Originally published on I Should Read That

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  This review is spoiler-free.

When I requested a copy of Planetfall, I assumed I was going to get a standard ‘humans colonize a planet, things go wrong’ science fiction book -- which is great, don't get me wrong.  However, Planetfallturned out to be one of the most unexpected, brilliant, and compelling sci-fi books I’ve ever read.

Planetfall is a deceptively quiet novel.  What I really loved about it is that the plot seems to be almost secondary to Ren’s experiences.  What we get in this book is an in-depth study of a particular character. Ren is a damaged person.  Something has happened to her, there is a secret she is keeping, and we don’t have the whole story.  But as we stay in her mind, we slowly tease apart her back story. This is an incredible book for mental health rep, although I wont say exactly what that rep is, and Newton does a fantastic job of creating a character with anxiety.  The pressure Ren puts on herself, the panic she feels, the way she pushes down and buries frightening thoughts, the distancing of herself from her peers, everything is just characterised so perfectly. Just a word of warning for those with anxiety issues, it is done so well that it actually began to make me nervous while reading it.

Although the actual plot isn’t the main focus in my mind, it is still incredibly compelling and thoughtful.  When Sung-Soo arrives at the colony, he triggers a huge change among the colonists and within Ren. Everything changes after his arrival, for better or for worse.  I love his own background story and the slow reveal of what happened during planetfall 22 years ago, as the two are closely tied together. He represents so much of what the colonists are not -- he has never been around technology, he doesn’t understand simple references to life on earth, and he is incredibly in touch with the planet and all it has to offer.  Although he is human, he is almost an alien species to them.

The setting and the world building are wonderful in this book.  Although you don’t get the full story of what happens on Earth and why Suh-Mi and the crew decided to leave, there are indications that things were beginning to fall apart.  Our colonists haven't had contact with Earth in decades, so their ignorance is ours as well.

We, as readers, know a lot more about this planet they’ve colonised.  I was particularly fascinated by God’s city, the bizarre, living city that Suh-Mi sought out on their arrival.  It is so strange, mysterious, and compelling. The entire worldbuilding of Planetfall can be described as such: there’s enough explained to give the reader an understanding, but enough unexplained to make the reader curious for more.  I absolutely loved it.

I think Planetfall is a book that could easily slip through the cracks of all the major SFF releases in 2018, but if you’re a science fiction fan you should really do yourself a favour and keep your eye out for this book.  It is a fast read that is compelling, mysterious, beautiful, and heartbreaking.

Originally published on I Should Read That

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns was a book I had extremely high hopes for. Billed as an east-Asian retelling of the ‘evil queen’ myth so prevalent in fairy tales. I love a good villain/anti-heroine and I feel like we just don’t get enough of them in fantasy, particularly YA fantasy. So with high hopes for Xifeng, I eagerly dove in.

I am so happy to say that despite the hype, I absolutely loved Forest of a Thousand Lanterns. It had pretty much everything I could have wanted and more. The world-building is lush and gorgeous, the court politics are frustrating and underhanded, and the characters are delightfully devious and selfish. It’s like someone hand-picked everything I love in fantasy books and put it all together in a single story. It really is the story I have been wanting for ages.
I loved the world and the stories that went along with it. The creatures Xifeng meets on her journey, the gods, and the mythology that went with it were wonderful.

The imperial court, where the majority of the story takes place, is an absolutely fascinating place. I loved the factions within the Emperor and Empress’s courts and the cutthroat environment. It is truly a place you can see a woman like Xifeng doing well for herself, and I want to know more.
Xifeng herself is the forces that makes this book work so well. She’s cruel, cutthroat, and obsessed with her beauty, as it will help lead her to her great destiny. In short, she’s perfection and I loved her. If you’re like me and getting tired of the perfect YA heroine, Xifeng is the perfect remedy. What makes her so interesting to me is that she is often at a crossroads -- she has to opportunity to make a decision that will lead her on a dark path, but also the opportunity to do the right thing. And, as I’m sure you guessed, she often picks the dark path. The best thing about her is that she knows what she is, and even if she has some moments of wavering, she is confident in what she believes she must do. I love everything about her.

The one thing that holds this book back from a five-star rating is the romance. I really, really didn’t like Wei. Xifeng is such a smart, capable, and cunning woman, so why does she keep moping about over this boy who wants nothing more than to control her? She knows this -- she reflects upon it often -- but she still feels conflicted about him and their romance. I just didn’t feel like a woman like her, with her ambitions and drive to fulfill her destiny, would allow her judgement to be so clouded by a man like him, who has literally nothing going for him except the fact that he's pretty. But I suppose love is unpredictable.

Overall, I absolutely loved this book. I had expected it to be a standalone, and does work well as a standalone, but it is the first in a trilogy. I absolutely cannot wait to see what Dao comes up with next -- she is an amazing and refreshing new talent in the genre.

Originally published on I Should Read That

Scythe is a book that has taken the UK book blogging community by storm. It is much-beloved by our US pals, and the highly anticipated sequel has just been released in the States. I was really looking forward to this book, however I ended up a little let down by the lackluster characters and plot.

The first thing that I will say about Scythe is that the world building and background are amazing. I loved the fact that this book is set in a utopia in which mankind has conquered ageing, disease, and death. People can live forever, but only if a scythe does not glean them. Daredevil teens ‘splat’ themselves by throwing themselves from great heights, only to be revived and put back in perfect health. Society is run by a benevolent AI that controls literally everything except the Scythedom. I thought all these things together made for an exciting, refreshing, and fascinating world that I couldn't get enough of.  Reading about this society and the way humans live and ponder death in Schusterman’s world was the best part of the book for me.

In terms of story, I thought the beginning and end of this book were great while the middle bits really dragged. It’s funny because those middle parts should be really interesting. If I sat here and told you what happened, you’d probably think it sounds fantastic! They train in martial arts, study weaponry, and learn techniques for gleaning. However, there is something about these middle sequences, particularly when our heroes are in training, that just felt so unnecessarily long.  I love a long book, however I felt that so much could have been cut out of this one.

My main struggles with Scythe were with our two main characters. Citra and Rowan are possibly the dullest characters I’ve read, YA or otherwise, in a very long time. Neither had any interesting personality traits (or personality) to speak of -- they were both just so...boring. You would think that becoming essentially apprentices to the grim reaper would cause some internal conflict, but they both manage to get over it and accept it really quickly. They’re brave, kind of. They’re smart, kind of. They are just so...ugh.  I feel like they were treated more like vehicles for Schusterman's brilliant world rather than characters who engage with the world they live in and the plot.

Citra is our cookie-cutter Hermione Granger-esque character. She’s the quiet, smart girl who has literally nothing else going for her -- she's that kind of YA character that Buzzfeed articles make fun of. She has the personality of a wet paper towel. She is forced to give up so much in order to become an apprentice, but she just accepts it all without much of a fight. She had the potential to be such a great female character -- all the ingredients were there -- but she fell so flat.  I can't really remember any real actions she takes or serious decisions she makes.

Rowan was at least slightly more interesting. Without spoilers, he does end up fighting against his fate in his own way, so at least he has that going for him. But I found his misplaced chivalry so tiresome. I really despise when a male character’s protective instinct kicks in over a woman who doesn’t even want or need his help. To me, his actions showed how little Rowan knew Citra before he decided to become her knight in shining armour.  I feel like Rowan is the kind of guy who would befriend a girl, wait around for years for her to decide to sleep with him, and then freak out when she gets a boyfriend (am I being too mean?).  At least he has the potential to become interesting in the second book!

It’s a shame we had to focus on these boring teenagers, because I actually found the adults much more interesting. Scythe Faraday and Scythe Currie were both fantastic characters. Although the book didn't focus on them as much, they both had infinitely more depth than our teenage heroes. I love their backstories and the justifications for their gleaning methods. They added a human element to the Scythedom that Citra and Rowan did not. Can we get a prequel about them, please?

Overall,  I thought Scythe had a lot of potential to be great, but was bogged down by lackluster characters and a lengthy, uninteresting middle section. I have a lot more I could say, particularly about our villain, however I want to avoid that due to spoilers.  So if you've read Scythe, please chime in!  I'd love to chat about it.

Originally published on I Should Read That

The Diviners is a book that has been on my radar for absolute ages.  It was brought to my attention again thanks to the book blogging community, and I’m so glad I picked it up.  It is a difficult one to rate, though.  I really loved it -- seriously, it has been one of my most enjoyable reading experiences I’ve had in a long time -- but I don’t think it’s a perfect book.  In fact, I feel like there’s a lot of room for improvement.

The setting of The Diviners is absolute perfection.  As a disgruntled ex-New Yorker (you couldn’t pay me to live there ever, ever, ever again), I still really love the nostalgia that books set in New York bring me.  And this is a great New York book.  From those humid late-summer-early-fall evenings and the bustling and noisy nights, to the monuments the the city’s great past and that sense that your great destiny is just around the corner, Libba Bray really captures the spirit of New York City. There are long passages that twist and meander through the streets of the city -- those were some of my favourite bits of the book.  Take that and set it in the midst of Prohibition and you have a setting that makes me drool.  It’s just so atmospheric and I loved it.

I know that opinions on this book are quite mixed and that probably has a lot to do with our heroes.  There’s a huge cast of characters, and it seems like it only gets bigger in later books.  Because of this, I am not sure enough time was dedicated to certain characters.  Our main character is Evie -- a party girl from Ohio who is the daughter of Temperance parents.  Bad combination, eh?  Evie is sent to New York to live with her uncle after she scandalises herself (although I have to wonder, who sends flapper to New York and hopes she behaves herself??).  I can really see her being a character that makes or breaks the book for a reader.  She’s selfish, naive, foolish, and an all-around terrible person.  Me, I love reading about this kind of heroine.  She’s the kind of female character I love because she’s so far from perfect.  Her flaws make her infuriating, but fascinating.  I couldn’t help but root for her, but I can easily see her being too annoying and selfish for many readers.  Despite the large cast, Evie is really the character who can make or break the story for a reader.

If I tried to go into every character in this book we’d be here for hours, so I’m going to skim over some stand-outs.   Characters like Theta, Henry, Memphis, and Will all have the potential to be absolutely incredible (except Theta, who is already incredible and I want/need to know more about her.  Can she get her own book? Please?), but we spend so little time with them that I just feel like I don’t know them at all.  Jericho, Sam, and Mabel are all very “meh” for me, despite us knowing more about them than the other listed above.  Given their backstories, I should have loved Sam and Mabel but I didn’t.  Jericho’s backstory was just a little too odd and out of place for me, and I just felt nothing for him.  See what I mean about a huge cast?

The other two main issues I have with the book are equally major ones.  I didn’t like the villain and I didn’t like the romance -- yikes.  Let’s start with the villain -- I had such high hopes for them!  Because the book is billed as paranormal/occult, I really hoped that they would be so cool, creepy, and terrifying.  But they just felt so lacklustre.  I think that, again, this is the result of too many characters -- the villain really gets shuffled off to the side.  I could go into more detail here, but I won’t because of spoilers.

Finally, I just didn’t get the romance. This is not necessarily because the characters in the love triangle were boring or lacklustre.  I feel like the problem here is editing -- it started going in one direction and then out of nowhere did something completely different!  It was like there were 20 pages or so missing from the book.  There’s so little emotional build-up and foreshadowing and I ultimately didn’t care.

Despite all of these bad things I’ve said, I actually really liked The Diviners!  I told you it was a funny one to review.  If it ticks your boxes with the 1920’s New York setting, the difficult female character, and occult, murdery goodness, then you’re probably going to love this.  I really, really enjoyed it -- in fact, I’ve already ordered up the second and third books -- but it didn’t quite live up to its potential.  However, I’m planning to marathon the series -- I cannot wait to see where it goes.

Originally published on I Should Read That


I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.


By now you guys know that I am not a fan of contemporary YA books.  I just don’t have much of an interest in modern teenagers and their teenage lives.  However, I Am Thunder caught my eye because it deals with the radicalization of British teens by religious extremists.  I figured it would shape up to be an important book, so I cautiously decided to give it a shot.

I was absolutely stunned by I Am Thunder.  Khan wrote this book in response to the 2015 story of three British girls being radicalized by the Islamic State and travelling to Syria. You’d think it would be an incredibly dark and heavy book, but in reality it is light, funny, and hopeful.  Of course, it gives those themes the sensitivity they deserve, all while providing the reader with a sense of hope.  I'm so happy that there are authors out there that aren't shying away from these issues, all while making them incredibly readable.  Khan also deals with parental and community pressure, bullying, Islamophobia, teenage sex, beauty standards, and the general sense of uncertainty many of us felt in our younger years.  This book is special in that it features something that almost every single reader can relate to.

The fact that we get the story from clever, hopeful, and incredibly funny Muzna helps alleviate that darkness of the difficult subject matter.  There’s something about the way Khan writes her that makes her feel so alive -- I didn't’ feel like I was reading a fictional book at all.  I very rarely feel like I can say this, particularly as a nearly 30 year old woman, but I really feel like Muzna and I would be friends in real life.  She reminds me of all my childhood friends, particularly in the way she interacts with her own best friend.  She is not a perfect character -- she has her flaws, as many of us do -- however I didn’t question her decision making process throughout almost the entire book (which is rare for me in YA).  I don’t think I can emphasize enough just how real she feels.  She's easily one of my favourite YA lady leads.

Don’t let the ‘young adult’ classification of this book deter you from reading it.  Don’t let the themes of religious extremism and radicalization deter you.  This is a book for anyone to read, whether you’re Muslim or not, a teenager or not.  I firmly believe that every single person out there can learn something from this book.  

If there were more books like I Am Thunder out there, I think the world would be a better and more understanding place.

Originally posted to I Should Read That

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This review is spoiler-free.

The Accidental Recluse is one of those rare books that is both a slow burn and a compulsive read.  JJ's story is tragic, compelling, and undeniably humorous.  He takes us through his journey from music hall performer to film star to director, and finally to recluse.  From JJ's quiet home in Japan to the sprawling Scottish countryside, the settings in this book give it a unique flavour that makes it hard to put down.  I sometimes struggle with dual timelines -- one always seems more interesting than the other or the transition between the two periods can feel choppy -- but the shifts in time were blended seamlessly and both time periods were equally compelling.  

The plot and setting are important, but this book is really all about Johnny Jackson, or JJ.  He’s our narrator and therefore his thoughts, reflections, and reactions guide our understanding of his story. JJ is a sharp and witty, but he’s also jaded and just so tired. He is one of those people who uses humour as a coping mechanism, but you really get the sense of the sorrow he’s hiding from us as the story progresses.  In this way, JJ is both an extremely sympathetic character and an unreliable narrator. He doesn’t reveal anything to us that he doesn’t have to.

What’s so much fun about having JJ as our narrator is the way he reacts to the situations he finds himself in.  As the narrative unfolds, we learn of stalker who seems to know more about JJ’s past and secrets than they should.  The dance between this figure and JJ, who is refered to as the Shinigami by this person, is one of my favourite parts of the book.  The way JJ reacts to the vaguely threatening and unnerving messages from this character is unexpected and strangely delightful.  This is one of the things that I found so fascinating about him -- it's like he knows we're peeking into his life and he’s trying to keep us on our toes to spite us.  

The past is just as important as the present as JJ goes on his journey back to his childhood home. His brother Duke has long since passed away, but he remains a constant figure in JJ’s life.  It’s hard to tell whether Duke’s presence in JJ’s mind is welcome or not, but the love that JJ feels for his brother is tangible, despite the dysfunctional relationship they had. I really loved this sibling dynamic and the way their relationship is revealed as the book unfolds.  In fact, the relationships between all the characters are strong -- from Duke to Anna, JJ to his father, even if they’re tragic each person has a fully realised character arc.

Equal parts funny and heartbreaking, The Accidental Recluse is a book that will stay with you, even after you’ve finished the last pages.  There is a lot that I could talk about here, but you should pick this one up on your own. This is one of the few books I’ve read in which the characters feel like real people -- I sometimes forgot that I was reading a novel rather than a memoir.  I’d recommend this book for long time readers of contemporary fiction, but also for readers of historical fiction who would like to step into a new, more literary part of their genre.