Book Reviews

“We take memories and bind them. Whatever people can’t bear to remember. Whatever they can’t live with. We take those memories and put them where they can’t do any more harm. That’s all books are.’” The Binding is split into three parts. Two parts follow […]

“I want to survive this world that keeps trying to destroy me” Ninth House follows a young girl named Galaxy ‘Alex’ Stern. Most will take one look at Alex and think they know her. High School drop out, hangs out with the wrong crowd and […]

“Strange, isn’t it? To love a book. When the words on the pages become so precious that they feel like part of your own history because they are…” The Starless Sea follows Zachary Ezra Rawlins. He is a student at a college / university when […]

“Fear grew in places unlit by knowledge” The Gilded Wolves follows five characters. Severin, Leila, Enrique, Zofia and Tristan. Severin is the leader of the small crew, each with a unique ability or specialty. As a child his title and place among the Order of […]

“Label’s aren’t big enough for people. And once you try to categorise someone, you stop looking for who they actually are” Love and Luck follows a young girl named Addie. Addie is heartbroken. Over summer, away from school, she and her family head to Ireland […]

“You can’t make anyone be an adult, especially an adult” This story follows Aristotle Mendoza. Ari is often lost with thought, and filled with self-doubt and anger. One day he meets Dante Quintana. Dante is articulate, self-assured and often happy and content. They spend summers […]

“Monday mornings are the worst. Monday mornings should be made illegal. (But then Tuesday would be the new Monday which is complicating my thought process)” This is literally me, pretty much every Sunday night. The Adventures of Katie Button follows – you guessed it – […]

“Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope” The Final Empire follows a young girl named Vin and a slightly older, but still young, man named Kesleir. Vin is a street urchin. She’s learned to live with […]

“Be a little kinder than you have to. Never eat anything bigger than your ass. Do not accept an evil you can change. Always do what you’re afraid to do” There is a reason no-one talks about the plot of this book. There is a […]

“The darkest minds tend to hide behind the most unlikely faces” The Darkest Minds follows a young girl named Ruby. Children all across America are getting ill and dying form a mysterious illness – but they’re not the ones everyone is concerned about.  It’s the […]

“When no-one understands, that’s usually a good sign that you’re wrong” Vicious follows two men – Victor and Eli. College roommates who have curious minds and a newfound fascination with Extraordinary People (E.O’s). People with abilities far beyond the realms of normal. What started out […]

“If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others” Michelle Obama was the First Lady of the United States of America for eight years. married to the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. These are […]

“I’ve certainly heard and read some pretty wild and ludicrous stories about myself, ranging from slightly inaccurate to complete and utter bollocks” Honest by Tulisa Contostavlos is fascinating. Tulisa talks about her life and experiences from when she was a child, through school, the beginning of […]

“I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it..” – Elie to his Father As was the case with ‘A Diary of a Young Girl‘ by Anne Frank, I find it difficult […]

“There is still a story in my lungs” This is my first time reading poetry. Or, at least, it’s my first time reading poetry since school. Before I get started there’s one thing which puzzled me about this book. I’ve since realised it’s most likely […]

“This was why she enjoyed baking. A good dessert could make her feel like she created joy at the tips of her fingers. Suddenly the people around the table were no longer strangers. They were friends and confidants, and she was sharing with them her […]

“I was not made to be lovely for you. I was made to eat monsters for me” – Wonderland Villains This book is filled with magic. These are the fairytales, myths and legends we grew up with. We meet again the Princes and Princesses, Queens […]

“There should be a a word for it. That phantom limb, reaching out from your chest, towards the thing you’ll never have” In Sirens we follow Detective Aidan Waits, though to some he’s more known as ‘Disgraced’ Detective Aidan Waits.  David Rossiter, MP has enlisted […]

“You can’t change what happened. The only thing you can control is how you deal with it” Final Girls follows a woman named Quincey Carpenter. Quincey was a normal girl who, one weekend, rented a cottage in the woods with her friends. Pine Cottage. A […]

“So long, and thanks for all the fish.” As I’m writing this it’s 2:20 in the morning. I’ve just finished reading Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and I’m primarily thinking one thing: I’m confused.  I enjoyed it, but confusion is definitely the […]

What started out as a 24 hour reading challenge turned into a challenge to catch up to my Goodreads goal. Why? How? Well, this is the journey. As I’m writing this it’s 3:30 in the morning and I’ve just finished my first book. I’ve seen […]

“He tried to remember how this happened. How she went from someone he’d never met, to the only one who mattered” I was less than 70 pages in when I thought “this book is going to hurt me”. Did it? Yes and no. Not in […]

“I’d love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, et cetera. The truth? My only thought was: Aaaaggghhhhh!” Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. I […]

“Charlie is a freshman. And while he’s not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from […]

I didn’t dislike this, but I’m not sure I loved it either. I’m still processing my thoughts. Julie and Julia is the memoir of a woman named Julie Powell who decides that she would attempt to cook every recipe from Julia Child’s ‘Mastering the Art […]

“When Guinevere Beck strides into the bookshop where Joe works, he is instantly smitten. And so beings an attraction that quickly spirals into a whirlwind of deadly consequences” Let me start off with the word “smitten”. Smitten?? Smitten sounds like a word used in a […]

For a book called “The Big Sleep” this has a lot happening and it’s a struggle to figure out where to start. I suppose we’ll start off with Phillip Marlowe, the private detective with questionable morals yet stone principles. It started out relatively simple. General […]

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.” A Christmas Carol.  An absolute classic and essential for every Christmas. Although, admittedly this is the first time I’ve read it and my previous experiences have been through various movie adaptations […]

“Your now is not your forever” “Anybody can look at you. It’s quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see.” So, I have a confession. Turtles All the Way Down is my first ever John Green book. I remember when The […]

“Action is the cause of motivation” I was out for drinks with friends from work and one recommended to me that I read this book, and then they brought it into work for me to read. I can’t imagine why he would think I need […]

“Don’t do it. Eleanor told the little girl; insist on your cup of stars; once they have trapped you into being like everyone else you will never see your cup of stars again” The Haunting of Hill House follows Eleanor Vance. Eleanor has cared for […]

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” Nineteen Eighty-Four follows a man named Winston Smith who works in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth. Winston’s job is to ensure that whatever party propaganda latest to headline is reflected in every documented […]

“I think my reputation will look after itself,” Holmes said. “If they hang me, Watson, I shall leave it to you to persuade your readers that the whole thing was a misunderstanding.” First and foremost, this is certainly considerably darker than anything I’ve read from […]

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” I think there’s an assumption that because something is a ‘classic’ then the world and his wife must know what it’s about. To be honest I wasn’t sure what to […]

“It’s amazing that a man who is dead can talk to people through these pages. As long as this books survives, his ideas live.” I never read Eragon as a child, so when the opportunity rose to do so now I decided I would finally […]

“I want to be buried in a cardboard coffin” Diana Cowper enters a funeral parlour to plan her funeral. Six hours later she is found dead. This story follows Daniel Hawthorne, an investigator who hires author, Anthony Horowitz to follow him throughout the investigation and […]

“THE SERIAL KILLER ISN’T ON TRIAL. HE’S ON THE JURY…” I must say, that’s one way to grab a girls attention! This is my first read by Steve Cavanagh and, if Thirteen is anything to go by, it most certainly won’t be my last. Thirteen […]

“Sure I do,” countered Lila cheerfully. “There’s Dull London, Kell London, Creepy London, and Dead London,” she recited, ticking them off on her fingers. “See? I’m a fast learner.” I’ve heard a lot of people talk about this book and I have one thing to […]

I am a dreamer. I’ve always been a dreamer. That’s not to say that I don’t go for what I want when I want it, and sometimes I am successful. Sometimes I’m not. Sometimes I’m successful for a while, and then I slip. The tagline […]

2018 is getting closer and closer. Time for another round of failed resolutions, right? Not according to Shelley Wilson. Shelley Wilson embarked on a year long mission: To set 12 goals for the New Year and, by the following year, completely change her life. Shelley […]

“What begins as a game of hide-and-seek quickly turns into a huge adventure when Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy walk through the wardrobe and into Narnia. There they find a world frozen into eternal winter by the evil White Witch. Narnia, once filled with all […]

“I don’t entirely understand how anyone gets a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. It just seems like the most impossible odds. A perfect alignment of feelings and circumstances. Molly Pekin-Suso knows all about unrequited love. No matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her […]

“‘Death has to happen. That’s what being’ alive is all about. You’re alive, and then you’re dead. It can’t stop happening.’ But it can. And it has. Death is missing – presumed … er … gone (and on a little farm far, far away, a […]

So I’ve decided to do this very last minute. I mean, is it really me if it isn’t last minute? Yesterday I posted my December TBR and said that I have to reach 10 books in order to complete my GoodReads challenge. I was hesitant […]

Bookish Rethinks is a discussion that I should probably upload to my BookTube channel. I may upload it at some point because I’m curious about other peoples thoughts on the subject. I’ve been thinking about the books I’ve read over the past year and my opinions […]

“HERE’S A SMALL FACT YOU ARE GOING TO DIE 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier. Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration […]

“‘Are you happy in your life?’ Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakes to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before the man he’s never met smirks down […]

“In Amsterdam, in the summer of 1942, the Nazis forced teenager Anne Frank and her family into hiding. For over two years, they, another family and a German dentist live in a ‘secret annexe’, fearing discovery. All that time, Anne kept a diary. An intimate […]

“It’s that quick, that strong, that beautiful. And it’s also totally impossible” A friend leant me ‘The Loneliness of Distant Beings’ by Kate Ling. Let me first tell you, it did not disappoint.  Throughout this book we follow the main character, Seren. At seventeen years […]

“Love Hurts. Makani Young thought she’d left her dark past behind her in Hawaii, settling in withe her grandmother in landlocked Nebraska. She’s found new friends, and has even started to fall for mysterious outsider Ollie Larson. But her past isn’t far behind. Then, one […]

“Five students go to detention. Only four leave alive.  Yale hopeful Bronwyn has never publicly broken a rule. Sports star Cooper only knows what he’s doing in the baseball diamond. Bad body Nate is one misstep away from a life of crime. Prom queen Addy […]

“1988. Frank owns a music shop. It is jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk – as long as it’s vinyl he sells it. Day after day Frank finds his customers the music they need.  Then into his life walks […]

“Feyre’s survival rests upon her ability to hunt and kill – the forest where she lives is a cold, bleak place in the long winter months. So when she spots a deer in the forest being pursued by a wolf, she cannot resist fighting it […]

Originally posted 24th May 2017 “What would you do if you spotted a man following a young woman, but no-one else could see him? Like most sane people, student Alex Webber thought he was hallucinating – perhaps he’d consumed something bad at the party he’d […]

Originally posted 17th May 2017 “Days before his release from prison, Shadow’s wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant […]

Originally posted 18th November 2016 “The Mogadorian invasion has come to Earth, and they have all but won the battle for our planet. Their warships loom over our most populous cities – like New York City, Tokyo, Moscow, Beijing, and New Delhi – and no […]

Originally posted 16th November 2016 Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars.  Now, he’s sure he’ll be the first person to die there.  After a dust storm nearly kills him and forces his crew to evacuate […]

Originally posted 1st April 2016 “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela Nearly three years ago I read a book called ‘It’s Your Time You’re Wasting’ and it seems I wrote down my thoughts. With […]