49/365. (via Cynthia.Wong)
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Here we go again
So I abandoned my blog, started up again and reset so many times I can’t even count but honestly I miss writing about books and stuff so back again my friends! I just got an I pad and have no idea how to use it but figure tumblr on a bigger screen will be way better! So prepare yourself!
I’m thinking of doing the usual bike reviews but also tbr’S / what I read in the month, reviews of a cool book subscription box I found that I’ll pick up from time to time and maybe even some baking posts!
If you have any ideas of what you want to see let me know!!
Ttyl for now xoxo
The red queen by Phillipa Gregory
I really enjoy a good historical fiction and one of my favourite time periods is the Tudor era. I just find their lives so interesting and I love to learn how different they are. Phillipa Gregory is my favourite author for this kind of thing, mainly because nearly all of her books are about the Tudor period but also she makes it interesting to read about the characters lives. So much research goes into her books to make them historically accurate but she used the gaps in knowledge and her writing style to make her characters more interesting.
This book starts off with Margaret Beaufort being a little girl and wanting to become a nun but being handed around to royal men to marry and have their children. At this stage of the book I felt really sorry for her. She was very clearly an innocent child who didn’t understand what was happening to her and it leaves you hoping that she grows up happy.
However as she starts growing up, I found I didn’t really like her much. She still acted the same as when she was a child and seemed to think she was better then everyone else and always commented that she was. However she was mother to Henry the VII and so this attitude could be put down to her believing she was royalty from a young age. I just found her hard to relate to and i didn’t really like her character.
The book is about how her son, Henry VII came into power from being something like 5th from the throne. I found it very interesting as the book goes into detail about the troubles and who was loyal to which king, who betrayed which king, but at times it was a little confusing. I liked that the majority of the book was writing about what news had been heard of the battles instead of actual descriptions of battle.
All in all I really enjoyed this book and think if you enjoy history you may like Phillipa Gregory novels. This book is the continuation of a series, but only in the fact of who was king at the time the story took place so you can read these as a series but they also make sense as stand alone a which I enjoy.
The next book I will be reading is the list by Joanna bolouri which my friend chose for me. Let me know if you have any recommendations or if you would like to know how I decide what to read next!!
Heartless by Marrissa Meyer
So this is my first review of the year and I must say I am a tad rusty! I picked this book up mainly because I read the lunar chronicles and fell in love with Marrissa Meyers writing style. I also love fairy tales and Alice in wonderland is one of my favourites. But also just take a moment to appreciate the beauty of this cover!! It’s stunning! Round of applause to the publisher and the artist, this is the perfect book cover!
Now onto the actual contents of the book. This is a spoiler free review so if you want to discuss the book in more details with others who have read the book I can create a discussion!!
First of all I feel like the continuity with Alice in wonderland and all the nursery rhymes and fairy tales included was amazing. I felt the same with the lunar chronicles, it’s clear that the author does her research in what she is writing and it’s also clear that she likes what she is writing! One of my favourite characters was Hatta and I felt like not only did he bring the original mad hatter to life, there was also a cheeky hint of Johnny Depps hatter, which pleased me greatly!
I love the use of the characters plots and how they relate to the main character Cath, and I loved every single one of them! I think that the joker was also written amazingly and I completely fell into their story.
The book is filled with plot twists and references to all sorts of other stories which I feel sets it apart from other stories. Although the original versions are clearly in the story, the characters story held it’s own and you weren’t held down or confused by other references.
I think this was a really good point of view story and has never been told before. It also gives background to a few Alice in wonderland characters that are pretty shocking!
I absolutely loved this books and really hope there is a sequel or that at least Meyer doesn’t take too long writing her next book! This book is appropriate for younger readers (like 11+) but I feel like it can also be enjoyed by older readers who are a fan of Alice in wonderland! I also found it was a really quick read even though some parts were pretty emotional!!
The next book I am reading is the Red Queen by Phillipa Gregory, clearly I am in the mood for red monarchs! Let me know if you’ve read this book so we can discuss it!
Guess whose back!
Hey guys,
As you can all tell I have been hideously inactive since the new year, and I’m not gonna lie to you, this year so far has been challenging. There have been some good times and some bad times and some very bad times, but I now feel like I’m at a place where I can come back and just enjoy myself.
In the time I’ve been gone I’ve still been reading but my book challenge is suffering a tad. I set myself a goal of 50 books this year and so far I’ve read 15!!
I’m hoping returning to tumblr and blogging about books will help with this and the inspiration! I recently joined a new Facebook group that is for discussing books and I just feels so at home I started missing the tumblr community!!
So I will start this new page of my blog with a book review tomorrow, maybe a tbr and some reading challenges to share with you guys!!
I have two challenges from my Facebook group this month, the first is read a fairy tale re-telling for which I have picked heartless by Marissa Meyer. I’m so excited to get stuck into this book! Let me know if you’ve read it and your thoughts, or if your currently reading it or have it on your to be read list let’s start a discussion about this book!!
I hope that you guys are as excited as I am to be turning over a new page and bringing some more positivity to life. I hope that you guys can see this as a safe space and some where to discuss your thoughts, maybe make some new friends too!!
If your an Instagram fanatic like I am come follow me at betsyboop22. I love making new friends and always need some inspiration for what to read next!!
As always millions of loves and kisses
Miss boop xx
My first book of the new year! I’m really excited that I read this book, I haven’t picked up a book since November when I booked my theory test and last week I passed! I can finally read guilt free which kicked me out of my reading slump completely! Review is posted below…
Book 1: The Widow by Fiona Barton
This book follows Jean whose husband has been arrested for a crime he says he didn’t commit. Jean, a housewife who is loyal during this time has reservations on whether he is really innocent.
I really enjoyed this book, as I have said above it was my first book in a little while and I’m really glad. It was such an interesting and gripping story without being hard to read. The language was simple so you didn’t feel like there was a load of stuff you were missing behind police jargon and I feel it helped make the characters more relatable. I read this book in 3 days it was so good I could not put it down!
In the beginning, Jean is shown to be hiding from the reporters until one forces her way into her life. Jean is described as a timid housewife who had no control during her marriage and who won’t take control after recent events. I feel like this helped create sympathy for jean, and also helped develop the story as the case unravelled, so did Jeans sanity and the picture we have of her in the beginning. It was very cleverly written. However Jean is written almost as an abused woman and the descriptions of her marriage are always quite pleasant (until the end of the marriage, you’ll see what I mean) and there didn’t seem to be much physical or mental abuse that it made me wonder how much of Jeans personality was the control her husband had over her, or if it was her way of denying facts.
Each chapter is written in a different characters perspective. I found this really interesting as you see the factual side of the investigation as well as the characters own personal take on the matter. What one character sees as an attack on them, the other character sees as just doing their job or trying to sympathise. It’s really interesting. At points, mainly in the beginning, the perspectives are written at different points in time which I sometimes found confusing, but you can quite quickly pick up where you left off and figure out what point in the case is being discussed.
Although I enjoyed the characters through out the book, the perspective is mainly written from Jeans point of view, and other characters are used to point out whether you believe the character is lying or not. I had my suspicions and they were right but not in the way I thought they would be. Even though I had figured out Jeans involvement in the case, the ending was still a surprise for me which I really enjoyed. It had a good mixture of being able to guess what was going on (instead of being sent on a goose
chase) and having a gripping ending.
One of the things I found the most gripping on this book, was the authors style of writing. In some ‘thriller’ novels, I struggle with the writing style which can be dense or over compensate with descriptions. I feel like Fiona Barton had a really good medium when writing this. It is really an enjoyable book. This is set to be a series, which will follow the reporter (i think). I’m not sure how I feel about this as I tend to get frustrated with series based on one character in a thriller/mystery novel, however as I really enjoyed the writing I will definitely pick up the next book : the child - which is out later this year.
I think if I had to rate this book it would be 4.5/5 stars. If you have read gone girl, the girl on the train or maybe before I go to sleep, I think you would enjoy this!
Next read: Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley
I only read 2 books in December. I would be disappointed but I’ve been really busy so it’s pretty good for the time I’ve had.
I’ve got another important event coming up in my life this month so I’m not picking up any new books until it’s passed so I can focus completely!
My goal for 2017 will definitely still be 50 books, I was off by quite a bit this year so hopefully I will fit in more this time
Harry Potter and the cursed child by j.k Rowling, john Tiffany and jack Thorne
I was quite disappointed with this book. I’m not a huge fan of reading scripts of plays, I don’t find it as enjoyable or as effective as you do actually seeing the play. I think that was one major problem I had with the book. I found that some of the characters from previous books weren’t portrayed the same and I didn’t really feel any emotion to the new characters. I think that would have been a lot different if this were a novel. For me there wasn’t that same spark you get with j.k rowlings writing. There were some parts which I felt were supposed to be emotional and I just didn’t feel connected to it. I think watching the play would be a different and better experience.
I also had a massive issue with some of the characters. I found harry completely unlikable in this book and felt he had completely lost some of his character. There were also some plot lines, especially at the end, which I can see would shock people but I just found them completely unbelievable and had trouble thinking j.k Rowling would write that. I understand she had a large part in writing the play but it just felt completely disconnected to what she’s previously written for characters and was written almost like fan fiction.
I found a lot of the story hadn’t quite grown with the story of Harry Potter. The old novels became more mature as Harry and the readers grew older but this felt like it had gone a few steps back, almost back to the beginning. I think I would have enjoyed a bit more action. It was almost a boys adventure story. I felt the parts that did have action were quite rushed and didn’t feel like a lot of time was spent on it.
All in all I think I would prefer to see the play. I think this is worth a read if your a Harry Potter fan and it was entertaining but not what I expected from j.k Rowling. 2/5
Elephants on acid by Alex Boese
This book is a collection of experiments that have been done in the past for questionable reasons or strange outcomes.
I read this book really quickly and enjoyed it. The experiments were incredibly interesting and it was great to see how they are still relevant to this day and age. I have a real interest in psychology and so it was a really interesting book to read.
I don’t know what else to say about this but I would definitely recommend it if you are interested in psychology or even just experiments. It’s a fun way to learn about new things or even to have a brief read through some psychology experiments.
4/5