wordsofclover's Reviews (2.16k)

It definitely took a while for this book to grow on me. I felt very confused about it at first, what kind of land it was, how the royalty/nobility worked, what the heck the shipforts were and how they worked/looked. I don;t think I've ever wished to be able to ring up an author more and be like, "explain please." But the more the story went on, the more i got to know the characters and their individual arcs in the story and it didn't take long for me to begin devouring it.

I honestly couldn't remember if I read the first book in this series a long time ago as a child, but now I've read, I'm pretty sure I didn't!

I really glad I finally got around to reading this. Being a huge lover of Roman and Greek god-themed stories, I'm surprised I haven't picked it up sooner. As most people probably already know, this book centres around Percy Jackson who finds out he is a half-blood or Demi god - the son of Poseidon, the Sea God. Following a battle with a fearsome Minotaur, Percy ends up in Camp Half Blood where he discovers how to put all his strange skills to good use and goes on a quest to return a missing lightning bolt to his uncle, the great god Zeus.

This book was jam-packed with pure, exciting, action and I really loved every minute if it. I can't wait to continue on with Percy's adventures.

A is not normal. He never wakes up in the same bed. He doesn't know if he's
going to be a boy or a girl. He is never able to make true friends, real connections or feel true love. A doesn't have his own body. Instead, A wakes up in the body of a stranger, every single day. A has come to accept his strange way of existence until he wakes up in the body of Justin, and meets Justin's girlfriend Rhiannon.


There's not a lot of books that come along, and literally make you question everything. Every Day is one of those books, and the different issues and wonderings raised really makes it one that is a must-read for anyone who has ever thought about life, existence and simply being.

What is A? Is he a soul? An existence? Can he be classified as a human being even though he has his own thoughts and conscience? More importantly, A's journey really made me think about what makes a person. Are we real because of our physical body? Or are we more made up of our minds, souls and conscience. There aren't really any definitive answers as I think it all comes down to personal opinions.

A is definitely the type of person a reader would inspire to be. He is patient and kind. Loving, generous, and as honest as he can possibly be for someone living in his situation. He has extremely open and accepting thoughts when it comes to identity, gender and sexuality. For A, there is no 'I'm a boy who like boys' or 'I'm a girl who likes girl', he is simply A and he is attracted to kind, honest people.

Rhiannon is similar to A, similar as much as she can be for someone who has lived a normal life..in the same body everyday for 16 years. She is also kind and generous. She accepts people for who they are, though this is made harder for her when she simply doesn't know who A is going to be every day. Rhiannon's difficulty in accepting and acting on her love for A when he's in different bodies, particularly female, is one many of us could identify with and understand. While it seems simpler to A because of the way he grew up, in reality things like that are a lot more difficult.

This book was thought-provoking, heart-warming and bittersweet right to the end. It made me sigh, smile and cry. And I loved every minute of it.

All The Light We Cannot See is a tale of two teenagers on the opposite sides of war and how events eventually bring them together to help them save each other and to touch each other's lives in unexpected ways. Marie-Laure is a blind girl living with her father in Paris and Werner is a young German boy living in a mining village who comes to the attention of the Hitler Youth.

I loved this book. From the setting to the way it was written and how both Werner and Marie-Laure told their stories and step-by-step they drew closer and closer to one another. It was utterly captivating. The first few pages in the book are set in a French village in 1944 and it becomes clear that the two main characters are in the same location. The way the story skims through different views is like a standing moment in time and I really loved it and it really set the scene.

Flashback to when the characters were younger and we begin to learn more about them. From Werner's childhood to Marie-Laure's battles with learning how to be independent while blind and her love for her father and Werner's love for his sister. I loved the connection that eventually came about with the stories Werner and Jutta heard on the radio and how we eventually learn how this is connected to Marie-Laure, it was very subtle at first but I loved it.

I found the prose and descriptions in this book extremely beautiful, Marie-Laure's chapters in particular. Because she is never describing what she is seeing, she is using every other kind of sense to bring the scene to the reader's mind eye and it works. I could see where Marie-Laure was even though she couldn't see it herself.

I liked the subtle magical element with the Sea of Flames though I do think the reality of the magic in it was down to the reader. We could decide whether everything was simply a coincidence or whether the diamond did have something to do with the train of events.

I found myself just reading and reading and reading, and because of the way most chapters were quite short it didn't take me long before I was really making progress through the book. While the story isn't action-packed, I found it to be fast-paced in the best possible way. I could have just soaked in the words and descriptions all day long. This was a fantastic historical read and I really recommend it. I can't wait to read more of Doerr's work now.

Jacob's grandfather spent his childhood telling him tales about peculiar children with strange talents. When Jacob grows older, he realises his grandfather's stories weren't made up and he sets out to find the place that was a refuge for his grandfather when he needed it most and he ends up stumbling into the past where he meets Miss Peregine and her peculiar children.

I think this book ended up being a bit disappointing for me. I'm not sure what I was expecting, I was just expecting more, I guess. I didn't find myself connecting to Jacob, and I actually found Emma dislikable most of the time. The children were interesting for the most part but I just felt meh for most of the story. It didn't really creep me out, even the photos. I will continue on with the series but I don't think I'll be expecting huge things from the sequels.

I'm not going to lie. Before reading this book, I had already watched the first series of the BBC take on the books. The TV program is the reason I picked up the books in the first place, I had never even heard of them but they are very much my cup of tea.

Ross Poldark is the first in the Poldark series and focuses on the return of Ross Poldark to his Cornish birthplace. Poldark has been away for several years, fighting for the British army in America - he is changed from the way he was before and carries scars from his battles. However, not all is as he left it at home in his mining community, his father is dead, leaving his small estate and mine in Ross's hands and , even worse, Ross's first love Elizabeth is engages to his cousin and best friend Francis Poldark.

Now Ross is faced with building back up his inheritance on his won, with the help of his two old and lazy employees. However, a little light comes into Ross's life when he rescues a young girl from a pack of street boys. Her name is Demelza and without knowing it, she will change Ross's life.


I really loved this book. All the characters are exactly what you want them to be. Dark and brooding Ross with his kind eyes (as said by Demelza) and his generous spirit, Francis - handsome and privileged yet racked with jealousy and weakness. Elizabeth - beautiful yet cool. Often seems to want what she can't have and Verity, the poor dull sister who is trapped by family and obligations and faces a future of spinsterhood.

The book was easy to read and get through, despite being of the older persuasion, and may I say, a classic. It wasn't terribly hard too understand, and though I certainly can't say that I'm an expert in mining, I think I did alright (though, this may be due to watching the series).

I really really didn't like the character of Elizabeth. She is portrayed as quite a delicate flower yet can be strong when needed to. However, she was rather cold and cruel towards Ross - despite her being the one to jilt him for his cousin - yet still manages to make everything about herself. She has a special way of making you feel sorry for her and hating her all at the same time.

While Elizabeth is on one end of the spectrum, Demelza is definitely on the other. While she is only thirteen when she is first rescued by Ross, her spirit grows away from the threatening blows of her father and she becomes cheeky and willful - in a way that you can never be angry at her for breaking rules. While in today's society, the relationship between Demelza and Ross could be eyed with something like disgust, due to the fact she's 10 years younger and first came to live with him when she's 13, there's something undeniably sweet about it and it makes it work. Ross needed someone like Demelza - someone full of lightness and joy in simple things, and the occasional exclamations of "Judas!"

This book, like many, touches upon things that every generation, young or old, experience - from poverty, homelessness, unemployment and despair. Losing love, finding love and then also being denied love. Exceeding expectations and stepping away from unfair obligations. Overcoming fear and embracing change. And the hope that there's something bright around the corner.

I'm really looking forward to the next book,which I believe focuses on Demelza. It will be interesting to see things from her POV as she tries to touch her toes into the water's of Cornwall's high society and try and forget about her humble beginnings.

Mindy Kaling did it again with a hilarious book about her life in LA as a TV writer, managing to make herself utterly relatable yet at the same time glamorous.

I love Mindy's voice and even without listening to the audiobook, if you've heard enough voiceovers from The Mindy Project, you can't help but have her voice in your head the whole time. It was great listening to her reminisce about when she started writing The Mindy Project and both the failures and successes with it and how she handled it. I also loved some of the insider knowledge like writers being put on Morgan's 'When I was in prison' jokes as a punishment and Danny Castellano being roughly based on Mr Darcy (which I TOTALLY see).

There were some bits I could have done without - the overlong segment of the emails from her alternate life as a Latin teacher and her not-very-exciting back and forth with President's man Will. I would have liked a bit more The Mindy Project chatter too, there wasn't enough, or even as much as I thought there would be. But it gave me my Mindy fix and a few laughs, and that's all I needed in the end.