Review - Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

Published February 9th 2017 by Macmillan Children's Books

Star Rating - *****

Goodreads Challenge - 43/50

Popsugar 2017 Reading Challenge - A bestseller from 2016

Synopsis from Goodreads

Long before Alice fell down the rabbit hole...
And before the roses were painted red...
The Queen of Hearts was just a girl, in love for the first time.

My Thoughts 

I'm a massive fan of fairy-tale retellings therefore, Heartless definitely appealed to me. I've been intrigued by this story since it first came out and having never read anything by Marissa Meyer I thought a standalone would be a good place to start and boy was I right. I absolutely loved this story and I would highly recommend it to anyone, especially those who are fans of Alice in Wonderland. The basic premise of this story is that it is a retelling of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, I suppose you could call it her origin story. Basically in the beginning she was just a girl called Catherine who wanted to bake and this is subsequent story. Once you've read it the title will make complete sense.

As much as I loved this book my initial thoughts weren't as positive. Before even beginning I read the back and was a little bit worried as the synopsis seemed to imply it was going to be very romance heavy and I am not a fan of romance. However, this is not the case and although there is romance involved there is a lot more to the story then that. Also, I found the first 50 or so pages quite slow going and seemingly predictable. It took me this long to get into the book but once I got past this point I was hooked and the story has lots of twists and turns along the way. It kept me hanging on till the end and this was definitely one of those stories that kept me saying just one more chapter. I needed to know what was going to happen and I was holding out hope for a happily ever after.

I really enjoyed Marissa Meyer's writing style. I found it very whimsical and felt that it captured the essence of Alice in Wonderland well. I also really liked that fact that she included several original features from Alice, such as the Jabberwock and some of the riddles, but she put her own spin on these things to make them unique to the story.

The characters are now some of my favorites, I felt very connected to them as people, particularly Catherine and Jest who I adored. I felt Marissa Meyer did a fantastic job of making both them and their emotions feel real. I felt everything right alongside these characters and I admire her ability to write raw emotion in a way that can be experienced by the reader. I laughed out loud alongside these characters and my heart broke just as much as theirs did.

Overall I gave this book a very deserving 5*s. Although it began a bit slow the rest of the story definitely made up for it and I feel it was a fantastic insight into who the Queen of Hearts could of been. The ending broke my heart and I've never read a book before that's made me feel as much as this one did. It's a perfect story for fans of Alice in Wonderland and it's inspired me to pick up the original for the first time since I was a child.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!

 Overall Rating 

Review - The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

Published 10th August 2017 by Hodder and Stoughton (information gathered from NetGalley)

Star Rating - ****.5

Goodreads Challenge - 48/50

Synopsis from Goodreads

Vowing to discover the fate of her missing cousin, a woman returns to her family’s Kansas estate where she spent one haunting summer as a teen, and where she discovered the dark heart of the Roanoke clan that left her no choice but to run.

Lane Roanoke is fifteen when she comes to live with her maternal grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, at the Roanoke family estate in rural Osage Flats, Kansas, following the suicide of her mother. Lane knows little of her mother’s family, other than the fact that her mother ran away years before and cut off all contact with her parents. Allegra, abandoned by her own mother at birth and raised by her grandparents, introduces Lane to small-town life and the benefits of being one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But there is darkness at the heart of the Roanoke family, and when Lane discovers its insidious pull she has no choice but to run, as far and as fast as she can.

Eleven years later, Lane is scraping by in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls with the news that Allegra has gone missing. “Come home,” he beckons. Unable to resist his pleas, Lane returns to Osage Flats, determined to find her cousin and assuage her own guilt at having left Allegra behind all those years ago. Her return might mean a second chance with Cooper, the boyfriend whom she loved and destroyed that fateful summer. But it also means facing the terrible secret that made her flee, one she may not be strong enough to run from again.

As it weaves between the summer of Lane’s first arrival and the summer of her return, The Roanoke Girls shocks and tantalizes, twisting its way through revelation after mesmerizing revelation, exploring the secrets families keep and the fierce and terrible love that both binds them together and rips them apart.

My Thoughts  

This book is darkly disturbing and full of forbidden love and twisted secrets that you wouldn't want to share even with the last person on earth. It is the story of Lane, a Roanoke girl, who ends up back at her ancestral home for one summer when she is 16. There she meets her Gran and Grandad and her cousin Allegra and learns just how dysfunctional her family really is. She leaves after that one summer but ends up back there after her Grandad calls about an incident and we see if she can survive Roanoke for a second time.

Amy Engel sets the tone of this book from the beginning. It was extremely atmospheric and I was completely gripped throughout. The whole book is written in first person and this to me felt like I was more immersed in the story. I felt I was experiencing everything alongside Lane rather than looking in. Her vivid descriptions of place and people helped and I was able to watch the story play out in my head. I also liked that the narrative was told across two timelines and how they both came together in a super climax at the end. I liked being able to see how the 'then' influenced the 'now' as we went along.

Amy also dropped a reveal on us quite early on in the story but I didn't mind this in the slightest. Things continued to build throughout the book and I always found myself saying just one more page. I needed to know how things played out. We got another reveal near the end of the book and I can honestly say I did not see either of them coming and as a reader of many thriller novels this is something I usually can't say.

We are introduced to the Roanoke family quite early on and then gradually receive more information throughout the story. The whole idea of Roanoke is toxic and it really does feel like the family has a curse hanging over them. Every character in this novel is flawed, they have both good and bad in them but this doesn't stop me from liking every character in this novel. As the story progresses you can see why many of the Roanoke girls want to leave the family home behind.

Although Lane only spent one summer at Roanoke you can see how the family legacy has affected her her whole life. I loved her relationship with Allegra it was a completely honest depiction of a close family relationship in my opinion with fights, arguments and reconciliations but with added extra dysfunctionality. There relationship felt very authentic.

This book have definite triggers for a variety of difficult issues I won't share them here because of spoilers but feel free to contact me if you want to know. However, I felt the author handled the issues extremely well. The feelings of each of the different parties felt very realistic and in my opinion, they were handled sensitively and they were not sensationalized in any way.

Overall I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a dark and gritty novel with a super gripping plot and unpredictable events.
 
I received this from NetGalley and these are my honest views and opinions. They are not influenced in any way.

Overall Rating (4.5)

  

Holiday TBR

I'm currently very excited as my holiday is just around the corner and I can't wait to have a bit of sunshine as where I am has been a bit miserable over the past couple of weeks and it's summer so we should all have some sun!!

I don't usually do TBRs, I don't like being restricted to a certain pile of books and I like to browse my bookshelf when I'm choosing my next read. However, I can't take my whole bookshelf away with me so I thought I would share with you the books I'm planning on taking. 

 

I've included my kindle in this picture as that's what I will be reading on the most. I invested in a kindle earlier on in the year for the exact reason of being able to take several books away with me and it not affecting my weight limit. 

The two physical books I'm planning on taking are...

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - I was inspired to pick this up as I saw the recent movie trailer and it piqued my interest.

Arcadia by Iain Pears - I've had this on my shelf for a while but its 700+ pages long. I always find a holiday a good time to tackle long books. 

The books I have to choose from on my kindle are...

Truthwitch by Susan Dennard 

Guilded, Silvern and Brazen by Christina Farley

Perfect Remains by Helen Fields

Smiler's Fair by Rebecca Levene

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

13 Minutes by Sarah Pinborough  

Fire and Flood by Victoria Scott

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker

Six Stories by Matt Wesolowski

I definitely won't be getting to all of these but I like to have a selection to choose from. I don't really know much about a lot of them I just picked them up because they were on the kindle deals on amazon.  

So these are all of the books I have to choose from for my holiday. If you have any recommendations of where I should start or any that you think I should avoid please let me know. 

• 

July Wrap Up

Just for July I'm going to combine my wrap up and my haul in one post. In the future I hope to do separate posts for each of these things but we shall see how we go. For now lets kick off with what I read in July.

I only read 4 books in July which is slightly less then I've been averaging per month but July was really busy for me so I'm happy with what I read. Summaries listed below from highest rated to lowest. I endeavor to review all the books I read both on Goodreads and on this blog so I will link any reviews alongside.

Heartless by Marissa Meyer
Published February 9th 2017 by Macmillan Children's Books
Star Rating - *****
Goodreads Challenge - 43/50
Popsugar 2017 Reading Challenge - A best seller from 2016.
Review - Goodreads Review

Cinder by Marissa Meyer (Lunar Chronicles #1)
Published  January 5th 2012 by Puffin
Star Rating - ****
Goodreads Challenge - 46/50
Popsugar 2017 Reading Challenge - A book from a non-human perspective.
Review - Goodreads Review

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Published May 28th 2008 by Random House UK
Star Rating - ***.5
Goodreads Challenge -  45/50
Popsugar 2017 Reading Challenge - An author who uses a pseudonym.
Review - Goodreads Review  

Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen by Serena Valentino 
Published August 18th 2009 by Disney Press
Star Rating - ***
Goodreads Challenge - 44/50
Popsugar 2017 Reading Challenge A book with a subtitle. 
Review - Goodreads Review  




So that's it for my July wrap up. As you can see I enjoyed all of the books that I read this month, my obvious favorite though being Heartless. Hopefully my August reading will be better which it should be as I'm away for two weeks in August and I always read more on holiday. So now moving onto a brief summery of the books I bought in July. 

I bought 12 books in July which is actually quite a lot for me. I discovered the books for trade UK # on Twitter this month so I think that may have contributed to the excessive buying. So the books I have acquired this month are as follows...

The Program by Suzanne Young
The Treatment by Suzanne Young
A Whole New World by Liz Braswell
Once Upon a Dream by Liz Braswell
The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau
Independent Study by Joelle Charbonneau
Graduation Day by Joelle Charbonneau
A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston
Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller
Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh
Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Scarlet by Marissa Meyer 

I'm really looking forward to all of these but mostly Daughter of the Pirate King and Flame in the Mist so hopefully I can get to these soon.

Phew! Finally we come to the end. Sorry for the excessively long post but as I said at the beginning from next month I'm planning on splitting my hauls and my wrap ups into separate posts so they should be a more reasonable size. That being said thanks for sticking with me and please let me know all about the books you read and acquired this month. I look forward to hearing from you. 

 

Review - The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

Published August 3rd 2016 by Harvill Secker

Star Rating - ****

Goodreads Challenge - 42/50

Popsugar 2017 Reading Challenge - A book that involves travel

Synopsis from Goodreads

This was meant to be the perfect trip.

The Northern Lights. A luxury press launch on a boutique cruise ship.

A chance for travel journalist Lo Blackwood to recover from a traumatic break-in that has left her on the verge of collapse, and to work out what she wants from her relationship.

Except things don’t go as planned.

Woken in the night by screams, Lo rushes to her window to see a body thrown overboard from the next door cabin. But the records show that no-one ever checked into that cabin, and no passengers are missing from the boat.

Exhausted, emotional and increasingly desperate, Lo has to face the fact that her sleep problems might be driving her mad or she is trapped on a boat with a murderer – and she is the sole witness...

My Thoughts

I love a good thriller and it's been a while since I found one that gripped me like this one did. This is the story of Lo, a travel journalist with a troubled past. After one traumatic night she sets off on a luxury cruise hoping to put things behind her but obviously, being the thriller that this is, that isn't the case and more traumatic events ensue.

Mystery/thrillers are one of my go to genres and I have read quite a few and as a result of this I often find myself being able to predict where the story is heading. There were some predictable moments in this story, which is what caused me to rate this 4 stars instead of 5, however the big twist was totally unexpected. I did not see that turn of events coming. I felt very unsettled throughout the story. I felt Lo was quite an unreliable narrator and there were times when I was unsure what to think in relation to the events that unfolded. The emails and new reports that were scattered throughout the story threw me off my initial train of thoughts and kept me questioning what was happening throughout the story.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and will definitely be looking into more by Ruth Ware in the future.

Overall Rating

  

Review - The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands

The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands

Published September 3rd 2015 by Puffin

Star Rating - ****

Goodreads Challenge - 41/50

Synopsis from Goodreads

London, 1665. Fourteen-year-old Christopher Rowe is apprenticed to master apothecary Benedict Blackthorn. In Blackthorn’s shop, Christopher learns the delicate secrets of transforming simple ingredients into powerful medicines, potions and weapons. His beloved master guides him with a firm, steady hand—instilling in him the confidence and independence that prove increasingly vital as Christopher learns of a mysterious cult preying on the most learned men in London. The murders are growing closer and closer to home and soon Christopher is torn from the shop with only a page of cryptic clues from his master and the unambiguous warning—‘Tell no one.’

Helped by his best friend, Tom, Christopher must decipher his master’s clues, following a trail of deceit towards an unearthly secret with the power to tear the world apart.

 

My Thoughts 

As a lover of all things mystery and a fan of The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure I knew after reading this synopsis this book was going to be right up my alley and I wasn't wrong. This is a story about Christopher, an apothecaries apprentice, and his master, who has all sorts of secrets. Christopher is joined by his best friend Tom and pigeon Bridget and off they go on a cryptic adventure across historical London. If you love codes, cryptic messages and adventure then this book is for you.

The characters were fun. I thought Christopher demonstrated some good qualities such as intuitiveness and as a young character he didn't jump head first into situations as they often do. Tom was also a fun character and the friendship was written well showing Tom as being the loyal friend Christopher needed. The only criticism I have in terms of characters is that I would of liked there to have been some more strong female characters.

I thought the writing was clever and the author had thought out his puzzles and clues well. There wasn't any point when I was left feeling as though something wasn't explained or confused.

Overall I would recommend this middle grade story to any age reader and I will definitely be checking out the other books in this series.

Overall rating

 

Welcome

 

Hi my name is Gemma and welcome to my blog, Gemma's Book Nook. I'm a 26 year old book lover from the UK and I have decided to set up this site as a way of sharing my love of all things bookish with the rest of the internet. I love to read and some of my favorite genres include both adult and YA fantasy/sci-fi, dystopian and mystery thriller however, I'm happy to read most things as long as the stories good. Recommendations are always welcome!

I love to be part of the bookish community and as well as setting up a blog I also have my own bookish accounts on twitter, instagram and goodreads, all of which are linked in the about me section of this blog. I would love for you to follow me on as many bookish platforms as you like so we can share opinions and have lots of wonderful bookish discussions.

As an avid reader I'm also taking part in a couple of reading challenges this year including the goodreads challenge where I hope to read 50 books (I am already close so this may increase to 75) and the Popsugar 2017 reading challenge. I hope to keep you updated with these challenges as I go so please watch this space.

My aim for this blog is to have my own bookish corner of the internet where I can share all of my thoughts, views and opinions and engage in discussions with many like minded people. I hope to feature a variety of things including book reviews, hauls, tags and anything else bookish. My plan initially is to try and upload 1-2 times a week however this my increase or decrease as life occurs however, I will always endeavor to keep my followers updated.

Please don't be afraid to engage with me I love to talk about the things I am passionate about and I look forward to sharing my thoughts with all of you and hopefully making lots of new bookish friends.