Five Days In

Not a lot, I know, but have we all picked books?

I might have strayed some. I started re-reading the Da Vinci Code, because I had a proper urge for it for some reason. It's still just as awesome as it always was. It probably has something to do with the new Dan Brown book, Inferno being out. Has anyone read that by the way? What do you think of it?

Anyway, I am 150 pages in to Magician and there have been dwarves and elves and dragons and all manner of other things. I'll be honest, I was not expecting the turn this story took at all. I expected a rather typical Tolkien-esque story, but that is not what I'm getting at all haha.

Looking forward to reading on further :)

Let's Do This...

Like I said in the last post, the month of may was my exams, and then about a week ago I found out that I failed two of them, so I've been really rubbish at posting on this blog. But everything is almost over, I'm just about free for the summer, so I figured; lets do this!

The last challenge frankly, was a cop out. Really rubbish, and I can't believe I even chose it!

This time, it's something a little bit better; Chose a book for the month of July that is set in a completely fictional world.

Examples of this type of book is: Any Raymond E. Feist book, Tolkien, Game of Thrones (though how closely it resembles the war of the roses is insane), Terry Pratchett's Disk World, Waylander/Druss the Legen by David Gemmell. There are so, so many more but none I can think of now.

This month, I'm going to be reading Magician by Raymond E. Feist. I'm pretty sure I've got the version that is both parts of the Riftwar Saga, but I'm not 100% sure. My fiance has pestered me and pestered me to read it for years, and I'm finally doing it.

Goodreads blurb: At Crydee, a frontier outpost in the tranquil Kingdom of the Isles, an orphan boy, Pug, is apprenticed to a master magician—and the destinies of two worlds are changed forever.

Suddenly the peace of the Kingdom is destroyed as mysterious alien invaders swarm the land. Pug is swept up into the conflict but for him and his warrior friend, Tomas, an odyssey into the unknown has only just begun.

Tomas will inherit a legacy of savage power from an ancient civilization. Pug’s destiny is to lead him through a rift in the fabric of space and time to the mastery of the unimaginable powers of a strange new magic.

Now I might be cheating a bit, because I am already like 100 pages in, and so far, it's awesome! Like, so much better than I thought it was going to be you can't believe it.

Let me know which books you're reading :D and don't forget to send me reviews of books you liked or didn't like :)

New Challenge

This month, the month of May, I have my exams. I'm not looking forward to it. So this is a simple challenge.

Read the book that you most recently bought.

For me that's the new paperback JD Robb book. I love JD Robb books, I have read every single one, and I adore Eve Dallas. So this is a pretty easy challenge for me, because I know I'm going to love this book.

It was just another after-work happy-hour bar downtown, where business professionals unwound with a few drinks, complained about the boss, maybe hooked up with someone for the night. Until something went terribly wrong. At first it was just a friction in the air. The noise intensified. The crow seemed oppressive. some sharp words were exchanged, some pushing and shoving. 

Then the madness descended. And after twelve minutes of chaos and violence, eighty people lay dead.

Eve Dallas is trying to sort out the inexplicable events. Surviving witnesses talk about seeing things—monsters and swarms of bees. They describe sudden, overwhelming feelings of fear and rage and paranoia. When forensics makes its report, the mass delusions make more sense: it appears the bar patrons were exposed to a cocktail of chemicals and illegal drugs that could drive people to temporary insanity—if not kill them outright.

But that doesn't explain who would unleash such horror—or why. Eve's husband, Roarke, happens to own the bar, yet he's convinced the attack wasn't directed at him. It's bigger than that. And if Eve can't figure it out fast, it could happen again, anytime, anywhere. Because it's airborne....

Review: The Drowning Pool by Syd Moore

After finished Warm Bodies, I decided to start another book I'd had sitting on my shelf for a while.

I bought it for £2.99 at a little book shop in Helmsley, and it sounded great.

Here's the summary: After her world is shaken by a series of unexplained events, young widow Sarah Grey soon comes to realize that she is the victim of a terrifying haunting by her 19th century namesake…A classic ghost story with a modern twist by a talented new writer in the genre. Relocated to a coastal town, widowed teacher Sarah Grey is slowly rebuilding her life, along with her young son Alfie. But after an inadvertent séance one drunken night, her world is shaken when she starts to experience frightening visions. She tries to explain them away. But Alfie sees them too and Sarah believes that they have become the targets of a terrifying haunting. Convinced that the ghost is that of a 19th Century local witch and namesake, Sarah delves into local folklore and learns that the witch was thought to have been evil incarnate. When a series of old letters surface, Sarah discovers that nothing and nothing is as it seems, maybe not even the ghost of Sarah Grey…

I had high hopes for this book. I wanted something scary, because it's not a genre I often read. However, this really wasn't what I ended up getting.


Book name: The Drowning Pool
Author: Syd Moore
How long did it take to read: 7-14 days
Review: Not quite what I expected. Definitely odd at times, and when reading at night it got me looking out for ghosts before sleep. But I expected it to be scarier I guess.
There was a very contemporary feel to this book, which I didn't expect at all. I definitely enjoyed the characters though, and I enjoyed all the back sliding into Sarah Grey's life (that is the ghost Sarah Grey, not the protagonist Sarah Grey).
However, the ending seemed a little...well it was a bit of a cop out. So much could have happened, it could have been amazing. Instead I finished the book feeling a bit like...meh.

Rating out of 10: 5

Review: Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion

So I finished the book I'd chosen to read for this month, now I have to find another off my shelf - I have plenty though, so I'm sure I'll find one.


Book: Warm Bodies
Author: Isaac Marion
How long did it take you to read: 7-14 days
Review: There isn't a whole lot I can say about this book. I read it while in the gym (after running away from metaphorical zombies) and read from page 70 to the end last night. It was an easy read, and it felt very honest. I'm not often a fan of zombie books, simply because I think sometimes they can feel a bit gimmicky, and maybe having the main protagonist be the zombie is a bit of a gimmick but I liked it :).

I enjoy R, he was fun. And the book was good. Very interesting.

My only fault, and the only reason this doesn't have 5 stars, would be that when I finished I was left feeling a little like...was that it? Was that the end of this supernatural novel? I liked the ending, don't get me wrong, and it was very realistic, because this is a broken society, full of soldiers, not scientists, but I kind of wanted more of an explanation. But like I said, in a broken society like this, you can't always expect answers.

Rating out of 10: 8

I would recommend everyone to read this book, because it is amazing, and I just couldn't put it down last night.

How's everyone doing with the book's they've chosen to read? What did you choose?

Challenge: 03 01/04/2013-30/04/2013

I'm sorry I didn't post this on the first, like I should have done!

This months challenge - chose a book off your shelves that was published between 2007 and 2010.

I've chosen Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion which was published in 2010!

Goodreads Summary: 'R' is a zombie. He has no name, no memories and no pulse, but he has dreams. He is a little different from his fellow Dead.

Amongst the ruins of an abandoned city, R meets a girl. Her name is Julie and she is the opposite of everything he knows - warm and bright and very much alive, she is a blast of colour in a dreary grey landscape. For reasons he can't understand, R chooses to save Julie instead of eating her, and a tense yet strangely tender relationship begins.

This has never happened before. It breaks the rules and defies logic, but R is no longer content with life in the grave. He wants to breathe again, he wants to live, and Julie wants to help him. But their grim, rotting world won't be changed without a fight...

I started reading it yesterday in the gym (while cycling) and so far it's really good! I'm not usually one for zombies, so this is a little out there for me, but I'm enjoying it :D

Let us know in the comments what book you're choosing :D

End of Challenge 2

We've come to the end of March! Happy Easter to those who observe it.
Clocks went forward last night, and I certainly noticed today, much lighter nights - lovely.
And I've greated a goodreads group for this club - if you fancy joining :)

Anyway, did you finish the book you chose to read this month? I did, just, and here's my review:

Bookname: Call the Midwife
Author: Jennifer Worth
How long did it take to read: Over 28 days

Review:This is a truly wonderful book, and not simply for the experience of reading it. It's a collection of memoirs - though there are some common threads - spanning the first year of Jenny's life in Poplar, and the stories captivated me right from the start.It seems like an entirely different world, and yet my mum was born less than ten years after this book was written. What I've really loved about this book, about what it's given me, is a deeper understanding of my Grandma and my Nana's life. How different life was from the centre of London to the village my nana lived in here in the north (where I still live). My Grandma was in London during the war, and speaking to both of them about their life in the fifties is what I've really enjoyed about this book.

I would recommend it to everyone, frankly, because it's fascinating.
Rating: 8


Please send me your reviews of the book you chose to read :)

3 Days To Go!

My, oh my, it's almost April!
Can you believe it?! I certainly can't. It makes me panicky as it means my exams are getting ever closer.

I haven't finished Call the Midwife yet, but I only have two chapters left, so I'm hoping to finish it tonight. It's been an amazing read, and I'm working on my review, because I think everyone should read it. I've loved talking to both my Grandma (who worked in London in the WAAF during WW2) and my Nana (who worked in Uptons in the '50's making curtains and tablecloths) about Call the Midwife and what life was really like in the '50's. Frankly it's shocked me.

Not sure what the challenge will be for next month. I'm going to have to have a think :)
Any suggestions?

Also, how's everyone getting on with your books of choice? What did you chose? Have you already completed it?

1/3 of the way through

10 days in to the second challenge, how are we doing?

I'm almost finished Call the Midwife. It's such an amazing book and I love the BBC series, too. What I love is being able to talk to my grandma about it, hearing stories of when she was in London during the war, and how she never saw places like what's described in Call the Midwife. Honestly, it's a frankly harrowing book at times, it's hard to believe that all those events happened barely 60 years ago.

If I finish this book before the month is out, I'm going to continue reading The Crimson Petal and the White, which I'm about half way through. I've had the book for about two years, but I just stopped picking it up. It's really good, so I don't know why I stopped, but it is difficult to read at times.

What book have you decided to read and how far through it are you?

New Challenge: 02/03/13 - 30/03-13

Waiting on your reviews! I hope I get some :)

How did we all do? Did you read the book you chose? Did you like it? I loved Northern Lights, as you can see in the review in the post below :)

This month, chose a book that has been turned into a film/TV series.

I'm going to be reading Call The Midwife, which I loaned off my Gran :)

Goodreads summary: Jennifer Worth was just twenty-two when she volunteered to spend her early years of midwifery training in London's East End in the 1950s. Coming from a sheltered background there were tough lessons to be learned. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying.

I've watched the BBC series and it's so good! It's also great because I love talking to my Gran about her time in London during the war :).




But chose anything! Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Silver Linings Playbook, Warm Bodies, Twilight, Mortal Instruments, Hunger Games, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...the possibilities are endless :D

Leave a comment with your book of choice :) plus what you read this month and what you thought about it :)

Review: Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

We started this month not at the start of the month, so this first one's going to be a little shorter than the rest. This challenge will end tomorrow, and a new challenge shall be posted on Saturday once I've come up with one (though it's a choice between two at this point).

Also there's a new poll up on the left hand side, just for some info, you know :)

Send me your reviews so I can post them and we can get some book recommendations going. Click the tab and use the google questionnaire. 


Title: Northern Lights
Author: Philip Pullman
How long did it take to read: 14-21 days
Rating: 10 - definitely recommend
Review: This is a book I've been recommended since I was young, but I'm glad I read it now instead of when I was 11. It's the sort of book that moves slowly to start put picks up pace very quickly. Pullman's world is fantastical and sparks my imagination in a way not many books really manage.
Lyra is brilliant. She's such a precocious little girl, with such odd knowledge hot-spots. She's brave and excitable, and the relationship between her and Pan is heart-breakingly beautiful. The friends she makes and the people she meets are just as full and real as she is. I feel I knew her after reading this book.
This book made me feel...good. In a strange way. I'm dying to read the next one!

Poll Results

Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll. The votes are now closed and I think it's fairly obvious what genres won.

So I've been thinking of some challenges for the upcoming months. Let me know what you think of them (also know that these are likely to change)

• Books that have been converted into films
• Classic that you really should read
• Recommended from a friend
• Book you've had unread on your shelves since 2010
• The last book you bought

They're just a few, but I think that way we should be able to fit in all the young adult that everyone clearly wants to read lol.

19 Days to Go

So we're just over a week into the first 'challenge', and how are we all going?

I'm ~150 pages in to Northern Lights and I'm loving it! It's the sort of book I would have read when I was 11, but probably not liked because I didn't quite understand it, it also doesn't move nearly as fast as my 11 year old self would have wanted. But now I'm twice that, it's perfect. so much intrigue and mystery, and I love Lyra, she's my kind of girl. I've seen the film adaptation - The Golden Compass - but remember nothing about it, so this is all going very well so far.

I bought another book today - I know, I have a problem - Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. I've heard good things about it, so no doubt there'll be a sci-fi challenge.

Glad to see so many people following this blog! And I hope you all participate, looking forward to seeing some reviews coming in.

Have you finished your book for the month already? If so remember to send me a review through the tab above once you've finished a book :). If not, share your goodreads progress, and your username so we can all follow you :D

Book for the Month

I've decided what I'm going to read! Seeing as though I spoiled it by reading Perks too quickly.

 Goodreads Summary: When Lyra's friend Roger disappears, she and her dæmon, (pronounced 'demon') Pantalaimon, determine to find him. The ensuing quest leads them to the bleak splendour of the North, where armoured bears rule the ice and witch-queens fly through the frozen skies - and where a team of scientists is conducting experiments too horrible to be spoken about.

Lyra overcomes these strange terrors, only to find something yet more perilous waiting for her - something with consequences which may even reach beyond the Northern Lights...

I've never read this, and it's been sat on my shelf for two years now. My dad's read this though, and he really liked it, which is funny because he was 33 when this came out (but I'm 22 and still read young adult, just don't expect it of my dad lol).

I'm looking forward to reading this, if only because I've heard such good things about it so far.

From the poll it's looking like everyone's interested in young adult haha, but I'm not sure I have enough young adult books on my shelf! Reckon I'm going to have to get creative with the genres :).

How this is going to work...

Right, I've done some messing with the blog, created a spreadsheet thingy and I figured I should do a post about how this is hopefully going to work :).

Please comment below on which book you're reading, and I shall add it to the Goodreads bookshelf which can be found to your right. Then, in about 4(ish) weeks time, I'll make another post and we can talk about what we thought of the book and such.

Also, when you finish the book, click on the 'Send a Review' tab above and leave a review :D and I'll post them as and when I get around to them :).

Would you please respond to the poll on the left hand side, have a look on your shelf and have a think what sort of book you'd like to read.

There'll obviously be other posts as we go through, so we can talk about how we're going with the books we've chosen, and if any reviews come in of course :).

It's all very informal, there's no sign up sheet or anything, you can come and go as you please - so long as you're enjoying yourself.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

During summer I devour books, I literally eat them for breakfast. This is because, during summer, I'm not at uni. I'm generally not stressed out about the gazillion assignments I have to do, and with doing a science degree I'm left with little time to read books, and the time I do have I chose to do other things (like knit and write).

So when we thought of this book club, Ashleigh and I, we said one book a month. We're both at uni (Ashleigh's in her final year of her English and Creative Writing degree), and therefore have often better things to do with our time than read - although we wish this weren't true. But one book a month made sense. Ashleigh can read a book in a day, while I can take months to complete a tome.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when after starting The Perks of Being a Wallflower yesterday, I finished it this morning.

First Challenge

Today I went shopping. I needed more of my Rocky Horror costume and a book for my dad. But Waterstones have this stamp card thing, and if I bought another book I'd get two stamps instead of just one - so I had to do it!

I recently saw Perks of Being a Wallflower, and I really wanted to read it, so I bought that.

Goodreads summary: Charlie is a freshman.
And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his year yet socially awkward,he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it.

Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.

So this is the book I'm going to be reading this month :) It's only short, and it looks to be an easy read. *cross fingers* I'll finish it.

This month pick a book on your shelf, preferably that you haven't read yet or even one that you have, that is perhaps young adult, coming of age, sort of a book. 

Or, better still, if you have Perks, read that, and then I have people to talk about it with :)

Book Club

Hello :)

I'm not sure how many other people will see this, but if you do then welcome.

Me and my friend Ashleigh were talking, and we both had stacks and stacks of books to read, and we just keep buying more, which isn't good. So we decided to start a bookclub, but a very informal one.

Basically it's for those of us who've had books sitting on our shelves for ages, books that you want to read, you're just never in the mood for.

The plan is that every month there'll be a category, or maybe a particular book even, and you have to chose a book from your shelf and read it in the month. Then at the end of the month there'll be a post about what book you read and what you thought of it. That way, hopefully we'll all be reading different books, we'll work through the endless stacks on our shelves, but also get some helpful recommendations for new books to read.

That's the theory anyway, whether it'll work, we have yet to see :)