The Book of Bera by Suzie Wilde
I don’t think I have ever read a Viking fantasy novel up until now, so I was intrigued to see how the author, Suzie Wilde would portray this period of history and whether I would actually enjoy it. …
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
I was lying in bed and it was about 3am and I just fancied re-reading Coraline. I don’t know why, but I felt like a quick, brilliant read and I just thought of Coraline. I first read this book when I was about twelve years old and it freaked me out so much – not nightmares spooked me out, but the concept was really weird to me. Reading it again, 9 years later, it still freaks me out.
The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
If you thought The Raven Boys was perfect, wait until you finish reading The Dream Thieves. Oh. My. Life. I am writing this review 30 seconds after finishing the book because I had to get all of my thoughts and feelings down. Maggie Stiefvater’s writing is magical and it makes me feel all mushy inside.
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
I never used to read a wide range of books. My reading material would just consist of young adult books and then one day, I decided to branch out. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street was one of the books on my list: ‘Books to Branch Out To’. It sounded interesting, it sounded very different and I was very intrigued by the whole premise of the book. Even the blurb left an aura of mystery still shrouding the storyline.
The cover is so interesting as well. I’m not 100% about the U.S edition, but with the U.K edition, there’s a hole in the front cover where the watch is and when you open up the book, the watch that is a significant part of the story, is shown on the inside page. It’s an absolutely gorgeous cover and one of the things that pulled me towards the book.
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Yes, I have just read this book. I know, I know… I’m very very late to The Raven Boys party. But I’m here now, I’ve read it and I can finally have an opinion on it.
I’ve read the Shiver trilogy by Maggie Steifvater and even though it wasn’t my favourite series, it was still good. I’ve been meaning to read the Raven Cycle for a very long time – and I do actually own them all… It’s just that I haven’t had time to read them because my TBR list is towering and threatens to fall and crush me.
Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs
IT’S THE LAST BOOK IN THE MISS PEREGRINE SERIES! I loved the first and second book and I was so eager to finish the series so that I could find out what happens (but at the same time, I didn’t want to series to end because I love this world so so much!)
But… alas, I had to start the third book and find out what happens to my dearly beloved, peculiar characters…
As the story opens, sixteen-year-old Jacob discoers a new ability, and soon he’s diving through history to rescue his peculiar companiions from a heavily guarded fortress. Accompanying Jacob on his journey are Emma Bloom, a girl with fire at her fingertips, and Addison MacHenry, a dog with a nose for sniffing out lost children.
They’ll travel from modern-day London to the labyrinthine alleys of Devil’s Acre, the most wretched slum in all of Victorian England. It’s a place where the fate of peculiar children everywhere will be decided once and for all.
I would have loved to have given this book five stars like I did with Hollow City, but the most important thing about a series let this one down: it’s ending. It just didn’t feel right at all. It felt wrong to have that happen and I just felt a bit deflated once I had closed the book.
As much as I hate finishing a book on a cliffhanger or an ending that is filled with feels, it makes me feel something, it makes me sit there and think about the entirety of the book. With Library of Souls, everything was wrapped up nicely in sparkly wrapping paper with a big bow on top of it. It’s so hard moaning about the ending without giving away spoilers but let me just say this: Riggs could have ended the series a little bit better. That’s not to say that ending was awful and the worst thing I’ve ever read: it wasn’t. It was still slightly satisfying and wrapped everything up nicely but I just feel like it could have been done slightly better.
“It had become one of the defining truths about my life that, no matter how I tried to keep them flattened, two-dimensional, jailed in paper and ink, there would always be stories that refused to stay bound since books. It was never just a story.”
– Ransom Riggs, Library of Souls
Apart from the ending however, the rest of the book was absolutely brilliant. We got a lot of character development, there was still that stupid, weird romance between Emma and Jacob (I just ignore it), there was loads of exciting action, plot twists which left me shocked, heartbroken and nearly crying.
This was a roller coaster of a read and I’m gutted that the series has ended. It’s one of the best series – if not the best – that I have ever read and I’m so sad to leave the peculiar world behind. I fell in love with all of the characters and just arrggghhhhh noooooo… Please don’t make me leave this world. I love it too much. Can it just be real…? I need the Tales of the Peculiar in my life. In fact, I’m going to go into my local bookstore right now and buy it because it’s the only thing I have left of the world of the peculiars. RANSOM RIGGS, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!
I don’t even know what else to say about this book. If my fangirling and crying hasn’t proven how good this whole series is, then I don’t know how else to get you to GO AND BUY THE SERIES! RIGHT NOW… This is definitely a series that I will be re-reading over and over and over and over and over and over…
… and over and over and over…
You get the idea. So go and buy all three books, marathon them and then join me in my hysterical crying.
Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
I started this book the second I finished Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. I decided that I was in the mood to marathon this series and once I finished this one (I finished it in 5 hours), I started the third one.
That’s how good these books are, and Hollow City – which is the second book in the Miss Peregrine series – was even better than the first one. There was still the stupid romance between Emma and Jacob but I looked past it and concentrated on the actual storyline.
September 3, 1940. Ten peculiar children flee an army of deadly monsters. And only one person can help them – but she’s trapped in the body of a bird.
The journey continues as Jacob Portman and his newfound friends journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. There, they hope to find a cure for their beloved headmistress, Miss Peregrine. But in this war-torn city, hideous surprises lurk around every corner. And before Jacob can deliver the peculiar children to safety, he must make an important decision about his love for Emma Bloom.
You know why this book was so much better than the first one? Because there was so much character development, there was much more action and it was mostly set in 1940 London where we got to experience the war alongside the characters. What you’ve got to remember is that the peculiar children have been living in the time loop of 3rd September 1940 and at the time where their day restarts, is moments before their home gets bombed – so the children never get to experience the war first hand, and they think it’s all make-believe. Well now, they have to dodge the dropping bombs and hide from planes flying over their heads. It made it so much more exciting (I know the war isn’t supposed to be exciting, it was horrifying, but in this case being set against the backdrop of World War II added tension and fear).
“Through a bombed cemetery, long-forgotten Londoners unearthed and flung into trees, grinning in rotted formal wear. A curlicued swing set in a cratered playground. The horrors piled up, incomprehensible, the bombers now and then dropping flares to light it all with the pure, shining white of a thousand camera flashed. As if to say: Look. Look what we made.”
– Ransom Riggs, Hollow City
Again in this book, Riggs included never-seen-before photographs to coincide with his plot and as I said in my review for the first book, the photos aren’t creepy (apart from the odd few) but they add a whole new dimension to the story. The story feels more real, it feels like it isn’t just fiction, you feel like you know the characters just by looking at the photographs that look similar to what Riggs is describing.
Also, just ignore the relationship between Emma and Jacob and everything will be fine…
The ending as well was brilliantly written and when I finished Hollow City at quarter to 12 at night, I didn’t want to wait until the morning to start reading Library of Souls. But I had to… So I waited. And that night, I dreamt I was walking alongside the peculiars and Miss Peregrine. It was such a good book which lead to an amazing dream. I thoroughly recommend everyone to read this series.
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
If you’re expecting a scary or spooky book, you’re going to be disappointed. This book is not scary so go into the book knowing that it isn’t. I’ve heard that a lot of people thought it was going to be really creepy and got let down.
Luckily for me, I went into this trilogy knowing that it was an adventure/fantasy book so I got a lot more out of it than others. After marathoning all three books, I can officially tell you this: Ransom Riggs is a genius.
A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins odd Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its decaying bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that Miss Peregrine’s Children were more than just peculiar. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for a good reason. And somehow – impossible though it seems – they may still be alive.
As aforementioned, this book is not a creepy book, it is an adventurous one. I tried to explain it to my Dad and I said ‘it’s got the plot line of a children’s book but it’s written in an adult way.’ And it’s true. A young boy goes on an adventure and makes new friends along the way who have powers. That’s pretty much the premise of the book but it’s so much more than that!
This is Riggs’ first novel and it’s such a brilliant debut. The idea is magnificent and the way the story is told with the pictures is also amazing. I loved the pictures. Some people said that the pictures weren’t scary at all and that they were boring – I didn’t think they were. They added a sense of realness to the story. There were pictures of people that looked like they could actually be the characters of the peculiar children, there was a picture of a boat, of a child, sat on a pavement in a bunny costume, of an old woman dressed all in black… They weren’t creepy (ok, maybe a couple was) they were just normal photos that had been taken and they had collected altogether and turned into a story which I think is so clever of Riggs. You would read a page, look at the picture and get a sense of how the setting looked like, how it might have felt, the way the characters may have looked. Sure, Riggs also included a lot of written descriptions about all of these but the pictures just added more.
“Stars too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realise we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries – but not until now had I realised how full of them the earth was.”
– Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
The world that Riggs had created was also very intriguing. I loved the concept of the ‘loop day’, of peculiar children, of monsters and of a boy who thinks he’s got nothing to do with all of it until one day, he finds out he does.
The only downfall that I can say about Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is the romance between Emma and Jacob. It was just weird. Emma had dated Jacob’s Grandfather. Jacob’s Grandfather and Emma were in love, and now Jacob comes along, Emma hasn’t aged a day and then the two of them fell in love. It just felt so weird and there was even a time in the book where Jacob says that himself. it was just strange and I didn’t get why Riggs had to throw that weird type of romance in.
Overall, this was an incredible book. It was incredibly written, there were incredible characters and the use of photographs alongside the story was fantastic. This is a spectacular debut novel from Ransom Riggs and I look forward to reading other books by him!
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
I don’t know where to start with this review. I had seen everyone on Goodreads, BookTube, Twitter, Bookstagram… Basically, everywhere there was hype about this book and say how amazing it was and that it was perfection.
A few weeks ago, I popped down to my local library and I saw this book on the shelf. I picked it up and I realised it was about time that I read it. I had high expectations: I wanted to love it and I wanted to take a big breath and scream to the world about how amazing it is.
In 1886, a mysterious travelling circus becomes an international sensation. Open only at night, constructed entirely in black and white, Le Cirque des Réves delights all who wander its circular paths and warm themselves at its bonfire.
Although there are acrobats, fortune-tellers, and contortionists, the Circus of Dreams is no conventional spectacle. some tents contain clouds, some ice. The circus seems to almost cast a spell over its aficionados, who call themselves the rêveurs – the dreamers. At the heart of the story is the tangled relationship between two young magicians, Celia, the enchanter’s daughter, and Marco, the sorcerer’s apprentice. at the behest of their shadowy masters, they find themselves locked in a deadly contest, forced to test the very limits of their imagination and of their love…
The Night Circus jumps to different timelines. One chapter you could be in 1894 and the next chapter, you’re in either 1900 or 1890. I don’t know. I got very very confused by it, I can understand why Morgenstern did it: there were characters who’s lived intertwined with the circus and their point of view had to be told so that all of the loose ends could be tied up at the end. So I get why she did it; it just wasn’t an easy read so if that’s what you’re looking for, this book isn’t for you.
I also found the blurb on the book very misleading. It states there’s a deep romance between the two main characters. There really isn’t. One minute they’re just going about their typical Night Circus days and the next, they’re professing their love for each other. What? Where in the world did that come from? The romance was just so sudden and there was hardly any build up to it.
The blurb also states that there is a battle. Again. No there isn’t. There is a thirty-something year battle and for half of those years, they don’t even know who they’re “battling” against. And it’s a magic match. To see which one of the two competitors is the best at using magic because two very old guys are bored and just want to use kids for fun.
“I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held. Trying to control what cannot be controlled. I am tired of denying myself what I want for fear of breaking things I cannot fix. They will break no matter what we do.”
– Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
BUT! ENOUGH OF ME MOANING! MOANING IS BORING! LET’S GET ON TO THE GOOD STUFF!
The plot idea was fascinating. A circus that only comes at night and includes actual magic? A circus that is actually a stage for a life-long battle? It sounds amazing and the plot really was. I loved the characters of Herr Thiessen and the twins. And I also loved to hate the teachers: Hector and Alexander. They just didn’t have a care in the world about the consequences of their games. I also really didn’t like Marco. I found him to be very arrogant and selfish. But I loved Celia, so again, I loved to dislike Marco.
This is a slow book to read but when all of the characters come together and the timelines become consistent, the book gets rather exciting because all of the individual storylines come together and become one.
The Night Circus is a very good read. If you’re looking for something different then I recommend this. There’s beautiful writing, a beautiful, magical world has been created. There are elements of this book that are just brilliantly thought out and proves how much of an excellent writer Morgenstern is. I actually do understand the hype that surrounds this book and although I wasn’t that captivated to scream how much I love it from the rooftops, I did thoroughly enjoy reading it.
The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black
I haven’t read a book by Holly Black since The Spiderwick Chronicles when I was about eleven; so when I found out that she did young adult fantasy/supernatural books, I knew right there and then that I had to read them. Holly Black had a way of writing The Spiderwick Chronicles that left me in awe.
Faeries make a re-appearance in Holly Black’s: The Darkest Part of the Forest.
Near the little town of Fairfold, in the darkest part of the forest, is a glass casket. Inside lies a sleeping faerie prince that none can rouse. He’s the most fascinating thing Hazel and her brother Ben have ever seen. They dream of waking him – but what happens when dreams come true?
In the darkest part of the forest, you must be careful what you wish for…
Let me start off by saying that this book was absolutely fantastic! It’s the first fantasy book that I’ve read in a long time because my time has seemed to be taken up my YA Contemporary, but this book just reminded me how much I love the fantasy genre and how magical it is – especially when it is written as beautifully as this.
At first, I didn’t care much for Hazel, she seemed like a very two-dimensional character. But as the story goes on and the plot develops, so do the characters. The character development is phenomenal. I went from not liking Hazel to absolutely worshipping her towards the end. And Ben! We see his struggles as a gay character throughout the book but you know what I love about this book? Everyone is accepting of the fact that he’s gay – there’s no name-calling, no teasing, just no bullying or hate in general and it’s a breath of fresh air to see a book that includes a gay character that is fully accepted within the society.
“We love until we do not. For us, love doesn’t fade gradually. It snaps like a branch bent too far.”
– Holly Black, The Darkest Part of the Forest
Also… I think I might have fallen in love with the horned boy… And Jack… Oops…
Both the main and the secondary characters in this book have all been given a lot of attention as well. The secondary characters are given as much depth as the main characters and we are told parts of every characters background in detail that makes the reader feel like they know this character, they know what they’ve been through, how they are feeling right now and what’s caused them to act how they do in the present day.
There are so many twists and turns throughout this book and a realisation that will leave your mouth hanging open in disbelief. There’s magic, there’s fighting, there’s faeries, there’s romance. There’s everything that you could possibly want from a book about the magical realms within a forest.
I can’t say any more about this book without revealing spoilers but all you have to know is that it’s beautifully written, it’s an amazing storyline, there’s plot twists galore and the main characters (and secondary characters) are amazingly written.
There we go. I think it’s 10000% obvious that I fully recommend this book to anyone. Go on, get it now and read it. And then tell me what you think!