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    Showing posts with label book. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label book. Show all posts
  1. Unless you've been living in the deepest climbs of Outer Mongolia these past four years, then you've probably probably heard of her. But if you haven't, Zoe Sugg, better known as  Zoella is a popular Youtuber and Internet personality who has scooped up masses of awards during her years on YouTube, coupled with the 6 million subscribers and subsequent book deal. Add to that, the beauty collection Zoe is really making waves in the beauty and media world. With her easy-to-follow tutorials and often humourous follow-me-rounds (commonly referred to as Vlogs in the Youtube world), it's easy to see why Zoe has gained all the media attention, Zoella is a role model for many of the younger generation and this shows in her easy-going videos and yet like any Internet personality, she faces backlash on an almost daily basis. Mostly from people who don't even think before posting their comments. She's very open about her struggles with panic disorder and anxiety, and it's this more than anything that gives me the utmost respect for her, having had panic attacks and anxiety since I was too young to even use the Internet. Expanding on this, Zoe has just been announced as an ambassador for the Mental Health charity Mind to raise awareness on Anxiety and Panic Attacks, a subject which still very much has a stigma attached to it. 

    But now, to why we came here in the first time. Her book!

    Review

    Having discovered Zoe through Youtube and not through her blog, I hadn't really had a feel for her writing. So I was going in quite blind. And even though her book is aimed at a younger audience (12-18?), It was the cute sort of contemporary romance that I just devour in one sitting.

    Girl Online revolves around Penny, who is suffering from panic attacks after a car accident. She blogs about this in her blog (Girl Online) which at first has a small but dedicated following.  Her best friend Elliot is the only person who knows of her blog, so it's something of a secret. What I love about Penny is that she's so relatable. I actually thought I was reading a pen and paper version of me. What I love about her, is she's real. She's not too fierce or sassy, but she's clumsy, awkward and just completely kind-hearted. She's so relatable and unique in that she's actually the first character that I've read of that suffers from anxiety. I found myself getting attached to her immensely.

    Zoe's writing itself is cute and simple. There were so many times that I just laughed out loud at certain lines, and then in other parts, I was a blubbering mess (No spoilers, that's naughty!). The whole story had me hanging onto every word, wanting to read more and more. By the end of the book, I felt a little hollow, which is rare for me. In all, this is probably one of my favourite books I've read this year, and even though the target audience is quite a lot younger than me -because you know, I'm an old fart apparently - I couldn't recommend this book highly enough.  Loved. Every. Single. Freaking. Second. Of. It.

    Posted by Miranda Smith at 13:46 | Labels: , , , , , , , , , | 0 comments | |

  2. Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

    A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs.

    It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

    Very rarely now, do I come across a story that manages to capture my utmost attention the whole way through. For me, a novel needs to have mystery, awe-inspiring prose and a sparkling kind of magic that enchants and entrances the whole way through. Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar is one of those rare gems, sparkling amidst the blackened coals.

    This book has it all. It's mysterious, original, slightly twisted in its own intense way, thought provoking, flawless, fantastic, magical to name a few! With the startling imagery and creepy photos that seem so unreal that they have to be manipulated, mixed with the realistic prose and dialogue, makes for a very startling, very visual story. One which can redefine not just fantasy, but storytelling as a whole.

    I loved everything about this book. I loved how the author used poetry and letters and photographs to tell the story. I loved the characters, who in themselves were enigmas of the finest. I loved the scenes that he depicted that provided some very startling pictures in my head. Which seemed to unfurl before me by the pictures also provided. All which aided in telling the story.

    For those of you who don't know, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children centres around our protagonist Jacob, a young boy who had a very close bond with his grandfather. As a young child, Jacob's grandfather used to regale him with stories of fantastical beasts, of peculiar children with spectacular abilities: children that could levitate, a scrawny boy that could lift boulders probably ten times his weight, a man with a mouth in the back of his head to name a few. Naturally, as he grew older, these tales became fairy stories, and were soon lost to his grandfather's mind. When tragedy strikes, and Jacob sees something unexplainable, something that he had heard of only in his grandfather's stories, his mind is thrown into jeopardy which ultimately ends up with him deciding to visit this island, Cairnhorn, where Miss Peregrine's Home is based. 

    This book had it all. It had creepy houses and it had children with superpowers, it had time travel and a woman who can turn into a falcon, because why the hell not? Each sentence was both moving and haunting, each sentence delivered a blow and touched somewhere inside of me. I really grew to know Jacob's character and his close relationship with his grandfather, I grew to understand his father's own relationship with his father and learnt some surprising discoveries that should have been obvious but they weren't. Because they were delivered in such a way that you were left wide eyed when things were finally revealed!

    I can't say I had a favourite character. I loved them all! They each had their own quirks and idiosyncrasies. Traits that made them unique, though I did have a bit of a soft spot for Bronwyn, the girl with gargantuan strength. For me, she was exactly what her power represented. Strength, and definitely some courage thrown in there.

    Much like Harry Potter, to which this had been compared, this story has some dark undertones but they are done so flawlessly, so subtly that you wonder if it was ever intentional. If you want a beautiful gem of a story, one that will inspire and awe you, then pick this up. It may just be the best thing you read this year!

    Posted by Miranda Smith at 14:51 | Labels: , , , , , , , | 2 comments | |

  3. My Summer TBR

    Friday, 6 June 2014

    Okay, hands up. I admit it. I'm a terrible person. Unless a novel is absolutely fantastic, then chances are I'll find one I want to read more, and read that one instead. And thus, the book takes the back burner on the dustiest, most unexplored plains of my bookshelves. And over time, these books piled up. So in lieu with my recent book-buying ban. I've come to the realisation that I need to read the books I started before buying anymore. No matter how much they call out to me on their shelves.

    If You Find Me
    Emily Murdoch


     Carey is keeping a terrible secret. If she tells. It could destroy her future. If she doesn't, will she ever be free?

    For almost as long as she can remember, Carey has lived in the heart of the woods with her drug-addicted mother and her six year old sister Jenessa.

    Their mother routinely disappear for weeks at a time, leaving the girls to cope alone. Survival is Carey's only priority - until strangers arrive and everything changes . . .
    I think I bought this one on the summary. For me, it was perfect. It gave that sense of mystery that enticed deep shivers within me. The sort that promised a riveting read. But unfortunately, I set it aside and moved onto other projects. I'm hoping to get it finished by the end of Summer. 

    The Book Thief
    Marcus Zusak

    This is the tale of the book thief. As narrated by death. And when death tells a story, you really have to listen.

    It's just a small story really, about amongst other things:

    A girl

    An accordionist

    Some fanatical Germans

    A Jewish fist fighter

    And quite a lot of thievery.

    I know. I know! I'm terrible. You don't need to tell me. Everyone and their dog has read this book. Everyone except me that is . . . I bought this book during the massive hype over it but never really got started. This will go towards the top of my TBR list!


    Anna and the French Kiss
    Stephanie Perkins


    Anna is less than thrilled to be shipped off to boarding school in Paris, leaving a fledgling romance behind - until she meets Etienne St Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Etienne has it all... including a girlfriend. But in the City of Light, wishes have a way of coming true. Will a year of romantic near-misses end with a longed-for French Kiss?

    I'm actually still reading this one. So far, I've been eh about it if I'm completely honest. Having bought it together with Eleanor and Park and My Life Next Door, I thought that I would love this book just as much. But to be honest, I haven't felt any sparks with this novel yet. But I'm nothing, if not persistent. So I will finish it. And I will give a fair, but honest review.

    The Ocean at the End of the Lane
    Neil Gaiman


    It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed - within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. 


    His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duckpond is an ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang. 


    THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying and elegiac - as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly's wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark.


    I haven't even started on this one yet. I got it in Tescos on a 2 for £7 deal alongside another book. But I've heard so much good stuff about it. And everyone I hear talk about it, raves about its amazingness. (Yes, that's a word now!)

     Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
    Rick Riordan

    Half boy. Half God. ALL Hero.
    Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood. I never asked to be the son of a Greek God.
    I was just a normal kid, going to school, playing basketball, skateboarding. The usual. Until I accidentally vaporized my maths teacher. Now I spend my time battling monsters and generally trying to stay alive.
    This is the one where Zeus, God of the Sky, thinks I've stolen his lightning bolt - and making Zeus angry is a very bad idea.

    So. Kind of ashamed that I still haven't read this. But be fair here, I was still shivering uncontrollably from Harry Potter feels. Let's hope this book doesn't entice the same!

     Why We Broke Up
    Daniel Handler


    "I'm telling you why we broke up, Ed. I'm writing it in this letter, the whole truth of why it happened." Min Green and Ed Slaterton are breaking up, so Min is writing Ed a letter and giving him a box. Inside the box is why they broke up. Two bottle caps, a movie ticket, a folded note, a box of matches, a protractor, books, a toy truck, a pair of ugly earrings, a comb from a motel room, and every other item collected over the course of a giddy, intimate, heartbreaking relationship.

    Item after item is illustrated and accounted for, and then the box, like a girlfriend, will be dumped. In Why We Broke Up, international best-selling author of A Series of Unfortunate Events – made into a Hollywood film starring Jim Carrey – writes about romance and breaking up in his first book for young adults with every bit as much skill as he does gothic humour.

    I am rather ashamed to say that I bought this book over a year ago and still haven't gotten round to reading it. I will definitely read it this Summer. Promise!

    Well. That's all for now. I'm sure that many other books will pop up on my TBR list over the coming months, and I'll be sure to note them all down. But for now, happy reading! 

    Posted by Miranda Smith at 14:38 | Labels: , , , , , | 1 comments | |

  4. My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick



    Published By: Speak Publishing
    Publish Date: June 13th 2013
    Page Numbers: 394

    I'm quickly falling completely and hopelessly in love with Contemporary Romance. Or Contemporary Fiction as a whole. And it's all thanks to novels such as Eleanor and Park and My Life Next Door. Both books, that have taken up my spare time where I could be doing something productive. Isn't reading productive? I saw this book a lot of Booktube. Something I'm something of an avid watcher, fangirl, stalker. But it took me ages to buy it, and then when I did, it sat on my shelves for weeks,waiting in line for me to finish with my (very long) TBR list.

    My Life Next Door Next Door is a summer romance with depth. It centers around the protagonist Samantha who used to sit on her roof and watch the large, raucous family the Garretts and (subconsciously) maybe wish that she was a part of it all. Samantha is from a well off family that consists of her Mum Grace and her sister Tracy. Whereas Jase is from a family than can struggle for money, yet they are so full of fun and love that it doesn't matter. Samantha feels slightly stifled by her prim and proper mother, who seems to dislike the Garrets and wishes that she were part of a family like that. 

    Then Jase comes along and gives her a taste of what it's like to be free and happy and wild. she falls in love with Jase's massive family, just as much as she falls in love with Jase himself (and honestly, who can blame her?)

    But her happy bubble is burst when she "witnesses" something she wishes she didn't. She becomes torn by doing what is right, which will inadvertently affect her mother, or what is wrong, which will come to affect Samantha herself. This story gives a taste of what it's like to be young. To be stifled under your parents law. As this story develops, Sam slowly learns the true meaning of love, family, life and that she should always, always stick up for herself when people aim to bring her down.


    So here's a breakdown of everything I loved about this book in a neat little list.

    1. Jase and Samantha's relationship is adorable.
    2. It's family focussed. It really highlights the good sides of a good family!
    3. It has depth while still being hopelessly adorable.
    4. The little conflict. I know that a story needs some conflict, but this story. God it just worked, okay?

    And I'm being cliche here. But this gave me such a feeling of happiness reading this. It was like this big, wobbling bubble right in my chest. It was almost as if I myself had fallen in love. And in a way, I have, I've fallen in love with a book. And no matter how many times I read this, whether it's twice or ten times. I will always read it with the same fond smile that I did the first time.

    Amazon/Goodreads Rating: 5*




    Posted by Miranda Smith at 09:38 | Labels: , , , , , , , , | 0 comments | |

  5. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell


    Eleanor is the new girl in town, and with her chaotic family life, her mismatched clothes and unruly red hair, she couldn't stick out more if she tried.


    Park is the boy at the back of the bus. Black T-shirts, headphones, head in a book - he thinks he's made himself invisible. But not to Eleanor... never to Eleanor.



    Slowly, steadily, through late-night conversations and an ever-growing stack of mix tapes, Eleanor and Park fall for each other. They fall in love the way you do the first time, when you're young, and you feel as if you have nothing and everything to lose

    Publish date: February 28th 2013
    Published by: Orion Publishing
    Pages: 324

    No matter where you are. No matter where you come from. You will find yourself really identifying with this book, the characters. Everything. Eleanor and Park . . . Okay, I'll admit I was a bit reluctant to read it. There was so much buzz around it, and it was hugely popular. I haven't really had a lot of good experience with popular books. But this one, this one. . . Can we just stop for a moment and just appreciate the beauty of this novel? Seriously, I feel like I am killing off any writing skills I may possess  just writing this review, but it has to be said. Eleanor and Park wa beautiful, amazing, flawless. It completely epitomises what it is to be a teenager, a misfit and to be in love with someone for the first time.

    Not only does it perfectly capture the essence of youth. It also perfectly captures the hardships of being a misfit, an outcast. The characters aren't perfect. Not by any standards. In fact, they're so flawed, so real that you feel as if you could reach right into the pages and pluck them out, fully formed.

    Eleanor and Park is written from the point of view of both interests. In this way, she manages to weave a very real and very beautiful picture of their relationship. I have never fell in love with characters, or a book so much since Harry potter. Eleanor and Park has that rare ability to worm its way into your heart and capture your soul perfectly. And the whole time, you're just reading it and you can easily find yourself in their shoes, or even remember situations much the same.

    But can we just talk about that ending? I've read so many heartbroken reviews talking about the ending. And yes, I wanted them to have a happily ever after. Of course I did. But the ending was so wholly real, so bittersweet that I couldn't think of a better way that the book could have ended. Please, I implore you, if you want to remember what it was like to be young, to be in love for the first time, then this really is the novel for you!

    Posted by Miranda Smith at 06:44 | Labels: , , , , , | 0 comments | |

  6. Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith



    Sixteen-year-old Austin Szerba interweaves the story of his Polish legacy with the story of how he and his best friend , Robby, brought about the end of humanity and the rise of an army of unstoppable, six-foot tall praying mantises in small-town Iowa.

    To make matters worse, Austin's hormones are totally oblivious; they don't care that the world is in utter chaos: Austin is in love with his girlfriend, Shann, but remains confused about his sexual orientation. He's stewing in a self-professed constant state of maximum horniness, directed at both Robby and Shann. Ultimately, it's up to Austin to save the world and propagate the species in this sci-fright journey of survival, sex, and the complex realities of the human condition

    Publication Date: 11th February 2014 
    Published by: Electric Monkey Publishing
    Number of pages: 394 

    Normally when reading a book, there is one recurring theme running through my head the entire time. This time was no different. However, unlike other times I have read books, the thoughts that were running through my heads were somewhere along the lines of: "What the heck am I reading?, "This is so weird!" or "Ew, that's gross!"

    Grasshopper Jungle, if you haven't read it is quite possibly the strangest, most original and hauntingly compelling piece of end-of-the-world-fiction that I have ever laid eyes on. While most apocalypse fiction adheres to the same set of strict morals and gore fests, Grasshopper Jungle swerves completely away from that, creating a whole new era of Armageddon storytelling. Most novels, for me are now completely predictable, I can easily spot overused element or subtle cues that tell me that something is about to happen.

    However with Grasshopper Jungle, I was taken completely and utterly by surprise.  It starts with a killer of a hook and draws you in to the weird, gruesome and very horny world of sexually confused Austin, his gay best friend Robby Brees and his girlfriend Shann as they navigate a scary new apocalyptic world, slowly being overrun by giant praying mantises. 

    Andrew Smith has created a horrifying, yet oddly satisfying world of two headed babies, penises in a jar, giant grasshoppers, germs that turn people into hungry/horny/murderous insects, sexual confusion, horny teenagers, horny adults, strange psychopathic men that grow weird things in jars using their own semen, underground silos and just a general sense of complete, unmitigated bat poop craziness!

    In the nicest possible way, I found myself pausing several times throughout and pondering the much pondered question: What the hell am I reading? Never has a character been so intriguing, horny or sexually confused in all the masses of fiction I have ever laid my grubby pincers (See what I did there) on.

    I honestly think Andrew Smith must have been high or drunk, or extremely horny when he decided to write Grasshopper Jungle, because surely something as deliciously strange of this could have been created from the byproduct of an acid trip. To be honest, if you like this book or not is purely a question of taste.

    Some people may find it too rude or vulgar for them. Some may find it too strange or too gross. I found it all four, and yet I enjoyed it immensely. It isn't often that something has the power to voice my thoughts out loud, and Grasshopper Jungle did just that. There were plots, inside plots, inside plots and yet Andrew Smith managed to weave them seamlessly together, so that somehow, it all seemed to make sense.

    No holds are barred with this book. There is sex. There is drugs and violence and homosexuality. There is blood and gore and a slight bit of religion all thrown in there. The writing is shocking, abrupt and witty. Short and to the point. No need for pretty words or fancy prose. It is so utterly bizarre that you actually start to question your own sanity. At some points, there are moments that you just laugh out loud and others where you seriously begin to worry for the author's sanity.

    If you want a unique, crazy, original, blunt, unblushing book to read this summer. Something that has sparked an entire generation of storytelling as a whole, then I would highly recommend Grasshopper Jungle. I for a fact, will never look at fiction in the same way again.


    Goodreads/Amazon Rating: 5 *****

    Amazon






    Posted by Miranda Smith at 11:22 | Labels: , , , , , , , | 0 comments | |