Title: The Girl In The Tower Author: Katherine Arden Published by:Del Rey Publication date: January 9th 2018 Format: Kindle Source: ARC (Netgalley) Sequel to The Bear And The Nightingale This sequel to The Bear And The Nightingale does not disappoint!
Though different in a few ways, this charming, magical story still holds the same enchantment as the first in the series. In this installment, however, we get more adventure, more action, more daring, and much more bravery!
This time we get to follow Vasya as she leaves all that she knows behind and travels across the deadly frozen landscape of Russia. Running from the memory of her dead father and a village accusing her of being a witch, Vasya finds hope in her dream of freedom. Refusing to be confined by marriage or a convent Vasya disguises herself as a boy and rides her horse off into the woods and towards adventure!
And there was so much adventure in this book!
We get to brave snowstorms, fight bandits, race horses, encounter even more spirits, meet The Grand Prince of Moscow, be reunited with lost family, and attempt to save the Kingdom from danger.
And of course there's plenty more of Morozko the winter demon/God too!
This is less of a cosy tale of family, snow and folklore such as The Bear And The Nightingale, and more of a grand, daring, frosty adventure. It still contains plenty of magic, but has a healthy dose of danger too!
If you enjoyed the first book in this series then I think you'll be more than thrilled with The Girl In The Tower! Get ready for magic, folklore, adventure, and lots of snow!
Title: Frogkisser! Author: Garth Nix Published by: Piccadilly Press Publication date: 28th February 2017 Format: Kindle Source: ARC This was such a magical, fun, romp of a book! It reminded me of the most wonderful Diana Wynne Jones (and she did receive an honourable mention at the end), and that can never be a bad thing!
This book follows princess Anya and her trusty Royal dog Ardent as they embark on a quest to turn a frog back into a (kind of dumb) prince. But their quest somehow keeps managing to get bigger and bigger until Anya has taken on a whole host of other quests and promises too.
I absolutely LOVED how many strong, awesome female characters there were in this book!
First we have Anya herself, who starts out as a kind of typical selfish princess who would much rather stay home and curl up in the library all day rather than help people. (I would totally be this type of princess!) Yet as we go through the story she grows so much as a person and learns many valuable life lessons and ends up as a pretty damn awesome princess!
We also have a female Good Wizard (sometimes complete with long, white beard), an evil female sorcerer, female members of The Seven Dwarves, a group of tricksy witches, a totally badass female Knight and many more!
YAS!!
The only problem I had with this book was that I wish our questing group had visited more places in this magical world. I did feel a bit disappointed that most (though not all) of the objects they were questing for were conveniently obtained in one place. I wanted them to have to have an adventure to get each one separately! I wanted MORE questing!
But other than that small, kind of greedy complaint on my part, this was a very fun, magical read.
I hope we get to see what happens to Anya and the kingdom of Trallonia next!
Title: Sea Author: Sarah Driver Published by: Egmont Publication date: 6th April 2017 Format: Kindle Source: ARC Do you enjoy dangerous adventures on perilous, icy seas?
Do you like tales of tribes, beasts, tradition and magic?
Do you like reading about epic quests seeped in folklore and myth?
If you do, then you should definitely read this book!
Reading this was like a welcome flashback to my days of reading Philip Pullman. It definitely has the same feel to it. Maybe it's all the ice, subtle magic and the fact that our main character, Mouse, sort of has her own 'daemon' in the form of her brave sea hawk Thaw-Wielder?
Maybe it's the fact that Mouse is a totally independent, fierce, loyal and brave character? (How are 13 years olds always this awesome in books?! I'm pretty sure I was pathetic at that age!)
Whatever it is, this book is wonderful.
I felt like I was really there and experiencing everything alongside Mouse.
I got to sail on The Huntress, dive with merwraiths, cross the seas in the belly of a whale and fight fearsome terrodyls!
As the first book in a trilogy I'm so excited to know that soon I'll be able to travel across the land again with Mouse and her friends. I can't wait for more adventures!
Title: Nevernight Author: Jay Kristoff Published by: Harper Collins Publication date: 11th August 2016 Format: Hardback Source: Illumicrate subscription box.
“The books we love, they love us back. And just as we mark our places in the pages, those pages leave their marks on us. I can see it in you, sure as I see it in me. You're a daughter of the words. A girl with a story to tell.”
I wish I hadn't read any reviews before I'd read this book. Not because of spoilers and hints at plot, but because they completely put me off reading it for weeks. I was so hesitant and sure that I wouldn't like it that I put it on a shelf and politely ignored it for a while.
How wrong I was!
“You've got the look of a girl who's no stranger to the page. I can tell. You've got words in your soul.”
Firstly. The book itself is absolutely gorgeous. I was lucky enough to receive a signed hardback copy in my recent Illumicrate subscription box, and it is a thing to behold! The dust jacket has a beautiful and detailed crow illustration and hidden underneath is another crow, this time embossed in black on the actual hard cover. The end pages are made to look like a black sky filled with stars, and there are three amazingly stunning maps that I could stare at for ages. Its a truly lovely book.
Now onto the story itself. A lot of reviewers on here disliked it because of the style of writing, and this is initially what put me off too. From peoples reviews of it I was sure that I wouldn't like the writing style either. People claimed it was overly descriptive. Using weird and strange metaphor after metaphor. And this is true to some extent. I spent a good couple of chapters being annoyed, confused and baffled by some of the descriptions used. They just didn't made sense and were often laughable or just plain frustrating. Here is one of my favourites:
"But if the inn were a man and you stumbled on him in a bar, you'd be forgiven for assuming he had - after agreeing enthusiastically to his wife's request to bring another woman into their marriage bed - discovered his bride making up a pallet for him in the guest room."
??!!?!?! If the inn were a man?! What the what?
I think this part was trying to describe a particularly awful building? But who knows!
However, with that said, this style of writing does seem to calm down after a few chapters (the very first one probably being the worst). Almost as if even the author became bored of wading through all the confusing and pointless waffle!
And then it gets really good.
The story really gets a flow to it and I found myself happily carried along, unwilling to put it down even for a second. Desperate to find out what was going to happen next!
The setting of a school for assassins was just amazing. It was like a deadly and dangerous Hogwarts where the students learn about poisons, weapons, stealth and seduction instead of spells. I felt like there was danger and death lurking at every [page] turn. And I loved it!!
The twists and turns were hidden so well I never saw them coming! So much shock and suspense. This really was a hard book to put down.
The characters were also wonderful. I wasn't sure if I was going to warm to Mia at the start. 'Angsty' characters aren't usually my favourite as a rule. But she became so much more than just angst as the story went along and I ended up really liking her and caring about what was going to happen to her. Though I wasn't the biggest fan of the romance. It wasn't awful, but nothing would really be lost from the story if it wasn't there.
I loved all of the teachers at the school. (and was terrified of them in equal measure) They were all wonderfully fleshed out with completely different personalities to match the lessons that they each taught.
Overall, I was really surprised by this book and wish I had of given it a chance as soon as i got it instead of letting myself be put off it.
So yes, while some of the writing is over-the-top and a bit annoying at the start, if you can get past that you will find a truly amazing story.
Title: The Gender Game Author: Bella Forrest Published by: NightLight Press Publication date: 24th September 2016 Genres: Teens, YA, Dystopia Format: Kindle Source: Advanced reading copy from the publisher. It isn't that this book is terrible... oh wait, yes it is.
[watch out, spoilers ahead!]
The Gender Game puts us into a dystopian world where two cities are divided by gender and a toxic river; In Patrus it's the males who rule the city, with females having about as many rights as dogs, whereas in Matrus the females are in charge and weed out any males who they think show "undesirable" traits and send them to work in the mines. The story focuses on Violet, a juvenile delinquent who ends up in a detention centre in the Matrus city after her brother fails their all-important test and gets taken away.
Right from the start I disliked Violet immensely. We're meant to connect to this extremely angry, aggressive, self-centred and violent teenage girl, and I just couldn't do it. She gets into fight after fight putting herself in danger and her future at stake all because she's so pigheaded and stupid. We find out that Violet was originally sent to the detention centre after she committed "womanslaughter" and accidentally killed another girl with a fork during a fight. What?!
"In many ways, being imprisoned had been the best thing that could have happened to me."
And everyone bloody else by the sounds of it, you psycho!
Violent... ooops, I meant Violet then gets moved to a new detention centre and vowes to finally keep her head down and stay out of trouble. Yet what happens on her very first morning? Yup, she only goes and accidentally kills yet another girl (this time with some braces?!). Of course she does. Seriously, I have no sympathy for this character!
This latest teensy-snafoo lands poor Violet with a death sentence. But luckily for our heroine the Queen of Matrus has been waiting for the perfect teenage psychopath to send on a very special mission on which their whole future rides! She is offered the chance to take on this important task and in exchange all of her previous, horrible acts will be forgotten.
Hooray!
At no point in the book is it explained why this task was given to an imprisoned orphan with a history of violence rather than a trained professional. The mind boggles.
"...a convict who had no experience in matters of robbery or espionage."
Exactly! Why?!
The story then follows our intrepid traveller as she makes her way over to male-ruled Patrus with the task of stealing back a precious item that they previously stole from Matrus.
We get to follow Violet around as she makes mistakes, does stupid things and continuously puts herself in danger. At one point she comes extremely close to being either beaten up, killed or raped by a group of Patrus men who think she's a "stray" (a female with no husband). All she would have to do to get out of this situation would be to hold up her hand and show them she was wearing a ring, but noooooo. Not our Violet! Because she "never backs down to bully's!" Oh, come on girl! Stop being a stubborn moron all the time.
From about 60% I could bear it no longer and skim-read the rest of this. Though, to be honest, most of it was just lengthy descriptions of fights (I'm talking pages and pages of it), so I doubt I missed out on much there.
The most interesting part of this book for me was 'The Green'. A huge toxic forest, where the air is poisonous and the wildlife is extremely dangerous and strange. This, however, was the thing least mentioned in The Gender Game. We only got to spend a few pages there and no explanation was given about the place. Pity.
I guess we might get to learn more about it in the next instalment, but as I definitely won't be carrying on with this series I shall always be left wondering...
Title: The Bone Witch Author: Rin Chupeco Published by: Sourcebooks Fire Publication date: 7th March 2017 Genres: Fantasy, Sci-fi, Teens, YA Format: Kindle Source: Advanced reading copy from the publisher. Amazon UK ** Amzon US ** Goodreads
Oh my gosh, this book! This book!
With a description that contains the phrase "Memoirs of a Geisha meets The Name of the Wind" I went into this book with such high expectations, but fully expecting it to be nothing close to either of them. When a book is compared to two of my all time favourites I'm going to be on my guard.
"Sometimes it is good to remind ourselves how bitterness tastes."- Tea
How wrong I was.
Rin Chupeco takes the best bits from each and combines them into something new and magically thrilling to form The Bone Witch. I was honestly sighing in contentment the whole way through this!
This book tells the tale of Tea; a newly discovered Bone Witch (or Dark asha to be more polite). Her powers are realised by all, including herself, when she accidentally raises her dead brother back to life in the middle of his funeral. Ooops! Tea is then swept off far from home by a fellow Dark asha to The Willows, where all asha live, are trained and entertain with their vast range of skills (dancing, singing, music playing). Asha are much like traditional Geisha, except that they are gifted with magic, allowing them to use runes in order to access elemental magic. Asha are respected and admired by all, except if you're a Dark asha that is. Dark asha are tasked with fighting the monstrous Daeva, which no one else are able to kill. But despite this they are generally hated and reviled by all.
The world building in this book was truly excellent, with descriptions that managed to paint fully formed images in my mind. I could almost believe that the Willows were a real place and am now desperate to visit and witness the beautiful asha dances for myself!
The characters were equally as brilliant. Despite Tea suffering from "special snowflake" syndrome, I really warmed to her as a character. I loved the way the story was told by her looking back on her life and the chapters alternated between present day where she's telling her story to a bard (and she seems like a total badass by the way!), and looking back at her past and how she got to where she is now. I loved the relationship between Tea and her brother, and am really looking forward to reading more about it after the hints that were given towards the end of the book.
Other favourite characters include, the wise Mykaela:
"There is no greater strength then the ability to understand and accept your flaws".
And another standout for me was the loud, boisterous, larger-than-life character of Rahim the hua maker (traditional asha clothes). He was just so much fun!
"...In Tresea, the men wear fur, but not in the fashionable ways. We kill the bears, the possums, the beavers, and then we stick them on the head, like so." He gestured. "Boring and unappealing. So I move here to Kion, where the clothes have shape and the hats do not stare back."
More Rahim please!
From going into this book with such high expectations, I was not let down in the slightest and enjoyed every last page!
I don't know how I'm going to cope waiting so long for the next instalment!
After watching this trailer for the new Oz film I was beyond excited when I went to see it on my Birthday - it looked so exciting, colourful and completely rammed full of magic and adventure! However, it was not at all what I expected. I went into the cinema with such high hopes and was fully ready to be blown away by the story and visuals to come, but when the movie started I found it to be painfully slow and badly acted. As the beginning of the movie is made to look like an old fashioned film I thought that perhaps the bad acting and slowness was also intentional - to further mirror the old films it was based on - so I remained positive that things would improve once we travelled to the wonderful land of Oz. However, again I was sadly disappointed. Yes, some of the visuals in the movie are quite nice, but its nothing we haven't seen before. In fact, the landscape of Oz reminded me so much of Tim Burtons 'Alice In Wonderland' that it completely pulled me out of the film. Many of the scenes in 'Oz' are so obviously green/blue-screened that it makes the whole movie look cheap and laughable - the scene where Oz and Glinda are travelling inside bubbles is one very good example of this. I'm hoping that the effects look better on a smaller screen, but on the big cinema screen things just looked far too fake for me. I never truly felt like Oz was a real place in which these characters were adventuring and therefore, couldn't fully immerse myself in the story. Sadly, the acting remained very wooden throughout the movie and I didn't really care about what happened to any of the characters, with the exception of the china doll (who really was the best part of the whole movie). The character of Oz himself was extremely sleazy and grating, and I certainly didn't grow to like him more as the story progressed, which I guess should have been the case. I wanted so badly to like this movie, and it had so much wonderful potential, but unfortunately I just couldn't see past its many, many flaws. It seems that film-makers seem to have such trouble with converting fairy tales into films and I'm crossing my fingers so hard that the upcoming Jack The Giant Slayer movie is one that does it right! I'll keep you posted. (These are my own views and opinions, please don't let them put you off going to see this movie. Who knows, you may absolutely love it and completely disagree with me. Let me know if/what you did like about it - I'd love to have my eyes opened to some good in it.)
