Booktube-A-Thon and Bi-Annual Bibliothon TBR

Next week marks the start of the Youtube "Booktube-a-thon" and the "Bi-Annual Bibliothon" which means a busy reading week.  As I am on honeymoon I hope I will get a lot of reading done on the cruise. I am using a few books to cover 2 of the challenges as there are 14 challenges in all and there is no way I can read 14 books in one week!

Booktube-a-thon Challenges:

1. Read a book with a person on the cover - "When Dimple Met Rishi"
2. Read a hyped book - "The Power"
3. Finish a book in a day - "The Yellow Wallpaper"
4. Read a book with a character different to you - "When Dimple Met Rishi"
5. Finish a book outdoors - "The Yellow Wallpaper"
6. Read a book you bought because of the cover - "The Power"
7. Read 7 books.

Bi-Annual Bibliothon

1. Read the group book - "Flame in the Mist"
2. Read a book from one of the hosts categories - historical fiction - "The Essex Serpent"
3. Read a book that has been banned - "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone"
4. Read a book that is a throwback to a previous challenge - a book from childhood "Harry Potter"
5. Read a book that has been adapted to a movie - "My Cousin Rachel"
6. Read a book you saw somewhere other than booktube - "My Cousin Rachel"
7. Read an LGBTQIA+ Book - "History is All You Left Me"

If I get through all of these challenges I will be very pleased as that is A LOT OF READING. 

I am looking forward to stepping up to it and getting as much done as I possibly can though!

Meg x

The Handmaid's Tale: Review

We all have that list of books that we know we "should" have read before.  The ones that everyone goes on and on about or refer to in high brow literary conversations.  Especially when your job centres around reading and books and literature (now that I have thought of it I think this may be another blog post in the making!)."The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood was one of those books for me that I had always wanted to read but just never really made the time for it. In June I started watching the TV series and loved the first episode so much that I knew I just had to read it.  I was delighted when the book club I am part of selected it as one of their reads and it did not disappoint.

This one of very few 5 star reviews I have left on Goodreads. Atwood skilfully built a society called Gilead which was created when a Christian group kills the American congress members and President and take over America in a bid to create a military run dictatorship.  The Handmaids are a group of women whose sole purpose is for recreation.  The society has faced a decline in fertility which is something that the new dictatorship believe has to be conquered.  The Handmaids are distributed to the ruling class families who use them in attempt to make them surrogate mothers for the family.  The story is told in the first person by the main character, Offred, a Handmaid who is assigned to her third family.

Firstly, the setting was dealt with in such a complete, encompassing amount of description throughout.  I felt so submerged and involved with the novel that when I stopped I had to remind myself that it wasn't really happening.  The society was not so far-fetched that it was unimaginable, instead it created an alternate realistic society with flawed characters, powerful themes and that creates a connection to the reader which is maintained all the way through.

Offred is all the more realistic for the flashbacks to the times she was happy with her family and to the start of the revolution.  Offred's past is a painful reminder of what things used to be like.  It is all the worse because she knows what she is missing.  Offred is inspired by a friend, Moira, who is a powerful woman on a mission to break out of the oppression she faces as a woman under the new regime.  The female characters we meet throughout the novel all have their own ways to try and break away from the rules of the regime.

Individuality, or the importance of individuality, is explored through the many ways that the woman are categorised and forced to leave behind their individuality and become a collective group of women without any sort of individual thought.  All of the Handmaids are identified by their distinct red dresses and white hats which block out their vision preventing them from seeing or being seen.  The educational centre run by the Aunts is a facility which teaches Handmaids how they should conduct themselves.  It is a harrowing experience for the Handmaids who are cruelly and severely
punished for the slightest wrong-doing.  At the centre they are taught to behave and conduct themselves in exactly the same way as every other Handmaid.

For me one of the most disturbing descriptions were of the "unbabies" or "shredders" which were the babies born with defects or physical disabilities.  There is no telling what actually happens to these babies but it is known that they are not kept.  The society does not use the modern facilities for testing pre-natal health in babies, it is forbidden to conduct health checks before birth.  The Handmaids live in fear of giving birth to an "unbaby" which is terrifying because it harks back to days gone by where we did not have the facilities that we do now to check the health of babies. I feel this is something that made me appreciate the health services available to us that we just take for granted at the moment.

This book really got under my skin. I felt like it was so real that I truly became immersed within the setting, characters and events.  This is a testament to the writing of Atwood as I usually find it difficult to engage with dystopian literature.  This is far and above my favourite dystopian novel that I have read to date.

Next up: Popular books that I have not yet read - TBR!

Meg x

July TBR

There is no point in setting myself up to read too much this month.  I get married and am on honeymoon for a chunk so I want to be realistic.  I have started with 4 books but we will see how that goes! I will probably add some more since I have already finished one and am about 130 pages from finishing the second!

1. "The Red Parts" by Maggie Nelson - I have now finished this one as it was quite short but also really enthralling.  I will get to a detailed review in my July wrap up but this book was fantastic.  It followed the true story of a murder trial years after the event. I was really keen to read this because I had heard so many great reviews of the writing style. I also really love crime stories - fiction and non-fiction so I was really drawn to this from the moment I heard the synopsis.

2. "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood - This is one I am currently reading and almost finished. It really is a modern classic novel and after watching the first episode of the new TV series I absolutely knew that I would have to read it straight away.  It is a short read again but is very powerful.  I am really excited to finish this one because I am loving the writing style and the way Atwood has created and developed her characters.









3. "Into the Water" by Paula Hawkins - This is one of my book club reads for the month which I am really excited about.  This one I will be listening to on Audible this month because I want to try to get through it quite quickly and maybe take it on holiday too.  I absolutely loved "The Girl on the Train" so I have really high expectations for this one.  I just hope it doesn't disappoint because of the hype about it so far. 








4. "Lorali" by Laura Dockrill - I am not a huge fan of high fantasy, mermaids etc. I will admit that straight away I have my doubts about this one.  I have heard that it is superb which is the reason I picked this one up.  I had a quick read at the first few chapters and it seems to be really well written so far.  I think I will need to keep focus on this one though because I get easily bored of fantasy and so I really need to persevere with this one.





There are a few more n my horizon that are my "Hope To Read" list if I get finished:
"The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas
"lying about last summer" by Sue Wallman

As soon as the wedding is done I will be able to commit a lot more time to reading and hopefully get through a little more.

Meg x

June Book Haul (Be prepared - I bought lots!)

All year I have promised that as soon as we got to the summer holidays I would go all out to boost my reading time.  What an excellent excuse to get myself some new books! For the first time in my life I got myself a Kindle last month so a lot of the books I got are on there.  Much as I have mixed emotions about Kindles I have been blown away by how handy it has been.  Because I am going on honeymoon this month I needed to invest in a way that I could take as many books as possible with me on holiday without doing in my case weight.

I will keep each synopsis as brief as I can.

I saw this book on a few Booktube channels as being highly recommended.  It is about a dystopian future where women suddenly have all of the power.  They wake up one day and have the ability to cause pain and even death.  Men are disempowered all of a sudden and find themselves at the mercy of women. I am REALLY looking forward to this one!

 "See What I Have Done" is a novel which is based on the Lizzie Borden axe murders in Massachusetts.  I love novels based on real life events so I was drawn to this own.  The story starts off when the bodies of a mother and father are discovered by their youngest daughter having been axed to death.  It then looks at the other members of the household who each have their own stories to tell.

This is another novel based in a dystopian version of the world where a deadly plague is contributing to the end of the world. Humans everywhere are spontaneously combusting and the fire is spreading.  I was drawn to this because the protagonist is female which is unusual for the genre.  She is a pregnant nurse who is determined to live long enough to give birth to her child.

Another true crime novel.  Maggie Nelson's aunt was murdered.  After years of investigation by her she realises that the police have also been working on it and have a strong new lead.  They arrest a man who then goes on trial for the murder.  Maggie and her mother attend the trial every day.  This documents her emotional journey and thoughts as she watches the trial.

I am not usually a fan of fantasy novels - particularly ones about mermaids.  This follows the story of a mermaid princess who is running away from the sea and being a princess.  She goes to live on shore and is under the care of a young boy who is trying everything to keep her safe.  I believe there are also pirates involved here too...This one was another BookTube recommendation so I will give it a go!

Our main protagonist (Tara Sharp) is gifted with the power to read people's auras and find out things that they would not necessarily want people to know about.  Tara uses this power to help her progress her career and to get out of some sticky situations.  This is one that is supposed to be funny and witty so I am interested to see how that comes across.

This is a book club read this month and after reading "The Girl on the Train" in a day I was keen to see this. A single mother along with other women has been found at the bottom of a river.  The discovery leads to the reveal of other secrets that the river has been hiding for many years. Her daughter goes to live with her aunt who is a stranger to her.  Her aunt lives in fear and has tried to run away from the place she keeps being dragged back to.

A world where everyone lives on Mars after Earth was destroyed years ago.  The protagonist is a girl who is a trained fighter who is chosen by her school to travel on the mission back to Earth where she will discover many secrets.

This novel has been recommended to me so many times. I am so excited to read this one.  Starr witnesses her unarmed friend being shot dead by a police officer.  This looks at the media portrayal of the shooting and how young people are portrayed in the media.  Her life is in danger but she is the only person who is still alive that really knows the truth.

This is set in 1812 in London.  Lady Helen is about to be presented to the Queen when one of her housemaids disappears the night before.  She has to decide whether she can trust the dark lord Carlston to help her get to the bottom of the mystery.

Last but not least...

In every generation three triplets are born.  This is the first in a trilogy which follows the journey of 3 sisters who each have their own unique powers.  They must fight for the one crown to decide who will become queen.  I have heard lots of good things about this one so can't wait to get stuck in!

Sorry for the long haul - hopefully some good reads amongst the list.

Meg x

June Reads

My aim for the year was to read a minimum of two books each month.  A reasonable target that I have plodded along with until June when I have manged to exceed my expectations and read a whopping FOUR books.  In comparison to my younger, pre-work, years this is nothing but a definite improvement on the the last few years nonetheless.

The first book I read this month was "Needful Things" by Stephen King.

At first I found this book incredibly strange.  This was largely due to the fact that I have been using the Whispersync feature on my Kindle to connect with Audible versions of my ebooks and the Audible version had weird music on it. That almost put me off reading it I have to say!  One thing it did do was encourage me to use Kindle a lot more than the audio version of this book. Aside from that I ended up rating this 5/5 stars on Goodreads.

The consistent characters (Leland Gaunt and Alan Pangborn) were enough to give the plot stability in a novel where there was a lot of characters and lots of sub-plots all feeding into the actual story.  At first I found the jumping between characters and use of a third person narrative a little bit tricky but all too soon I was engrossed in the world manipulated by Gaunt.

In terms of the fear factor this was MUCH creepier than "It" and probably on par with "The Shining" for me.  Leland Gaunt's character really, truly got under my skin.  There were sections of character description so vivid that I felt like Gaunt could walk off the pages and appear in front of me. This is one that I will probably go back to read again in the future because I feel like there were chunks of the story that were revisited at the end that I had not given a lot of thought or consideration to but that would help the story make more sense towards the end. This book truly left me with the chills from start to finish.

My next June read was the first of two book club reads. That is "Red Queen" by Victoria Aveyard which was a 4/5 star rating for me but I think would probably be nearer a 3 in hindsight.

This was a fantasy novel which, to be honest, is not a genre I have been engaging with much in the past few years. The world is based around a dystopian society in which the population is split into two categories: silver bloods and red bloods.  The red bloods are treated as inferior and are forced into the more menial jobs in society.  The silver bloods are all equipped with special talents/powers which is what makes them superior.

The book was a really quick read for me but it was one that I had mixed feelings about. The characters were very difficult to connect with initially and a lot of what the main character (Mare) does seems insincere and does not make sense.  The plot is up and down and sometimes lacks a real sense of direction because it is doing so much in a short space of time.  For me the plot twists are too transparent throughout and I felt let down by the fact that these twists were fairly obvious and, as a result, I could easily predict the ending.  I HATE that in a book I must say.

The main redeeming quality of this book was the fact that the author had built such an amazing setting for her story to develop through.  I felt the setting was the one thing that really pulled this story up.

My second book club read of the month was "After the Crash" by Michel Bussi. This book could not have less than a 5/5 star review from me. I absolutely loved it.

This was a novel steeped in mystery.  It follows the search to find the identity of a baby who survived a terrible plane crash which killed everyone else on the plane.  As it happens, there were two babies of similar ages who were on the plane which casts doubt on which the survivor could be.

The characters created by Bussi were so advanced and realistic made me feel like they were real people living somewhere in France.  Very quickly this book had me totally engaged in the mystery and making excuses to take every spare moment to read further on.  The characters all had realistic flaws which made them more relatable.  I think the fact that the romantic aspect of this novel was so far removed from the main plot meant that it was not all cheesy and soppy but it was one I was rooting for to succeed.

At no point in the novel did I figure out the ending which bodes well for me.  I did struggle with the personality of the private investigator who was retelling the events of the life of the girl as she grew up.  There was some really weird sexual references that he made that were very sporadic but also SO creepy. This novel was nothing short of fantastically written.  I will be very surprised if this does not end up on my top 10 reads of the year.

Finally for June I read "11/22/63" by Stephen King.  This left me with real mixed feelings aswell and I only gave it 3/5 stars.

So what did this book do well? As with any Stephen King books, the main thing that stands out is his character development.  Jake Epping is a great protagonist and I really enjoy being in his head for the journey through time that he goes on.  His moral journey is as important as the physical trips that he takes.   The events of the story throw his moral judgement into question and as I read through it I was rooting for him to succeed but also a little bit hoping that he would be selfish and follow his heart.

This King novel dipped into several other storylines from his books including "It" and "Needful Things" mainly through the settings it used in bits and pieces.  There was a lot of cross-overs which, actually, I really liked.

The main flaws I found with this novel was that, in contrast to "Needful Things", it was just not very creepy. I think I expected a lot from this because I love historical fiction and this was something a little different because of the time travel element.  I think that King was far too indulgent with his character which meant that the plot was very slow moving and took a while to get to.  There was a lot of this story that could have been taken out and the story would have been just as good and the meaning would not be lost without these parts.

I think for now I am putting Stephen King to one side until I have gotten through some other authors.

My next post (hopefully this weekend) will be my June book haul. Pre-warning: it could be a LONG post - I went a bit daft!

Meg x