Review of Room by Emma Donoghue

Description

In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way--he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary.

My Thoughts
This was my first book I purchased on my new kindle which I got for Christmas. This is a December group read in a group on GoodReads called basically books in which me and a friend mod. So as soon as I got the kindle I bought this. This cover I feel is the best cover out of the 3 covers I have saw, it shows what the book is about. The blurb makes me just want to read it and that is what I did.

I only read about 11% and I was glued to the book, every time I had free time I picked up my kindle and read, I even stayed up late just to read some of this. Being told by a 5-year-old boy is completely different than if its being told by a teenager or an adult. The vocabulary is not as good and the way the sentences are structured and said is different. Being told by a 5-year-old boy makes me understand the situation better and its my first time reading a book being told by such a young narrator if I say so. The story line is a great and its kind of sad as well though the only thing I can say is, I liked the ending.

There is not many characters in the first half of this book, but more are introduced in the second half. I will only talk about 3 characters. The 3 characters I'm going to talk about are Ma, Jack and Old Nick, because I feel they are the main ones to me.
The main character Jack is a 5-year-old boy who has been brought up in a small room and who sleeps in the wardrobe most nights. He doesn't know there's anything outside, he doesn't even know there is an outside. I feel in my opinion jack is such a cutie and so innocent that I feel for him in so many ways. I wished I could of helped him.. took him out the room and showed him the outside world, but of course its a book not reality. He is brave and I loved the way he told the story.
Ma, who is Jacks mother was kidnapped when she was a teenage girl by a guy named Old Nick, she didn't know why and she was so scared. After a while she gave birth to Jack and tried to raise him as best as she could in a small room and didn't tell him about the outside world. I feel very sorry for her, she was an innocent teenage girl and yet this happened.. she is brave and I like her lot. I understood her reasons for not telling him about the outside as she thought he would never see it.
Now there's not much to say about Old Nick other than he's a very bad person and I don't like what he did. Just thinking of men like that makes my skin crawl.

I heard the author wants this kind of idea to be a movie. I would love that very much. 
Would you like it to be a movie or not? 

My overall opinion on this book is that its very sensitive to things that happens in real life, its utterly amazing and I loved every page I read. The characters are realistic and the way it ends is an amazing ending.
I recommend this book to people who read YA and loves reading as much as I do :)

Tara

Rating:

Review of Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices #2) by Cassandra Clare

Description 

 In the magical underworld of Victorian London, Tessa Gray has at last found safety with the Shadowhunters. But that safety proves fleeting when rogue forces in the Clave plot to see her protector, Charlotte, replaced as head of the Institute. If Charlotte loses her position, Tessa will be out on the street and easy prey for the mysterious Magister, who wants to use Tessa's powers for his own dark ends.

With the help of the handsome, self-destructive Will and the fiercely devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister's war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers that the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister himself knows their every move and that one of their own has betrayed them.

Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, though her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will; the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do?

As their dangerous search for the Magister and the truth leads the friends into peril, Tessa learns that when love and lies are mixed, they can corrupt even the purest heart.

My thoughts
YEY! the second book in the series, and I soo want to read it :). My sister bought this and she also let me read it first :D. After reading the first one I wanted to read the second straight away but unfortunately you have to wait. The cover I think is of Jem :) and I just like these covers. 


So this starts off quite close to the last book and yes you have forgotten what happens but you do remember the main parts as you read it so it doesn't really matter. The writing style is the same as the book before so I cant really comment on it, apart from say it was easy to read. The POV changes between characters but it is mostly focused on Tessa or Will.


Onto the interesting part which is the characters, As I do normally I talk about the characters that I feel are the main ones, and well they are the same characters as the book before but you may see some differences. 
Tessa is as brave as she was in the book and maybe more, she does what she thinks is right even if that right thing is wrong, she is such a strong and loveable character. As the book before she was a little annoying but this book she was not annoying and I felt she has grown up a bit more. 
Will was, well what can I say an annoying, self centred boy in the book before, but he shows why and you see a different side of him which I love. He is brave, caring and is now a loveable character. 
In this book you see Jem as the caring and amazing guy as he was in the book before, but you also see what he could be like if you push him into being mad. I love him so much and I like him a lot. 
There are other characters in this book as well as them, but I feel I can't really talk about them. Though Tessa's brother is in this book and he is as evil as we know he is. 


My overall opinion of this book is, it involves romance and love.. as well as action and disaster. 
I recommend this book to people who read Cassandra Clare's books or has read The mortal instruments series, and people who have started reading this series by reading Clockwork Angel.

Tara

Rating:

Review of Thirst (Ava Delaney #1) by Claire Farrell

Description 
Ava Delaney calls herself a hybrid - a living, breathing human who happens to have vampire poison running through her veins. The only thing greater than her thirst for human blood is her capacity for guilt. She does her best to avoid the human world, for everyone's sake.

When Ava accidentally enslaves a human while saving him from a vampire, she realises she has to look for help setting him free. Despite her misgivings, she expands her world but finds herself dragged into a possible vampire civil war. With the help of some new friends with ambiguous loyalties, she tries to find a way to keep her human, and herself, alive.


My Thoughts

I was browsing through Amazon UK for free e books for when I get my kindle in Christmas and I started downloading them and I cam across this one and I though ooh it looks good. I had it in my mind that I would read 1 chapter to make sure its good and then read the rest if good when I get my kindle, but.. I couldn't help myself but read on.

It only took me like 3 days to read this, plus I was reading this on the computer when I was bored or I just needed to read and couldn't be bothered to pick up the book I should be reading. This book is very good and it kept me reading on and on. I kept wondering what is going to happen and the storyline is just amazing. The style of writing is simple and easy to read in my opinion. This story is short, so the chapters is also short so you could just read a chapter a day or something is you don't have a lot of time to read. The POV is the main girl character Ava Delaney though there is other characters in this book with a main part.

There is many characters in this book but I only want to talk about the ones who I thought were the main ones as I normally do with my other reviews.
Ava Delaney who has vampire poison running through her veins, has a thirst for blood so she tries to stay away from the world and spend as little time with humans as possible. To me she is a cool, classy girl and I loved the way she acted. I feel sorry for her and I just wished she could have a normal life. 
Carl is just an ordinary human and he got dragged into this just by a mistake in which Ava made, I cant really say much about him seen has is personalty isn't really shown till the end.
Peter kills creatures which are not human and he helps Ava and Carl with there little problem though he was reluctant to. His personality is very confusing. One minute I feel he's a good guy and I like him and the next I feel he's being annoying.
Eddie is such a mysterious guy and he's not even that. He helps them out but also wants things in return, and he gets angry quite easily. To be honest I do not like him at all and I hope the second in the serious he's in less.. but then he will probably definitely be in a lot.
There is other characters plus the main vampires but then all vampires either want the main girl dead or need her for something.

My overall opinion on this book is i feel there was many good characters and there is a great storyline involved of the book. Its an easy short read and you can get this book for free if you download it from Amazon for you kindle.

Tara

Rating: 

Review of I Loved You First by Reena Jacobs

Description 

My best friend was more than just a best friend to me. Three words summed it up: I heart him. I’d never tell him though. I wasn’t stupid. Besides, what he’d told no one, but me, was a little something I wished I could forget… or ignore. He was gay. I guess gay wouldn’t be bad if I wasn’t so in love with him. Now it was just cruel. 

Stereotypes run amok in this college love story: Parties, alcohol, hookups, and breakups. Alexandria Carmichael may find it a bit much as she deals with the unreturned love from the boy who completes her. When all is revealed, not only does she risk losing her best friend forever, but also herself. Without her childhood companion for support, Alexandria takes a journey of self-discovery but fears what she’ll find at the end.


My Thoughts
As again with most of my books this is my sisters and I got to read it first.. have I ever said thank you to my sister for letting me read most of her books, well I am thank you Leanne aka Magic Of Reading :). The description seems something I don't normally read but yet I wanted to, the cover is really good and simple and sometimes simple is best. So yes I was very excited to read this.

This book got me reading from the first few chapters, I wanted to know how the main character gets on in the book , as if I was hooked to her and wanted to know her every move. The storyline is about friendship and to me holding on to that friendship. Another kind of topic was learning to cope on your own, get your own life and love it without having to do and act on other people. The writing style is simple and it was a very easy read, the font was normal in which I was thankful for because I hate reading small font books but I guess I will have to look forward to that in the future. The POV is with the main girl Alex.

I want to talk about two of characters thw two i feel were the main characters. The main.. main charachter Alexandria Carmichael aka.. Alex, is such a great female character, she is in love.. in love with her best friend, in which she knows.. she knows deep down she willl never have so how to deal with it.. she just stays with him throughout everything. She is caring, understanding and well very lonely to me, other than her best friend she doesnt have other friends. Seth Richards is the other main character, he's gay and he plays baseball in which come with loads of parties. The thing is he's gay and he doesn't want anyone to know.. the only other person who knows is his best friend Alex. I feel he's not a good character to me.. yes he sound yummy and cute but other than that the way he treats Alex and the way he deals with being gay is not good to me. Both characters have flaws which is very realistic in real-life, which makes the story an even better read. 

In this book many things are involved which may be in real life. Many people may be gay and doesn't want anyone to know. But you shouldn't be afraid of who you are and you shouldn't be scared of anyone's reactions. Everyone is different in many ways.. it's the you deal with it, which is what counts.

My overall opinion of this book was it wads a great read and I loved the truth.. the storyline and most of the characters. The setting's were enjoyable and the way it ended was even better.. though it had me in tears. 

I recommend this book to people who read YA and loves a great friendship book. 

Tara

Rating:

P.S..  I am sorry there isn't many book reviews but i go to college as well so I have less time to read. 

I hope the reviews in which I do manage to do are good enough :)

Review of Sisters Red (Fairytale Retellings #1) by Jackson Pearce

Description 

Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris--the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She's determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts ferociously alongside her. But even as more girls' bodies pile up in the city and the Fenris seem to be gaining power, Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves. She finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an axe and Scarlett's only friend--but does loving him mean betraying her sister and all that they've worked for?

My Thoughts

I had this as to-read for ages but never read it and my sister gave her copy to charity but my wonderful friend Char who I love sent me a copy of this book through the post for my birthday and I dropped every book I was going to read just to read this. The cover of this book is utterly well amazing.. it asks for someone to pick it up and read it. The blurb and description is very well detailed and makes me want to go PLEASE read now because I'm a good book.

Open page, read the prologue type thing and I'm into the book already, YEP that's how good this book was. So the writing style is easy and clear and you can understand everything that goes on in this book. The Storyline is a little predictable with a part of it well most of it but yet I knew some things which would happened i didn't know how it would be overcomed etc. The chapters go as Rosie then Scarlett which makes the POV change between the two and sometimes I got confused by that but guess what that doesn't matter with my rating because the whole of the book was well you can tell as I said before. The whole concept of this book is an amazing idea and I loved it.

Onto the characters and I'm going to be talking about the 3 main ones.
Scarlett was such a strong and brave character who has been through hell and yet is still standing an fighting for what she believes in and what she thinks is right to her. She doesn't see some things as good as she should sometimes but then don't all people have flaws.
Rosie is younger than Scarlett but it doesn't stop her being as brave as her does it?, no, . She's a great loveable character and I liked how she wanted to do stuff to help out her sister.
Silas is the main guy and I loved him and you know when you just fall in love with a main guy character well that is what happened and it helped with reading the book. He's brave and he does anything to help out the sisters.

The werewolves which are called a Fenris are very interesting and very bad characters. They are men/werewolves who pray on young girls and well you can guess what is more. They have a main part in this book and I was a little scared of them.
Just think if you are sitting near one.. they may bite. :P

My overall opinion is this book was very interesting and fascinating, it kept me reading non stop after page 88 which is very good. The characters keep this book going, though the storyline can get predictable it didn't stop this book from being a great book.

Tara

Rating:

P.S I thank everyone of my followers and people who comment.. or even people who just take time reading each review. :)

Review of Ultraviolet by R.J. Anderson

Description 

Once upon a time there was a girl who was special.
This is not her story.
Unless you count the part where I killed her.

Sixteen-year-old Alison has been sectioned in a mental institute for teens, having murdered the most perfect and popular girl at school. But the case is a mystery: no body has been found, and Alison's condition is proving difficult to diagnose. Alison herself can't explain what happened: one minute she was fighting with Tori -- the next she disintegrated. Into nothing. But that's impossible. Right?

My Thoughts

My sister bought this but because she was busy reading other books she said I could read it first, and of course I will say yes. So I read the blurb and description on Good Reads and I literally went YEP I will love this book. Then the cover also drew me in.. and then I saw the Author and went OH.. hmm.. I may not like this after all. Long story cut short I couldn't get into her book Knife. I never say no to a book though so I read it. 

Well I am glad I read it that's one thing I'm going to say to this. As soon as I opened the book and read the first page I was glued to it and all I wanted to do was just read...read...read and so on. The storyline was amazing and interesting. There was many twists and turns I think in this book, but that helped me stay interested. The style of writing is simple and easy to read and its not a complicated book which drags on.. or at least feels like its dragging on, nope. The idea in this book is very interesting and truly fascinating. The main character and the POV is around Alison.

Now onto characters.. Alison the main character the one who's been sectioned in a mental institute. I can't find more words to say then she is a great character and I loved how she saw things and I feel truly sorry for and what she thought she did or didn't do. Sebastian Faraday is another character which I loved. At first I loved him and then I hated him AND then I LOVED him even more. You will or might see that when you read it. He has a great personality to me. Her mum seems unable to understand her daughter and the problem she has, while her father is trying to understand it and keep in touch with her. There is many other characters but I can't really speak much about the others.

My overall opinion of this book is everyone should try to read it because its an amazing book and has a very good storyline with twists and turns.
I recommend this book to all YA fans and people who like to read all type of books.

Tara

Rating:

Guest Review of Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey

Who am I?
My name is Rea. I’m a 23-year-student and blogger and a British expat from the Netherlands. I joined the blogging community at the start of the summer. My blog is Rea’s Reading and Reviews I review most of what I read on there and I read a bit of everything depending on my mood at any one time.



Tara and I are part of a Goodreads group called Basically Books! (yes, it was named after this blog!) Our group has been holding an autumn reading challenge where each participant has to read books from their friends’ favourites shelf. My pick from Tara’s shelf was Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey. So when Tara told me that she was looking for guest posters, it was obvious to me that this would be the perfect choice for my guest review.



The book is one that I had been aware of prior to the challenge. In fact, I’d bought it mere days before the challenge started so when I found out that Tara had read and enjoyed it, I knew I would pick this book from her shelves, even though our reading tastes are sometimes very different. I seem to be going through a reading phase where I gobble up books about ghosts so I found myself rather excited about the prospect of reading this book!

What’s it about?

Violet’s mother is a medium in London in the late 19th century. She goes to great lengths to put on the best paranormal show money can buy and Violet has been helping her in these schemes to trick the rich out of their money for years now.

When Lord Jasper invites Violet’s mother and her little entourage to put on a big show for the toast of high society, Violet, her mother, their maid (a former prostitute), and Colin (a jack of all trades who Violet’s mother rescued from the streets some years previously) head out of the city and into the country to the large manor house where this séance will be held. As always, her mother captures the interest of those present with the little tricks to ensure a show to any and all present, including the young man she’s hoping will ask for Violet’s hand, but Violet has bigger problems than their lies. It would seem that she really does have a gift and one ghost in particular is adamant that Violet will help her… or she’ll make her life difficult until she does.

Who is it aimed at?
Young adults. Violet is 16, Colin is 18. It is clean.

What did I think about it?
This book provided an interesting look into séances in that period. They were really quite popular at the time and provided the rich with something interesting and different to distract them. Actually, I’ve read a few books recently that have included séances in this period and it’s interesting to read about what lengths the mediums were willing to go to in order to get the desired effects. A large amount of research must have gone into being able to recreate (if only in a literary sense) these Victorian secrets.



I quite liked Violet herself. As an illegitimate daughter, she can never aspire to the heights of upper class society, and she knows this. She’s pretty much the antithesis of her mother who is conniving, wrapped up in her lie of a life, and always wants to be the centre of attention. Violet is humble and does not like this life they’re living, often feeling remorse for the tricks she has to play, but she understands that they do need to do this in order to stay out of the mills.



The ghosts were interesting, though most of them were ignored because Violet didn’t want to let them in. The provenance of Violet’s abilities is unfortunately completely ignored; they’re just suddenly there, but the descriptions of Rowena make up for it. I adored these. Despite this, as the reader I would still have liked to have come to understand how and why Violet has the third eye.



There were multiple scenes and subplots in the story that didn’t really seem to have any impact on the story as a whole. I think they were there to bulk it up but every scene should add to a final picture. One such scene was when Elizabeth, Violet’s friend and the daughter of a member of the ton, is introduced. That scene just seems to exist and doesn’t add to the story at all. The same thing can be observed with the whole subplot that has Elizabeth drooling over Frederick. Nothing ever comes of this – this is no resolution one way or the other, it just exists and then the book’s finished. Again, it can be seen in the passages when Violet meets her dad. It never evolves past her actually meeting her dad, there is no point to this subplot and had it not been included, the story would not have suffered for it. I have to admit that this tendency bothered me when I was reading.



Words cannot express how relieved I am that Harvey did not try to introduce a love triangle. The courtship with Xavier felt real in how awkward Violet was but how she knew she could not afford to say no to such a potential rise in her status in society. At the same time, the budding romance with Colin was not quite so satisfying. It was cute, yes, but in the scenes prior to Colin kissing Violet, Violet never thinks of him as anything other than the boy she grew up with, but then she’s suddenly thinking about him as the boy she’d rather be with. I would rather have been offered a glimpse into how the feelings evolved, or her surprise at him kissing her and then a re-evaluation of her own feelings for him. That didn’t happen. The chapter just ended and then after that it was accepted as given that she liked him now. Again, this bothered me.



Despite this, the story itself was a fun, quick read and managed to both capture and hold my interest. It frustrated me that so many plot points were never addressed properly when this book appears to be a standalone, but it ended on a note where the main plot was neatly tied up.

Rea

Rating:

I would just like to say.. Thank you to my first ever Guest Blogger :) Rea :D 

xxxx

 

Review of Too Far by Rich Shapero

Description 

Rich Shapero’s Too Far follows a pair of ultra-imaginative six-year-olds, Robbie and Fristeen, through a transformative summer spent exploring the woods behind their remote Alaskan homes. As their family lives become increasingly unstable, the children travel deeper and farther into their private world. The forest—and the gods who inhabit it—becomes their refuge until, at summer’s end, they are forced to choose between the crushing prospects of the real world, and the lethal demands of their ideal one.

My Thoughts 
The first thing I want to say is that this was for free.. random people were giving out these with a CD with weird songs to do with the book. I didn't know weather I would like it or anything so I wasn't expecting anything amazing. The cover is very creative and inviting which made me want to read this book before any other book.. and so I could say I read a book for free.

I haven't heard of Rich Shapero before so I don't know if he is good... and the overall rating of book was quite low on Goodreads... but it wasn't that bad at all. It is a very easy and quick read though it took me a few days because of college. The writing is thick and it's more of a childlike book. The creativity and imagination in this book is so incredible that I just loved it so much. I felt that some parts are just so unreal..the main characters are 6 year old's and yet what they do on their own is well weird. The POV is mostly on Robbie but told ass the narrator kind of thing.

The two main characters is Robbie and Fristeen. Robbie is a good and over imaginative boy who likes to explore though his mum tries to stop him.. and his dad wants to support them. Its hard for Robbie because his mum and dad is fighting a lot. So all he wants to do is explore the forest in which he discovers many things. Fristeen is the main little girl and she also has a great imagination and explores the forest with Robbie. They find many brilliant things in the forest but I won't go in detail because I don't like spoiling things.

My overall opinion on this book is I loved some parts and if you like creative and imaginative books then this is perfect for you.

Tara

Rating: