I don’t often post negative reviews because I don’t usually continue reading books I’m not enjoying, but I really wanted to hope this book got better having gone into it with high expectations. It was also pretty short so I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt. In the end it just made me mad and disappointed.
I bought this book on a whim in a bookshop after seeing that it was written by a Colombian author and was about a couple’s conflicting views on their homeland. Pablo loves Colombia, while Lucía rejects all notions of patriotism and nostalgia, instead dedicating herself to their twins and their current life. I was excited to see different views regarding patriotism, belonging, and the immigrant experience but instead all I got was one really weird and messed up relationship, two deeply unlikable characters and no redeeming features to them. I hated Lucía for being a snob and a bitch, and I hated Pablo for being a slob and having an affair with just about everybody. Absolutely hating the two main characters is not a great start.
On top of this, the plot was confusing and just didn’t go anywhere. I kept reading hoping to see some character development or plot twists, but to be honest I can barely remember anything actually happening in this book.
This book really was not for me and dragged on for so long. I had hoped for this book to be much more interesting and it just felt like it was trying too hard to be ‘deep’ and neglected the basics of an enjoyable book.
Do you continue books you’re not enjoying, or do you give up after a certain point?
Four strangers descend on a haunted house in a secluded part of the countryside to study the paranormal activities that occur there – what could go wrong? This has been called the best “haunted house” story ever written, and while parts of it were definitely scary, this book just wasn’t what I was expecting and I was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t as terrified as I was expecting to be.
The plot structure of this book is the typical haunted house structure that we see in horror movies to this day. The setting is also typical of the genre, and I found the house itself super interesting, as it’s built like a maze and it’s like a character driving the story forwards. Shirley Jackson’s writing style is interesting, unique and quirky. The dialogue between her characters is genuinely really funny, at times and when she decided to amp up the terror, I was quite afraid, although there wasn’t enough of this for my liking!
The scary scenes were quite few and far between and between, and the writing felt too quirky and the characters too weird to keep the terror up. Once the scary scenes were over; the characters were back to being funny and joking with each other. I found this increasingly confusing as it went on, particularly as they all seemed completely unaffected by the events happening. Halfway through the book, new characters were introduced, which made everything even more confusing.
Maybe I just didn’t “get” this book, because it is constantly hailed as the greatest in its genre, but it just didn’t impress me as much as I was hoping. I wanted it to leave me terrified, but instead I was mostly confused. The book isn’t very long, but it felt a lot longer than it was which isn’t a great sign.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Clara Kelly is sent by her family from Ireland to America to seek a new life, and hopefully some money to send home. When she arrives, someone is there to meet here – or at least, another Clara Kelly. She assumes the place and identity of the missing Clara Kelly, who was making the journey to America to take a job as a lady’s maid for the wealthy Mrs Carnegie. Using her wit and work ethic, Clara manages to excel at her job and along the way, becomes close to Mrs Carnegie, the successful businessman Mr Andrew Carnegie. However, can she keep her secret in this new world?
This book was a really interesting insight to American history and industry in the 19th century, and the plight of immigrants in America. Clara sees the intense poverty of most immigrants and the luxurious wealth of families like the Carnegie’s and so the book contrasts both really well. There are also small insights to the experiences of freed slaves and female nurses in the civil war which I liked, although I would have seen some more of these.
The concept behind this book is that a romance between Andrew Carnegie and a servant, Clara, could have been what incited him to become a philanthropist and give away so much of his wealth. This was an interesting idea but wasn’t really convincing. I also felt that Clara sometimes fell a bit flat. I would have also really liked for her to have to accept and own her identity, which didn’t happen.
This was quite a short book so I finished it quite quickly. In hindsight, it really did slow down in the middle, with the story ending quite clunkily at the end, but it wasn’t quite long enough for me to get bored.
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
When Dee’s brother breaks both of his arms, she has to head home to take care of him and his knitting shop. However, when she is fired from her demanding city job and her professional reputation is ruined, she has to accept the slower pace of life and turns her focus to helping to improve her brother’s business. The move home to her childhood village is a shock, but the friends that she make being a whole new set of challenges to her life.
This book was a really lighthearted and fun read, with a sweet cast of characters and, as a knitting fan, I absolutely loved the focus on knitting. This book felt like one of those warm and fuzzy hallmark movies – big corporations trying to take over a small family run business, a charity fundraiser to knit hats for premature babies, an old friend blossoming into romance. This is a perfect lazy weekend read!
The only reason that this book didn’t get a fifth star was that the pacing felt a bit off at times. There was a long middle, with a lot happening in the last few chapters. Of course, the genre of book isn’t one that means that this feels overwhelming, with lots of action and drama, but some of the storylines could have been a bit better spread out over the course of the book.
This is a bit belated, considering that we are almost a full month into the new year, but Happy New Year to you glorious readers anyway! I hope that 2021 is treating you well, and if not, there is still a whole lot left for it to get better and a lot of books to escape into. I love making resolutions in the new year, although I am not very good at keeping them, and a few of mine are always reading related, so in this post, I am going to go through the goals I have set for this year.
I don’t like to set large numerical reading goals (i.e. read 100 books). I used to do this, but the hard goal would stress me out and suck the fun out of reading. Sometimes, life is busy and I can’t get through books as quickly as I would like, and I used to find the pressure of hitting my goal would mean I would choose shorter books which I knew I could finish easily.
Nevertheless, I do like to set goals. So here they are:
1. Read more of my backlist books
Buying books and actually reading them are two very different activities, and I do the first activity at a much faster rate than the other! This year I am hoping to limit my book buying (although I won’t ban it outright – I am not setting myself up to fail here), and hopefully I will be able to get through some books I have had on my shelves for way too long. I have already managed to read a couple of my backlist books this year, including Anna Karenina (read my review here) and Fly By Night (here).
This goal also applies to my NetGalley requests, of which there are an embarrassingly large amount (I made the rookie mistake of going on a requesting spree when I first got approved). I am trying to make sure that every other book I read is a NetGalley request, so that I can get my feedback ratio back up to a decent place! So far, I have read Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know which I absolutely loved (review here).
2. Read more non-fiction
I am a bit intimidated by non-fiction books, if I am completely honest. With the exception of memoirs, I am afraid that I won’t ‘get’ the information inside of them. Another reason why I have historically tended to avoid them is that I read a lot of complex and dense information at work, and I feel like I won’t relax if I read non-fiction. Saying that, I love to learn, and I think I just need to take the plunge. I want to learn about so many things, and I have so many recommendations on my list. Do you have a favourite non-fiction book? If so, list it below!
3. Read more in Spanish
Spanish is my mother tongue but I am not great at reading it. I have read a grand total of two novels in Spanish though and I absolutely loved them. On my last trip to the motherland I bought three novels by Colombian authors and I am hoping to make my way through them and feel more confident in my language skills.
So, now I have publicised my goals and you can all hold me accountable! Did you set any reading goals for this year? If so, list them below!
“Words were dangerous when loosed. They are more powerful than canon and more unpredictable than storms. They could turn men’s heads inside out and warm their destinies. They could pick up kingdoms and shake them until they rattled. And this was a good thing, a wonderful thing.”
Mosca Mye doesn’t have much in life – she has a wild pet goose, and the ability to read. Unfortunately, her goose is always getting her into trouble, and books and words are considered so dangerous that this skill could endanger her very life. When she sees an opportunity to escape her small village with the mysterious conman Eponymous Clent, she takes it at once, hoping to make her way to a school where she can continue to learn, but her journey takes her straight into the path of an illegal printing press, a scheming princess and a bubbling revolution.
This book was just as odd and random as the description makes it seem, but it was so fun to read. Nothing in this book is predictable and it is one of the most unique worlds I have read in a long time. It was a lighthearted read but also full of detailed world building, culture and religions. Mosca and Eponymous were a really entertaining and witty duo who are constantly torn between trick and beat each other and trying to help each other, and they were a brilliant pair to follow through the book.
My only critique of the book was that sometimes there was a LOT to digest in this book, there were lots of characters and details which were just a bit weird and difficult to comprehend at first glance. Although a lot of these made sense by the end, it felt a bit tricky to follow. The prose is beautiful at times but at others also quite dense, which felt somewhat at conflict with the more childlike nature of the world.
Overall a fun book but I found it a bit difficult to read. This book got an extra .5 stars just for uniqueness, and I’m excited to try more of Hardinge’s work!
“I lived. I loved. I had a voice. And in this life, where I had so little to call my own, where my liberty and love were torn from me, I seize this power: the freedom to write my own story.”
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I am so happy that I finally opened this book after leaving it on my TBR for months because this BOOK IS AMAZING! I simply could not put it down!
In pursuit of her dream of being an art historian, Khayyam entered an essay contest, but her essay linking the writer Alexandre Dumas to the artist Delacroix was slammed by judges. However, when a twist of fate brings her face to face with one of Alexandre Dumas’ very handsome descendants in Paris, she begins to wonder if maybe she was right. Together they begin a journey to unravel a 150 year old mystery including a lost painting, a tragic poem and a woman who history has forgotten. Can Khayyam salvage her pride, forgotten history and her love life in one summer?
My favourite thing about this novel was the mix of mystery, history, romance, Parisian settings and humour. I loved the modern day mystery which involved real historical figures from the literary and artistic worlds such as Lord Byron, Dumas, Delacroix. Although the story isn’t factual, it felt like it could be with Khayyam and Alexandre journeying around Paris museums and libraries, tracking down letters, articles and other artefacts. The characters, both modern and historical all felt like real people and I couldn’t wait to see how their stories unfolded. This book also raised brilliant questions about gender, race, colonialism, and whitewashing of history which really added to the story.
I’m an quite picky about romances and I loved the romance in this book. Khayyam and Alexandre’s relationship didn’t feel forced, and you could feel their friendship and chemistry on the page. I liked the way their relationship grew as they worked together to solve the mystery, because it felt relevant to the wider story rather than a parallel plot that distracted from it.
Overall, this is a brilliant read which I loved from start to finish. I can’t wait until lockdown ends and I can travel to Paris and visit all the spots mentioned in the book, and until then, I will just have to add all of Samira Ahmed and Alexandre Dumas’s books to my TBR.
“I think… if it is true that there are as many minds as there are heads, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.”
Anna Karenina is one of those books that I have always wanted to read, but have always been slightly (*very) intimated by. It has sat on my bookshelf for years, and especially after having read Anna K, a modern retelling of the novel, last year (review here) I was desperate to read it. It wasn’t until a pal on bookstagram suggested a readalong that I decided to take the plunge, and wow, am I glad that I did.
If you are unfamiliar with the story of Anna Karenina, it is essentially about a woman who falls from the heights of Russian society when she leaves her husband, Karenin, after an affair with another man, Count Vronsky. In deciding to pursue her truth and happiness in love, she loses everything else. Meanwhile, Levin is a wealthy landowner and farmer who lives on the outskirts of Russian society, but whose love for a princess brings him closer to the world that he had previously turned his back on. These two characters’ stories play out in parallel over the course of the book, against a backdrop of a changing Russia which is grappling with questions of industry, development and culture.
I was pleasantly surprised by the characters in this novel. I don’t know why, but I expected the characters, particularly the women, to feel flat and one-dimensional. In fact, I was impressed by how alive and real they felt to me. They all have their flaws and thoughts, which Tolstoy shows you on the page as clearly as anything. Apart from Anna and Levin, who are obviously the most prevalent of the cast members, I also found Dolly fascinating, with her complicated relationship with motherhood. I would read a book about Dolly – are there any out there?
There is an awful lot to unpack in Anna Karenina, as you would expect by a book with an 800+ page count. I can tell that this is the kind of book that you can return to time and time again and find more details to analyse, and even though I couldn’t stop making notes in the margins, I knew that I was only scratching the surface of what this book had to offer. In particular, I loved how Anna and Levin’s stories unfold across the length of the book and thinking about how they mirrored each other. The two storylines really add to each other’s, and I think that in isolation, neither story would have had as much ‘oomph’. I also loved thinking about the themes of change, love, revenge and motherhood.
As I’ve mentioned already, this book is very long. I don’t have anything against long books and this one was definitely worth it, however there were some sections that felt like I was trudging through treacle. One part which stands out was a section in which Levin talks about Russian farming methods for what felt like ages, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this fully turned someone off the book. However, to anyone who gets stuck in this section, I can only say that finishing this book is worth the effort. Despite the length, the story in Anna Karenina is wonderful and moving, the characters are alive and detailed, with depth and flaws and complex thoughts and lives. Tolstoy’s cast of characters is colourful and exciting to follow, even if they do sometimes subject you to a lecture about the most efficient and moral farming methods.
Overall, a great start to my 2021! I can’t wait to see what other books this year brings!
You love that boy like you love the kitchen. . .but you add yourself like too much sugar sometimes.
Rating: ★★★★
This book was a total bookstagram made me do it! I was all over this Latina protagonist – we are rarely the main character so of course I had to read, and found this really enjoyable.
Lila is a Cuban girl from Miami who is sent to England for the summer to get away from grief and heartbreak, but the last thing she wants is to be away from her home and her bakery, which she has spent her whole life wanting to run. However, can she adapt to life in England and will she ever want to return?
My favourite part of this was definitely the representation of Cuban culture and Latin culture generally. I really enjoyed reading about the food I eat, the music I listen to, and characters who sounded like my own family and friends. I enjoyed that Lila learning about another culture does not diminish her love for her own, and this found a really good way to show multiple cultures in a good light.
I am not a huge fan of romance plots and so thankfully there were other things to keep me interested. I liked Lila’s personal plots regarding her baking career, her friends and her grandmother’s death. I liked the range of friends which Lila made and how they all brought their own individual stories, and I loved the stories about Orion’s family. The romance was not a bad romantic relationship, but I just don’t love romance plots and this one, much like others, did not bring many surprises or plot twists.
Overall this book was a fun and light read which I would definitely recommend! However one thing I would flag, which does not count against the book at all, is that the audiobook recording has the worst English accents I have ever heard 😂
Lexi peers out of her window one night and sees a boy made of wind. The next day, children in her town, Near, begin to go missing. The town blames the stranger, but when Lexi finds and befriends him, she knows that it can’t be him. Could it be the near witch, the legendary witch who the town banished years before, and who everyone believes dead? Can she convince the town and save her friend’s life?
I have wanted to read some VE Schwab for a while and figured her first book was not a bad place to begin. I kind of regret that decision, I could definitely tell that this was her first book. I have read another of her YA books and loved it, but this book definitely felt like an earlier version of Schwab.
The premise of The Near Witch was very intriguing and caught my attention early on. It was almost like a fantasy whodunnit which is always fun. I also love the atmosphere of mystery added to the story by the remote setting and the wind. However, the plot is very obvious (literally in the name) and the other elements of the book weren’t enough to balance it out, so it just felt like an obvious and not very well developed story to me.
Lexi had the potential to be a really interesting main character with her rebellious and curious streaks. I loved how she was the only person comfortable with talking to the town’s outcasts, and how she cared for her sister. However, I would have loved to see more development in her relationship with her mother and uncle, who were very one dimensional.
This book also had my pet peeve which was dull romance. I could tell it would happen from the beginning but there was no chemistry between the main pair or reason to pair them up other than the fact that they were of the same age.
Overall, a slight disappointment but still excited to read more of VE Schwab’s more recent work.
Ink Drops Books 