Wow, this book was an experience. Breathtakingly beautiful with a whimsical writing style, and an incredibly rich atmosphere that sucks you in and makes you wonder if magic really does exist. I don’t know what I was expecting when I went into this book, but it certainly wasn’t this, and I couldn’t be happier. I don’t really have a whole lot to say to be honest, this is one of those books that is really hard to describe. I loved everything about it, I genuinely can’t think of a single downside. This was super confusing at time, I had a hard time following the timeline (the chapters flip flop between different years, so you really have to pay attention), but I didn’t actually mind that. I knew that eventually it would all come together and it would make sense, so even though I was confused I was just enjoying the ride.

Erin Morgenstern’s brain is a beautiful, wonderful thing. This must have been a difficult book to write, I have no idea how she did it. But wow she really did that! I can’t wait to get to The Starless Sea now!

4.5 stars

The Deep felt like a dream, and I was sad to wake up from it. The writing is absolutely stunning, I loved the characters, the plot was interesting. But the atmosphere is what really stole the show for me. I felt so immersed in this world, which is a difficult thing to do in such a short book, but it didn't feel lacking whatsoever. If you know me you'll know I'm a sucker for a unique world, and this one did not disappoint. This is a story that I think will stay with me for a long time, I really enjoyed this!

I finished this book about an hour ago, and yet I’m still sitting here in the dark staring at my ceiling, having entirely given up on trying to stop crying due to the sheer joy that this book has brought me.

Full review to come, but I can tell you now that this is a new all time favourite. I adored every single sentence of this, and I genuinely can’t think of one thing I disliked

Update a few days later
I still don't know how to write a review for this book because I loved it so so so much, but I did manage to speak bout it in my reading vlog from this week! It's in the last 5 minutes or so of this video if you don't want to watch the whole thing lmfao

3.5⭐️

Read for Medieval-A-Thon: pet companions, chicken


Trigger warnings for this book include attempted suicide, sexual assault, and sexual assault against a minor

It’s 7 in the morning, I stayed up all night reading this, and I’m so very conflicted for a rating. The first half of this book was so genuinely terrifying that I actually couldn’t sleep and had to stay up to keep reading. And then the last half, or slightly less than half probably, and things didn’t necessarily go downhill, but they definitely slowed down and included some things that I was really not expecting and did not want to be reading. Without giving spoilers, I didn’t think certain plot points were necessary and were more just for shock value and is the reason I can’t decide on a rating. So I’ll come back to this after I’ve actually gotten some sleep and make a decision then. Good fucking night

4.5⭐️

Read for O.W.L.s Magical Readathon - Herbology: a book that starts with "M" (see my O.W.L.s TBR video here)

This was good
Holy shit this was GOOD

I am so incredibly in love with the way Sarah Gailey writes stories, they just suck me in so completely. Ugh, truly perfection. I don't have much to say in terms of an actual review, because in short I liked everything and disliked nothing. It's almost a 5 star read, but even though I absolutely adored every second of this novel, it didn't quite make the favourites shelf, so it's just a hair below a 5. But it's so so close

Changeling started out pretty good; I loved all the characters, the setting was great, the language and writing style were phenomenal. I had really high expectations for it. I'm highly disappointed. I still love all the characters and everything I just mentioned, but the plot was.. Boring. I think it could have been really good, but the way it was written it sounded really slow paced and dull.

I really do love the characters though <3 Freize is just fabulous and hilarious; I love him to death! Ishraq is a strong, independent woman who don't need no man! Isolde is a great friend. Brother Peter is definitely interesting XD And Luca... Dead God, bless his soul. Why can't he be real? XC

All in all, it wasn't a bad book, but I wouldn't read it again.

This book was so odd that I'm not sure what to say about it. It was really easy to get into; Gaiman's style of writing is absolutely gorgeous. I found the boy pretty unrealistic, no seven year old that I've ever met behaves like that (although I wish they did...).

Gaiman is an incredible story teller. This was the first novel that I've read by him but it definitely won't be the last!


2015 Reading Challenge: A book that scares you

"If you're some stranger who stumbled over this book by chance – perhaps rotting in some foreign garbage pile or locked in a dusty travelling trunk or published by some small, misguided press and shelved mistakenly under Fiction – I hope to every god you have the guts to do what needs doing. I hope you will find the cracks in the world and wedge them wider, so the light of other suns shines through; I hope you will keep the world unruly, messy, full of strange magics; I hope you will run through every open Door and tell stories when you return."

There are two kinds of people in this world; those that say they will only believe something once they see it, and those that believe in anything, because not seeing does not mean it doesn’t exist. I am the latter of the two, and if you are as well then you will fall in love with every word, every letter, every period of this book. And, if you’re like me at all, The Ten Thousand Doors of January will light a spark in the childish part of your soul that never quite stopped believing in magic. I feel like I have been waiting for this book for my whole life. January’s story is exactly what I always dreamed would happen to me, and a small (but growing) part of me still hopes it will.

So what’s going on here?
The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a historical fiction portal fantasy set in early 1900s Vermont (and also the 6900s in the Written). It follows January Scaller, an in-between girl growing up in the estate of a wealthy collector of rare items that her father travels the globe to collect. January’s life is one of waiting; waiting for her father to come home, waiting to have her own adventure, waiting to be free. She feels she is doomed to a life of quiet nothingness, until one day she discovers a book that talks about Doors to other worlds, and realizes the Door she found as a seven year old child was real. And if that one is real, then maybe there are others. However, January is not the only one searching for Doors, and it is a race against time to find hers before the villains of her story destroy it.

What I loved
Everything. Just everything, truly. I genuinely don’t think words could ever properly express what this book has done to my soul. I feel alive again, like I’ve found the childish wonder that I had mostly left behind years ago. It brought back the part of me that had me scrolling to the bottom of the Goodreads page for this book with the hope that I might see “non-fiction” stamped along the bottom with the genres. This book has made me think about magic and all the wild, whimsical things that could possibly exist in this world. Because the thing is, it very well could. There is no concrete proof that these Doors don’t exists, that there aren’t other worlds existing right next to ours, with the passageways that lead to them only visible to those who believe in them. I can say with confidence and no shame that I believe in them. I realize that this isn’t much of an actual review, as it’s mostly just me rambling half-mad about the possibility of magic and how much joy that possibility gives me, but this is what this book has made me feel and therefore this is what I shall write about.

What I didn’t love
The only critique that I could possibly say is that I was pretty confused with the format at the beginning. Basically, you are reading a book in the third person that is currently being written by the main character, who is also the narrator, and within that book she is reading another book by a different author/narrator/character. Maybe this is due to the fact that my first few reading sessions for this book were late at night while I was half asleep, but I was SO confused until I figured out that some chapters were the reading of a different book. But once I got it I thought it was genius! That, and I found it to start off pretty slow; while I did like it from the very beginning, it took me quite a while to actually get really really into it

Overall thoughts
Read this book. If you are someone who has lost touch with your inner child, read this. Even if you haven’t and you’ve always managed to hold onto that beautiful, precious piece of yourself, read this too. This book is for anything who wants to (or already does) believe in magic.

I completely forgot to write a review of this, I think because I finished it in the middle of the night and low-key thought this whole book was a super awesome dream for several days before realizing that I did in fact read this, and now here I am 2 months later realizing I never actually wrote that review. But regardless. Loved this, absolutely adored, a little slow at times but like, wow. Incredible, can't wait to read the rest of this series