I read this book for the Carnegie Awards 2017, as it is on the shortlist.
It has a very intriguing title, which immediately made we want to read it. Despite that fact, though, this one didn't quite make it to 5 stars for me (although it was very close).
This story follows four different people, Ruth, Dora, Alyce and Hank. I think the main character is really Ruth, but it is very hard to tell. Hitchcock has cleverly woven the stories together, giving each character an equal chance to be the star of the show. Each character has a very different voice which makes the book easier to read, and even though it is a subtle thing, it's very important and quite impressive.
I have never read a "historical fiction" that was set any later than the year 1950 before. This is 1970 Alaska, something that I had never even imagined before. A surprising amount of the story is about fish.
At the beginning of the book, I struggled to get used to the storytelling. Hitchcock has a soothing, calm writing voice which you don't see a lot of in YA fiction nowadays. Once I hit halfway I was hooked, and had no more issues with focusing.
I would recommend if you want to read something that is different from what you've read before, but still quite similar. A good story about love, family, dealing with change and growing into your own person - told like never before.

OKAY BUT SERIOUSLY, WHO ON EARTH WOULD EVER WATCH NERVE?

The whole reason I read this book was because I heard about the movie, starring whats-her-name the actress and Dave Franco. There was a lot of hype, and when I saw the book in a charity shop I couldn't resist.
However, I was very very let down by this book.
Vee is the main character, let's just say that the only thing that's consistent about her is that she's consistently annoying and stupid. That might sound harsh, but it's true.
Ian, Sydney and Tommy are all likable yet severely unrealistic.
The game Nerve just seemed incredibly boring and I can't imagine ANYONE paying to watch it. Or playing it, to be honest.
All the characters come across as easily bribable, materialistic and just... forced. Things they say, things they do... it just doesn't fit with the atmosphere of the story.
I'm giving this book 2 stars instead of 1 because to be fair, at times the storyline was tense enough to make me jump out of my skin at any nearby noises. Other than that, there's nothing I'd recommend in this book.
In fact, I just don't recommend it at all.

What a beautiful collection of stories.
This book took me a while to read because it wasn't thrilling. I didn't feel particularly moved to pick it up and start reading.
However, it still earns 4 stars because of the amazing storytelling, the important lessons, the careful simplicity of each story. Each character was life-like, real. Their thoughts were understandable, and in particular I related to Charlotte - I completely understood her way of thinking and the things she was going through.
It's a powerful book, and a feel good book, and definitely good for any child or any adult. Would recommend.

This is a good book. But not a great book.
The story is good. The characters are good. The plot was so much better than in the power of six. But it was still missing something.
I'm struggling to put my finger on it but I think it's the writing style. The fact that even though there's 3 different characters who each have chapters telling the story from their own perspective, the vocabulary is limited and overused.
The storytelling is where this book falls down.
One thing that irritated me constantly was the frequent use of something "doing its thing." eg. the machine did its thing. Six did her thing. Four did his thing. I'm so annoyed with that stupid sentence.
However, the finale was good and actually pretty satisfying.
It's not bad, just not great either.

This novel was a surprise in many ways.
I had high expectations for Faceless. I'd heard great things, I can't remember where from. And the cover is so simplistic, yet so beautiful... a more feminine version of Wonder by R. J. Palacio (another story I love).
So I started off optimistically. And that worked... for a few chapters.
Maisie has her accident very early on in this story. You don't really get a chance to know her character before her life changes forever. And so, the Maisie you are introduced to is moany, whining and constantly complains. She lives in the past, talking for entire chapters about her past life and the things she can no longer do. And because you haven't known her very long, she comes across as a depressing, almost annoying, person.
I understand that the author is creating the real emotions Maisie would have been feeling and she does it very well. However, this depressing part of the story goes on for too long. Eventually, Maisie becomes repetitive, running out of new things to complain about. Books affect me a lot (probably too much) and I found that while reading the first half of this story I became more irritable and annoyed.
If you want to read this story, be prepared to have to stick with it. It's not an easy, light-hearted read because it is not an easy, light-hearted story.
After the halfway point in this book, things started to pick up for me. The story became less depressing and repetitive and started to tell us how Maisie dealt with her problems. By the end of the book, I felt uplifted and rewarded for sticking with this story until the end. I'm sure you will too.
There are still a few things which bothered me, which I'm going to rant about now (I'll try to be brief).
The dialogue. The dialogue in this story is unrealistic and every conversation sounds stilted. Maisie is supposed to have a wicked sense of humour but, to be honest, I didn't even crack a smile at her "witty" comments.
The timeline. The timeline in this story confuses me. The book is split into four sections, each section marked by a different season. However, it's really hard to judge how fast time is moving. Some seemingly important periods of time are completely missed, not even mentioned, whereas a lot of time is spent on other, less important parts of the story.
The relationships. I didn't like the way that characters were dipped in and out of this story as though they weren't important. For example, one minute Maisie's Dad is supposed to be father who helps Maisie through everything, but he is hardly mentioned for about two thirds of the story.

Phew. Needed to get that out of my system.
I hope I haven't entirely put you off now... Faceless is a good story and is worth the read, if you're willing to endure a hard story.

Did I like this book?
Yes, very much.
Did I like this book as much as I liked Anna or Lola?
No, not at all.

Why should you read this book? It's light-hearted, fun and cute. It will leave you feeling warm and happy inside. It may possibly motivate you to travel or to make art or maybe even both. Give it a try if you're looking for something to cheer you up. AND if you've already read either Anna or Lola, you DEFINITELY need to read this book.

Now I'm going to vent my feelings of annoyance toward this book. Read on if you want to.

So if you've already read Anna and Lola you know that Stephanie Perkins has a routine writing style: the story begins with a happy character. the character falls in love and becomes happier. the love becomes complicated and the character becomes unhappy. and then something happens to save the day and everyone gets a happy ending.
Isla and the Happily Ever After followed this routine and it was well written, don't get me wrong. But I felt that it just wasn't as good as the other 2 books.
First of all, Isla irritated me a lot. She's this character who is meek and mild and shy and doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. She seems to have no interests whatsoever, apart from Josh. She's described as a reader but... as a reader myself, I didn't see an avid reader in her character. She wasn't deeply motivated by anything at all... except for Josh. So basically, she's 99% about boys and there's not much else on her mind.
She's supposed to be incredibly indecisive and for most of the book that was portrayed well, but there was a very annoying part in the middle which just felt so forced and so wrong that I can't quite believe it would ever happen in real life.
The other thing that annoyed me was Josh. Not the character, I mean he was lovely. It was the fact that he was written to be so incredibly similar to Cricket Bell that it just kept reminding me that he is not real and is just a figment of someone's imagination. I haven't had that feeling before with any of Perkins' characters, but since she literally uses practically the exact same phrases to describe Josh and Cricket, it made it hard to view him as a real person.

phew. there we go. So, overall, 4/5 stars. Maybe my expectations were too high, but this book definitely did not blow me away.

Dear Michael Morpurgo,

This isn't my first attempt to read your books. In fact, I rather enjoyed The Amazing Tale Of Adolphus Tips, when I was 12. But then, as I tried your other stories, it became apparent that we just weren't going to get along. All of your books have almost identical story lines and characters. It always amazes me that you continue to write so many books which are just so alike.

I feel guilty for giving your story only 2 stars. I feel like because it is a story of the war, I should be appreciating the history behind the storytelling more. But the truth is, I really didn't enjoy this book. It was slow paced, Joey was monotonous for almost the entire book, and I was bored. Even though you wrote a story about the war, you wrote more about the rations of oats than any of the people, and in that way it was hard to become attached to any of the characters. I could go quite happily for days without picking this novel back up, since I struggled to find any motivation to read it.

Also, I'm intrigued as to how Joey could speak fluent English, French and German but was not able to speak with fellow horses? Just a small thought there.

However, this story is highly praised and adored by most people, so I guess this must be a case of it's-not-you-it's-me. I hope others go on to enjoy this story, but your writing style really doesn't agree with me and I'm quite sure (after numerous attempts) it never will.

Wow. This took me sooo long to finish.
I feel so bad for only giving this book 2 stars. I've met Andrew Lane in real life, and he is seriously such a nice guy. And this book wasn't even that bad either... it just wasn't good.
Maybe it's because I'm not a huge Sherlock fan.
So, here's a few things about this book:
1. It's longwinded. Very longwinded. There are while paragraphs dedicated to describing pieces of furniture. This is the initial reason I really wasn't into this book - it just takes a very long time getting anywhere.
2. The working out was not as exciting as I'd hoped. Basically, Sherlock wandered around looking at stuff and making very detailed observations. It wasn't very reader-interactive in that way.

But it wasn't horrendous.
If you're into Sherlock, I'm sure you'd probably really enjoy it. Please don't let me put you off. It's just, this novel is not for me.

I have mixed feelings about this one.
As always, Jenny Han litters her novel with little bits and bobs of information which really aren't too important but somehow make the story feel more tangible. I love the fact that she educates you on Korean culture, things that I'd never even heard of before.
But... the overall plot in this book didn't do it for me. I found myself getting annoyed with Lara Jean frequently, since hardly anything she did makes sense. As for Stormy... well, I'm just going to say that I don't like Stormy one bit, no matter how hard the book tries to put her in a good light. Also, I couldn't quite work out why Lara Jean had 2 guys mooning over her in this story... I just can't remember why she is so likeable?
Other than that, there were definitely well-written parts of the story. Some places I really could relate to LJ, even though most of the time I couldn't.
It's also an incredibly easy to read novel, with a flowing narration of Lara Jean's thoughts guiding you through the story.
So, it's not bad but it's not great either. I will read the next one, just to find out what happens. These books are addictive, that's for sure.

What a fantastic adventure.
But... it was missing 2 vital things. But we'll get to that.
I can't believe that this book was written before Google was around. I can't imagine the amount of research that went into this novel.
It is fantastically educational. Every animal mentioned in the story I know a lot better now. And I know a ton of things about the Amazon that I'd never heard about before.
It's a great adventure, as I mentioned before, and the ending was actually very exciting with quite a few interesting plot twists.
But here's the things this story was missing:
1) An emotional side. It was really hard to actually become worried about any of the dangerous things happening in this story, because it was difficult to be attached to any of the characters. I mean, most of the characters weren't even given names. Quite a lot of them were just referred to as "the Indians". However the named characters were characterised well, but not quite well enough.
The second thing this novel is missing is 2) Any female characters whatsoever. Seriously. Here's the list of female characters that I spotted: "Mother" (characterised only by a single telegram), a boa constrictor, a tapir, and a manatee. That's it. (Girls could have made this story soo much better.)
Other than this, the story was enjoyable and incredibly interesting. It has definitely made me appreciate more those crazy adventurers of the past who brought us so much knowledge about the animal world.