Review of 'Everything Everything' by Nicola Yoon

Happy New Year everyone! I've spent some time attempting (help) to start catching up on these reviews tonight, so here I am, post-midnight trying to scramble some thoughts together. We're onto our fourth review of the big bunch now and I'm starting to get to grips with sorting these all out.

Everything Everything is something I just *had* to read as soon as I saw the movie trailer come out. The film looked incredible, but I'm less sad I didn't see it now that I've read the book ...

Madeline's got a disease that makes her allergic to, well, pretty much everything. Forced to stay inside a home with filtered air, and seeing only her mother and her nurse Carla, Maddie's mostly content with her life. Until Olly moves in next door. With his dark, brooding looks, Maddie's drawn to him, and connecting over IM only brings them closer. The problem is that Olly (and Maddie) wants more, but they can't have it. As their lives intertwine, they begin to realise that maybe everything's not what they thought ...

I'm honestly excited to see what Nicola Yoon brings out next, as although I didn't deeply enjoy this, it is her debut novel. I loved the idea of the story, but I felt as though there were flaws in it (pointing these out will totally spoiler the book, but there were definitely some holes that made everything a little sketchy). I really wanted to not be right when I thought I guessed the ending, because it just seemed so unbelievable, but I was disappointed there too. 

As YA books goes, I think this was bordering on teen fiction. Whilst there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, I just felt a little too old for it. I'd recommend this for teen fiction rather than YA fans.

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Review of 'The Chalk Pit' by Elly Griffiths

And we're here: the last book review of 2018. What a year it's been eh? I've challenged myself to read more than ever and I have absolutely LOVED it. I'll be doing a big post of my Goodreads roundup (the good, the bad and the ugly) over on my main blog www.nourishmeblog.co.uk, but I've now read 58 books in the year(!), and I've got a whole lot of reviews coming your way asap.

After finding boiled bones in an underground cave in Norwich, Dr Ruth Galloway is called in to investigate. Discovering that they might not be as ancient as originally thought, the local police are on the case, which may not be anywhere near as simple as you'd hope. Local homeless people are going missing, and after one turns up murdered on the door of the police station, the force must take action. 

With rumours that homeless people are going 'underground', both Ruth and DI Harry Nelson start to formulate their own theories on what's going on. But will they reach the right conclusion before yet another person is hurt?

In all honesty, this wasn't a great read for me. Maybe it's because I'm not a massive crime thriller fan, but I found that the whole book dragged a lot. I found myself having to force myself to pick the book up to read and it was really a challenge to finish the whole thing. I also struggled to keep up with the characters, and who was who, which I don't find myself doing very often, and I definitely felt it could be a lot clearer. 

All in all I couldn't recommend this, and I'm not sure if I'll try another read from the same author, although I've heard good things from other book bloggers! 

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Review of '13 Minutes' by Sarah Pinborough

I warned you all that these reviews would be coming in fast (mostly because I've actually counted up how behind I am and wow I have two days to not be). This book was kindly given to me by my friend Aimee over at Aimee Raindrop Writes because she knew how much I wanted to get my hands on it!

I've not read masses of YA fiction this year (something that'll be firmly on the agenda for 2019), and this was one I thoroughly enjoyed. Sarah Pinborough's an author that I'm firmly interested in getting to read more of, and I'll be trying to pick up a few of her adult thrillers too.

Everything in Becca's world is going swimmingly. That is, until her ex-best-friend Natasha is pulled from a river, having been dead for 13 minutes. No one knows how Natasha ended up there, especially as she's the most popular girl in the school. But, open waking in her hospital bed, she asks for Becca. Soon Becca's embroiled in a search for the truth of how Natasha ended up in the river, and there are some twists no one was expecting.

I read a book around this time last year with a fairly similar storyline, and I was so gutted as it meant that I guessed a few of the important twists and turns in the book. BUT, there were some things I really didn't see coming, and it was a thriller I couldn't put down. 

I'd recommend this if you're a fan of YA thriller fiction, as it is a great read that I loved getting through.

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Review of 'Ink' by Alice Broadway

It's gotten to the part of the year where I need to start cramming all of the reviews that I'm way behind on into the next few days to try to start 2019 as on track as possible. New year, new me and all that jazz eh?

So here's the first instalment to the big run, and I hope you're as excited as I am! Even with this being a kindle read, the cover still had me blown away with how beautiful it was, and now all I need is this and the second in the trilogy, Spark, in a physical copy to look beautiful on my bookshelves. 

Ink tells the tale of Leora, a girl living in a world where everyone's life stories are told on their skins. For every significant life event, you get marked by an expert tattooist, and your tattoos are all created in the style of your personality. Leora's recently lost her father, and when his skin book (a collection of all the tattoos on his skin) is weighed to see whether he's been a good or bad person throughout his life, Leora discovers that a tattoo of his has been removed.

A crow is the sign of a traitor, and is used for only the most severe of crimes. Once you're marked, there's no going back, and you will be struck off the remembrance list once you've passed away. Leora's understanding of who she is and who her family are is turned upside down in a life that's already changing rapidly. It's down to Leora to see that her father gets remembered, and to find out the truth about whether his skin book is missing a little something. 

I loved this so much that I immediately downloaded the sequel, Spark, and I'm beyond excited for the third installment in the series to come out. You can bet it'll be making its way right onto my kindle. I've never read anything with a similar idea, and I love/am terrified by the idea that people could see everything about you on your skin. This is a fantasy world that I am so intrigued by and I'll be sharing my review of Spark soon!

Have you read Ink? Did you enjoy it?

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Review of 'Sex, Suicide and Serotonin' by Debbie Hampton

This really has been a year for mental health reading for me, and I've loved delving into non-fiction for pleasure for the first time in my life. Sex, Suicide and Serotonin has been one of the most eye-opening books of 2018 for me. It's filled with a whole plethora of information on how the brain functions, as well as an insight into what it's like to be someone who has survived a suicide attempt.

The book starts with Debbie's attempted suicide. After swallowing a concoction of alcohol and pills, Debbie was found by her teenage son and brought to the hospital. Unable to ascertain exactly what had been consumed, the doctors were unable to pump Debbie's stomach and she experienced severe brain injury as a result of her actions, but survived. The story tells the tale of Debbie's recovery from someone who is unable to speak, walk or eat without assistance, to someone who's written her own book and leads an independent life.

The thing that most interested me was the sheer range of techniques that Debbie tried to help her in her recovery, both mentally and physically. Not satisfied with traditional medicine, Debbie finds additional therapies to help nudge her along to health.

This book was such a powerful read for me, especially as you really don't hear much about adult suicide attempts in the media. As someone with a parent who's struggled with this, I found it an incredibly insightful read, and one that I would recommend.

Have you read it, or anything similar?

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Review of 'Beautiful Broken Things' by Sara Barnard

Most YA fiction that I've come across has focused on romance, which I LOVE, but sometimes friendships get completely overlooked in the face of a cute teen love story. Yet friendships make up a massive part of being a teen, or young adult, and even outweigh the romance. I think it's *so* important for books to recognise this, and remind us all that friends are important, and they can revolutionise some really important years for us all.

Beautiful Broken Things is a book primarily about friendship. Caddy and Rosie have been friends for years, but live on opposite sides of the track: Caddy goes to an expensive private school, and longs for a significant life event to happen to her, whilst Rosie's already experienced trauma in her life. The girls are inseparable, until Suzanne comes along. Troubled and mysterious, she joins Rosie's school and unwittingly creates a wedge between the two best friends.

I think we've all been in that position of anxiety, when our best friend threatens (albeit passively) to become best friends with someone else. Caddy feels undermined, and at first she's determined to push Suzanne out, but eventually she becomes even better friends than Suzanne is with Rosie.

Suzanne is beautiful, but has some serious mental health issues, and a tragic past that keeps catching up with her. The exploration of her mental health problems was incredible - it was an accurate portrayal of a teenage girl struggling to make her way in the world. She made a whole host of mistakes, she was conflicted, and I just really think the author nailed what it's like to not be sure of yourself when the world is telling you that it's time you should know.

I honestly believe the media has such a detrimental effect on the way girls treat each other: we're always portrayed as enemies, as not to be trusted, and as creatures that spend their whole lives trying to hunt down a man. It's just not the case. Beautiful Broken Things is an important book because it completely avoids romance, and focuses on the issue of female friendship, finally showcasing that this often is what a teen girl's life is all about.

I'll be giving this 5 stars, and I really would recommend it to fans of YA fiction.

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Review of 'Germinal' by Emile Zola

Every so often, you come across a translated book that makes you wish that you could read the language the author intended the book to be written in. Germinal is one of those books for me. Every scene was described beautifully, and so much emotion seemed to be placed into every word, that I couldn't help but wonder how much more intense the language of the French original was. 

This book is considered as one of the greatest works of French fiction, telling the story of a great miners' strike of the 1860s. It delves into the intense poverty suffered by French miners and their families when they upheld a lengthy strike to protest against the pitiful wages being offered.

Zola tells the tale of a whole myriad of sufferings the miners face, including the placement of women in the pits, landslides, the impact of injuries, illnesses that come from mine work, and how all of these worked together to make an unliveable environment for French miners.

Although it's not a book that I would say I particularly enjoyed, it's definitely one that I'm glad I've read, as it taught me so much about a time period and a group of people that I would otherwise know absolutely nothing about.

Have you read it? What other of Emile Zola's books would you recommend?

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