elementarymydear's Reviews (967)

 I knew going into this book that I would enjoy it. If you’ve seen the film Pride, the premise is basically: what if the arrival of LGSM to a small Welsh village helped a young woman in that village realise she was gay?

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What follows is a coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of 1980s social change, and firmly rooted in south Wales. Eluned, the main character, goes on such a journey, taking one step at a time further and further away from her front door. While it did take me a few chapters to settle into the writing style, Eluned is a compelling lead and you can’t help but hope that things work out for the best for her.

This book is messy in the best way. It’s about the mess of real life: of family drama, romantic successes and disasters, and the scrapes we get ourselves into when we leave the nest for the first time and attempt to fly. There was also a wonderful full circle moment towards the end, which tied together Eluned’s past and present for an incredibly satisfying conclusion.

I received a free copy for review. All opinions are my own. 

 Yellowface is two excellent books, that combine to make one very good book.

On the one hand, we have a thriller. June, a relatively unsuccessful author, steals a manuscript from her college friend Athena’s house the night she dies, and publishes it under her own name. Mostly set in the echo chamber of book Twitter and the cut-throat publishing industry, it’s a page-turner of a mystery as you are desperate to know if June gets away with it, or gets her comeuppance.

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On the other hand, we have a commentary on the commodification of diversity, and the ongoing debate on who can write what. For the most part, this is tied together brilliantly with the thriller aspect. June exploits both Asian American individuals and community groups to boost her credibility, alongside an ethnically ambiguous pen name and author photo. Her fear at being discovered as having stolen her friend’s book is inseparable from her rage at being criticised for being too white to publish a book about the historic struggles of a marginalised group, which makes her an incredibly compelling character.

All of the characters are deliciously unlikeable. Everyone is duplicitous, power-hungry, and desperate for the spotlight. The relationship between June and Athena was particularly compelling, a one-sided, obsessive friendship built on jealousy and envy. In June’s mind – and therefore to us, the reader – Athena exists purely in relation to her, and her complex feelings towards Athena are her motivation for much of the book.

The ending was where the book didn’t quite come together as I’d have hoped. With so many layers to the story it felt a bit cut-and-dry, like June was told what-for and then we’re told what happened next in a matter of paragraphs. Just one more chapter, to take a little bit longer on the fallout of what happens and to savour it, would have made a huge difference for me.

I thought long and hard about my rating for this book. I’ve definitely given worse books a higher rating. Ultimately, though, this book did not quite deliver what it promised. It is still a great book, which keeps the reader gripped and discusses lots of interesting, timely and often difficult themes. I will be interested to see how well this book does outside of Twitter and Goodreads, as the chronically-online aspect of book Twitter is almost a character in its own right. Either way, this is a book that is going to spark a lot of discussion and will be talked about for years to come. 

I received a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.

 In I Know You, Russell Goven has combined romance, mystery, and family secrets into a compelling story about choosing love. 

Eilidh was a brilliant main character, and a very true-to-life depiction of an 18-year-old. She was optimistic, a touch naive, but also pragmatic and headstrong. We meet her at a very tumultuous time in her life, and I certainly had some flashbacks to my own A-Level results day! 

Time travel romances can often be difficult to land, when you have two people of different ages meet at different stages in life, sometimes including childhood. What I really liked in this book though was that while Eilidh did meet Walter at different times in his life, that wasn’t what made her fall in love with him. Rather, she saw the potential for the happiness she could have with him throughout her life, and she had the opportunity to choose to meet him at the same age as her so they could grow old together. It was a really good use of the trope and set this book apart (and, in my opinion, above) others of the genre. 

I would have loved for this book to be longer. For a story with so much depth and with so much going on, it sometimes felt like we were jumping from one event to another without any time to examine and reflect on what was going on. The rules that govern time travel in this particular book weren’t always addressed or were raised as and when they were needed, and I think a longer book could have given us more time to understand and settle in with the rules of this world. 

This was still an incredibly enjoyable read though, and a must-read for anyone who enjoys time travel romance! 

I received a free copy as part of the Travelling Pages Book Tour. All opinions are my own. 

I was a bit surprised at the start of this book that we have switched main characters, from Lew and Alec, to Will and Fenn. Changing protagonists in the final book of a series is always a risky move, but in this case it absolutely paid off!

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The developing relationship between Will and Fenn (to call it just a romance feels like a disservice) is the emotional heart of this book, and had me invested from the very start to the final moments of the book. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: A. L. Lester knows how to create characters and relationships in just a few lines that many authors struggle to create across a whole book.

The paranormal mystery aspect wasn’t as strong in this book as it was in the previous one, although I didn’t mind so much given the strength of the character arcs. I think if you’re reading this one to discover the conclusion of the big fight you might be a little bit disappointed, but if you’re here for the characters you definitely won’t be!

Once again, there was excellent narration from Callum Hale. He’s particularly good at being Will, so it was a very immersive listening experience.

I received a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.

 

This book had a lot of strengths, and approached a lot of really interesting ideas. It’s a great premise: there are thousands of grim reapers who have daily and monthly quotas to fill. We follow one reaper as he struggles to meet his monthly quota of ‘random deaths’, and he finds ways to justify to himself the choices that he makes.

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The book is essentially a fictionalised version of a thought experiment: if you had to kill 30 random people, who would you choose? The woman with undiagnosed terminal cancer? The abusive husband? How do you decide who should live or die? It’s a fascinating question to explore through this medium, and forces the reader to consider that question for ourselves.

There were a lot of moral questions asked, and even if they weren’t necessarily answers, there was always some exploration the possibilities. I liked the ongoing theme of the Reaper searching for his humanity, and I liked the conclusion – the fact that ultimately, many deaths are preventable.

Really, this book was too short. It deserved more space for the world to be established, and for these moral questions to be explored. There were a few cliches that perhaps should have been avoided, and the twist/reveal towards the end didn’t have much impact as I didn’t feel embedded enough into the world for it to have much emotional impact.

There are lots of really great elements in this book, all tied together with a dark but entertaining sense of humour. I just would have liked a bit more, and to really be given the chance to explore both the story and the ideas in it further.

I received a free copy for this book tour. All opinions are my own.

 

 This was an ambitious novel to write, but Alison Weir managed to triumphantly pull it off.

Everyone reading this book will know at least something about Henry VIII. At the very least, they will know the fates of his wives, and most people will know at least something more about his role in history. And it’s safe to say that this is a figure everyone has an opinion on. This isn’t a book about a hero, or an anti-hero, or a villain, or a tyrant. It gives a very nuanced, thoughtful depiction of one of British histories most charismatic characters.

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Weir did an excellent job of creating a character who did many terrible things, but was always convinced that it was the right decision. A lot of time and care goes into not only building the wider world and context, but also establishing Henry’s character from childhood. As we follow his journey, we see him growing up as a young prince and then king who is never told no. His whole life he is surrounded by people who either want to please him, manipulate him, or both, which he is often ignorant to. The balance was just right, that we as the reader could see clearly what was going on, but Henry either couldn’t or wouldn’t. Weir never passes moral judgement on Henry; instead, this book exists as a lengthy character study, bringing to life a complex and divisive figure.

This also takes place in the same slightly-fictionalised world as the Six Tudor Queens series. There were plenty of nods and references to the things in those books that Weir invented, and it is definitely worth reading all seven books for the full story.

The audiobook had excellent narration from Elliot Fitzpatrick. Coming in at just under 22 hours, having a good narrator is essential, and it was an incredibly engaging listen.

I received a free copy for review. All opinions are my own. 

I could not put this book down. From the moment I started reading, I was desperate to know what happened until it finished.

When Margo realises she’s gay, she becomes determined to find out everything there is to know about being a lesbian. She wants to look the part, act the part, and understand all of the intricacies of lesbian culture. From field hockey to plaid, she wants to know it all!

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Enter Abbie, out-and-proud bisexual who needs tutoring for AP History. They agree to help each other out, and begin a friendship which starts to develop into something more.

I loved both of the two main characters and the way their romance blossomed. You can’t help but root for them the whole way through, to the point that I was exclaiming out loud with excitement/stress as we got closer to the end of the book!

One of the biggest themes in this book is the idea of presenting a certain way to be seen as ‘gay enough’. Both girls struggle with the way they are perceived by others, and are forced to confront the way they perceive others. It’s not something that gets very explored very often in fiction, and I thought it was done really well here.

There’s great representation of neurodivergence in this book, specifically autism and ADHD. I also really liked the family dynamics. Abbie has a very complicated family, with parents who have been on the verge of divorce for years and barely pay her any attention. Margo, on the other hand, has classic supportive teen-movie parents, a communist agender brother, and a collection of pets named after peers of the realm. It was really interesting to have such contrasting family dynamics, and Margo’s family often provided excellent comic relief.

This was an excellent and gripping read, which included plenty of interesting themes without detracting from the romance.

I received a free copy for review. All opinions are my own.