#LoveOzYA #aww2019 “Within me, the truth unfurled, opening as a flower. I breathed as if for the first time.” // Review of “Hive” by A. J. Betts

Title: Hive (Hive #1)
Author: A. J. Betts
Genre: Dystopia
Target audience: YA
Date Read: 22/03/19 – 25/03/19
Rating: ★★★

Review:

This was one of those books that I was fairly sure I wasn’t really into, but the ending was satisfying enough that I want to know what happens in the next book. 

This is a slow-moving book and I guess I was expecting something a bit faster. The blurb led me to think that once Hayley found an anomaly in the culty/dystopian world they live in, things would unravel quite quickly. But they don’t really. Instead, Hayley tries to find answers within her community but thinks she’s slowly going mad for the majority of the book.

The world-building is definitely a strong point here. The way people were assigned roles within the community and the history of how it was established was all very solid. I was confused about how they had a forest when they were supposed inside a self-contained building but I may have missed something that explained that.

Hayley and her best friend, Celia, were definitely the strongest characters. I loved that they had created a whole language of signals tapped out on the other’s hands so they could communicate secretly. The Son (of the Judge) became a bit more fleshed out towards the end. There was also a sweet character called Luka who I wanted to give a hug because he reminded me of a young Luka I know and how he would probably react in the same circumstances.

As I said, this definitely picked up for me in the last few chapters and by the end, I found myself wanting to know how things were going to pan out. While this isn’t my favourite book, I will still pick up Rogue at some point when it comes out.

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This review is part of my 2019 Australian Women Writers Challenge. Click here for more information.

I am trying to read as many of the books as possible on the 2019 Children’s Book Council of Australia Notables List. Click here to see the titles.

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WWW Wednesday – 27 March 2019

It’s time for WWW Wednesday! This blog hop is hosted by Sam over at A World Of Words. Link up with us by commenting on Sam’s post for this week, and just answer the three questions.

What have you recently finished reading?

I finished Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina. I’m not quite sure I “got” this. There is a magical realism component which I figured out fairly early on was an allegory, but there was a lot of telling, even with that… and the main character felt about twelve rather than fifteen…

I also finished Hive by A. J. Betts. This was one of those books that I wasn’t terribly into, but the ending was interesting enough that I still felt that I would continue with the series when the second book comes out.

I posted two reviews this week: Between Us by Clare Atkins and Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein. Click the titles to read them.

What are you currently reading?

I have returned to The Dying Flame by R. L. Sanderson, after being a bit distracted by other things. The MC is about to meet the King, so I think things are going to really start rolling now.

I’m listening to A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray. I really enjoy parallel universe stories though this one has a lot of flashbacks establishing life before Meg and Theo jumped dimensions. Still, I’m about a third of the way through and still enjoying it.

What do you think you will read next?

Everything I’ve been reading lately has been YA and it’s beginning to wear a bit. So I think I might read my ARC of Wolfhunter River by Rachel Caine.  I have pretty high expectations of this after loving the first two books in the series so much. So I hope it lives up to them.

What are you reading this week? 🙂

WWW Wednesday – 20 March 2019

It’s time for WWW Wednesday! This blog hop is hosted by Sam over at A World Of Words. Link up with us by commenting on Sam’s post for this week, and just answer the three questions.

What have you recently finished reading?

I read An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson, which I found to be an enjoyable fantasy but forgettable. I reviewed it here.

Next I finished Bird Box by Josh Malerman. I didn’t love this. There’s a difference between being ambiguous and just creating a whole bunch of stuff that’s never explained. I found it a bit too unsatisfying. Here’s my review.

Next I read One Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston. I think I was lucky I was in the right mood for it or it might have easily been a DNF. Really beautiful writing and a good plot but I’m not sure I actually picked up on important aspects of the world-building, so some of the things that were happening made no sense to me.

I finally started on my challenge of reading the books on the 2019 CBCA Notables List and read Between Us by Clare Atkins, which is a story about the relationship that forms between an Iranian asylum seeker in detention and an Australian teenager at her school.  It was not an easy read but very powerful. Here’s my review.

Last but not least, I finished Small Spaces by Sarah Epstein, a YA psychological thriller. This had some genuinely creepy moments but ultimately was a bit too long and the ending fell a bit flat.

This list is nowhere near as impressive when you realise I haven’t done a WWW post in 2 weeks and I finished  the first two books listed the day after my last one.

What are you currently reading?

I have returned to The Dying Flame by R. L. Sanderson, after being a bit distracted by other things. The MC has just been rescued and whisked off to a strange place so I have a feeling things are about to really get going.

I’m also listening to Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina. I’m… really not loving the audio book narrator, but it’s really short and I’ve got less than 3 hours  to go, so I’m going to stick with it…

What do you think you will read next?

Depending how I feel about The Dying Flame, I might go on to its sequel, The Sharpened Blade. Or I’ve got Hive by A. J. Betts waiting for me at the library so I can continue with my challenge to read the 2019 Notables list for the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Book of the Year Award.

What are you reading this week? 🙂