[Review] I Was Here by Gayle Forman

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Publication (dd/mm/yyyy): 27/05/2011

Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Pages: 270

Source: Bought
Genre: YA - Contemporary (16+)

Violence | Sexual Content | Profanity

Book Tunes
♪ Zedd - Clarity (feat. Foxes) ♪

My Rating: 

Absorbing read

My thoughts

It has been two months since I read this book, so forgive me for not really remembering too many of the specifics about this book. I still remember the important things, so I guess that's all that matters. I'm sure that my dwindling memory is not at all a reflection on the impact that this book had on me. I remember being very moved by Forman's words in I Was Here. Maybe not as much as If I Stay (that book will forever have my heart), but I still remember being moved.

I Was Here is a book about grief, and life and love. We follow our main character Cody who is devastated by her best friend Meg's recent death (she ingested a whole bottle of industrial-strength cleaner in a faraway motel room). She is left with many questions, but most of all: Why? Until she starts to dig a little deeper, and discovers that maybe it wasn't entirely of her own volition. Cody will stop at nothing to get to the bottom of this. It might not bring her best friend back, but maybe, just maybe finding truth will help to ease her overwhelming feelings of guilt that came with drifting apart from her best friend when she moved away for college, and not even knowing about this side of her.

It is no surprise that I am a huge fan of Gayle Forman's writing. She is a beautiful person and author who I hope to one day have the pleasure to meet. She has a unique talent of breathing life into the characters she creates. I fell so hard for Adam and Mia in If I Stay and Where She Went. I held my breath for Allyson and Willem in Just One Day and Just One Year. Cody resonates within me on a core level. I may not have lost a friend to suicide, but I have lost friends to reasons entirely outside of my own control. People just grow apart. And like Cody, I have harboured intense feelings of guilt and questioning and grief and worry. Like Cody I care a lot, though I may be blindsided at times and miss out on the bigger picture. We may not learn too much about her. For me, sometimes it's not extremely important that the character have an illustrious background and personality. Sometimes it's just enough that the reader is able to relate to them on some intrinsic level, if the plot works.

[Review] A Court of Thorns and Roses (#1) by Sarah J. Maas

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(#1, A Court of Thorns and Roses)

A Court of Thorns and Roses | Untitled

Publication (dd/mm/yyyy): 05/05/2015

Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 419

Source: Bought
Genre: YA - fantasy (16+)

Violence | Sexual Content | Profanity

Book Tunes
♪ Major Lazer - Powerful (feat. Ellie Goulding & Tarrus Riley) ♪

My Rating:

Tantalisingly swoonworthy

My thoughts

How do I express exactly what and how I feel for this book? Okay, let's start with this simple and undeniable fact: I am a huge fan of Sarah J. Maas' books. I think her storytelling is on point, her writing style is lovely and eloquent and effective, her use of dialogue, tension, suspense, conflict and astute development of her characters just work perfectly together, grabs me in the heart every single time, leaving me gasping, emotionally spent from the experience. Her grasp on the human condition translates perfectly into her heroines. I loved Celaena's (Throne of Glass series) rough edges, her will to live above all else and her vulnerabilities. I absolutely love that she empowers her female characters, gives them roles that matter and feel real and they are never the same as when we first met them. That is the mark that a truly magical thing has taken place in your story: your characters have undergone irrevocable changes. 

A Court of Thorns and Roses is a loose fairytale retelling of Beauty and the Beast involving an ancient war between faeries and humans. It is a heart-wrenching story about love, family, survival, power and humanity. It follows 19-year-old Feyre’s journey as she is plucked from her miserable impoverished home in the mortal lands after she plunges an ash arrow into a wolf during one of her hunts, not knowing that it was actually a faerie. Unknowingly she has broken an age-old vow made between the two, but instead of killing her there and then Tamlin, an influential and powerful faerie, has decided to take her into the Faerie Realms, into the Spring Court where he resides. There Feyre learns more about the war and her sort-of captors, and finds out there is more to Tamlin than he’s letting on… and maybe she holds the key to saving her family from devastation.

[Ramblings] Fifty Shades of Grey (#1) by E.L. James

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Publication (dd/mm/yyyy): 25/01/2015

Publisher: Vintage
Pages: 356

Source: Kindle
Genre: Adult - Erotica (18+)

Violence | Sexual Content | Profanity

Book Tunes
♪ Ariana Grande - Love Me Harder ♪

My Rating: 

Meh.

My thoughts

OKAY. I'M DONE! NO MORE, I CANNOT DEAL... No more My Fifty Shades, no more "Oh My!", no more "inner goddess" and "my subconscious" and Mrs Robinson and Jose and...

The reason I am not giving this book 1 star is simply because I finished it, therefore it is, to some degree, "readable". I will not be reviewing this book properly because I will not really be able to analyse it objectively... so here's just a jumbled mess of my thoughts towards this book.

[Giveaway] 5 Year Blogoversary // Post-night shift rant

Warning:
I've just come from a night shift, so things are going to get rambly and emotional and maybe a bit personal. If you're only here for the giveaway, scroll down until you hit gold! Don't worry, no hard feelings. I probably wouldn't read this either because, come on, who cares?

Gah! I made this graphic for my first blogoversary, and as much as that cut-off 'y' is bugging me, I'm not going to change it or fix it or make a new graphic. Because I'm kind of fond of it. Because in the past I'm sure I was very proud of my efforts. (Okay, I'm also a tiny bit lazy too.)

I've been horribly, despicably, inexcusably MIA--hang on, life just got in the way. A lot, a lot, a lot of life. Full-time work. Family stuff. Friends stuff. Relationship stuff. Basically everything in my life has been a constant whirlwind of change and uncertainty and confusion and emotions have been blaring every which way that I just didn't have the mental capacity to even open up Blogger most days. There were many many times I contemplated, "I really should write this review today," and then almost instantaneously turned my mind to other matters.

But. I think I'm finally at a place where my mind has cleared a bit. I have a tendency to over-think things and let it all get the best of me, and all the while my lovely blog has been patiently waiting for me, waiting for me to give it the attention, love and *ahem* traffic it so rightly deserves. *gets out the feather duster* I've sorely neglected it for way too long, and I don't even know if I can truly keep this up (I have a bad track record with consistency here--but hey! I always seem to come back, don't I?) but I'm going to try my hardest.

[Review] Poppy in the Field (#2) by Mary Hooper

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(#2, Poppy in the Field)

Poppy | Poppy in the Field

Publication (dd/mm/yyyy): 07/05/2015

Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 288

Source: Review
Genre: YA (14+) - Historical fiction

Violence | Sexual Content | Profanity

Book Tunes
♪ Rachel Platten - Fight Song ♪

My Rating: 

Awe-inspiring

My thoughts

Poppy in the Field is a continuation of Poppy by Mary Hooper. As the title suggests, we, once again, follow the hopeful young VAD Poppy who decides to apply for a position at a base hospital in France in the wake of turbulent heartbreak that has come with the recent news of her love Freddie's marriage to a sophisticated debutante.

Hooper has evidently done extensive research and in amongst the pages there is ample amount of descriptive detail that places you right in the time period. From the character portrayals to the world building to the language used, Hooper excels at creating the right environment in her writing.