May Summary

June 11, 2018June 14, 2018Leave a comment

May felt like a really slow month for me, but I still ended up knocking back almost 3,000 pages, so definitely nothing to feel bad about. My summary for May is:

Books read: 7
Pages read: 2,750
Main genres: Fantasy and Mystery
Favourite book: Children of Blood and Bone

I started the month off with an advanced reading copy of The Death of Mrs. Westaway from netgalley. I’m a little bit obsessed with Ruth Ware, so I was super excited about this one. Unfortunately it didn’t end of being one of my favourite Ruth Ware novels, but I did still enjoy it and I will definitely still be reading all her books.

After that I finally picked up a copy of Children of Blood and Bone, which I have been hearing SO MUCH hype about since it came out. I was worried it might have been over-hyped, but it definitely was not and I really liked this West-African inspired fantasy novel. It had several different perspectives and while I thought it was a little predictable, it was so fast paced and thoughful that I loved every second of it!

I went back and forth between fantasy and mystery novels this month. I really like mystery novels, but I don’t tend to read that many of them. I had 2 winners in May though! First I read Sometimes I Lie for my book club. I admit, I didn’t really want to read this one because it sounded kind of boring with the main character being in a coma. But it ended up being super compelling and have a million twists that I never saw coming.

The other mystery novel I picked up was Kristen Lepionka’s second book in her Roxane Weary series, What You Want To See. I loved Lepionka’s debut novel and I think Roxane Weary is a great PI/character. Her second novel did not disappoint and just made me love Roxane even more.

I had a few new fantasy releases that I just HAD to read in May. Sarah J Maas’ novella, A Court of Frost and Starlight, and the third book in the Ruined series, Allied, both came out on May 1. I wasn’t expecting much from A Court of Frost and Starlight, which is supposed to bridge the gap between the original series and a new spinoff series, and I got a story just as underwhelming as I expected. I have a whole ton of opinions on why this book was so bad, so read my full review for more. Allied was definitely better, although still a little underwhelming for the final book in a trilogy. I did like it, but sadly it didn’t have the same flair as the first two books.

I finished off the month with a great book though! I picked up The Astonishing Color of After on a whim and ended up loving it! It’s about a teenage girl who in her grief at losing her mother to suicide, believes she has come back as a bird. It’s full of magical realism and gorgeous writing. It took me a while to get through, but I thought it was a fabulous debut novel.

You’ll notice I didn’t complete a monthly challenge in May, but I have set one for June that I am very excited about!

Top Reads Winter 2018

April 15, 20181 Comment

I read some really great books over the past few months, so I decided to take a look back at some of my favourite reads this Winter (Jan-Mar). I read a total of 32 books and it was really hard to narrow down the field. I re-read a few old favourites (Jellicoe Road and Beartown), but I decided not to consider these since they weren’t new winter reads and I’ve talked a lot about them already. So, my top 5 reads of Winter 2018 (in no particular order) are as follows:

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

I read this as part of my January Challenge to read 3 books about immigration and I loved it! It’s a simple story about a girl and her mom who immigrate from China to America and struggle to make it in New York City. They live in a horrible apartment with no heat and work long hours in a sweat shop sewing clothes, receiving little support from their family. But the main character Kimberly is determined to get an education to lift herself and her mother out of poverty. Girl in Translation tells of her struggles throughout middle school and high school – I thought it was just such a quiet, meaningful story.

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L Sánchez

I listened to this one as an audiobook and it was the first fictional audiobook I’ve loved. Julia is the teenage daughter of Mexican immigrants whose older sister Olga has just died in a tragic accident. In the wake of her death, Julia struggles with her grief and her inability to live up to her mother’s ideal of the perfect daughter. She acts out against her family and those around her, shutting herself off from the world in her anger. Julia is not a likable character, but her grief was just so raw and real that I couldn’t help but love her, despite all the questionable choices she makes. A fantastic read about grief and identity and special props to the audiobook narrator Kyla Garcia, who is fantastic!

Saga, Volume 8 by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples

I’ve been reading my way through the graphic novel series, Saga, for a while now, but something about the latest issue struck me so much more than all the other volumes. Saga tells the story of Alana and Marko, an intergalactic family who fall in love despite coming from two opposing sides of a war, and their newborn daughter Hazel. The story follows them across the galaxy as they try to be a family despite all the people and governments who want all evidence of their traitorous relationship to be eliminated. Vaughan weaves so much relevant social commentary into this series about families, violence, relationships, and politics and Fiona Staples artwork is amazing! The artwork is NSFW, but a fantastic and engaging series!

The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

I picked up this book because it made the Canada Reads shortlist for 2018 and I’ve been trying to read more Canadian authors and it did not disappoint. I can’t pinpoint why I loved this book so much, it’s a pretty short science fiction read about a dystopian future where indigenous people are hunted for their bone marrow. The government has constructed a second round of schools for indigenous peoples to harvest their bone marrow that are chillingly familiar to the residential school system. The book tells the story of one group of indigenous individuals who form their own kind of family in the woods to try and protect themselves. We slowly learn everyone’s back story throughout the novel and you can’t help but admire them for their hope and tenacity. I thought it was a meaningful and beautifully written story.

The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston

This book surprised me. It was really hard to pick the last book for this list out of all the 4 star books I read this season, but this one just stands out for me. I didn’t expect to like it that much and it is a looong book, but Johnston dragged me right into his story and I was completely captivated by Fielding and Smallwood and their love for Newfoundland. I read Don’t Tell the Newfoundlanders a few years ago and I feel like this was a good companion novel because together they examine both sides of Newfoundlands journey to confederation with Canada. I really liked Johnston’s writing and it was a moving read about a place so dear to my heart.

The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore

March 8, 20182 Comments

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Author: Kim Fu
Genres: Fiction
Read: Mar. 2018

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was a really interesting read. The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore just came out in February and it already has a bit of a lowish rating on goodreads, which is usually a deterrent for me, but I’m obsessed with camping and I was really intrigued by the premise, so I decided to go ahead with it anyways.

The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore tells the story of 5 girls around ages 10-12 who attend a sleep-away camp in Washington State. The girls are from all over the region, including British Columbia. The highlight of the camp is supposed to be an overnight kayaking trip to a remote island, but this kayak trip goes horribly awry and leaves the girls stranded on an island. The book tells the story of what happened to the girls, while simultaneously flashing forward in each of the girls lives to see how they later fared.

The structure of this story was really interesting. Throughout the main story of what happened at Camp Forevermore, we get a short story for each of the girls future lives. These stories don’t really reference what happened at camp and in my opinion could each be viewed as separate short stories, but generally examine how they might have been affected by what happened on that fateful kayaking trip.

Because of this, the novel read more like a collection of short stories to me, but I didn’t mind it because each sub-story felt fully formed and realized and the writing was really beautiful. It didn’t deliver on what I was expecting from this book, but it was still a really nice piece of writing, so I didn’t mind. I think Kim Fu got the atmosphere of the story just right and I think the cover perfectly reflects that atmosphere too.

My complaint would be that it was a bit short. I was really into the main story at Forevermore and I would have liked to see this part of the novel developed a little more. It had a bit of a Lord of the Flies vibe and explored how children act and develop when left alone in stressful situations without adult support and I would have liked to see these themes explored in a little more depth and a bit better tied in with the futures of each girl. I also thought it was a weird choice to tell Kayla’s story instead of Andee’s. Andee is one of the 5 girls on the island, why tell her sister’s story instead of hers? I didn’t really get why the author choose to do this and was one of the reasons I thought the flash forwards could also work as short stories, since some of them seemed to have very little to do with what actually happened at camp.

Overall though, I did really like this, which goes to show you can’t always trust the goodreads ratings. I thought the writing was strong and the story was beautifully told. It’s a bit of a slow-burn novel, but it worked in this context. Plus I love supporting Canadian authors!

The Cruel Prince

January 26, 201810 Comments

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Author: Holly Black
Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult
Read: Jan. 2018

First off, I definitely liked this. It was an intriguing story with some pretty interesting characters. But I didn’t love it quite as much as I was hoping. This may be a good example of a book where the hype gave me unrealistic expectations. The Cruel Prince only came out the first week of January, but I’ve been seeing so much buzz about it everywhere and pretty much everyone seems to have totally loved it. Like I said, I did actually quite enjoy this book and I will definitely be reading the next one, but it’s one of those 3 stars reads that I liked not loved.

This was my first Holly Black book. I know she’s written a ton of stuff and that she’s quite popular, which surprised me because I didn’t love her writing style. Her writing is very simple and I honestly had to go back to goodreads to check what genres this was listed under because, with the exception of the opening scene (which is gruesome), I felt like I was reading a middle grade novel for the first half of this book. Between Jude’s bullying at school, her boy woes, and the simple writing, I didn’t feel like I was reading a YA fantasy novel.

Anyways, to give you a quick summary, The Cruel Prince is set in the world of the high fae, which is closely linked with the mortal world. The first chapter is stellar and starts off with a brutal double murder and the faerie general, Madoc, dragging Jude and her two sisters back to Faerie to be their surrogate father. Jude and her sister Taryn are both humans and suffer a lot at the hands of the fae. Humans are often enchanted and used as servants by the fae and it’s only Madoc’s status as the general that protects them. They are bullied at school, but Faerie is really all they’ve ever known and they are both desperate to fit in.

Jude wants to prove herself by besting the fae and becoming a knight to the royal family. But she is at odds with the young prince Cardan, who’s in her class at school and it unbelievably cruel. When rumours fly that the high king is going to be abdicating his position to one of his 6 children, Jude gets caught up in the drama and the secret scheming for the crown.

Okay, what did I like about this book? I liked Jude as the narrator. She had spunk and she was quite stubborn, but also ballsy. I also liked Cardan – the book is called ‘the cruel prince’ so you know there’s going to be more to Cardan than meets the eye and I was really intrigued as to what his deal is. I also thought Madoc was a fascinating character, even though I HATED him. I liked Vivi too, so I guess the strongest part of this novel for me was the characters, which is a pretty good because in my opinion, characterization is key.

Things I didn’t like – apparently there’s a few of them. Firstly, I did not like the pacing, which I thought was all over the place. The novel starts off strong with the double murder and then gets ridiculously boring for the first third. Things get super intense again two thirds in with the coronation scene, but then they inexplicably slow down during the last third when the novel should be at its climax! I like a good planner, but I didn’t really like having to read about all the planning in lieu of just reading about the action.

I also thought this book was king of predictable. There was a side mystery going on throughout the course of the book, but I didn’t find it particularly compelling and I found it kind of hard to follow, so I was never really that intrigued in trying to solve the mystery because I never felt like I even really knew what the point was. There were definitely some surprising scenes in the book, but overall I could kind of guess where things were going and I was never really surprised by betrayals because I never trusted any of the characters to begin with.

I can’t decide if I liked the relationship between Jude and Taryn or not. They were really all each other had in the world and I found it hard to believe they would be so at odds with one another.

I’ll give Black props though, this book had a lot of characters and I never had any trouble following along with them all (with the exception of the side mystery element). I love when minor characters matter and I love when they have depth, and Holly Black had both in this novel. The Cruel Prince has the perfect kind of cliffhanger. Black has closed off all her loose ends, but she’s still left a wide up open space for the story to move into. I am genuinely excited to see what’s going to happen with Jude and Cardan in the next book and I really like the dynamic between the two of them. The most disappointing part is that I’m going to have to wait a whole year for the next installment!