Tag: teen fiction

Review: Paperweight by Meg Haston

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24917415Paperweight by Meg Haston
Genre: Contemporary with Mental Illness
Published by: Hot Key Books
Pages: 287
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★★★

Paperweight follows Stevie who is admitted to a rehab centre for eating disorders. Twenty seven days after she arrives it will be the first anniversary of her brother’s death, and to honour his memory, because she feels entirely responsible, she wants to kills herself. Heavy stuff, right? (Trigger warnings: self-harm, eating disorders, volatile relationships, manic-pixie-dream-girl.)

I’ve never read anything about eating disorders before and, if I’m being 100% honest, the topic scares me. I had the opportunity to review Paperweight when it first came out, but I declines thinking that because the subject matter wasn’t for me, I wouldn’t enjoy the story. I WAS WRONG. So wrong that it needs to be capitalised, underlined, and in a different colour.   Continue reading “Review: Paperweight by Meg Haston” →

Review: What I Thought Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick

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28756160What I Though Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Published by: Electric Monkey
Pages: 418
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★★
Note: This book was given to us by the publisher in exchange for our honest review. 

I read My Life Next Door in 2014 and wasn’t blow away because I’d heard a lot of over-hyped reviews. With What I Though Was True there seemed to be a lot more mixed reviews, so I felt a lot more prepared. I was pumped to be reading something contemporary with lots of summery feelings, and I wanted to give Huntley Fitzpatrick a second chance. The first half was SO GOOD but the second half, well…

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Review: Demon Road by Derek Landy

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23253921Demon Road by Derek Landy
Genre: Supernatural
Published by: HarperCollins
Pages: 507
Format: e-book
Rating: ★★.5
Note: I received this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review. 

I really appreciate this book in terms of it’s genre. I think if you’re looking for the perfect mix of Percy Jackson and the TV show ‘Supernatural’ then you’ll probably love this book! It’s pacy and a little gory, but if you’re up for that, then I would definitely give it a go. However, I don’t think Demon Road was my cup of tea. I like a lot of the elements individually, but putting them all together didn’t suit my tastes.

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Review: Head Over Heels by Holly Smale

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26094860Head Over Heels (Geek Girl #5) by Holly Smale
Genre: Contemporary, FUN
Published by: HarperCollins
Pages: 416
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★★★★
Series: All That Glitters (Geek Girl #4)
Note: We received this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review. 

Head Over Heels is one of our most anticipated releases of 2016, and if you known us, even just a little bit, you know we LOVE the Geek Girl series. It’s one of the best things to come into existence because I think there’s a Harriet Manners in all of us. She’s such a relatable and funny character, you can’t help but fall head over heels for her. SO, we had great expectations for the fifth book, and BOY were they met! Let’s fangirl about it! Continue reading “Review: Head Over Heels by Holly Smale” →

Review: Red Witch by Anna McKerrow

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26200465Red Witch by Anna McKerrow
Genre: Supernatural
Published by: Quercus Books
Pages: 416
Format: ARC e-book
Series: Crow Moon (#1)
Rating: ★★★
Note: We received this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review. 

I jumped straight into Red Witch after finishing Crow Moon. Once again, I knew practically nothing about the sequel and was pleasantly surprised to find it was from Demelza’s point of view. I thought she was an under appreciated character in the first book, but her POV meant that I lost the small connection I had with the characters from Crow Moon. I’ve just read 400 pages of Danny, at least tell me what happens to him and Saba! Red Witch did pretty much everything I felt was lacking for the first book, so now we have a pretty interesting climax ready for the third and final book in the series, which I will definitely be reading! There will be spoilers of Crow Moon in order to talk about the events of the second book, so if you haven’t finished Crow Moon, I highly suggest you do that first.

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Review: Crow Moon by Anna McKerrow

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23567756Crow Moon by Anna McKerrow
Genre: Magical-realism
Published by: Quercus
Pages: 384
Format: e-book
Rating: ★★.5

Crow Moon is a UKYA book about a Greenworld and a Redworld, that’s pretty much all I knew before reading. Also, the cover is absolutely beautiful, but completely misleading. Just like Half Bad by Sally Green, Red Witch explores a magical witch land through a male protagonist. I never really connected with the voice, maybe because I prefer female protagonists, but something was definitely hindering my enjoyment and access to the story.

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Review: Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

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24934065Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton
Genre: Fantasy
Published by: Faber & Faber
Pages: 320
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★★★

It seems like this book has exploded everywhere in the booktube and blogging community and I’m so glad I get to  review it because it was a fast-paced desert adventure! At first I was hesitant about the setting, because I read A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston and really didn’t enjoy it, but everyone raved about The Wrath and the Dawn, which I’m yet to read and after reading this will have to read straight away!

There’s just something about the mysteries of the desert that make it the perfect backdrop for a magical fantasy. Alwyn Hamilton has such a beautiful way with words that Ipulled me in from the very beginning. I swear, if I didn’t have university commitments I would have read this in one sitting.

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Review: Fire by Kristin Cashore

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6137154Fire by Kristin Cashore
Genre: Fantasy
Published by: Gollancz
Pages: 461
Format: e-book
Rating: ★★
Series: Graceling (#1) | Bitterblue (#3)

My advice to anyone wanting to read this series, would be to read it in chronological order, rather than publication order, because book two is not really book two. It’s a prequel. Why was this not mentioned anywhere on the Goodreads page?!  At least on the cover in this review it says “companion to Graceling,” but who reads the small print? It seriously took away from my enjoyment of the entire books, because I was constantly waiting for my favourites from the previous book to pop up. Fire begins with a prequel featuring this guy called Leck, he doesn’t appear again until the VERY END of the story and only then did I realise that Fire was a prequel. And all that time I was thinking, where’s Katsa and Bitterblue, are we seriously not going to even mention them? Oh! It’s because they’re not even born yet.

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Review: Graceling by Kristin Cashore

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3236307Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Genre: Fantasy
Published by: Gollancz
Pages: 471
Format: e-book
Rating: ★★★
Series: Fire (#2) | Bitterblue (#3)

I was really looking forward to reading this series. It’s a fantasy, with magic and strong characters – sounds  a lot like my favourite: Poison Study! Basically everything I love in a book like this. It also came highly recommended by one of my lovely booktube friends, Lea, it being her favourite series and all, but unfortunately I just couldn’t get into it! And here’s why:

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Review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

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10798416The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Published by: Headline
Pages: 215
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★.5

I read this book years ago – in fact, it was the first book I ever bought on my Kindle – and since I’ve been doing a lot of re-reading recently, I decided that this SUPER SHORT book would be the perfect thing to read next. I remember really enjoying the story at the time, but at that point, I knew very little about YA and the genre tropes, neither did I know what good YA looked like. Unfortunately I don’t think The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight has stood the test of time.

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