that? Let me know!