It's a kind of magic - My review of The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The last book I read before making my decision about giving up my 2015 Reading Challenge was for the Popsugar reading challenge for the "a book with magic" topic and the book I had chosen was The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling. I chose this book as though I have read all the Harry Potter books I had never got around to reading this and thought that this would be the perfect opportunity.

I'll own up to the fact I generally dislike reading introductions to books and for the most part I skip them or just skim read for the important information, but as this book was so short I figured I would read the whole thing, I'm glad I did as I really enjoyed the explanation of the similarities and differences between muggle and magical fairy tales.

I enjoyed each tale for its own merits and I liked the fact that they were similar to Grimm's fairy tales as I re read the whole collection in the past year. I think my favourite was either the The Warlock's Hairy Heart for its Edgar Allen Poe feel to it or The Fountain of Fair Fortune for the moral it tells.

Personally I don't feel the notes from Dumbledor add anything to the tales at all and I could have done without these and had another couple of tales instead. I did however like the likeness that Beedle the Bard is supposed to be a magical Brothers Grimm writer, whereas Beatrix Bloxam is the magical Disney retelling stories without any of the darkness and filling them with sweetness and light,

Overall this is a very nice book and it was all for charity so definitely a worthwhile read, but for me it was just very average and didn't capture the same of magic that we all know and love in the Harry Potter series.

I started reading this book on the 10th of October 2015 and finished it on the 11th October 2015
I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads

An Update on my 2015 Reading Challenge

At the beginning of the year I decided that I was going to participate in both the Book Riot Read Harder challenge and the PopSugar Ultimate Reading challenge as I believed that it would widen my horizons and book choices. I made a list of all the books I wanted to read to accomplish this and spent time considering what would be the best choices for me.

I was really excited by the whole thing and at the start I flew through quite a few of the books on my list, but as I got further into the year, I just wasn't in the mood to read the choices of books that I had made so I changed up some of my original choices with books that I did want to read but that still fit the challenge criteria. As more time went on the books I wanted to read no longer fit under any of the criteria to fit on my challenge list and I started to begrudge reading any of them, even though I do want to read them all, just not at this point in time. Because of this I went into a reading slump for a couple of months which was tough to get through.

So I've made a decision, I'm not going to be completing my 2015 Reading Challenge that I set for myself, I have hit my target of how many books I wanted to read this year (100) and I have thoroughly enjoyed, for the most part, the books I have read. I'm doing this so that I can carry on enjoying my reading experience which is the most important thing to me. I have found that this sort of challenge just doesn't work for me as I found it very restrictive, which is the complete opposite of the reason I was doing it in the first place. This is also the reason that I don't set monthly tbr lists as I never know what genre I'm going to be in the mood for. I do still think that it's a great way for people to expand their reading experience it is just not for me.

If I do read any books that fit in before the end of the year, I'll definitely still blog about them and update my list, but if not, I really don't mind. If you'd like to see how I did, click here for my original 2015 Reading Challenge post.

Have you ever participated in a reading challenge? How did you find it?

My Review of You

I'm really trying hard to work on my 2015 reading challenge as I'm really far behind on it and I still want to fully complete it by year end. This is meaning that I'm changing up some of the choices I made at the beginning of the year so that the books fit into the current genre mood I'm in. Overall I'm only 4 books off hitting the amount of books I'd set myself to read this year (I wanted to read 100 books) but out of those only 21 of them are from the 70 books for the challenge.

The book I chose for "a book with a one word title" was You by Caroline Kepnes. I was really excited to see this in The Works in their 3 books for £5 offer as I had heard so many good things about it and the whole concept sounded really new and interesting, getting a view from the eyes of the stalker rather than the stalkee. There are some very minor spoilers ahead, but if you've read anything about this book, you'll probably already know.

The start of the book was fantastic, I felt incredibly uncomfortable reading from Joe's perspective and the things going through his mind. The language used was so far from what I would use or hear, especially when the C-word was dropped in the first few pages or so. My hubby kept asking if I was enjoying the book and all I could say was "I don't know" the main character gave me the creeps and I didn't like being in his head but obviously that meant that Kepnes had done a brilliant job of portraying Joe. The book is exceptionally well written and it was definitely a unique way of telling this kind of story.

All of the characters in this book are absolutely awful human beings (apart from Ethan but we barely see him) and they have no redeeming qualities. Joe is awful for obvious reasons. Guinevere or Beck is a selfish, flaky and entitled brat. As for Beck's friends, each one is worse than the last. I know a few people who have read this have felt sorry for Joe and want him to succeed, this isn't my opinion but I certainly understand why they would feel like that with all the people he meets.

I got around half way through the book and I started to think the story started to lose credibility and believability, The story to begin with, was very creepy and made you seriously look at the mark you are leaving online that makes it so easy for the wrong people to find out everything about you. When Joe began on his kidnapping and murderous ways (also finding out about previous murders) it just lost the magic that had been created and just no longer captured my imagination the same way it had to start with.

Sadly the book ended up falling flat for me and it just wasn't what I had expected or wanted. I have since finishing the book found out that this isn't a stand alone which I feel takes away from the uniqueness even more, however being a completionist if I see the next book/books I will probably pick them up, just to see where this story can be taken as I feel everything has already been covered. I would love to be proven wrong and for me to get the experience that I wanted out of You from the next book (Hidden Bodies).

Overall a brilliantly written piece that in my opinion is let down by the story told.

I started reading this book on the 30th of August 2015 and finished it on the 2nd of September 2015
I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads

Red Blooded - My Review of Red Queen

The book I have ended up reading for the Popsugar challenge of "a book with a colour in the title" was a book that I hadn't planned on reading at all due to hearing so many mixed reviews and that book is Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. I was in Waterstones with my husband and they had their buy one get one half price offer on and he suggested I pick up this and another. (I also picked up The Kill Order by James Dashner, yes I'm a sucker for punishment)

I've heard a lot of people saying that this book is just a combination of everyone's favourite dystopian novels and yes as you read through you can see comparisons to other books such as the Hunger Games etc but that doesn't change the fact that the book is well written and a very enjoyable read.

I really liked all of the characters both main and peripheral, everyone had a personality and a place where they fit into the story. I enjoyed the mess that was the love interest in the story, it made a nice change from a straight forward love triangle and I still am not 100% sure who I'm rooting for, which normally by now I would have definitely decided on who I'd like the main character to be with (if anyone).

Though the story isn't unique, I thought it was really interesting and I'm looking forward to learning more about the world and the people in it. I also thought the betrayal and twist was done incredibly well, sadly I'd been spoilt as to the fact that there was a twist but luckily not what the actual twist was. Even though I knew it was coming I was still really shocked as I couldn't make up my mind who would be the betrayer and what would come from it.

I thought the story was paced well and built up to all the action at the end of the book which has left a perfect opening for the next instalment in this series (trilogy?)

Though it was not the book I set out to read, I'm very glad that I did and I will be recommending it to other people and picking up the next book.

I started reading this book on the 27th of August 2015 and finished reading it on the 30th of August 2015.
I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads

Make Love Not War - My Review of The Art of War

I'm really trying to cut down the amount of books left on my 2015 Reading Challenge and I decided to chose one that was a topic on both the PopSugar and Book Riot challenges and that was "a book that was originally written in a different language". The book I chose was one that has been on my owned tbr for a long time and the book was The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

The Art of War was originally written in Chinese and the copy I read was in English. The book took me just over an hour to read and was surprisingly easy to read. I expected a lot more detail and more indepth descriptions. The writing style was almost lyrical or like poetry and so that was how I read it in my mind.

I don't really know how to review this book as it is so different to everything I normally read. Yes I feel it is an important book and I am glad that I read it. As to whether I think it is still relevant, maybe. Some people say that you can relate certain things to your work life instead of war, but I'm not entirely certain that it would be necessary.

I know this is short and sweet but I really don't have a lot to say about this book

I read this book on the 12th of July
I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads

How Not to End a Trilogy - My Review of The Death Cure (Contains spoilers, many spoilers)

The Death Cure by James Dashner is the third and final book in my 2015 Reading Challenge for the PopSugar topic of a "trilogy" and oh boy was I disappointed.

The first two books in this trilogy, though they had their faults, kept me interested and I liked the characters and I really wanted to know what was going on. I continued reading on the promise that everything would be explained and we would understand what was happening.

I'm annoyed at myself while writing this review as I normally take notes as I read, but for some unknown reason I didn't for this book and so all my thoughts are disjointed and I'm trying to get them straight so I can explain my feelings. I apologise for things being out of order and slightly jumbled.

I'll start with the characters, all of them, yes ALL OF THEM have lost any personality that they had and any character development that had been going on in previous books just comes to a grinding halt from page one of the Death Cure. One of the worst casualties of this is Theresa, in The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials I thought she was very interesting and I was looking forward to learning more about hers and Thomas' relationship. I thought in this book she would be given the chance to redeem herself for the things she had to do in the past and would come out stronger and more badass than before, but no, there was nothing except bits making her sound awful and then she's killed off in one sentence and no one even really cares. She's actually barely in the book at all. I also grow to dislike Brenda and Jorge after liking them before, Brenda is used as a way to progress the plot and Jorge is just a peripheral character all of a sudden, Also I must have been really confused in The Scorch Trials because I thought that Jorge was the same age-ish as the rest of the characters but in this book his relationship with Brenda is described as Uncle and Niece? It could just be me who totally missed something but that was the impression I was under.

Onto Thomas our main protagonist, he has spent the last two books bemoaning the loss of his memory and being determined to get it back no matter what. So when he's offered the chance to get his memory back, what do you think he does, yep he doesn't do it!! And for what reason? Oh because it's a scary looking machine. Seriously after everything they've been through and dealt with, he can't bear two minutes of discomfort to get what he has wanted all this time. This now means that not only does he not get any memories, but we as readers get no answers bar the tiny bits of dream memories that are thrown in every now and again. This made me really angry as this was the great reveal I'd been waiting for and it was taken away from me!

The story in this book also seems all over the place. There is a whole lot of action but nothing really happens. Dashner brings in  this Right Arm movement people and then doesn't really do anything at all with them except use them to create drama in the final scenes. I also wondered why the book became a zombie apocalypse survival story, I understand it was people beyond "the gone" but it just became one fight/escape after another, Oooh and another thing, where was Dashner going with the whole the group being followed in Denver and all the streets being quiet and then,...what? Was he going somewhere with it and then forgot about it? It feels like a whole heap of different ideas he had which he started but then never followed through to completion.

Another part of the story which baffled me was the introduction by Brenda that this Chancellor Paige was super important and we should look out for her, there are posters of her face everywhere etc and then all we get is that she came in while Thomas was unconscious and leaves a note for him. We don't even get to meet her and I was waiting from the moment Brenda mentioned her for her to appear somewhere. And then right at the end we get an email from her explaining the happy ending that we got (yes it was a happily ever after, well for the munies anyway) that it was all WICKED's fault anyway releasing the Flare. This would have made an excellent plot point DURING the story, not as an after thought at the end.

One final piece of the story I want to mention is the storyline with Newt. I feel if Thomas had read the letter at an appropriate point and followed through with Newt's request, then Newt's death would have been a lot more emotional and I would have been genuinely upset as I had previously enjoyed Newt as a character. As it was though, it just felt kind of shoehorned in and like I said, that Dashner had started a plot line and then totally forgotten about it.

Overall this book was extremely frustrating and very unsatisfying. I had enjoyed the trilogy up to this point and then the ending has left me disappointed. I probably will pick up the Kill Order at some point purely because I'm a completionist, but I will get it from the library or something rather than buying it. I would recommend reading The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials and then just making up your own ending as I think you'd probably do a better job yourself.

I started this book on the 4th of July 2015 and I finished it on the 6th of July
I did originally give this book 3 stars on Goodreads, but while writing this review I have amended that to 2 stars

My Review of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

For the PopSugar topic of "a book that makes you cry," I added  book that I have wanted to read for a long time, but just have never seemed to have gotten around to. The book I chose was The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne.

I'm not entirely sure where to start with my review, but I'll start by being honest and admitting that I hated this book. Hopefully I will be able to coherently explain as to why.

The first few pages of the book I found the writing style to be extremely strange and it took me a while to get into the flow of how Boyne wrote. I also found a lot of the metaphors and similes extremely odd, for example on page 7 we had this simile " 'Say Goodbye to them?' he repeated, spluttering out the words as if his mouth was full of biscuits that he'd munched into tiny pieces but not actually swallowed yet."  To me that just seems really long winded and awkward.

SO MUCH REPETITION

The descriptions of some of the characters physical actions are also odd, the fact that Bruno (who is 9) feels his arms stretching out at his sides in surprise, is something that my toddler does when he's surprised or excited. A child of 9 would have grown out of this a long time ago. Also the amount of people whose mouth formed the shape of a O is quite ridiculous. There are so many better ways of describing this facial expression such as " his jaw dropped in surprise," "her mouth was agape" I could go on, but you get the picture.

SO MUCH REPETITION

Another thing I found infuriating was Bruno's mispronunciation of Auschwitz and Fuhrer. It felt as though Boyne was just trying to avoid actually using the words in his book. It is just plain unbelievable that a child of one of Hitler's top men would be allowed to go on in this manner, oh and don't let me forget that he believes that saluting and saying "heil Hitler" is a way of saying "goodbye and I hope you have a nice day".....yeah....oh, oh and a high ranking Commandant's son that does not know what or rather who a Jew is. I do understand that a lot of people at the time were sadly unaware of what was happening around them, but as someone who is living right next to Auschwitz and who is surrounded by soldiers, it just seems unbelievable in my opinion that Bruno would know so little. My feelings are that Boyne used this time period and the atrocities that happened to write his "fable" but was then too scared to actually use any form of correct representation of what was actually going on.

SO MUCH REPETITION

As children of a Commandant, there is no way they would have been allowed to have been out of education for even a short amount of time or some form or military style training. By 1943 (which is the year I'm guessing this is set in due to Bruno being 9 and born in 1934) the Hitler Youth and the subdivisions were recruiting children as young as 10, so though Bruno wasn't quite old enough, he would have being prepared for it and Gretel would definitely have gone as I believe only 10 or 20% of German youths avoided being drafted.

SO MUCH REPETITION (is it annoying yet)

I felt that the children were portrayed in such a way that they appeared much younger than any child, especially in a time of war, would seem. Children are extremely intelligent and know a lot more than any adult would like to think. Their characters just didn't seem to fit the ages that were given as 9 and 12, I don't feel that Boyne can write children very well at all, the way they talk, think and act just don't seem natural.

SO MUCH REPETITION

And we come to the ending, if you don't want to be spoiled, stop reading here...Ok the ending for me came completely out of nowhere and was surprising, however I am apparently the only person who hadn't been spoiled for the ending as even my husband knew what happened and he has neither read the book or seen the film. I did not cry at the tragic end as I'd not felt any connection to any of the characters and I felt that though yes you should definitely mourn the loss of one boy, the book almost sidelines the fact that millions of people died. Even the final sentences were kind of insulting "Of course all this happened a long time ago and nothing like that could ever happen again. Not in this day and age."

Did I mention - SO MUCH REPETITION (Ok I'll stop now)

The only part of the book that I actually found quite interesting was the implied affair between Bruno's Mother (who was never even given a name) and Lieutenant Kotler. But we never really get anything in a way of payoff as we're following the story through the eyes of a child. All that happens is that Kotler is sent away, whereas I would have thought he would have suffered an "accident" but maybe that's just me.

I do kind of feel that I am cheating using this book as the one that made me cry as it did not. I am going to stand by it as I could cry with anger and frustration at how history has been used to produce this book. There are even now more things that I could comment on (the fence not being electrified, no guard patrols, a child in Auschwitz being able to sit around all afternoon without anyone noticing, the fact that that child was alive, the fact there was a way under the fence and not one person tried to escape) about how much I dislike this book, but have chosen to only include the most prevalent in my mind while writing this.

I originally gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads, just due to the surprise ending (for me) and then I dropped it to 1.5 and now as I've been writing my review I have decided it is only a 1 star.
I started reading this book on the 23rd of June 2015 and finished it on the 26th of June 2015

Can I Borrow a Feeling - My Review of The Borrowers

Back to PopSugar for this reading choice, and I opted for "a book my mum loved" It took a good while for her to decide what she would suggest., but her final decision was to suggest The Borrowers by Mary Norton which made me really happy as it was a book I loved as a child, so off I went to borrow it from my local library.

The book started off extremely slow and I found it very hard to get into, I kept putting it down and finding pretty much anything else that I could do instead of finish reading it. Sadly I think the book has aged badly due to it's casual mentioning of smacking children and being firm handed with your wife, The idea of the story itself is brilliant and with the amount of things I put down which disappear, I'm inclined to believe in Borrowers.

When Arrietty meets the boy, some of the magic I remembered came back into the story and it seemed to pick up the pace of the story as before she was "seen" the story was just meandering along with no real purpose or destination.

I think my favourite part of the book was in the back, where there were loads of quizzes and activities to do once you had finished reading. One of the activities was to draw your own Borrower family and make up a story around them which I think is a fantastic idea.

I started this book on the 19th of May 2015 and I finished reading it on the 6th of June 2015
I gave this book 3 Stars on Goodreads

Cyborgs, Princesses and Fairy Tales Oh My! - My Review of Cinder

I've been doing a lot of the PopSugar categories recently so I thought it was about time to get into some of the Book Riot Read Harder challenge categories. I chose "a book that is a retelling of a classic story" and the book I chose was Cinder by Marissa Meyer.

I will hold my hands up and confess that before reading this book, I really thought I was going to hate it. I don't like cyborgs and I'm pretty sure this is the first retelling book I've ever read so I did not know what to expect and I had made a judgement before I even started.

The writing throughout Cinder is fantastic and Meyer has created a world and characters that you can instantly recognise and relate to. I absolutely adore the characters of Cinder, Iko and Kai and in complete contrast I absolutely hate Queen Levana with a passion, though I think there's more to her character which I'm looking forward to hopefully finding more about in one of the other books.

I really enjoyed the fact that we had a bit of back story for the prince in this story too as I sometimes feel we get the princesses story and then prince charming just rocks up to save the day without us knowing much about him (this isn't true for all fairy tales, just some of the ones I can think of off the top of my head).

I loved this book and was gob smacked it ended when it did, I don't have the next book and I NEED to know what happens next.

The only...not negative but something I want to point out is that I figured out pretty much on page one who Princess Selene was, to be honest though surely everyone must have known. Am I right?

I started this book on the 23rd of May 2015 and I finished reading it on the 24th of May 2015
I gave this book 5 Stars on Goodreads

Hot! Hot! Hot! - My Review of The Scorch Trials

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner is the 2nd instalment of my choice for the PopSugar "trilogy" category. There was nearly a month between me reading this and The Maze Runner, but the story was still really clear in my mind and I knew exactly where the story had left off which is a good sign that I had really enjoyed the book.

I feel like I've said it a lot recently but this book definitely got start with a bang, Dashner does an amazing job of creating the feeling of confusion and fear with the fast paced and bizarre goings on. You feel alongside the characters and need to keep reading to find out what on earth is going on.

With how much was happening, I got around 50% through the book and I needed a break, I was just so tired with all the adrenaline rushes. After I got past this though, I flew through the second half of the book and I'm really looking forward to finding out, hopefully, how these trials are helping design a cure for anything or how it will help save the world putting children through so much trauma in the final book.

I did enjoy the addition of the new characters Brenda and Jorge though I wasn't sure about them at first, I really grew to like both of them. I do feel really sorry though for all the peripheral characters that survived the Maze, that we never even learn their names and they keep getting killed off like red shirts in Star Trek.

I'm going to have another small break before reading the final book in this trilogy (eventually I am planning on getting the prequel and reading that too), but I really can't wait to continue the journey with Thomas and the gang.

I started reading this book on the 20th of May 2015 and I finished it on the 23rd of May 2015
I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads

May 2015 Book Round Up

I said earlier this year that I would start to do a round up of the books I'd read each month as I was only blogging reviews of books on my reading challenges and I have finally got organised enough to be able to do it! Yay! These are the books I've read during May with the rating I gave them on Goodreads.

Book 1 - Half Bad by Sally Green  - 4 Stars
Book 2 - Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher - 5 Stars
Book 3 - Four: A Divergent Collection by Veronica Roth - 5 Stars
Book 4 - Superman: He'l On Earth by Scott Lobdell - 5 Stars
Book 5 - Superman: Godfall by Michael Lane Turner - 3 Stars
Book 6 - Gone by Michael Grant - 4 Stars
Book 7 - The Scorch Trials by James Dashner - 4 Star
Book 8 - Cinder by Marissa Meyer - 5 Stars
Book 9 - Half Wild by Sally Green - 5 Stars

9 Books, not a bad month if I do say so myself. Currently I am 52% the way through my reading goal of 100 books this year and I am 11 books ahead of schedule according to my Goodreads reading challenge counter thingy. I am however really slacking in my 2015 Reading Challenge, my Classics Challenge (though to be fair this is a 5 year target) and my Panels Challenge, I really need to make more of an effort to start ticking books off my lists.

My Review of The Maze Runner

My original choice for PopSugar's reading challenge category "a trilogy" was the Bourne Identity, I have owned the books for years and have only watched the 1st movie (which I wasn't overly enthralled with) and thought now was a perfect time to read it. As I've got more into my challenge, I have decided they are just not what I fancy and I didn't want to get myself into a reading slump by reading something I wasn't interested in. So I decided to choose something a little more fast paced and something I wanted to read and that was The Maze Runner trilogy by James Dashner, the first book being The Maze Runner.

I'll start by saying that I'm not really sure why everyone seems to think that this book starts off slow, I think it starts off great and just keeps going. There is pretty much action from page one and it just builds from there.

James Dashner has done some excellent things in this book, the memory erasure was extremely well thought out and explained really well, he creates an incredibly creepy feeling during the book with the maze and the artificial environment. Did I mention how horrendous the Grievers sounded?! Urgh! One thing that really irritated me throughout the book was the weird slang that the boys used, I really didn't feel there was any need for it at all as they all knew the correct words and slang for what they were saying. To me it feels like Dashner came up with this language at some point in the past and wanted to use it in one of his books.

I did very much enjoy this book and I am looking forward to reading the rest of the trilogy (though I've now found out that there is a prequel? I'm not counting that though I will probably still read it). As much as I did enjoy it though, I felt like there was something missing and I could happily put the book down and not be constantly wondering when the next time I could pick it up would be, not enough to make me dislike it, just enough to make me like it less than other books I have read recently.

I started reading this book on the 17th of April 2015 and finished reading it on the 25th of April 2015
I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads

My Review of Throne of Glass

I'm currently trying to make a concerted effort to read my 2015 Reading challenge books as I'm actually finding it quite restrictive even though I thought it would help widen my horizons with genre, content and authors etc. I think next year, I may come up with my own challenge which will allow me a lot more freedom, but we'll see how things go.

Anyhoo, onto my review of Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas, which I chose for the topic "a book with a love triangle" for the PopSugar part of my reading challenge.

The story certainly gets right into it from page one, so it grips you from the get go and you want to carry on reading to find out what is happening. I felt that the world was really well built and I could picture each place perfectly in my head with the descriptions given. I do feel though that you could tell at times that this book was written by a younger person, not that it mattered or was in any way detrimental to the book, but I noticed it enough to feel like I should mention it.

The characters for me are great and I love the characters I'm supposed to and love to hate the characters I'm supposed to hate, which means that the author has done a good job. Having read Divergent just prior to reading this, I felt that Celeana actually seemed younger that Tris even though Celeana is 18 and Tris is only 16. I can't put my finger on why I felt this, but there was just something that made me feel that their ages were reversed.

The hints of magic throughout the book are tantalising and I can't wait to see more of it as the series continues, the story is also left at a perfect jumping off point, leaving me wanting to read more.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I am looking forward to continuing with the series.

I started this book on the 8th of April 2015 and I finished it on the 12th of April 2015
I gave this book 5 Stars on Goodreads

A Non Divergent Opinion - My review of Divergent (Some Spoilers)

It's been quite a few days now since I finished this book and I finally feel that I can (maybe) put my thoughts and feelings into words. As part of the PopSugar reading challenge (see my 2015 Reading challenge) I chose to read Divergent by Veronica Roth for the topic of "A book that became a movie" I knew absolutely nothing about it (apart from that a load of people of book tube had read it) and chose it off a Goodreads list of books that became movies. My plan was to keep a lookout for it at the library or maybe wait till later in the year and see if I could pick it up somewhere, Now, my hubby obviously pays more attention to me than I thought as this is I think the second time he knew something was on my reading challenge list and when he saw the trilogy box set in a bookshop, he picked it up for me!

Going into reading Divergent, I really didn't hold up much hope of me liking it, but knew it'd be quite a quick easy read, I was so incredibly wrong! I was instantly hooked from the first page and I genuinely loved everything about this book. The characters are all well formed and have their own individual personality and identity. The world design and the idea of the 5 different factions is extremely interesting to me and I look forward to learning more about it all in the next books. I'm incredibly glad I have all three of the main books (though I now need the Four book too!!) so I can just get straight on and carry on with the story.

I'm late to the party, but how awesome is Four/Tobias?! Seriously I absolutely adore his character, though I have to admit that I thought his character was late twenties until they actually said he was only 18. I'm really looking forward to getting the book containing four novellas of scenes from the book from his perspective,

There is one thing I was really sad about and that was the death of Tris' mother. Her character was amazing, interesting and full of strength and I would have absolutely loved to have seen more of her in the following books. However the death worked well in the story and didn't feel just put in for shock value.

I cannot recommend this book enough to anyone and everyone, you all need to go out and read it. It has been the first book in a long time that I have not wanted to put down.

I started this book on the 2nd of April 2015 and finished it on the 4th of April 2015
I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads

A Trip Down Memory Lane - My Review of The Enchanted Wood

Choosing a book for the "a book from your childhood" section of the Popsugar reading challenge was very difficult due to the fact I loved so many books! I ended up choosing the first book in The Faraway Tree series, The Enchanted Wood by Enid Blyton.

Re- reading this as an adult, I was worried that it may have lost its charm, however I was wrong. I still thoroughly enjoyed Beth, Joe and Franny's adventures in the Enchanted Wood and up the Faraway Tree. I love the imagination and thought that went into each of the worlds that they found at the top of the tree. Each of the characters has its own personality and I particularly like Mr Whatizname as a grumpy old wizard who loves his sleep. I look forward to my little ones reading this series and seeing what they make of it.

The only things I did notice (as an adult) is that the children aren't just "mischievous" they're downright naughty. Sneaking out at night, disobeying their parents and doing things they know that they shouldn't. Though I think that my parent might be showing! There was also one story where the characters were all turned into toys and Silky was turned into a doll and everyone kept saying how pretty she was and that they wanted to take her away. This made me feel a little uncomfortable, but when this was originally released in 1939, it was a completely different time.

Overall I still really enjoyed this book and will probably now go back and re read the whole series. It brought back great memories of reading this as a child and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone.

I started this book on the 26th of March 2015 and I finished it on the 1st of April 2015
I gave this book 4.5 stars on Goodreads (rounded up to 5 stars)

Tinged With Disappointment - My Review of Ready Player One

Ok I've been putting off writing my review of this book for a good few days now as I feel like I'm letting people down with what I think of it. The book I'm talking about is Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I chose this book for the PopSugar challenge topic of a book set in the future and my husband knew it was on the list and that I was excited about reading it so he went and ordered me a copy.

As soon as it arrived, I put down my other books and I started reading. It started off ok, but no better than anything else I've read. It then went onto infodump for about a quarter of the book before anything really happened. I kept waiting and waiting, but it was just very flat. Then when something finally did happen, a love interest was introduced. As much as I liked Art3mis, I don't feel that her character added anything to the story. I would have preferred to see how Parzival and Aech dealt with the whole situation being best friends and seeing if they could stay that way or if the game would tear them apart (rather than what happened and a relationship got in the way).

Everyone has also said that it's cool that there are all these 80's references and as a big fan of the 80's I was looking forward to spotting things I knew about. I didn't need to "spot" them though as they were clearly dropped almost like someone bragging that they knew a famous person. It felt very much like the author was trying to show how cool he was and was trying too hard by mentioning all these retro games and films etc.

I could see the ending coming a mile away and if I remember rightly, the ending seems to be a slight variation on the ending to the film Hackers. It has been a while since I've watched it, but still...

Overall I feel really let down by the book, though I am glad I read it so that I could form my own opinion. It took me far longer than a book this length should as I had to force myself to keep picking it back up, when I was expecting a page turner.

I started this book on the 20th of March 2015 and finished it on the 26th of March 2015
I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads, though I would have preferred to have given it 2.5

My Review of In The Dark by Richard Laymon

I really need to get back to reading books on my reading challenge lists and stop getting distracted by ALL THE BOOKS. So on both the PopSugar reading challenge and the BookRiot read harder challenge, there is a topic for "a book recommended by a friend" and the book I was recommended to by the hubby (he counts as a friend right?) was In The Dark by Richard Laymon.

Since meeting my hubby I've read quite a few Richard Laymon books as he is one of his favourite authors, this isn't one of them though and he really wanted me to read it to see what I thought as he hasn't read it yet either. 

As with all Richard Laymon books, even though this was over 500 pages long, it was very quick and easy to read and I read it in just a couple of hours over 3 days. 

The story centres around Jane who is the new head librarian in the town and she receives an envelope which contains money and a clue to where she would find more money. Along the way she meets Brace who becomes a love interest and you get the usual "is it him or is it not" twists, hints and misdirections. As she follows each clue, the challenges become more and more difficult and dangerous. As a normal, sensible human being (honestly) there is no way I'd have gone past finding the first envelope and I don't think anyone with any sort of sanity would continue past maybe the fourth one when it becomes more extreme. 

The characters as usual for a Richard Laymon book are pretty pantomime, but I found both the main characters to be likeable which isn't always the case. 

Overall I really enjoyed the story and would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of horror without it being too scary, There was just one bit at the end that I felt was an unnecessary addition to the story, but I won't say what as I do try to keep spoilers out of my reviews. 

One thing I did do when starting to read this book was to get out my pen and paper and start a "nipple" count. If you've read any Richard Laymon at all, you'll probably know he loves the word nipple! This book actually came in with a relatively low score of only 11 mentions.

I started reading this book on the 6th of March 2015 and finished it on the 9th of March 2015

I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads

A Bit Of Old School Sci Fi - My review of The Flying Sorcerers

Back to my 2015 Book Challenges reads on this book, this book is the one I chose for the PopSugar topic "a book I own but have never read". The book chosen was The Flying Sorcerers by David Gerrold. Genuinely, I have no idea how I own this book or how long I have owned it, it has just been on my bookshelf for years and I have never got around to read it before.

At the start of the book, there is a snippet of information from the book and it really intrigued me and certainly got me interested in reading the rest of the book. The author does a great job on the first two pages in describing the characters and the world without sounding like they were listing off attributes. Within the first couple of paragraphs I knew we weren't on earth due to the multiple moons and suns and that the characters had fur. To me that's a great start and a great talent to have as a writer.

Throughout the book, there are lots of cheeky references and attempts at describing earthly things such as "electrissy" and at one point, what we know as a wedding ceremony is performed to symbolise a truce has been agreed. This bit made me smile and then thinking about it further, it was probably quite controversial when it was written (I believe it was published originally in 1940) as the ceremony was performed on two men.

Around the halfway point, I got bored and felt that the story wasn't really going anywhere and I put the book down for a good week or so before going back to finish it. It did pick back up around 3/4's the way through but then I felt really let down by the ending, it felt anticlimactic to me.

Overall a good book and had I not checked, I would not have known that it was written such a long time ago. I'd recommend this to people who would be interested in trying out Sci-Fi, but didn't want something too futuristic and full of robots.

I started reading this book on the 7th of January 201 and I finished it on the 26th of January 2015
I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads

The Beginning of Something Great - My review of A Study In Scarlet

I seem to be cruising through my challenges so far, however we are only a few days into the new year so I best not get too confident!

I need to start reading one shorter book and then one longer book so that I don't get stuck with all the massive volumes at the end of the year as that is just asking to fail. For the mystery or thriller section of the PopSugar challenge, I made the decision to read A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as though I have read all the other Sherlock Holmes adventures, I have never read the one book where it all began.

I genuinely love the character of Sherlock Holmes and I found myself smiling as he was introduced to Dr Watson and then during their subsequent conversations. It was nice after all this time to read for myself how they met and how their friendship and partnership was begun. ( I think the closest I've come to it is reading and watching Basil the Great Mouse Detective) 

I really enjoy the way Doyle wrote, I think the way he writes is beautiful and an absolute pleasure to read. Everything I've read by him is just so easy to read and you don't notice that the language used isn't of this time.

There is one thing that I will say about this book (and it may be because I was reading it on my Nook) and that is that when Part 2 began and started at chapter 1, I was a little baffled as to whether I had stumbled onto another book and that A Study in Scarlet had just finished abruptly. The story was set in a different time and place with, to start off with anyway, different characters, so it really threw me, Once I'd realised that I was reading the back story of the culprit, everything fell into place and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the reasons behind the crime.

Overall I'd recommend this book to anyone, especially people who would like to read "classics" but are worried about the language used or the way they would be written. This would be a perfect book to try and you get to meet Sherlock Holmes!

I started reading this book on the 11th of January 2015 and completed it on the 14th of January 2015
I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads

"E I E I O" - My review of Animal Farm

I originally chose this book for the "book you can finish in a day" category for the PopSugar challenge, but I decided it would also be a good choice for The Classics Club challenge too.

I have owned Animal Farm by George Orwell for years and at one point it spent about a year on my bathroom floor as I was planning on reading it while soaking in the bath, but just kept choosing other books instead. 

Before I continue, I should say that there are spoilers in my review, if you've read the book, then please do carry on reading, if not then go away, read the book and then come back and carry on reading,

The book is written exceptionally well and I'd say that the language used stands the test of time and if you read it without knowing how old the book was, you wouldn't realise that it wasn't a modern story. However there is something I hate in this book and that  is the songs! Oh how I hate songs in books, I always skip over them. I skipped them in The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. I just don't read songs in books unless I absolutely have to and even then its begrudgingly. 

About the actual story, I know its based on the Soviet Union at the time but in animal form and that obviously this is a story, but there were just some things that I felt were "off". I feel that after the initial speech that Major gave about having a dream and that animals should rise up and life would be better etc, he mentioned that no matter what, when animals died they were sent to the knackers and yet when he dies a few days later, he was buried nicely under a tree on the farm grounds. To me this should have raised questions immediately as to what he had said about the way they were being treated and should have caused doubts in the minds of the more intelligent animals. 

Another thing that I could not quite get my head around was the fact that Farmer Jones would just abandon his farm whether his animals had attacked or that he was an alcoholic. It was stated that he had a shot gun from the beginning and even if he didn't have it on him when they attacked and he had to run off, any normal human being, let alone a farmer, would have come back with others if necessary and whipped the animals back into shape or had them slaughtered to make money off their meat. I can't see why a human would give up their home and lively hood over one case of crazy animals. Yes the way he was treating the animals and the farm itself was terrible and no he did not deserve to have any of it, but that wouldn't change his own mind about the fact that he owned the property. 

Around two thirds of the way into the book, you cold be mistaken for thinking that you were reading 1984 (a book which I love) due to the "big brother" atmosphere and the regimented way things were being run. By this stage I was just waiting for the end as I felt the story had pretty much run its course and all I wanted to see was which way Orwell would go with the ending. When it did finally finish, the story was just left hanging, which I guess must have been the intention to show that life goes on and that nothing has really changed, but I would have liked something a little more definite or even, as it is a story, a happier ending. 

There were a few characters in the book that I really liked, but none as much as the big strong work horse, Boxer. He was such a solid character, he was loyal and hard working and cared for everyone, putting their needs before his own. I expected his death for most of the book and when it did happen, I was upset (though not to the point of tears). I did feel more could have been done with his death and that more of a rebellion would have arisen from what occurred, but it was all smoothed over within two sentences. 

All in all, this is a good book and one that I would definitely recommend to other people. It only took me just over two hours to read, so it is not a book that will eat up much of your time. 

I started reading this book on the 9th of January 2015 and completed it on the 10th of January 2015

I gave this book a 3.5 star rating (well I would have if they allowed .5 stars) on Goodreads