CAN I JUST SAY OH MY GOD, WHAT A WHIRLWIND OF EMOTIONS.

Ninth House for me was a book I was both excited and sceptical about as I have enjoyed Leigh Bardugo's previous books, but have not loved them all. I was interested to see how she would move on from writing for a young-adult audience to an adult audience and she did not disappoint.

The premise of Ninth House is that Yale University has lots of secret magic societies that perform rituals relating to portal magic, necromancy, ghosts and all kinds of things that go bump in the night. The societies are a little bit like fraternities or sororities in my view as they are select groups of students and alumni that belong to these eight secret societies; Skull & Bone and Scroll & Key to name a few. These are all then kept in check by Lethe, another secret society who is given funding by these eight societies to keep them in check. The main character Alex Stern has been inducted into Lethe because she has been found to have the extraordinary talent of being able to see ghosts without magical potions that wreck havoc on the human body. Alex's job is to help oversea all of the rituals performed by the eight secret societies and check nothing goes wrong. However, a sudden death on campus attracts her attention and Ninth House follows the grizzly tale of the murder investigation.

Alex Stern is one hell of a character. She is has had a dark, gritty and traumatic past that has clearly left her with deep and unresolved problems. She was involved with a drug-dealer, dropped out of school and woke up in hospital with all of her friends dead before coming to Yale and joining Lethe. Her body is tattooed, she seems unconventional and a little wild and I absolutely adored her. I thought she was a realistic character with so much trauma and so well thought-through. It's really hard to explain more about her without giving away the plot, but I thought Leigh Bardugo crafted an incredibly strong and interesting MC.

"They tried to kill me, Hellie," she rasped as she slid into the dark. That means I get to try to kill them."

In addition to the fantastic MC, the actual plot-line was so strong. This was not your typical "fantasy" that I expected before reading the actual blurb. However, Bardugo interwove the magic elements seamlessly with the horrors and the good bits of the real world. She did it in such a fashion that it highlighted so many moral issues in society: victim blaming, date rape, class hierarchy, gender stereotypes, drug use to name a few.

"Calamity comes too easily to women. Our lives can come apart in a single gesture, a rogue wave. And money? Money is the rock we cling to when the current would seize us.
"Yes," said Alex, leaning forward. This was what Alex's mother has never managed to grasp. Mira loved art and truth and freedom. She didn't want to be part of this machine. But the machine didn't care. The machine went on grinding and catching her up in its gears."

The murder mystery aspect of the plot in addition to the fantasy/real-world problems was also super clever. There were so many plot twists, little snippets alluding to the real culprit and the motivation. I honestly had not twigged on the final plot-twist at all and I think that is what really sold me on the book. The last 100 pages I could not put down at all because I was so immersed in the world of Yale.

"Do you know what my mother said?" Turner asked. "She told me there's no doorway the devil doesn't know. He's always waiting to stick his foot in. I never really believed her until tonight.""

Turner was probably my favourite secondary character who was actually heavily featured.

I also fell in love with Darlington despite the fact he was only present in flashbacks and I'm super excited for the next book to focus on him

. Turner reminded me a lot of all David Tenant and the kind of cops he plays. A little sarcastic, very straight-forward and very proper in his approach to the law, but also practical and not unreasonable. Despite the fact he wasn't always seemingly on Alex Stern's side he was a strong secondary character and I hope we get to see more of him in book two.

I think the only downsides to the book for me was the beginning, for some reason I always struggle with Leigh Bardugo's books at the beginning to follow all the characters, the settings and understand the plot lines. She always has very dense world-building and very layered character stories and I sometimes find that difficult to immerse myself in immediately, especially when everything isn't explained easily and gets unveiled in dribs and drabs. Nevertheless, I don't think it's really worth deducting a star from and the fact that I fell so in love with the MC and got entirely absorbed in the final 100 pages, so much that I was bouncing about in bed with excitement, it deserves the 5 stars. Thoroughly recommend to all fantasy, crime and mystery fans with the warning that this is a very dark and very adult book.

"Turner rested his gloves hands on the steering wheel. "I'm pretty sure when my mother was talking about the devil, she had you in mind."
"I'm a delight."

I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilized. I wish it showed me in a better light...

The Handmaid's Tale hit hard because as someone that prides themselves on absorbing books, articles, and all forms of media about the world, other cultures, societal concerns and trends. This book was like a rock crushing down on my soul. It made me want to weep, scream, and rage all at the same time. The fact that women's independence was destroyed and restricted so easily, that they were forced to be vessels for the nation. That a group of elderly white people controlled the bodies of the young women of the nation felt so relevant to societal concerns today.

In America recently we have seen so many restrictive laws about women's bodies and abortion. Black women sentenced for failing to protect their unborn children from gunshots, heartbeat bills preventing women from aborting their unborn children, restrictions on access to contraception for the women that have the least resources (usually minority ethnic groups). However, this is only a small part of the global story. Many women across the globe lack access to safe contraception, they use sponges, coat hangers, plastic bags, washing with disinfectant after sex, coca-cola and aspirin. These are some of the ACTUAL methods women use today. We are in a very real crisis that dates back to colonialism, where the patriarchal white empire weaponised and controlled women's bodies. British empire used women's bodies as a way to control the nation. It makes me so angry and sad to see that in 2020 when I am lucky enough to have the ability to control my body and reproduction that many women do not have the safe medical access. This is something I spent a lot of time studying in my Master's degree and I think why this book was so emotional for me.

I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it's shameful or immodest but because I don't want to see I. I don't want to look at something that determines me so completely.

I found this book uncomfortable reading at the easiest and unbearable reading at the worst. This is not a book I can say I liked, but one that I certainly think is worthwhile reading.

The book feels as though it was very ahead of time for the period it was written in. Very critical and astute of the way in which society functions and how easy it can be for relationships of power to change. However, I hated how easily everybody seemed to give up in this book. I hated how defeatist this book seemed. I want people to fight for what they believe in and want. I wanted a clear rebellious sector throughout the whole book.

My other major issue with this book is that it was just clearly white people. This book was set in America, written by an American in the 1980s, where are the Asians, the African-Americans, the Latinos, the Native Americans, the immigrants? There's not any clear indication of any other cultural group in this book. There's a brief reference to Jewish people being taken out on boats and planes to Israel. However, this world cannot surely be all white? I understand this is a religiously driven book, and therefore Muslim communities, Native American groups, Buddhists, Hindus etc would clearly not align with these views. I just want answers about how a world that is so rich would end up with this singular ideology.

The literary style, prose and plot were all well-paced and quite interesting as we jumped between timelines and times of day. I liked the pacing and how we saw the world through Offred's eyes. I think this only made me more emotional and stressed about the whole read.

Overall, I would recommend everyone to read this book, but I would also encourage you to read more widely about women's health and reproduction. I would encourage you to think on the themes that are at the core of Margaret Atwood's writing and how society functions. This for me is more than just a book, it has a lot of real concerns about the morals of society.

You young people don't appreciate things, she'd say. You don't know what we had to go through, just to get you where you are. Look at him, slicing the carrots. Don't you know how many women's lives, how many women's bodies, the tanks had to roll over just to get that far?

3.5 Stars

Three Women follows the story of Lina, Sloane and Maggie. Three women who have allowed Lisa Taddeo to follow their lives, share their story and share their most intimate relations. Lina is a woman in an unhappy, sexless marriage who is desperate to be loved and touched. Sloane is in a happy marriage by all accounts, but her husband likes to watch her sleep with other men. And Maggie is a younger woman who is struggling to get over the damage caused by her relationship with her high school teacher.

This book seemed to get a lot of hype when it came out, and I can see why although I definitely have some mixed thoughts on this book. It has some important messages as it starts to talk openly about women's sexuality, how women are not believed in many situations, how men have control a lot of the sexual dynamics.
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It was 100% refreshing to see women talk so openly about their sexual encounters and experiences. To hear women (through Taddeo's retelling) talk about what they enjoyed and wanted. It read very much like a fiction novel in places and seemed less journalistic despite the fact Lisa Taddeo has spent 8 years living with these women and researching their stories. This did not mean it was comfortable reading though. There was lots of pain and discomfort in this book when there was discussions about the relationship Maggie had with her teacher, or when Sloane was talking about her eating disorders, or when Lina spoke about her marital breakdown and desire to be loved. I think this is why I found the book difficult to keep reading all at once and had to take breaks between reading.
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My biggest problem with this book was that it was so centred on these three white women. There was one small epilogue reference to a black Dominican woman who did not want to share her story. However, having read Candie Carty-Williams Queenie last year, I realised how much black women are sexualised and hyper-sexualised. Therefore I felt this book lacked real exploration of how sexuality is experienced by all women. Carty-Williams' book is a piece of fiction, but I would encourage you to read it as a fantastic exploration of a young black women's coming-of-age and mental health journey. The added section at the end felt like it was only added for the purpose of being "diverse" and that bugged me a little.

Overall I still enjoyed the book and I am very glad I read it.

Wicked Bite is a book I've been looking forward to for months after really enjoying the first book Shades of Wicked and I was left ultimately disappointed. These books are a spin off from the original Night Huntress series which is one of the first paranormal-romance/urban-fantasy series I read and one I feel utterly in love with because it had quick wit, humour and tonnes of action. Wicked Bite is the second book that follows Ian and Veritas and continues the events of Shades of Wicked. After the bombshell ending in the previous book I was keen to see how Jeaniene Frost would straighten things out.

The biggest problem with Wicked Bite was that it just felt like an unnecessary extension of the first book. It dragged out the plot from the first book, but with much less excitement than the first. The first book was so much more magical and exciting as Ian and Veritas entered the forbidden magical underground, explored their blossoming relationship and plotted to destroy the demon Dagon. There was none of that magic, spark and flare that I felt the first book offered, which brought to life new elements of the Night Huntress world which can be quite difficult 14/15 books in.

I think this book served to help develop Veritas character by helping unravel some of the mystery surrounding her abilities and nature. However, I'm not sure we needed a whole book to do this. I felt like there was a significant lack of development in Ian and Veritas' relationship and I actually didn't really feel the spark that much between them. For me, there was none of the heat in the romance that makes you stomach feel tight and full of butterflies when you read it. The whole book just felt a little lack-lustre.

I can only hope this book is one of the rotten apples that Frost seems to occasionally throw out. I'll definitely read the third book, just because I love this world and find Frost's writing easy to read. I also thought the editing was a little sloppy and found several typos in the e-copy version I'd purchased. This kind of sloppiness from a well-established author just disappoints me.

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance was actually kind of disappointing. I really wanted to love this book as I admire Barack Obama and lots of the things he stands for so much.

I listened to the memoir and I really enjoyed listening to Barack Obama's voice as he recounted his childhood, his teenager years, his experience with his family and his experience with race. The book is split into 6 chapters which made this book drag a little as each chapter felt a little bit long with each chapter being nearly an hour long each.

I enjoyed the moments that Barack spoke about his family and Kenyan heritage, how he visited Kenya and the experience and welcoming he had there. I enjoyed Barack talking about how when he was younger, he never initially applied himself at school despite his potential. It clearly demonstrated great growth in his personality as he moved to eventually becoming engaged with politics and the President. I liked his discussions about his youth in Hawaii and his time in Indonesia with his stepfather.

I think Barack touched on a lot of interesting points about his heritage, his upbringing, his racial identity. However, I found nothing really stuck with me. I will 100% read more of Barack's work and I know he's working on a book to follow his presidency. I think perhaps I felt no or little connection with this Barack of 1995, compared to the Barack we see in the media today. I will say his thoughts were well articulated and insightful. I think Barack is a very self-assured writer and I like that confidence and ease with which he talks.

I loved that the ending was a full speech from one of his campaign trails as he spoke about what it means to be American, how your racial identity does not matter because you are all American. He spoke about a collective identity and a collective history and it was such a powerful statement to end on. I will always admire Barack Obama and all the great work he does, and everything he stands for. However, I think for me, this book just wasn't the one.

The Fifth Season was a thriller of a read and reminded me as to why I love fantasy books so much and how much I have missed falling into an alternate universe. The book starts off a little slow as I struggled to follow the storylines of the three main protagonists Damaya, Syenite and Essun in the beginning. The book switches back and forth between their perspectives which can be a little confusing as I struggled to follow their different narratives and events. However, as the book continues to build and the plot unravels, the structure of the novel and style makes much more sense. If you can stick with the first 50 pages, this book is well worth the read.

I think the first point to touch on with fantasy is always the world-building. In The Fifth Season the premise is that there are a group of people called Orogenes, who are able to perform Orogeny (the ability to manipulate thermal, kinetic and related forms of energy - i.e. they can move the ground when the world has an Earthquake and much more). The Orogenes are controlled by the Fulcrum (a paramilitary organisation) and they all have Guardians as they are seen as dangerous. Damaya, Syenite and Essun are all Orogenes. The book focuses on their experience as Orogenes (outcasts of society) and we see how their abilities develop in line with their character arcs. I really liked the concept of Orogeny and it reminded me a lot of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, with the concepts of controlling elements and power. I did find Jemisin's descriptions and concepts a little confusing at times, and I think a general understanding of discourse surrounding earthquakes, seismic activity and geology is helpful. Thankfully, I read this book on my kindle so I could just highlight any words I wasn't familiar with to get a google definition which really helped.

Alongside the concept of Orogeny, society is broken up into various comms (communities of people) who are all trying to make it through a season. From what I gather, the seasons (it wasn't clear how long a season is) appear to be ended by some volcanic eruption or earthquake that wipes out large amounts of civilization. There were some really interesting points in this book about how people interacted with nature and the Earth that resonated with me today. Given our current climate predicament and the emergency we are facing, this novel felt very relevant.

"Then people began to do horrible things to Father Earth. They poisoned waters beyond even his ability to cleanse, and killed much of the other life that lived on his surface. They drilled through the crust of his skin, past the blood of his mantle, to get at the sweet marrow of his bones. And at the height of human hubris and might, it was the orogenes who did something that even Earth could not forgive. They destroyed his only child."

In terms of the characters, there were not a tonne of secondary characters as the main focus was on the three protagonists who were all really strong females. I really enjoyed seeing how Damaya, Syenite and Essun developed over the book and I think Jemisin invested a lot in their character development. There were three secondary characters that stood out to be Alabastar, Hoa and Tonkee. These guys were interesting, a little mysterious and also a little bit scary and I think that added to the edge of the narrative. We learned just enough about them as secondary characters to make them relevant and interesting, but the book left many unanswered questions that will hopefully be explored in the second instalment. I don't think the lack of secondary characters was a detriment to this book though, and whilst other fantasy series benefit from a plethora of secondary characters, this book felt strengthened by the much narrower focus.

The "villains" in this book are the guardians, who are there to watch over the orogenes and they are just a little bit psychopathic. They seem all nice and friendly with their pretty faces and lovely words, but then they watch over their charges, they can track them wherever, and they are there to keep them in order. Worst of all, they have unknown political aims and unknown intentions. I feel like the guardians were incredibly elusive throughout the whole novel but whenever they showed up they were terrifyingly scary and super over-powered. I hope we get to learn more about the guardians and their aims in the next book.

"But the greatest danger lies in what you are, Dama. You can no more hide that than you can the fact that you are female, or your clever young mind." She blushes, unsure if this is praise. He smiles so she knows it is. He continues: "Every time the earth moves, you will hear its call. In every moment of danger you will reach, instinctively, for the nearest source of warmth and movement. The ability to do this is, to you, as fists are to a strong man. When a threat is imminent, of course you'll do what you must to protect yourself. And when you do, people will die."

Overall, I really enjoyed reading The Fifth Season and it reminded me how much I've missed reading fantasy books like this. Hopefully I'll be able to read the next one soon, although I told myself I was not allowed to buy any new books for a while… So that may have to be broken.

I hope we get to see more of Shuri, I'm sad this series has come to an end. I think Nnedi Okorafor did a fantastic job and I loved the whole series!