Let’s Review; Black-eyed Suzie

Well well well, I felt adventurous and knocked out another book today. So let’s talk about “Black-eyed Suzie” by Susan Shaw.

This book is about a twelve year old girl named Suzie who is stuck in a psychological box. The jacket describes that Suzie cannot eat, sleep, speak or walk anymore while in her box, though she doesn’t seem to realize how dangerous this is. Her Mother insists that she’s just “going through a phase” while her Father is rarely ever home. It’s only one day when her Uncle stops by that she’s taken to see someone. This is how she ends up in St. Dorothy’s mental hospital. There she befriends her therapist Stella and a boy named Joshua who’s happy despite his own on-going tragedy. Slowly she must try and piece together bits and pieces of broken memories that will change Suzie’s life forever.

Let me just start the actual review of this by stating one thing: This book genuinely gets sad on page 2. You open the book, read the little first page where Suzie describes her box and then you turn the page and BAM. Sad. Now from the very beginning of this book it’s quite obvious as to what the psychological damage was caused by, well who at least. The book remains pretty sad as you start to piece things together but it does start to get happier and the ending is a very happy one as well.

Despite it being a small book it was really good and I’d definitely recommend it if you want something short and eventually cute.

I definitely like how Suzy’s emotions are displayed through the book and while my own emotions are clearly not so bad, they’re still similar in a small way. I also enjoyed the character development of the little devil Karen, trust me, it’s good. I also really liked the peacock feathers thing (which is not too spoilery so I think its okay to mention them c; )

The only thing negative I have to say about this book is that there are some times where the wording gets a bit confusing? And sometimes you can’t quite figure out who exactly is speaking. And of course I sort of wish the book was a little bit longer but its actually the perfect size for the story so that’s just a personal preference.

Overall, the book has earned a 4/5 stars.

Let’s Review; Cinder

I literally just finished this book less than an hour ago and I’m in love so lets review “Cinder” by Marissa Meyers.

The story swaps perspectives between Cinder (our futuristic Cyborg Cinderella) and Prince Kai (who I personally picture with a super dreamy voice– yum) as they deal with the plague of Letumosis as well as foreign affairs.

I really liked this writer’s style of writing and it was a well constructed story. Never once did I ever feel like I had to force myself to keep reading, in fact had it not been for other responsibilities I would have finished this book in one day despite its near 400 pages. Now this book is the first book chosen for the bookclub that myself and my cousin have started and I think it was a superb choice, though my cousins already on book three of the series. Thanks Brandi.

The story opens with Cinder in her mechanics booth while she waits for a very important item from her family’s android Iko. It then follows her point of view as it shows you her home life as well as introducing the events that are happening in New Beijing as well as pushing you full force into the drama of the plague.

There’s not too much I can say without giving any spoilers but I am definitely loving this book and I would be more than happy to reread it again one day.

My favorite aspects of this retelling would have to do with the people of Luna. I also find it exceptionally settling that Cinder’s much more mundane than the classic Cinderella. It being set in a futuristic setting was definitely a very good touch and obviously I loved the cyborg aspect, I mean come on, who doesn’t love a good cyborg.

Things I didn’t like about the book include small things like Cinder’s lie detecting technology, I mean it kind of takes away the mystery (though it is really necessary for something that occurs later on in the book). And the only other thing I can really think of may be that there were a few instances where a trigger warning might have been nice? I don’t want to spoil anything so that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

My cousin believed the end to be a cliffhanger though I didn’t really see it that way personally as I feel a cliffhanger is something like (and this is totally just an example and doesn’t happen in the book lol) “She glanced over her shoulder at the deep cavern behind her, it had to be at least a thirty foot fall. With one final breath, she allowed herself to fall backwards, just as Grayson ran towards her.” Again, just an example. But I definitely feel something like that would be a cliffhanger, and I really feel Cinder didn’t end quite like that. I feel like it ends in a way where you know whats gonna happen within the first few chapters of the next book so I’m probably gonna try and pick it up next month instead of worrying about picking it up as soon as possible. But then again, I could be wrong 😉

Overall I would HIGHLY recommend this book and I rate it a solid 5/5 stars.

Let’s Review; Jasper Jones

Today’s book review is of “Jasper Jones” by Craig Silvey.

This story follows Charlie as he’s suddenly thrown into a mystery with the town of Corrigan’s “bad boy”, the two must figure out who did ‘it’ and figure out how to prove it before the town– as always– points their fingers to Jasper.

One night, Jasper Jones knocks on Charlie’s window, telling him that he needs Charlie to trust him. Looking for excitement, Charlie says yes and agrees to follow Jasper into the dark of the night. They travel on foot to a secret glade where Jasper spends a lot of his time. There, they discover ‘it’. (for the sake of spoilers I’m not going to state what ‘it’ is– though it might be hinted). Scared out of his mind Charlie wants to immediately report the incident, though Jasper brings up one vital point. Jasper is the only one who knew how to get to the hidden glade, the finger will inevitably point to him and he’d be put away for something he didn’t do. It’s then up to the two of them to find out who actually did it and quickly, before ‘it’ is truly discovered.

This book honestly had me hooked from the minute Jasper knocked on Charlie’s window. Each step of the way felt like I was being taken deeper and deeper into the story and I was eager to know the results (which I actually pretty much had a good idea a little more than halfway through the book). The storyline is very nice and I didn’t have much trouble in picking it up and resuming where I left off.

One of my favorite aspects of the book is ‘Mad Jack Lionel’, it has a very ‘Boo Radley’ effect to it and I find it especially hilarious since Atticus Finch is mentioned numerous times through out the book, meaning while Charlie has clearly read the book and therefore knows how the situation with ‘Boo Radley’ ends, he’s still utterly petrified of ‘Mad Jack Lionel’. Once its revealed who Jack truly is, I was blown away. And also really really REALLY sad.

The end I totally did see coming, and there is one character who seems to be the blame of ‘it’ due only to lack of empathy (which is also shown in the end of the book) and while I find that lacking personality trait a bit alarming, the character is also one of my favorites in the book despite not really seeming to have a terribly important of a role.

Overall this book was really well written and was a very good read (thank you Rachel for your suggestion lol). And I’ve actually learned it’s to become a movie soon, wow imagine that.

The only thing I didn’t particularly like was the bad bits of grammar that Charlie and Jasper seemed to show (and I also didn’t like Charlie’s mothers bad attitude nor did I particularly like the law enforcement or sports teams oops). I also wasn’t a huge fan of how long the chapters were but that’s only a minor issue. These are all simple things that were easily brushed aside due to the quality of the story itself.

I would definitely recommend this book and I rate it a solid 4/5 stars.

 

April 2016 TBR

Hello everybody! My name is Starr and this is my first post since starting this wordpress account. This account will be mostly for book reviews as well as series and author views (though those are much later to come).

However today I’d like to instead post my To-Be-Read list for April.

I do have a few books I’d like to get at reading this upcoming month and I’m hoping to get through them all (if not, a majority of them). The first of which is going to be “Cinder” by Marissa Meyer. I’ve heard a lot of good things about this book as well as the other books in the Lunar Chronicles and I’m pretty excited to see how they all turn out. I’m actually reading this book first because myself and my cousin Brandi have both decided to start a small book club (currently we are the only two members), and I got to choose the first book, yay!

The other books in my list include; “Jays Journal” by Anonymous, “The Never List” by Zoethi Kan, “Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes” by Edith Hamilton and “Black-Eyed Suzy” by Susan Shaw.

Only after I picked out these books did I realize I forgot to include either one of the two books that I bought more recently. Whoops.. If I somehow manage to read through all of the books above I’ll probably read one of the two (The first is “All Gone” by Alex Witchel while the other is “She Left Me the Gun” by Emma Brockes). I’m not sure if I will end up reading either of them this month but if not, they will most definitely be on my list for May.

With each book that I read I intend to write an honest review, highlighting the things I liked and disliked about the book and also bringing up some things that may have me stumped or pure speculations and theories about plot gaps or future books (should it be part of a series).

If you think any of that sounds pretty interesting feel free to stick around c:

Sincerely, Starr.