Bookish Bingo Readathon Week

This weeks readathon week for Bookish Bingo over at Pretty Deadly Reviews. Basically the idea is to spend the week reading books that will cover squares on your Bookish Bingo card. 

 

 

This is what my card currently looks like. I now have 10 squares covered which leaves 15 to go. I have moved all non Bookish Bingo books off my Currently Reading list so everything left will cover a square for Bookish Bingo

 

Currently Reading List

The Dark Days Club - Alison Goodman (MC Shares your first initial)

Their Fractured Light - Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (More than one Author)

Unrivaled - Alyson Noel (April May June release)

Anna and the French Kiss - Stephanie Perkins (takes place in more than one country)

Outlander - Diana Gabaldon (Set more than 200 years ago)

Passenger - Alexandra Braken (Metallic Lettering)

Firewalker - Josephine Angelini (I really hate the UK cover redesign so - Ugly Cover)

 

 

To Be Read Plan

Non Fiction -  Yes Please Amy Poehler

Written Under a Pen Name - Parasite Mira Grant

Second Chance - Wolf by Wolf Ryan Graudin (I have tried starting this twice already but can't seem to get more than 100 pages or so in. Which is weird because I do like it but for some reason never get very far. So I'm giving it one more shot and if I can't finish it third time round I will have to finally mark it as a dnf).

Flowers on Cover - Wink Poppy Midnight - April Genevieve Tucholke

Non Binary MC - Symptoms of Being Human Jeff Garvin

Green Cover - Since You've Been Gone - Morgan Matson

Recc'd by More Than One Friend - Jellico Road by Melina Marchetta 

 

Then I have free square to decide on. Usually I leave this one till last as once I finish all the other squares I usually pick something off my shelves that I've wanted to read for ages and have never got round to it yet. 

 

Plan for this week - finish the currently reading list and hopefully make a start on some of the TBR plan list. 

 

 

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1369786/bookish-bingo-readathon-week

Review: Burning

Review:

I received a copy from Netgalley.

Different and intriguing. My initial worry with this one was it would be too similar to Nova Ren Suma's The Walls Around Us which was also a paranormal mystery with a juvenile detention centre setting. Pleased to say this one was very very different. The story focuses on Angela who is counting down the days to her release from the detention centre when a strange new Doctor comes in with what appears to be a new opportunity for getting the girls into a science based programme. There's also a strange new inmate - a little girl named Jessica who appears to be very weird and dangerous. No one really knows anything other than rumours. Angela's brief encounter with the girl was not a pleasant one.

The new Doctor, Dr Gruen knows there is something off about Jessica and claims that her group SciGirls is in a position to help and if Angela can get close to Jessica, Dr Gruen can make things run more smoothly for her. Simple enough. Jessica is a very intriguing character. Clearly a very scared little girl and you want to know what she did - it's clear she has some abormal ability to do with fire. Is she as scary as everyone is making out?

The more Angela gets to know Jessica, the more things start changing in the prison facility. It's a hard one to go into detail for without being too spoilery. But everything revolves around Dr Gruen's SciGirls programme. Some changes appear to be good, others for lack of a better phrase - not so good. A lot of Dr Gruen pushing Angela in regards to finding out something from Jessica, the little girl.

It was certainly very atmospheric, very creepy and very compelling in its narrative even if the plot was getting weirder and more twistier by the second. Excellently written, though Jessica and Angela seemed to be the only ones with a lot of character depth. A couple of the side characters, Angela's two roommates and friends had some interesting background stories, but there seemed very little elaboration on anyone else. They were just there for the purposes of forwarding the plot. Though granted, even though it was a juvenile detention centre the main characters (apart from Dr Gruen) and Angela's friends were actually pretty likeable characters, even though they were criminals and bad girls. You want them to come out of the mess unscathed and okay.

The end was a bit weird and felt a bit rushed, that being said, the style of the storytelling was pretty consistent with the rest of the story.

Certainly a fun creepy read with an interesting take on a paranormal theme.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for approving my request to view the title.

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1369576/review-burning

Review: Mystique

I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

Oh dear. This sounded like such an interesting premise. People mysteriously being brought back to life and one new girl who gets in the middle of everything. Can't fault the writing, the novel was pretty well written, the characters were fairly likeable, even though I did find the main character Presley to be kind of bland and a bit dull. The plot, however, was utterly ludicrous. By the half way point my eyes were rolling so much I was skimming the rest mainly because I was mildly curious to know what was going on and how the absurdity of it all would wind up in the end.  

 

Started off with flags raising - Presley works at a funeral home. The most popular guy in her high school and the town football hero Bauer Grant has died and she's working at his funeral. The congregation are cleared out to head for the churchyard for burial. The family remain a few moments to say their final goodbye. All of a sudden, Bauer sits up in coffin and appears to be alive and perfectly fine.  Mysterious? Yes. However - one thought springs to mind (Especially for anyone who's seen all of 'Six Feet Under') comes to mind  - they are going to bury him, wouldn't he have been embalmed? So how can he be sat up fine. (Looking through some of the other reviews I see I'm not the only one who noticed this. There are of course Answers. And Reasons. That do come in much later in the plot, but why did no one think of this sooner?

 

For some unknown reason, Bauer seems to become very attached to Presley very quickly. Even though they've never communicated before. At least she can't understand it either, but of course, he's the hottest guy in school and he's suddenly paying attention to her. Plot inconsistencies aside, Bauer was so nice to everyone it was almost boarding on sickeningly sweet. And the plot goes on from there. Presley becomes friendly with Bauer's best friend Sam. She appears to have been pretty much a loner before this happened. More and more people are rising from the dead. Pretty soon the town is a media hotspot.

 

No one knows why. Though there is a mysterious military base outside the town. And things keep getting weirder. Though only Presley and Sam seem to have the presence of mind to ask questions. Sam's dad works on the military base. Presley is constantly told not to ask questions. Weird things keep happening. There's also mention of a meteorite crashing. Could this be responsible for the weirdness in the town? (Yeah, sorry Mystique, have you seen 'Smallville' at all? Way too similar for my tastes.) 

 

The plot goes back round to dead people rising, media involvement, Presley asking too many questions, military cover-ups. Unfortunately, was so convoluted and became so ridiculous I lost any interest I may have had in this. Didn't like this one much at..

 

Thank you to Netgalley and Patchwork Press - Cooperative for the opportunity to view the title. 

 

 

 

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1367685/review-mystique

Review: The Winner's Kiss

Review:

I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

Finally, a book in the series I actually loved. Best book in the trilogy for this reader. I liked the first two, they were never my favourite fantasy series, but after the cliff hanger at the end of the second book I was dying to know what happened next. So imagine my delight when I got almost immediate approval on my Netgalley request and started reading right away.

 

I was captivated by this one immediately.  Maybe because the plot wasn't quite so complex and all over the place as I thought with the previous books, it was beautifully written, very clear and easy to picture. Rather dark as well, though very compelling and quite possibly the first time I actually started liking Arin and Kestrel as main characters and not wanting to throttle the pair of them. Very deep emotions worked in, some truly epic and surprisingly brutal battle scenes. 

 

Spoiler but something I need to mention because it seemed weird to me.

 

[spoiler]

I would have thought with such detailed and brutal battle scenes, and especially being the last book in the series at least one or more of the main cast of characters should have died.  Kind of surprising considering the emotional upheaval. 

[/spoiler]

The emotional aspect was gut wrenching and I did find that there was a tremendous amount of character growth shown by both Arin and Kestrel in their final struggles but finally, this instalment had me cheering them on. I even got a bit teary towards the end. Brilliant, brilliant conclusion. I have them all in hard cover with the epic pretty dress covers. After finishing the last book, it kind of made me want to read it all again from start to finish. 

 

Huge thanks to Netgalley and  Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ) for approving my request to view the title. 

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1367679/review-the-winner-s-kiss

Review: Everrealm

Review:

Not for me. Read about 10% and it was enough to know I don't want to read anymore. Flat characters, and a very tell and not show style of the writing. Nothing new in the idea that I haven't seen before. Points of view seemed to switch rapidly as well without much warning from one character's head to another. Not a book or a series I will be looking to continue. Thank you for the opportunity to try the title. 

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1365954/review-everrealm

Review: When Everything Feels Like The Movies

Review:

I received a copy from Netgalley.

 

The description on this book got my attention immediately. Though looking at some of the reviews I must admit I did wonder if I had made a mistake requesting this. I am always looking for new reads with transgender characters. I thought this was a high school aged YA coming of age novel. Not so much, if it had been high school aged kids, it would have most likely got a much higher rating from me.

 

Initially the coarseness of the writing, the language, the frank chatty talk about sex and drugs didn't bother me. Until I found out the characters in this book were middle school aged kids who hadn't even reached high school yet. I just can't get my head wrapped around kids who are (I'm not entirely sure of the age of middle school kids in their last years - 12/13/14?) so openly at such a young age so bluntly exploring sex and drugs. Smoking some weed, maybe but it's much more than just scoring some pot. If it was kids who were 16/17+ experimenting - wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest. The best friend character, Angela (I'm probably going to sound like I'm slut shaming here so forgive me for that as usually I wouldn't care) but this girl is openly described as very sexually active and she's not even a freshman in high school! I don't get it. If she was a high school junior - fair enough - it'd be a you go girl - do what you want don't care what anyone thinks. But again, kids who are 13/14? Struggling to understand that, really. (I'm sort of feeling really old right now!)

 

Putting all that a side, it's actually a pretty fantastic book. Jude was an amazing character. He liked make up, dresses, boys. He knew exactly who he was and simply did not give a fuck what anyone thought of him. He was blunt, crude and snarky and full of attitude. Again, sexually active, stole his mom's money when he needed it. He had a dream of running off to Hollywood and being a big star, imagining his life as told through the eyes of star telling his memoirs after he'd made it big. It was an interesting method of story telling.

 

The writing itself was dark and gritty, Jude suffers from a lot of bullying both physical and verbal but some people openly show their support. Like Bff Angela and one wonderful teacher who was very enthusiastic in encouraging Jude to explore his dreams and be exactly who he wanted to be. Fair bit of violence in the novel. Jude does come from a rather crappy home situation. His mom's a stripper, his had has left and mom is living with an asshole of a boyfriend who comes and goes. He does have a younger half brother who he cares about deeply. Mom understands Jude but the boyfriend doesn't, the younger brother is a sweet kid who's trying to understand but his father doesn't want him to.

 

A lot of party scenes, all involving sex drink and drugs and some fights. Plenty of drama as well. Jude has a crush on the school star, Luke, who keeps claiming he wants nothing to do with him, as well as a weird flingy thing with Angela's older brother Abel. Touching on some themes of bisexuality as well which was interesting to see included as well. A rather explosive very surprising ending.

 

The age of the kids is never actually mentioned, but I think it's implied somewhere. Like I said, if you can get past how young they are, it's a very gripping read if you like contemporaries with an edge.

 

Thank you to Netgalley and Little, Brown Book Group UK for approving my request to view the title

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1365938/review-when-everything-feels-like-the-movies

Bookish Bingo Readathon Sign up and Updates

I haven't done very brilliantly with Bookish Bingo so far this month. Most likely because I had so many different books on the go when I started which I have been trying to finish off, and read a load of Netgalley stuff so I can focus mainly on Bookish Bingo books. 

 

 

My completed squares are looking a bit pathetic at the moment. Oh well. However, I did see this morning that Pretty Deadly Reviews are hosting a Bookish Bingo Readathon in early April. So this should be a great way to get some more squares covered.

 

In my currently reading list I've got a load of things on the go for different squares as well. So now I'm pretty much in Bookish Bingo reading mode. 

 

The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters - Hamlet retelling - retelling square

An Inheritance of Ashes by Leah Bobet - End of the World Square

Court of Fives by Kate Elliot - number in title

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken - Metallic Lettering

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon - set over 200 years ago

When Everything Feels Like The Movies by by Raziel Reid - under 200 pages

Awake at Dawn by C C Hunter - green cover

The Dark Days Club by Allison Goodman - MC Shares your first initial

Red Dwarf Omnibus - Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers + Better Than Life  by Grant Naylor - set in space

 

Plan being to finish these all before the readerthon then during the readerthon I can read stuff for the remaining squares. 

Original post: sunsetxcocktail.booklikes.com/post/1361774/bookish-bingo-readathon-sign-up-and-updates