Nollaig

Cupcakes.... again >_>

Ooh I haven't read any of those but I might eventually read Yes Please, as I quite like Amy Poehler. Are you a Parks & Rec fan?

Apparently two of my friends and I are going for a drive and a picnic on Saturday, in the direction of Mizen Head, which is the most southerly point in Ireland. I've wanted to go there for quite a while (sea! cliffs! apparently a bridge!) so I hope we make it all the way there. I'm really looking forward to it, both ladies have been a bit down over the suicide that occured in the building last week, so it's good to see their spirits up about something - and it's really nice to be included!

The Death House by Sarah Pinborough Synopsis: Toby's life was perfectly normal... until it was unravelled by something as simple as a blood test. Taken from his family, Toby now lives in the Death House: an out-of-time existence far from the modern world, where he, and the others who live there, are studied by Matron and her team of nurses. They're looking for any sign of sickness. Any sign of their wards changing. Any sign that it's time to take them to the sanatorium. No one returns from the sanatorium. Withdrawn from his house-mates and living in his memories of the past, Toby spends his days fighting his fear. But then a new arrival in the house shatters the fragile peace, and everything changes. Because everybody dies. It's how you choose to live that counts. *** Review: I want so badly to give this book five stars, but the ending left me a little dissatisfied. Everything else, however, was brilliant. The biggest critique I have seen of this book is actually one of my favourite elements - it is utterly character-driven. I hesitate to call it a dystopian or post-apocalyptic novel, because while elements of both genres are hinted at, they are utterly subverted by the character interaction and development. This seems to have a left a bad taste in the mouths of many reviewers used to detailed world-building and big reveals. Honestly, I think the way Pinborough conveys this house as the last refuge for the sickness of a recovering world, without ever explaining anything in detail, is ample demonstration of real skill as a writer. The earth seems to have heated up, people seem to have been afflicted by something will dominate their systems by age 18, and rare though those people are in the wake of the world's healing, they must be gathered together and ultimately destroyed for that healing to complete. Why this is not enough explanation, in the face of so much else that is beautifully written, I don't understand. There is no horror here, other than the horror of misfortune and fate. The fact that these kids are not oppressed by a big evil that they must attempt to overcome, the fact that it is just luck of the genetic draw that has brought them here to die, makes their hopeless situation all the more powerful to read about. The characters. The complex, microcosmic society that has developed in the Death House, between individuals, between dorm groups. The push and pull of attempted survival in the context of guaranteed impending death. The ostracization of the sick. All of these things are impressed upon us with a stunning credibilty throughout this book. Told from the perspective of Toby, an angry teenager whose way of dealing with his inevitable fate is to withdraw into himself and try not to care about anything. Not necessarily likeable, but understandable. Over the course of the story, however, his hostility is challenged by the intervention of a girl. As she slowly softens his manner towards her, Pinborough impressively illustrates how he learns to live for the moment, and relate to the other characters around him - little Will, only 10 years old and gentle. Louis, a little older, a little braver, a lot wiser. Ashley, who injects a fantastic shot of religious contemplation and discussion of life after death into the story. Jake, the alpha male against whose bravado Toby comes up on more than one occasion. Little Georgie, a symbol of hope and inevitability. The overall picture, comprised of these characters trying to get by in a situation governed by tragic circumstance, is skillfully portrayed. As I said, my one qualm with this near-perfect read is the ending. It was about five pages from perfect and it sucked some of the preceeding credibility out of Toby. Still, it didn't spoil the book for me; there is still so much to love about it. Dark and bleak, including one particular scene towards the end that actually caught me entirely by surprise (I'm far too innocent) which will haunt me for quite some time. But also, full of hope, and the freedom in choosing not to let death silently cart you away in the night, in reclaiming the right to live your life to the fullest - however numbered the days. Highly recommended read. Rating: 4.5/5

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

Half Bad by Sally Green Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Nathan lives in a cage: beaten, shackled, trained to kill. In a modern-day England where two warring factions of witches live amongst humans, Nathan is an abomination, the illegitimate son of the world's most terrifying and violent witch, Marcus. Nathan's only hope for survival is to escape his captors, track down Marcus, and receive the three gifts that will bring him into his own magical powers—before it's too late. But how can Nathan find his father when there is no one safe to trust, not even family, not even the girl he loves? *** Review: I have very mixed feelings about this book, so while it might deserve a little over 3.5 stars, I don't feel I can give them. It started out brilliantly - I love most of the writing style (although starting a sentence with something other than 'the' once in a while wouldn't go amiss) and I got relatively invested in a good few of the characters. I feel like there was a lot of potential here and as a result my impression kept changing throughout - I'd feel the potential and get psyched up and then feel let down by poor pacing or generally scattered aim. There isn't a whole pile of plot. It starts out very character-centric, introducing us to Nathan, his family, and slowly uncovering the persecution he faces. It is easy to like him, despite his flaws, because he didn't ask for any of the awful things he is put through. It is even easier to like his loving half-brother Arran, and the steadfast determination of his gran to protect him through all his assessments, in the lead-up to his designation as, essentially, good or bad. With very little magic in the book, it's easy to draw parallels between Nathan and any kid who has ever been discriminated against for something beyond his or her control, and I think that's what a lot of people are latching onto about this book. About halfway through the book, however, things start meandering and I genuinely found it very hard to care about any of the intermediary characters. Bob. Bob was cool. But he was only there for a minute. Gabriel is also cool, but I'm more interested in his affection for Nathan than for any role he plays in the story. Mercury was not frightening, Marcus was not charismatic or appealing, and the drive in Nathan to be either good or bad did not come much to the forefront - it seemed largely a by-product of whoever he had to involve himself with in order to become a witch, and by the end of the book, very little seems to have actually happened. I think the best way to express my view of the book is that I like the collection of small details Green illustrates - she does not shy away from describing pain and cruelty, and that certainly sets this book apart - but the details are incohesive and do not pull together into a grand larger picture. All the same, I like Gabriel enough to want to read the second book, so I guess that's something. Rating: 3.5/5

I know but we don't all read statistics And thanks Awesome, thank you for the suggestions. I haven't actually read anything by Hosseini, but I have seen the name around a lot. I'll check those out, thanks Thank you!

Glad you enjoyed Room, it's a very good book

I finished The Death House and loved it - not sure about the ending, but if it had ended slightly differently it would have been a 5 star read. Gonna try write up some reviews this evening, I've a couple to do. Not sure what I'm going to read next! I have a borrowed book (thanks to the lovely Anna) but I also have a bit of time before that disappears off my Kindle so I might read something else before that... maybe the other suggestion I recently got from Weave - The 10pm Question.

I haven't even read the first sequel written after the rights reverted from Disney to the Milne estate. I don't know, no matter how good it is, it's not Milne. And Milne wasn't a particularly great man, but they were his characters. I don't know why additional books have to be published at all - the original is already so watered down by the existence of multiple films and books that feature or allude to Pooh, it's like Pooh is moving into the relatively public domain and everyone gets to have a bash at writing a Pooh story. ETA: To me, it's counter intuitive to say 'a new Pooh book is being written! We just don't know by who.' *WHO*, and their ability to portray Pooh flawlessly, should be the *REASON* a new book is authorised.

Thank you! Haha that's totally fine, you don't have to reply at all, let alone right away

Okay so I'm gonna do a quick quarterly review that looks at what I've read so far this year compared with goals I've set myself! This is probably going to be immensely boring for anyone but me Overall stats: Read so far: 33/100 Reviewed: 23/23* Abandoned: 0 *I'm probably only going to review the first title in a series, when reading a series, and then append thoughts about subsequent entries to the original review, to avoid spoilers and to avoid repeating myself. I also didn't review the 7 Harry Potter books (because who am I to judge an institution), or my re-read of The Book Of Lost Things. New paperbacks: 5 (including 2 gifts) New ebooks: 34 (including 1 borrowed) Pre-2015 TBRs read: 8 Added to Wishlist in 2015: 33 Genres: Childrens/YA (mostly fantasy, dystopia and fiction): 11 Fiction: 9 Horror: 4 Thriller: 3 Non-Fiction: 0 Short Stories: 1 Sci-Fi: 1 Fantasy: 1 Goals: [complete] Read all 7 Harry Potters (7/7) [Perfect] Keep up with reviews (30/30) [in progess] Review one author for every letter of the alphabet: (22/26, two this year) [in progress] Read 10 new Irish Authors (5) [in progress] Read 100 books this year (33) [barely/not started] Read 10 culturally diverse books/authors (1) Thoughts: Okay so just filling that out for myself was quite enlightening! What I'm reading: I knew I was having a bit of a YA year, and I'm happy to do that, but I want this to be a year of branching out, as per my Goals, so I need to make sure I'm working on that too. Reading/Buying: It works out that for every 1 book I read, I'm buying just over 1 new one and adding exactly 1 new one to my wishlist. Read 1, buy one, add 1. That seems fair! I've also made a clear move to ebooks, but I am keeping a list of ebooks that I love want to eventually purchase in hardcopy. Goals: A third of the way to my total-read goal, a quarter of the way into the year! Wahey! I haven't yet read any non-fiction, but there are two non-fiction books I want to read so I must try and get on those. I'm doing well with reading more Irish authors, and most of the books have been brilliant. Not doing so well with authors from outside the UK/US/Ireland, only one Scandinavian author read, and another on my wishlist. Also have a Japanese book on my TBR, so I must get to those and add more. I read a collection of short stories, first time ever, so yay for branching out there. I have completed my Harry Potter goal, and am close to completing the alphabet of authors on my blog, as well as having kept up with reviews, so wahey! All in all, I think I'm doing really well so far, considering there's still loads of time to dig into the areas I haven't looked at much yet.

It's completely stuck in my head!

Yeah, if there's a chance you might like it, go for it. And if you don't, it's a popular book - it could be a present down the line

Haha Jar of Destiny. Such power! I like this idea of a quarterly review, I think I might do that myself. Enjoy your return to adulthood!

I'm sorry to hear that you experienced something like that, but I can relate I'm becoming more and more intrigued by this! I've been following him on Twitter, and I can't much say I actually like him as a person, based on his tweets. Hmmmmmm maybe! I'm still enjoying it, but I want to finish Half Bad first because I'm afraid of getting them mixed up a bit in my head. Yeah, I don't know what the thing is, but I have a feeling the attitude he has is similar to that of an Irish DJ in a autobiography I read a while back, where said DJ basically went on about healing yourself from within and I was just like, nope, some people just can't do that. In other news, I've less than 100 pages to go in Half Bad, it's very unique; it seems to have been largely setup so far, I feel like I haven't seen much of the bigger picture but that kind of works I guess in the context of a young fella being persecuted for no reason other than his ancestry. We know what he knows. Definitely very good though, and will be checking out the next installment in the series.

Super blustery here too, I love it

All The Light We Cannot See is on my wishlist too, and a lot of people are reading The Girl On The Train at the moment, I loved it

Wahey, good for you both. I quoted ye in reverse, the above looks a little odd One of my favourite reads of the year, and divides people a little, so I'm looking forward to hearing both of your thoughts! I'm 126 pages into Half Bad, and am really enjoying it. Really feel for Nathan, not sure what way things are going to go. Also started The Death House by Sarah Pinsborough after reading a review by Weave, and so far that's really good too but I'm only about 20 pages in. I've also borrowed Yesterday's Gone Season 3 on my Kindle app from the lovely Anna, which is an awesome little feature and I have two whole weeks in which to read it, so really happy about that because I just can't afford to buy it right now.

Hahaha love it

Wow, pretty much all of those sound interesting and I've never heard of any of them. I must look them up on Goodreads and maybe add them to my wishlist. Glad you're enjoying all your reads lately!

Glad you're enjoying The Girl On The Train, definitely one of my favourite reads of the year so far

Huh. I've never heard such a positive reaction to that book, so I've never picked it up. I might now, though.

Cheap cupcakes I found in the nearby shop